So, if you’re free tonight and happen to be eastish – actually, if you happen to be ANYWHERE – get yourself to the Rhythm Factory in Whitechapel.

Remedy Live is happening.

It’s run by the Music is Remedy team. The line up looks like this:

Ed Sheeran
XO Man
Kanna Ellie
Dean Atta
Sharika Medla
Wilson

All supported by the Remedies.

Now I’ve already witnessed some of these artists at previous Writer’s Block events (yeah, you know I like to shout about them a bit too). And if you’d ever given up hope on the artistic talents of our fair Lost Generation, this is the place for it to be restored and rejuvenated. London is providing the goods. No joke.

And if you need real proof, take a look at the live rehearsal sessions over on Pinboard Blog. Candid and exclusive.

It’s a fiver.

Oh, and a bit-a twitter for you too:
Music is Remedy
Writer’s Block
Pinboard Blog

Yum!

I’ve decided, as a small dedication to her, and a bigger tribute to her cooking, to start a series called Arti’s Tiffinbox.

Because I love my mum’s cooking. No exaggeration. And there’s no other way to put it. Every time I eat a meal cooked by her, I feel my soul warm up. It might be a to do with having lived away while studying. It might be something about just having an adult appreciation for things I took for granted as a kid.

What I know for sure is it’s a legacy I hope I can carry forth into my jumbled world of Anglo-Indian linguistic confusion and other cultural meltingpotesque manifestations. My mum’s cooking is a culmination of her mixed and unique experiences. She wasn’t taught it by her mother. She picked it up living the life of an unwitting renegade. Her food is her memories, her lessons, her experimentation and curiosity that compelled her to inch towards to the edge to see what’s on the other side. It’s her creative use of limited resources, her way of coping with unfamiliar territories and hostility. It’s oh so soulful. And every bite always makes me feel so damned good.

So, I’ll be carefully extracting these recipes from grains of her being to bring them to you.

But before I start it, I just need to clarify a few things for you:

1. Tiffin is a word for lunch. It’s normally a kind of lunch that’s packed into a sectioned carrier, so the foods don’t get mixed. It makes me think of a good wholesome meal on the go. And it’s a food-related word that works well for the title.
2. My mum never measures her ingredients. It means that some of the measurements I give in recipes will be guesstimates. Good guesstimates, I promise. But that gives you the freedom to improvise. (And now I’ve warned you, you can’t blame me if it turns out rubbish!)
3. Sometimes, I won’t know the English names of ingredients. It’s not cos I’m ignorant. It’s just how it is. And for some things there just aren’t English names. Like doodhi! I’ll try to define anything I think needs extra explanation.
4. Mum’s a vegetarian. That means strictly vegetarian recipes. It also means lots and lots of veggie choices.
5. I don’t claim any recipes to be ‘authentic’ Indian recipes. My mum’s Gujarati, but there are influences from all over India and the world in her food. They’re authentic in that they’re my mum’s.
6. These dishes are the result of over thirty-odd years of discovery, experimentation, refinement and fine-tuning. So don’t be too distressed if yours doesn’t have the magic. It’ll get there with time and dedication.
7. The actual task of sitting my mum down and getting her to tell me these recipes is near enough impossible. In fact, this is the first time I’ve EVER succeeded. (And I’m not gonna lie, it was a little bit painful.) What you’re witnessing, my friends, is history in the making. So you’d better appreciate it!

I’ll be starting with a simple and easy daal (lentil) recipe. I had it for dinner tonight with some rice. It was so freakin’ good. It’s what inspired me to start this whole series in the first place.

See you on the other side then.

Tiffin image provided by bandita

There’s a festival of world literature going on in town. Oh yes.

It’s called Free the Word! and this is its 3rd year in London.

International PEN are in charge of it all. They believe words make the world go round. And ya damn right, too! Read about them here.

If you only make it to one of the Free the Word! events, you should go and see the Insulting Cabaret at the Southwark Playhouse tomorrow night (Friday 16th April 2010).

