Aabida Dhanji

Who is Dav-eh? Referred to as an urban desi sensation, he released a song called ‘Fly Away’ a few years ago. He has been working on a new album, which he plans to release later on this year. Luckily I had a chance to talk to this up and coming artist. Here’s what he had to say in a recent interview with Generation Next:

GN: What made you join the music industry?

Dav-eh: Well when I was a kid I began to have a passion for the industry. I’ve been doing just about everything. Dancing and singing when I was a little kid, eight or nine, I had a huge interest and then took things more serious, recording my own songs. Then I started recording with Sunny Brown who produced my song, Fly Away.

GN: How long have you been in this industry?

Dav-eh: I started writing when I was about 10 years old and recording when I was 14 years old.

GN: Who are your inspirations?

Dav-eh: I have many influences. Especially when growing up in modern and desi household. Bollywood music, Punjabi music, R&B, hip-hop; all of these are inspirations to me. I would have to say my Biggest inspiration has been Culture Shock; Baba Kahn, Sunny Brown and Lomaticc. I learned a lot from Sunny by working closely with him. I aim to be like him and usually take his example.  

GN:Which famous musicians do you admire? Why?

Dav-eh: Well there are a lot of artists that I like, but I am a big T-Pain fan. I feel like a lot of artists do the music for fame, but with T-Pain lots of people rant at him for the amount auto tune, effects, anything he uses on his voice but he makes amazing music. Lots of people don’t understand that you need to know how to use auto tune when you know how to sing, some people say using it means you can’t sing but it sounds amazing.

GN: Any performances that are coming up that we should know about?

Dav-eh: Hopefully DesiFest, last year was great, the crowd loved it.

GN: What inspires you to write your songs?

Dav-eh: Lots of real life situations that I go through. I never “b.s” about what other people go through or watch a movie then think about it and write a song based on that. All my music is solely based on my personal situations.

GN: Where do you see yourself in the next five years?

Dav-eh: I can’t say exactly where because you don’t know where life takes you. But I do aim to be somewhere up in music as a singer for sure.

GN: Any big plans for the future?

Dav-eh: I’m looking into making more music, more albums. I like everything, Dj, Mc, Performing, Producing; all of it. I want to go to different aspects of the industry because I find it all fascinating.

GN: When is your new album coming out?

Dav-eh: Hopefully, by the end of this year or early next year.

GN: Anything you want to tell your fans?

Dav-eh: I appreciate all my fans’ support and love from them. There is no better feeling than fan support, like when people tell you they love your music and that they appreciate your work it’s a feeling on its own!

Now that you know about Dav-eh, make sure that you check out his new album, “Asoka” once it releases later this year. Make sure to also follow Dav-eh on Twitter, Facebook and all other social networking sites to keep up to date with what he’s up to and what’s coming up next for him.

Website: www.dav-eh.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Dav_eh

Facebook: www.facebook.com/OfficialDav.eh

YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/DavehTVExclusive

Tumblr: www.dav-eh.tumblr.com

The second innings of Sunny Leone, a South Asian pornographic star with dual citizenship of Canada and the U.S. almost resembles a fairy tale. Born into a Sikh family, she was the average kid, going to the temple every Sunday. Academics hadn’t been her forte in school, but entrepreneurship was as she sold candy and lemonade in school and shoveled snow with her brother for money. And the average course of her life continued into her teens as she enrolled into a nursing school at 19, with aspirations of being a model in California, where her parents had moved by then. This is when her life took a sharp turn and she became a porn star; with her first ever nude shoot for Penthouse magazine. There was no looking back.

Understandably, Leone’s decision came as a shock to her parents, but knowing her independent personality, they reconciled to it. In 2003 that she won the title of Penthouse Pet of the Year, winning her a cover shot on the magazine and to worldwide appearances. Her string of successes in the North American porn industry continued unabated over the following years.

In the fall of 2011, Leone joined Big Boss, the Indian version of Big Brother. This proved a major turnaround in her career. Although she didn’t divulge her porn background initially, her popularity with viewers soon made her name the number one celebrity search on Google in India, a position she retained for many months. Although she didn’t win the title of Big Boss, her entry into the contest launched her film career in Bollywood, with leading director, Mahesh Bhatt offered her a role in “Jism 2”, his next film.

