… Narain Karthikeyan «NA-rain kar-thee-KAY-un» will make his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series debut on March 27 in the Kroger 250 at Martinsville Speedway. Karthikeyan, who is India’s first NASCAR driver, will drive the Wyler Racing No. 60 SafeAuto Chevrolet Silverado.

SpeedTV further reports that Karthikeyan will drive the No. 60 Wyler Racing truck in selected races, the schedule for which is due to be announced soon.

Interestingly Starbeast Motorsports, a newly formed company that is supporting Karthikeyan’s drive is attempting to bring NASCAR into the consciousness of motor racing fans in Asia and Narain’s hiring seems to be part of that strategy.

At UberDesi, we have keenly followed Narain’s career from the feeder races to Formula 1 and LeMans. Rest assured that his NASCAR sourjourn will be watched with similar interest and covered in detail here.

All the best, Narain. At least this year, we will be watching the NASCAR Truck series. Do us proud.

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Post tags: f1, formula1, india, motorsports, NASCAR, uberdesi

Long time readers may remember the story of Karishma Dhanak, 20, a UC Irvine student who was found murdered alongside her father about 3 years back. The crime was allegedly committed by her sister’s former boyfriend who wanted revenge on the parents for being responsible for the relationship ending, apparently religion was a factor.

NDTV reports that the accused, 25-year-old Indian national Iftekhar Murtaza, is currently on trial in Orange county, California.

Prosecutors in California’s Orange County had last week said they will seek death penalty for Murtaza, who is charged with conspiring and murdering his Indian-American ex-girlfriend Shayona Dhanak’s father Jaypraykash Dhanak (56) and sister Karishma (20) as well as attempting to murder her mother Leela (54) and setting the victims’ bodies on fire.

Also on trial with Murtaza are two of his acquintances whom he is alleged to have conspired with online to commit the above crimes. One can only imagine the sort of conversation that took place online leading to this ghastly deed.
Ifthekar Murtaza: Hey guys
Crony 1: Hey
Crony 2: Wassup?
IM: My gf’s parents forced us to break up FML
Crony 1: Let’s kill the parents LOL
Crony 2: Let’s burn down the house ROFL

Al Gore did not have this mind when he created the Internet.

Apparently there were no signs of foul play and the victim’s body was recovered with jewelery intact leading authorities to believe it was a suicide.

An Indian-American who was reported to have disappeared from her Maine Township home near here in January was found dead in the Des Plaines River and authorities suspected suicide in her drowning death.
The body of Sangitagen Patel, 32, was recovered Sunday afternoon in Allison Woods Forest Preserve in unincorporated Wheeling Township, according to a Cook County Sheriff’s office release.
Pael (sic) was last seen on Jan 2 as she left for her job at a Subway restaurant in Wheeling.

Truly tragic and our thoughts and prayers are with the family.

Police say Pooja Gandhi was a prolific burglar who was good at her trade. Investigators finally identified her through fingerprints found at two recent burglaries, but for the past six to eight months police say she was very busy.
Police say she broke into apartments, homes for sale and stores across the city, burglarizing them at ease. Pooja Gandhi, 30, they say was a skillful equal opportunity cat burglar.

A desi equal opportunity cat burglar. Now you can truly say you’ve seen it all. Her modus operandi was as simple as it was effective.

“She didn’t raise a whole lot of suspicion, so she was allowed to come and go behind people. She may have piggy backed on doorways where she would follow someone in who was going into a building,” said San Francisco Sgt. Marty Lalor who is heading the investigation.
“The girl looked like anybody. She could be at the restaurant having dinner with us,” said Sanchez.

A. Looking at the above mugshot it is hard to imagine how a fairer skinned version of Sanjaya did not raise any suspicion.
B. We’ve truly come a long way in this county if desis are not being looked at with suspicion. While we wholeheartedly welcome this change in attitude, we would also like to encourage our fellow desis to not misuse this new found acceptance.

Back to the topic, it appears that Pooja Gandhi was truly a high end cat burglar.

Police showed ABC7 News some of the stolen goods, which even included dog collars. Gandhi apparently had an eye for expensive apparel as well.
“Some of the items range from $4,000 raincoats to $1,400 dresses,” said Lalor.
She said the two stole about $8,000 of clothing from her boutique in the Marina. She identified some of them from police photos.

The loot recovered from her apartment was so vast that the local police are attributing most burglaries in the last six to eight months to the high-fashion desi cat burglar. MEOW!

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Post tags: cat burglar, desi, dhanak, murder, SFO

HRT F1, which was originally named Campos Meta, will be the final team on the grid and the only team that has not tested their car yet. Karun will be partnering with Bruno Senna, Ayrton Senna’s nephew. Oddly enough, Bruno who was confirmed before Karun get’s the number 21 and Karun get’s the number 20 on his car.

