COMMUNITY: DESI VIEW: FOOD: FILMS: SRK COUNTDOWN TO FIA’S AN INDIAN IN THE TASTE OF ON CHENNAI INDIA DAY AMERICA KASHMIR EXPRESS

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IndiaA GUIDE TO EVENTS in AND ENTERTAINMENT New FROM INDIA York ABROAD FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 2013 The Brown Dude Amrit Singh on Dosa Hunt, and the desi angst

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The Brown Dude Dosa Hunt follows Amrit Singh and six friends on an adventure to find the best Dosa in New York. At a Brooklyn coffee shop,Singh discuss- es being artsy and brown in the 90s and now with CHAYA BABU.

mrit Singh’s hair is defi- nitely a thing. That’s somewhat obvious even without hearing the story about how it was down to his waistA until third grade,when his mother,suddenly and in defiance of the fam- ily’s devout Sikhism,had it all cut off. Even without that bit, you can look at him and know that his longish, side- swept,designer-disheveled style is a thing.It stands out a little.It’s all black — it’s not as if he’s dyed it that purple-gray color that you see a lot these days — but even among other brown guys with black hair,Singh stands out. He always has though. Singh grew up in Queens and Long Island,and then a Philadelphia sub- urb.As the Indian kid obsessed with music,weaving in and out of the sub- cultures associated with different genres,he has grown accustomed to not fitting in. In the New York part of his childhood, he came home crying because the white kids teased him about his jura;when his family moved to Valley Fo rg e, Pennsylvania,he came home crying because nobody at school listened to the Beastie Boys or Def Leppard. “These we re really important things to me even then. Bands were my culture.They we re my language,”Singh said,explaining that his tastes were still open and flexible and that he found like-minded spirits this way. “I had my metal phase,my hip hop phase,my jam band phase. I had my alt rock phase.My hair changed shape in accordance with each of those, as did the way I approached my instru- ments.But music was the predominant identifying character- istic in each of those moments.” His path to finding a place in a music wo rld that defined