Even as she finally becomes main stream from an adult-only actor, Leone has also become a symbol of changing mindsets in India. In a country where pornography is banned and the society is still governed by convention and tradition in a big way, she has become acceptable, if not to the older generation, then at least to the younger lot. She takes this in her stride and feels everyone has the right to do what they wish to, in the end. Even the head of India’s Press Council, Justice Markandey Katju, spoke in her defense when he said, “My opinion is that Sunny Leone was earning her livelihood in the U.S. in a manner acceptable in that country, though it is not acceptable in India. Hence, if she conducts herself in India in a manner which is socially acceptable in India and does not breach the social moral code in India, we should not treat her as a social outcast.”

Despite the ban, 80 per cent of the traffic on her website, and 60 per cent of her revenue come from India, Leone recently acknowledged in an interview to The Globe and Mail. Perhaps she sniffs a business opportunity there sometime in the future?

Angelique Manchanda-Peres

Oakville

The Beauty of Humanity Movement by Camilla Gibb takes its fictional name from an actual group of idealistic communist writers and artists in Hanoi. In the early 1950s, this group wrote and spoke out against the excesses of Ho Chi Minh’s policies, in particular, the Land Reform Act in which hundreds of thousands of people (peasants mostly) accused of being landlords were executed or tortured and starved in prison.

Because they were vocal in their denouncement of this “land reform,” and also because they refused to act as a mouth-speaker for government propaganda, the artists and writers of the Beauty of Humanity Movement suffered a fate similar to the unfortunate peasantry. Sent to so-called re-education camps, they were tortured, indoctrinated, killed or maimed. Punishments meted out were cruel and usually specific to the occupation of the prisoner. Artists lost their hands, poets their tongues. 

 The pivotal character in this novel is Old Man Hung, who formerly owned a restaurant famous for its pho and frequented by some of the country’s leading poets and visual artists (this while the French were in power). After angering the newly-formed Communist regime (the French were defeated in the early ’50′s), who withheld a restaurant license from him he was forced to operate outside of the law, selling pho illegally from a cart he pushed around the city. He’d have to find a new spot almost every other day and yet the crowds would throng his stall, bringing their own bowls for a taste of his magnificent Pho. Among his customers were Binh and Tu, the son and grandson of his best friend, Dao, a poet and member of the artist group the Beauty of Humanity Movement who was killed by the Communists on his way to a re-education camp.

Pho may just be a humble soup made from beef broth, but it is the blood that flows in the veins of the streets of Vietnam. Infact, Old Man Hung says that the history of Vietnam can be found in a bowl of Pho bac(the pho that Hanoi is famous for). The rice noodles it contains is symbolic of the thousand years of Chinese occupations and the beef is symbolic of the French occupation that came later (the taste for beef was introduced by the French who turned the people’s cows away from ploughs and into ‘bifteck” and pot-au-feu.) The clever Vietnamese took the best the occupiers had to offer and made something uniquely Vietnamese from it.

One day a Vietnamese-American curator, Maggie, visits Old Man Hung at one of his mobile stands. Maggie was five years old when she was rescued by the Americans at Saigon airport (after the fall of Saigon) . She wants to learn more about her artist father, who also disappeared during the war. She asks Hung if he can help her (after all when Hung had his Pho shop in the ’50′s it was the meeting place for a lot of radical artists and writers) . Hung’s memories are the perfect vehicle to take the reader through Vietnam’s past – from the intellectual age of the 1930′s when Hung was sent to the city to work in his uncle’s pho shop (he was an unwanted child…the ninth child…so unwanted his parents didn’t even give him a name, calling him simply, Nine), through to French colonization, Japanese occupation and, of course, the Vietnam War.      

While Hung provides a look back into Vietnam’s past, a 22-year-old tour guide named Tu offers readers a glimpse into the country’s current era of economic freedom and its entrepreneurial youth, so many of which were born after the war, so it’s not a direct memory in their lifetimes. Tu’ specializes in offering guilt-ridden American veterans “war tours” through his city, but he soon starts to realize their version of his country’s history is deeply flawed. There is an encounter with Tu’ and an American Vet at a Buddhist temple which is especially poignant. 

Camilla Gibb’s novels fall in the sub-genre of literary fiction that I like to call Anthropological fiction (her previous novel was “Sweetness in the Belly” which was set in Ethiopia.). These are novels set in different countries and whose readers relish learning about foreign cultures (their history, diet, traditions, rituals and so on) in a fictional setting.  Reading novels like these makes one realize how different and yet how similar we all are. No matter where the characters come from or are based, there are certain human traits that are universally recognizable and this is why these books resonate with us so much. 