With two rookies, a car designed by Dallara, who have not built an F1 car in a couple of decades and have not done any testing, I’m not going to expect instant results from the team. Having said that, Lotus F1 and Virgin Racing, the other two new teams have not had an amazing outing either.

Look for HRT F1 to make progress and possibly “steal” a few points later in the year.

Here is the second Indian to make it into F1 and for your viewing pleasure, I have the video from the launch. And if you did not know, Bruno, Karun’s team mate at HRT F1 was also his team mate in GP2 at iSport a couple of years ago.

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Post tags: bruno, bruno senna, campos, f1, formula1, hispania f1, hispania racing team, hrt, hrtf1, karun chandhok

No thanks to Anurag Mathur’s The Inscrutable Americans, it has been every desi guy’s dream to join the mile high club. Murali Nookella achieved it in typical desi ishtyle and probably landed himself on the FBI no-fly list.

Say you’re a 34 year old horny male computer programmer from the subcontinent stuck on a boring cross country flight. What do you do for fun? If your name is Murali Nookella, the answer would be: pull out the male organ and start pleasuring one’s self.

A Delaware man is facing a federal criminal charge after he was caught yesterday masturbating on a plane while seated next to a female passenger.

Apparently Nookella was so into himself he did not mind sharing the view with his fellow passengers.

The woman, identified only by her initials in the affidavit, said that Nookella’s “eyes were closed and his hands moved all around his groin area” underneath a “mustard/gold blanket pulled up to his waist.” As the woman packed up her belonging to move seats, she “looked at Nookella and saw him holding his erect penis.”

On getting caught, one’s reaction would be quickly cover up and got into plausible deniability mode, or so you would think.

The woman said that Nookella remarked, “You caught me.” Nookella held a napkin in his left hand, the woman told the FBI.

And this is where, Nookella earns major accolades, not only did he not cover himself up, he actually went ahead and …. ummmm …. finished the job.

According to Nishida’s affidavit, a copy of which you’ll find below, the woman “did not look but heard a swishing sound. She thought Nookella wiped something.”

Ladeej and genteelman, Murali Nookella, the first official inductee into the mile high club – desi ishtyle.

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The brinjal in question is no ordinary vegetable: it’s full name is Bt brinjal, whose DNA scientists have fortified with a gene that kills a range of common pests. Its creators say the genetically modified vegetable will increase farm yields and bring a less pesticide-laden vegetable to Indian dining tables, where the fiery brinjal-laden baingan bharta enjoys cult status.

However, project baingan ran into a familiar buzzkill – politicians and babudom.

On Feb. 9, though, India’s environment minister Jairam Ramesh nixed the introduction of the Bt brinjal. Ramesh, who has come under huge public pressure to ban the genetically modified vegetable, said the scientific community was not agreed on the brinjal’s safety, that public opinion was against cultivation of the vegetable, and that there was “no overriding urgency or food security argument” for its introduction. He said further tests were required on the new variety, and said India needed to ramp up its genetic engineering regulatory mechanism.

While farmer’s lobbies and special interest groups seem to dictate the pace of scientific advances in agriculture in India, China has no such barriers where the government still dictates such measures. However, in doing so India is actually taking into consideration numerous factors such as long term environmental effects of such genetically modified crops. Will longer testing periods and a more controlled introduction prove more beneficial to India in the longer run? While we ponder on that, I’ll have another serving of baingan bharta please.

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Sachin Trends on twitter

Update: Turns out being politically incorrect when referring to Sachin Tendulkar as batsman as opposed to batsperson saved me a redaction, so did my habit of using his profession (batsman) as opposed to using something more general (cricketer, human being, god, unicorn, tooth fairy, etc). This blog (Karthik via FB) informs us that Sachin Tendulkar is merely the second person to score a double hundred in an ODI, the first being by Belinda Clark of the Australian women’s cricket team back in 1997. Unfortunately for Belinda back then there were no Twitters, Facebooks or YouTubes, so she did not “trend of Twitter” or have a million views on YouTube. So there you go, Sachin Tendulkar was the second batsperson and first batsman to score a double hundred in an ODI.

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The US Figure skating team of Meryl Davis and Charlie White , defending US champs, placed second at the time of writing with this rollicking Bollywood routine and made me happy .I absolutely loved the costumes.

