Asif Mandvi's 'No Man's land'

About No Land's Man:
If you're an Indo-Muslim-British-American actor who has spent more time in bars than mosques over the past few decades, turns out it's a little tough to explain who you are or where you are from. In No Land's Man Aasif Mandvi explores this and other conundrums through stories about his family, ambition, desire, and culture that range from dealing with his brunch-obsessed father, to being a high-school-age Michael Jackson impersonator, to joining a Bible study group in order to seduce a nice Christian girl, to improbably becoming America's favorite Muslim/Indian/Arab/Brown/Doctor correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

This is a book filled with passion, discovery, and humor. Mandvi hilariously and poignantly describes a journey that will resonate with anyone who has had to navigate his or her way in the murky space between lands. Or anyone who really loves brunch.
A mix of humorous stories, heartfelt observations, and misfit mayhem, No Land’s Man is a quintessentially American story - a laugh-out-loud account of a second-generation immigrant’s search for meaning and identity in an increasingly confusing world.






About Aasif Mandvi:
Aasif Mandvi is a correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. As a writer, Mandvi is the recipient of the 1999 OBIE award for his critically acclaimed play, Sakina’s Restaurant, which was performed and conceived by Mandvi, and was adapted into the film, Today’s Special. Some of his theatre credits include the Broadway revival of Oklahoma!, as well as Homebody/Kabul, Suburbia, and Disgraced. His film credits include Premium Rush, The Proposal, The Last Airbender, The Internship, and Million Dollar Arm. Mandvi’s television credits include Jericho, Curb Your Enthusiasm, E.R, Sleeper Cell and HBO’s upcoming The Brink, on which he also serves as writer and producer. He lives and works in New York City.
First Annual IAAC Literary Festival: http://www.iaac.us/Literary-Festival2014/index.htm

THE CARAVAN AND WRITERS OF INDIA FESTIVAL COMPETITION

THE CARAVAN AND WRITERS OF INDIA FESTIVAL COMPETITION

The Caravan joins hands with the World Writers’ Festival, an initiative of Columbia University and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, to call for young Indian writers to apply to participate in the Writers of India Festival, taking place in Paris between 18–21 September 2014. The festival will feature writers and critics such as Akeel Bilgrami, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Vikram Chandra and Kiran Desai. It hopes to foster  connections between students and early practitioners of creative writing from India and around the world, and be a fruitful meeting ground between new and established writers.

The organisers will select five previously unpublished writers of fiction or poetry to travel to Paris and attend the festival. These writers will be matched up with five students of Columbia University’s MFA in creative writing program, to allow for exchanges between their worlds and their work, and hopefully to form personal and professional bonds which will nourish their writing, both now and in future.

If you are an unpublished poet or writer of fiction with a manuscript in progress, please write to us at caravanwoif@gmail.com with the following:

– A cover letter introducing yourself and your work

– A sample of up to 3000 words from your manuscript or work in progress

– A statement that your submission is your own work and previously unpublished

– A scan of the last page of your passport (which contains your identity information and its date of expiry)

Should you be selected, the festival will cover the costs of airfare and stay, and provide unrestricted access to all events at the Writers of India festival.

The last date for entries is 25 July 2014. The entries will be judged by a jury jointly associated with The Caravanand the World Writers’ Festival. All participants will be notified via email of the status of their application by 5 August 2014.

The criteria for eligibility in the competition:
– You must be an Indian citizen, resident in India
– You must be at least 18 years old
– You must have a valid Indian passport
– You must not be affiliated with The Caravan or the World Writers’ Festival in any official capacity

Please bear in mind that we will be unable to consider applications attached to non-fiction or journalism of any kind.

Femina Fast Fiction Contest 2nd Edition

Fugly, Hindi Bollywood Film movie Review, Johnson Thomas, Rating: * *

Fugly, Hindi Bollywood Film movie Review, Johnson Thomas, Rating: *  *

Fugly(Hindi) Rating: *  *  Invoking ‘Hit’ titles, serenading ‘hip’ ineptitude, this ‘Dilli’ youth centered bromantic drama follows the ‘FUKREY’ route to a ‘Rang De Basanti’ climax but has very little in-between other than a series of desi rhythm and beat heavy music videos. This sort of so-called story is old hat now!

         

Hindi Film Review

Johnson Thomas

Just Ugly!