Gibb’s writing is very clear, clean and precise. In this novel she explores both,present-day Vietnam and the forces that shaped it. Many novels on Vietnam focus mostly on the war and the aftermath but in doing so one neglects the vibrant, bustling Vietnam of today. I think Gibb’s novel gives the reader a very balanced and overall view of the country and I appreciate that.

To sum up, the book plunges the reader into the borderlands between opposing forces: youth and age, exclusion and privilege, war and peace.

Chocolate lovers need not feel shameful or guilty any more. The findings of a new study seem to upturn the notion that regular consumption of chocolate makes people gain weight. On the contrary, the study, conducted in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego claims the reverse might be true. Published online in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the study hypothesizes that modest, regular chocolate consumption might be calorie-neutral, which means that the metabolic benefits of eating modest amounts of chocolate might lead to reduced fat deposition per calorie and approximately offset the added calories (thus rendering frequent, though modest, chocolate consumption neutral with regard to weight). To assess this theory, the researchers examined dietary and other information provided by approximately 1,000 adult men and women from San Diego, for whom weight and height had been measured. Their findings were even more favorable than the researchers had predicted. They found that adults who ate chocolate on more days a week were actually thinner — i.e. had a lower body mass index — than those who ate chocolate less often. The size of the effect was modest but the effect was “significant” -larger than could be explained by chance.

According to estimates, 10 million Canadians live with diabetes or pre-diabetes, making the condition almost epidemic in the country. In particular, the South Asian community is at higher risk of being afflicted with diabetes. Besides genetic factors, poor lifestyle choices and unhealthy eating habits contribute to this. As the amount of sugar consumed has a clear connection to a person’s risk of contracting diabetes, zero-calorie artificial sweeteners are often the choice of many. However, most of these sweeteners come with mild to serious side-effects, and are thus not fully risk-free. But what if one had access to a sweetener made from natural sources and having no calories?

Stevia is one such plant-based product, now popular in different parts of the world. In Canada, Greeniche Natural is one company, which sells its own Stevia product. IrfanSattar, the company’s vice president recently spoke to Generation Next. He has been associated with pharmaceutical and healthcare industries for the last 18 years, in Pakistan and Canada. Since 2005, his focus has been on natural health products.

Excerpts from the interview:

GN: Take us through your journey with Greeniche. Why was the company formed?

IS: Greeniche Natural Health came into being in October 2010, when a group of professionals from the healthcare industry came together to form an organization focused on bringing the most modern natural healthcare concepts to people in Canada and abroad. The company plans to introduce a portfolio comprising natural healthcare products, including vitamins, minerals, herbal remedies, health supplements, and consumer healthcare products.

Our vision is to create a leading health and personal-care products marketing company in Canada, and a competitive and successful player in the global market place. A company recognized for marketing excellence, futuristic approach, and acknowledged for being a responsible corporate citizen.

GN: Tell us about your product Stevia.

IS: Stevia is the world’s first all-natural, zero-calorie sweetener – a perfect alternative to sugar and artificial, chemical based sweeteners. Stevia is rapidly becoming the most preferred sweeteners by millions of consumers worldwide. Besides bearing zero calories, it is also free of carbohydrates and has a zero glycemic index, which makes it the perfect sweetener for people suffering from diabetes, or who care for maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Stevia Rebaudiana is a specie of herbs belonging to the Asteraceae (sunflower) family, native to subtropical and tropical South America and Central America. The species are found in the wild in semi-arid habitats ranging from grassland to mountain terrain. Stevia’s sweetening properties are imparted by two components: Stevioside and Rebaudioside (Reb A) which is the best tasting part of the Stevia leaf. The concentration of this component determines the overall sweetness, taste, and aftertaste of the end-product.

Originally introduced to Japan in 1970 by a consortium of food-product manufacturers, stevioside and other stevia products quickly caught on.

Today Stevia is consumed by millions of people from its native origins of Paraguay & Brazil to Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Australia, Malaysia, USA, Canada, Russia, & many other countries.

The competing products like those made with Aspartame, Sucralose and Saccharine have established side-effects and consumers are actively seeking safer alternatives and Stevia fits the bill perfectly.
GN: Are there any side effects (however minimal) of Stevia?       