SeeBollywood routine via NBC.com

© Runa for Über Desi, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Bollywood, kajra re, olympics

This is a Karan Johar movie and yet it seems to be Karan Johar all grown up. No group dances, Manish Malhotra costumes and very little glamor. I’ll say this : though the movie is too long, it still manages to be watchable and interesting through out. The movie’s protagonist is superbly played by Sharukh Khan . He plays a man with an autistic  disorder, on a mission to convince the President of USA that his name is Khan and he is not a terrorist. For once, SRK does not overact but turns in a very muted performance. This is the first time I have seen SRK change his body language to fit into a role – no manic jumping or dancing. MNIK also marks the reunion of the Kaajol and SRK on screen pair. Kaajol is as always alternately bubbly and serious. She is a fine actor and I hope she keeps coming back on to the big screen. Well played cameos by Tanay Chheda ( as a young Khan), Jimmy Shergil ( so cute!) and Zarina Wahab round up the Indian cast , ably supported by American actors.

My problem with the movie is that it never really decided what it wants to be- a message on religious tolerance, a study of the disabled ( or “differently abled” to be PC!) , a blaxplotation movie or a road movie. It ends up being a little bit of each of these. Karan Johar seems to have scanned the headlines for US news since 2000 and put in a little bit of everything hence the “ripped from the headlines” title of this review. However, he does not do a bad job and the movie actually makes you think about  what the Muslim community in the USA has faced since 9/11- which means is does achieve its purpose. This  movie that is almost wholly set in America. Yet, one can make out that Johar’s target audience is Indians in India because the America he shows seems dated in its attitudes. Yes, I know that there was real anti -Muslim sentiment after 9/11. But egregious discrimination  in the San Francisco Bay Area? I think not! The weakest part of the movie is KJ’s depiction of a Katrina – like disaster set in rural Georgia. His African – American characters are so stereotyped that they make for some cringe inducing moments.  But in true KJ style, the beauty of San Francisco is exploited to the fullest. What KJ did for New York in “Kal ho na ho” he does to San Francisco in MNIK – makes an already beautiful city look even more beautiful. Also only in a KJ movie will desis all over the US including FBI employees, television personalities and students -  unite to help the protagonist ( in Real life: I can’t get desis in my neighborhood to do anything for me !)

Overall , I ‘d rate this one a strong B. On a personal note, I made up my mind to see this movie the moment the Shiv Sena in Mumbai called for its ban.( Long story short: The Sena has taken on SRK because he made the innocuous and legitimate statement that the IPL should include Pakistani players.  Of course the Sena being the rabid , foaming in the mouth Hindutva espousing types they are  questioned SRK’s patriotism with lots of jingoistic and hateful speeches)   I will support *anything* that the Sena deems objectionable and urge you to do the same. In one of those delicious twists of fate ( also called a “kick in the nuts by fate”) , the ban failed miserably- MNIK is playing to full houses all over Maharashtra and the Government has finally taken some action and arrested  a bunch of Sena-ites who I hope rot in jail for a long, long time! I think its delicious and well deserved that a movie that espouses  tolerance towards Muslims has succeeded against the Sena’s vile hate spewing machinery.

Go and watch MNIK  if you like the idea of watching something thought provoking and entertaining at the same time.

© Runa for Über Desi, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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Keshavan was interested in winter sports from an early age, despite being born in Vashisht, a village in the Indian Himalayas. “I was lucky because I was picked out by an international talent scout who started training me,” said Keshavan, who often trained on dry roads using wheeled sleds.

At 16, he became the youngest luge Olympian ever at the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan. This will be his fourth Olympics, having also competed in Salt Lake City in 2002 and Torino in 2006.

What makes Keshavan’s kesh…. err… case even more interesting is that he grew up in Kerala, which probably had its last snowflake in the waning moments of the ice age. [NBC]

Keshavan, who hails from the southern state of Kerala, took up winter sports while studying international relations at the University of Florence in Italy. He now resides and trains in the north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, on the foothills of the Himalayas and the home of winter sports in the country. “I was offered Italian citizenship, but I refused because I am an Indian and want to spend my life here,” he said. “So what if they don’t know what a luge is.”

He holds the record of fastest Indian without an engine and almost did not make it to the games.

Keshavan’s Vancouver 2010 dreams were almost dashed when his sled broke during training in November.

Five Indian lawyers heard about his plight, however, and pooled together 450,000 rupees [about $10,500 Canadian] to buy him a new one.

“It was such unexpected support,” said Keshavan. “Out of the blue they just contacted me and said they wanted to help. It’s a great feeling to know you’re being appreciated by people all over the country.”

Kesavan, hopes to not only compete but also win medals. Now, my knowledge of the winter Olympics is admittedly limited to the 2010 Swimsuit edition photo shoot of Lindsey Vonn (have fun googling) but my understanding is that if Keshavan wins a medal it would make him the first and only person of Indian-origin to ever win in the Winter ‘lympics. Coming from a tropical cricket loving nation, participating in a sport where he is a decided minority, it’s hard not to root for him, not that we need a reason anyway.

Chak de, Shiva!

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