Why? Cos it’s gonna be an effin’ trip.

And also cos I haven’t seen it promoted anywhere. And I work in the Southwark/London Bridge area. I was lucky enough to be told about it by the Thayil half of Sridhar/Thayil*. So of course I’m gonna share this valuable information and implore you to get out there and do something different.

Sridhar/Thayil will be on that stage doing their thang with a bunch of other musical, wordy performers. This year’s theme is love and hate. Those universally elusive concepts.

You should also go cos it’s bloody well called the Insulting Cabaret. And if that doesn’t spark even a little curiosity in you, then your brain cells have obviously been numbed by the inane Leader’s Debate that was on TV earlier. So I suppose you can be forgiven.

I haven’t given you a potpourri parcel in a while, have I?

Here you go:

The Insulting Cabaret: Love Vs. Hate
Venue: Southwark Playhouse
Date: 16th April 2010
Time: 9.30pm
Price: 8 quid.

*if the name Thayil sounds familiar, it’s cos back in January I blogged about the anthology he edited (and contributed to). The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poetry. Remember?

(photo provided by whatmegsaid)

I started a new job recently (yay!), and between that and shopping for bathroomy stuff for a loft conversion and other eastery family stuff, and a laptop with crappy internet, I’m surprisingly knackered. That ain’t right. I’m only 23.

Anyway, I promise to be back up on this soon as I get my act together.

In the meantime, you should join me at the Writer’s Block 2nd Birthday Party happening THIS Wednesday 14th April at Cargo in Shoreditch, London. If the name Writer’s Block sounds familiar, it’s cos you read about them here.

Jesse Boykins III will be performing specially for me.

Oh. I mean us. The audience. I guess.

And there’s a phenomenal line-up of other outta-this-world spoken-word artists, poets, musicians and general pioneers of creative beauty. I’ve seen them all before on the humble Writer’s Block stage at their usual Juno headquarters, and I can’t wait to see them tear it up again at Cargo.

You can buy your tickets in advance here.

Join in the celebrations. Bring everyone. It’s gonna be big.

Check out my latest piece at Uplift Magazine about b.supreme, the UK’s only hip-hop festival for women.

Don’t forget to follow Uplift on twitter here

And b.supreme here

Thanks for your support y’all!

In the past they’ve paired up with Wasted Spaces, an artists’  organisation that uses unused and decaying spaces to promote artists’ work and to give local communities a little something to smile about too.

From The Smile Project by Wasted Spaces

Now I reckon Brent is one of the few London boroughs who sometimes actually get it right.

Some may disagree, but I think they’re good at creating a unified and equal community that celebrates the many many diverse backgrounds that make up its colourful (if not quirky) identity.

The latest project in partnership with Wasted Spaces is a photography competition called Impressions of Brent. It’s a fairly simple idea: local residents just have to take pictures from their mobile phones that capture the spirit of their local community.

The best photos will be picked and displayed as part of an exhibition at the Ealing Road Library. Oh, and the very best photographer could win a digital camera worth £200. But to be immortalised at Ealing Road Library is surely priceless!

I think this is a excellent way for residents to really take a look at their local space and see something special in the every-day. Despite my lighthearted grumbles (not to mention my amusement at the recent launch of the only Paan-spitting campaign in the country),  I’m often quite intrigued by the constantly changing face of my local community. It’s interesting how not only people (or peoples?) change and readjust, but how the landscape, the streets, the shopfronts, all evolve with that.

I’ll be bringing out my phone and taking a few snaps to send in, and if you’re a Brent local, maybe you’d like to do the same!

To enter the competition, you just have to send the picture in a message with the word SPACES to 07843500911. The deadline is Saturday 10 April.  The exhibition at Ealing Road Library will be on display until 24 April.

Keep in mind, it’ll cost 25p on top of your standard network MMS charge.

All my fellow Brent locals might like to follow them on Twitter here.
Wasted Spaces are on twitter too. Tweet ‘em here and say hello!

(A big thank you to my sister Bhavini for coming up with the lovely title of this post!)

