Desis at Super Bowl
PEOPLE
India Abroad
February 18, 2011
The Pittsburgh Steelers may have lost the Lombardi Trophy, but the black and
golds got their share of the silver.
The team grabbed eyeballs this
Super Bowl with their bhangra-fied
sports anthem titled Black, Gold
and Silver. While the first two colors
are the team’s, the silver refers to the
coveted trophy. The anthem was
composed by BlackMahal, a San
Francisco-based band that includes
none other than the godfather of
Punjabi-American music — Ustad
Lal Singh Bhatti. Yes, the same man
who has performed for nearly every
American president since Gerald
Ford. Yoi, Yoi, and Double Yoi!
Yoi Yoi, Lal Singh Bhatti
Chillar grabs the ring
Lal Singh Bhatti
BLACKMAHAL.COM
Brandon Chillar
Continuing tradition, the South Asian Journalists Association forum live blogged from the Super Bowl, tracking South Asianmentionsonandoffthe
field. On the field, all desi eyes were on Brandon
Chillar. The linebacker, who is on injured reserve, got a
Super Bowl Ring with the Green Bay Packers beating the
Pittsburgh Steelers, making him the second South Asian
to win a ring. Bobby Singh was the first, with the St Louis
Rams. Chillar is only the third South Asian to play for the
National Football League after Singh and Sanjay Rajiv
Beach. Off the field, ESPN anchors Kevin Negandhi and
Adnan Virk made their mark. Negandhi hosted
SportsCenter, which went live as soon as the Super Bowl
ended — one of the highest-rated episodes of the most
popular sports shows in the world. Virk co-hosted
Highlight Express.
Kevin Negandhi, left, and Adnan Vir
SAJA.ORG
#Egypt
Jimi’s Boy George, Freddie Mercury connection
While the world remained glued to the Egypt revolution, Ujjwal Singh, co- founder, SayNow — recently acquired by
Google — and Abdel Karim Mardini, a Google
product manager, were thinking of ways to ‘help
people on the ground.’ And they found a unique
way. ‘We came up with the idea of a speak-to-tweet
service — the ability for anyone to tweet using just
a voice connection,’ they posted on GoogleBlog,
which provides insights from Googlers into the
company’s products and technologies. ‘We worked
with a small team of engineers from Twitter, Google
and SayNow… to make this idea a reality. It’s
already live and anyone can tweet by simply leaving
a voicemail on one of these international phone
numbers (+16504194196 or +390662207294 or
+97316199855) and the service will instantly tweet
the message using the hashtag #egypt. No Internet
connection is required.’ You can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going
to twitter.com/speak2tweet.
Jimi Mistry
Actor Jimi Mistry is a huge fan of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury. So when he was offered the chance
to pose as his childhood icon for a series
of photos shot by British singer Boy
George as part of a hepatitis C testing
awareness cam-
paign, he jumped
at it. ‘I suddenly
embodied the spir-
it of Freddie; I
started standing
with my chest out
but as soon as the
moustache went on
it all seemed to fall
into place,’ Jimi
said about his
experience. ‘The
crown, the raised
fist, I was there. It
was fantastic. To be
photographed by an icon being my icon
was quite a memorable day.’ Jimi, who
will be seen in West is West this month,
was joined by actor Mat Horne posing as
Adam Ant and Sadie Frost as Madonna
in the campaign.