Film: Fugly             

Cast: Mohit Marwah, Vijendra Singh, Kiara Advani, Arfi Lamba 

Director: Kabir Sadanand

Rating: *  *

 Not much inventiveness is required to make a movie these days. ‘Fugly’ is a brainless attempt at following the ‘Fukrey’ success story. Notice the pre-release publicity  pattern that almost completely attempted to follow in that supposedly ‘hit’ film’s footsteps. And why not? With a story that doesn’t steer too far away from the ‘Fukrey’ goal post, but, for some add-on game playing with dirty politics and corrupt cops- to tank-up on complexity. ‘Fugly’ in fact tries to own several facets of well-loved hit films. It incorporates the ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ trick of getting three guys and a girl together in a display of Bromance, the ‘Delhi  Belly’ attitude of irreverent loutish don’t care type lay-a-bouts getting haplessly embroiled in intrigue not exactly of their own making, and the ‘Rang De Basanti’ fortitude of developing patriotic fervor to fight against injustice- all squashed up together in an offering that appears as clueless and tedium inducing as it is  misleading.

The bizarre series of events designed to engulf the four friends in a fight for justice against all odds is for one devoid of any clear cut mitigating factor. Dev( Mohit Marwah). Devi(Kiara Advani), Gaurav(Vijendra Singh), Aditya( Arfi Lamba) are the four friends here. One doesn’t really get to understand why they are friends in the first place other than a stray dialogue that establishes them as ‘langotiya’ yaars.  Dev has a patriotic streak and is close to Devi , who with her armed forces widow mother(Kunika Lal) survives on sales of homemade farsan( by the looks of it), and forever delayed pension. Gaurav, an aspiring world champion boxer,  comes from a political haryaanvi family, with his father aiming for Chief Minister. And Aditya, pet-named shithead, because of his family’s well-established and successful business in ceramic toilet products, is also lovingly referred to as haggu(shitty), relating to the fact that he’s always the one scared shit of the consequences. Now for the stupidest plot ever. Devi gets pawed by a shop owner called Nunnu( don’t know if that was a pun intended) and subsequently the four decide to teach Nunnu a lesson. But as it transpires Inspector Chautala( Jimmy Shergill in villainous plumes) prevents them from carrying out their plan and works his own in instead- successfully embroiling them in a potential murder wrap for which they are expected to cough up  close to 60 lakhs to be set free. Chautala and Imple, his understudy, track the four while they come up with the weirdest of ideas to get hold of the cash. From dipping into their own personal savings, stealing away a sack full of it while an income tax raid is on , working as hit men to organizing drug parties for the yuppie set, the four friends try it all and still come up short. In a misguided attempt to break the stranglehold one of them attempts self-immolation and the resultant furor from the news fraternity is expectedly stereotypical.

The biggest problem here is that you just can’t drum up any empathy for this quartet of misfits who one would think, deserve every fallout experienced.  The plotting is derivative and haplessly contrived. The series of music video intercepts( song and dance breaks) only make the cinematic experience even more untenable. The dialogues are quite simply as nonsensical as the title of the film. The performances from this new set of actors are competent enough but the poorly drawn characters and the contrived circumstances make it uninvolving. The super-talented Jimmy Shergill makes  a valiant attempt to mark up the interest but it appears too facile in a sea of ineptitude- to make any difference whatsoever.  If only the youthful zest represented in the musical interludes carried into the tale, there just might have been a little bit of excitement to be had. Kabir Sadanand appears to have borrowed the template to be followed without really understanding the intricacies behind it’s successful mechanics. As it is, this one stretches disbelief too far and makes this ‘brand’ of  intellectually depraved entertainment appear terribly unappealing!

Johnsont307@gmail.com

         

Movies(Best releases) of the Week/13thJune2014/Johnson Thomas

      

                                 

Movies(Best releases) of the Week/13thJune2014/Johnson Thomas

How to train your Dragon 2(English/3D) Rating: *  *  * ½ As beautiful and imaginative as the first installment, this one makes you want to be able to fly! Rich , Vibrant and colorful enough to entice even the most jaded of viewers.

    

Grace of Monaco(English) Rating: *  *  * Kidman, Full of GRACE! A luminous  performance from Nicole Kidman lifts this movie from out of the doldrums of limited appeal brought on by it’s unambitious fictional script. It’s not a bio-pic on Grace but a fictional account that dresses up political sentiment in the hopes of giving the Star Princess a much more heroic turn. Yash Raj Entertainment’s maiden International foray is a creditable effort as Pumped-up Performances, production values and technical effort are up there with the best!