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PAGE 23 him more than any of the popular met- rics of second-generation Indian-ness was largely the motivation behind his recent film Dosa Hunt. The short documentary follows Singh and six of his friends,all Brooklyn musi- cians and all Indian except for a Persian and a Mexican,on an adventure to find the best Dosa in New York. The film is not really about food though — it’s a snapshot of an emerging culture of Indian Americans that didn’t exist when Singh was an angsty but hopeful and talented teenager. The cast that piles into the van deco- rated with a disco ball on a rainy day for a trek from Williamsburg, where Singh TheThe lives, to midtown Manhattan and Jackson Heights is made up of a motley group of musicians:Himanshu Suri and Ashok Kondabolu of Das Racist,Anand Brown Wilder of Yeasayer,Rostam Batmanglij Brown of Vampire Weekend, Alan Palomo of Ne o n Indian, and Vijay Iyer of the Vijay Iyer Trio. Singh is not currently making music DudeDude himself,but his history — participating in a band that was noticed by club man- A scene from Dosa Hunt ager Rich Ruoff, who had also booked bands like Live,and later recording an hair down and his long beard?!’That’s dif- for punk, indie and many genres that His father,a self-made businessman, album in his parents’basement after get- ferent now for kids growing up.Dosa Hunt most may associate with whiteness, he fielded irate phone calls from India for the ting his JD — informs the wo rk he does as was partly inspired by just the mere fact remembers distinctly his discovery of next week. And then made an appoint- executive editor of Stereogum,a Web site that this cast can and does exist in this Public Enemy,identifying with the racially ment for himself in the same chair. that covers the independent and alterna- moment.” charged rap lyrics, and how this played It was this open-mindedness, support, tive music scene. Singh’s attention to the aesthetics and into his constant dance of belonging and and wisdom of both of his parents that The group connected through their visibility of Indians in the US speaks to the outsider-ness. allowed Singh to be free, a rtistic, and presence in a shared music community, significance of cultural images and repre- “A p a rt i c u l a rl y unique characteristic of expressive. but their shared ethnic roots were a pro- sentations. growing up Indian in a culture with a bina- His mother saw his musical inclinations found part of a process of mutual recogni- At a Brooklyn coffee shop, with sun ry relationship to race — particularly,in and bought him his first guitar. She tion that was surprising to all of them. pouring through floor-to-ceiling windows the 90s in America,things were white and encouraged his learning of the violin,per- Singh recalls that his friendship with Das facing N 6th Street, he switched between black — is, as the Indian kid, you’re right haps in a slightly different way from some Racist’s Suri started on Twitter when Singh pointing out the background playlist with between the two,”he said. other Indian mothers. tweeted about his mother’s bindi and his songs by Santigold, a friend of his, and “One day I came with a Public Enemy “Growing up, you’d go to the orchestra, apartment smelling like coriander. The talking about embracing the challenges shirt to school,and the black kids saw that and orchestras were always ve ry diverse — film is laced with jokes that may only reg- of not having similar interests or goals to and were just like, the next day, ‘Yo, of course you’d see Indians and Asians,” ister to Diasporic Indians of a specific time the people who look like him. Shawndea has a crush on you.’And yeah, said Yeasayer’s Anand Wilder,whose first and place. In high school, there were a few other immediately I was embraced. They we re exposure to Indians in any field of arts was The art for the film materials was creat- Indian kids, but none of them we re ve ry like,‘You’re one of us.’” in a college class about Indian cinema. ed by Anil Gupta,famed East Village tattoo artistic or even social. He didn’t sense a Despite his seeming departures from “But it was something to put on the artist whose father designed the poster for common ground with them. Instead he the widespread expectations of his back- resume to get into Harvard and become a Bollywood classic Sholaydecades ago and forged his own path. ground,Singh,who is intensely spiritual in doctor.It wasn’t:‘I’m really going to go for whom Singh credits as enormously influ- “I think people we ren’t used to seeing an a private way,is far from that Indian guy this!’It wasn’t eve rything.And yeah,no,the ential in his own understanding of the Indian person in a rock band on stage,” who rejects his own ethnicity. rock and roll world that I loved wasn’t ove rlap between being an Indian, a New says his younger brother Sarab, who is At a young age, he understood there diverse.” Yorker,and an artist. now a drummer for Harper Blynn in Los would be a balance of holding onto not Singh believes firmly in the idea that the Dosa Hunt portrays a deeply Indian- Angeles. just his Indian-ness, but his Sikhism, visibility of Indians in these different cul- American sensibility, and, beyond that, it “It was like,all the Indian kids are good which he saw reflected in the bun and tural spaces matters, which is why Dosa signifies the change that has taken place for is being really smart, which is a great patkathat he wo re. Huntis meaningful.He knows the humor since one generation of immigrants came thing, and being conservative and quiet “I was proud of my Sikh heritage may go over the heads of some audiences from the subcontinent to the United and really good at math.Amrit sort of blew because I was just hopelessly in love with — that Vijay Iyer telling the others to call States. that out of the water.He busted that stereo- my grandfather,”he said. him ‘Vijay Uncle’is something Americans “Seeing brown dudes in pop culture was type. And he was that kid with the hacky The meaning of his highly orthodox and may think they get but won’t really, and rare; it was attention grabbing,”Singh sack;he did what he wanted.” religious grandfather with a beard and that the confused adventure inside of the said.“It was a charged moment to fall in On top of the fact that music drove turban was not lost on him.He too wanted Indian grocery may be lost on Indians of love with Soundgarden and watch that Singh’s creative pursuits,it also steered his a beard and turban. But he was teased India. crazy video, that Outshined video, where movement among distinct circles and relentlessly.He recalls multiple instances But the fact that these characters, who they’re just slaving away in the devil’s communities. He calls this the of cruelty on the part of other children,but are real people,are making these jokes at blacksmith shop and there’s this guy look- chameleonic property of brown skin,par- the very first time he complained about it, all,together on a trek across the boroughs, ing like a demented Jesus Christ with no ticular in the social and political climate his mother had him and his brother at with a soundtrack of music they made shirt on and whipping his hair around in which he grew up. barber shop the next day. themselves,is what’s relevant. and screaming and they cut to the guitars Though his first cassette tapes were “It was a radical move,”Singh says. “To It’s an artifact. It’s a unique part of this and I’m like, ‘Is that a Sardarji with this metal bands and he has always had a love this day I’m like,‘Wow,that was ballsy.’” community’s history now.