I first saw this short film as part of the London Short Film Festival back in January. It was part of the New Shorts 12: London Lives series, which was compiled to showcase “the glory and diversity of our fair city”.

There were some mindblowing pieces during this series, but No Way Through, winner of the Ctrl.Alt.Shift film competition, really stood out for me.

There’s always a degree of detachment when watching the news or reading the paper, no matter how well-reported the story is.

This film, as explained on the Ctrl.Alt.Shift website “highlights mobility restrictions imposed by the Israeli government that are limiting Palestinians’ access to health care, thus violating their right to health”.

By bringing the harsh realities of Palestinians to the backdrop of our own city and its citizens, we’re given a whole new perspective. The element of detachment almost disappears. It’s haunting. It’s powerful.

Please watch it to the end.

This weekend the lives of five refugee women will be given a spotlight at the Southbank Centre. These women’s husbands have been in Guantanamo Bay or detained in Belmarsh Prison without trial for suspected links with terrorism. Their cultural backgrounds vary from Senegal to Jordan, Palestine to the English Midlands. Their stories as women, wives, mothers placed in such a position are yet to be told.

Waiting aims to give a unique perspective on the war on terror. Victoria Brittain has spent years speaking with real women about their experiences, hearing how their lives were blast into turmoil in a hostile post-9/11 world. She’s collected these conversations, and what will be presented on the stage in the intimate Purcell Room is a powerful amalgam of these voices, I’m sure.

With the unconventional perspective comes the unconventional medium. Rather than just speaking the words, the women will also sing of their experiences. There’s an original score written by Jessica Dannheisser with cellos to accompany the vocals.

If you really think about it, where else are you likely to see such an expression from such a viewpoint before? There are loads of documentaries, each with their unique take on various post-9/11 perspectives. This one, however, is as yet unearthed. And I think the verbatim music theatre genre will serve to bring out the poignancy of the women’s words, uprooting their voices from the dark underbelly of female Muslim experience in Britain, forcing people to stop, look and listen.

There are just a handful of tickets left for the Saturday night performance at the Southbank Centre, and if you can make it, I would urge you to do so!

Here’s all the info you’ll need:

Waiting by Victoria Brittain
Date: Friday 12 March – Saturday 13 March 2010
Time: 7.45pm on both nights
Price: £15
Click here to book.

After each performance, Victoria Brittain will chair a debate discussing the issues raised during the evening. The panels include Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, Gareth Peirce, Manjinder Virk, Riz Ahmed, Salma Yacob, Vanessa Redgrave and Moazzam Begg.

Watch this excellent promotional mini-documentary to find out a bit more

Sarah, the editor of this illustrious online magazine, gave me the opportunity to write about the Tongues on Fire Asian film festival as part of the International Women’s Day features for Uplift. Check out the feature here.

Click click click away! And I urge you all to check out all the other fascinating articles and features on the website for fresh female perspectives on just about everything.

Big thank you to Sarah for letting me do a piece for one of my favourite online magazines!

Don’t forget to follow Uplift on Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

(Here’s a picture of me and my fellow sambistas playing the part last Christmas:)

This year we’re celebrating International Women’s Day with the Lambeth Council presenting an all-female bateria (drum ensemble). We’ll be resurrecting the spirit of Rio’s carnival, only just laid to rest a couple of weeks ago,and bringing the party to the streets of Brixton. There’s no doubt we’re gonna be making the loudest sound there with our drums!

Here’s a little snippet from the Lambeth Council Website to give you an idea of what else you can get up to:

We have a range of activities on offer including free therapies, demonstrations, children’s corner, fashion and jewellery, sewing, employment, education and financial advice, dance and poetry and much, much more.

Motivational seminars
You can also attend one of three motivational seminars offering practical tips on:

• ‘How to reorder your life’
• ‘Feel the fear - do it anyway’
• ‘How to make your money matter’.

Come and show your support, have a little boogie, and check out all the other activities going down at the Lambeth Town Hall this Saturday 13 March from midday til 4pm.