IS: What makes Stevia so intriguing besides excellent sweetening capability and no reported side-effects are the following attributes:

• Zero glycemic index, making it perfect in diabetes
• Zero calories, zero carbs and fat, and it’s terrific for people who are trying to lose weight
• Studies have shown that it also minimizes hunger sensations and actually reduces cravings for sweets and fatty foods. Many people enjoy Stevia simply to avoid sugar and help prevent obesity. A completely natural way to lose weight!
• Studies have shown that Stevia lowers high blood pressure without affecting normal blood pressure

GN: What is the cost of GreenicheStevia. Do you have a plan to reduce thecost so that it is affordable for more people?          

IS: Stevia doesn’t cost much considering the major health benefits and safety it offers. For some drinking 3 cups of tea/coffee a day with 2 sugars each, a pack of Stevia sachets would last for more than a month, translating into a daily cost of less than 40 cents a day, which, you may agree, isn’t much considering the advantages. Having said that, as the market expands and volumes grow, the price may come down in long-run.

GN: What other products do you have in the pipeline?      

IS: We have a strong products pipeline, comprising very interesting concepts. We have recently introduced a zero-sodium salt, perfect for hypertensive patients who are advised to avoid common salt (sodium chloride). It tastes just like common salt and is completely free of sodium.

We are currently in the process of manufacturing a range of 100% vegetarian formulas of vitamins and supplements, which should be in the market sometime during the month of April, 2012.
GN: As part of your marketing efforts, is there a strategy to target theSouth Asian community in particular? If yes, how do you do this?       

IS: The first and foremost effort is to promote awareness about the disease, which we do by participating in all relevant events, where we can share the information and provide guidance to the community. Our website and our Facebook page actively disseminate accurate and relevant information. We seek opportunities to stay in touch with the medical community to exchange information and ensure that we do whatever we can to make information available and accessible for everyone. We are working on a project to increase awareness amongst school going children about diabetes, and how to prevent it.

GN: What distinguishes Greeniche Stevia from other similar products?   
           

IS: Greeniche Stevia is:

1. The only brand of Stevia with 97% pure Reb-A making it the best tasting Stevia on the market
2. The only formulation without Maltodextrin and Inulin
3. The only formulation with rapid dissolution tablets

These facts make Greeniche Stevia absolutely top-of-the-line brand on the market delivering best value for consumers’ money.

JUST as the song Pungi Bajaa Kar from Saif Ali Khan’s spy thriller Agent Vinod is gaining popularity, an Iranian music band has slapped a legal notice on music director Pritam Chakraborty and distributors for alleged copyright violation. The music band Barobax Corp was founded in 2003 by three Iranian nationals Kashayar Haghgoo, Kevian Haghgoo and Hamid Farouzmand. According to the legal notice issued by law firm Vidhii Partners, Barobax had on January 16, 2010 produced and released an album titled Soosan Khanoom which became a rage. “On March 12 this year, the band came across the promotions of the movie Agent Vinod on satellite television in Iran. The song Pungi Baja De… was being aired. On listening to the song, the band released that the initial portion of the song is lifted without any change from the title song of their album,” the notice claims. According to the notice, the band is the owner of the copyright of the song Soosan Khanoom which is registered under the Copyright Act in Canada on June 30 last year and hence the music of the song cannot be used without the band’s permission. Soon after learning about the copyright infringement the band sent their representative Nargis Kazerooni to India to initiate legal action. Apart from music director Pritam, the notice has also been served to Eros International Media, Illuminati Films Private Ltd and Super Cassettes Ltd. “We demand the music director, producers and directors to refrain from releasing the song in the movie or use it to promote the movie. Failing to do so, the band shall be compelled to initiate proceedings to seek a restraining order and necessary compensation,” the notice states. The movie starring Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor is slated for release on March 23.

Pakistani Oscar award winner, Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy was greeted warmly at Karachi airport as she returned home after winning the golden statue, ARY News reported. The Pakistani director won her country its first Oscar for “Saving Face”, a 52-minute documentary about acid attacks on women, and the doctors and social workers who helped restore their faces. Saving Face, co-directed by Sharmeen Chinoy and Daniel Junge, being released this month.

Talking to ARY News, Chinoy said the Oscar has reached Pakistan. The filmmaker said she was feeling great to be in Pakistan. She greeted the nation for this glory.

Whitney Houston, who died suddenly, last month in a Beverly Hills hotel room, has left her fortune to her 19-year-old daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown, according to the singer’s will. Under terms of the will filed late on Wednesday in Atlanta, funds from the singer’s estate will be put in a trust to benefit her daughter. The young woman will get part of the principal when she turns 21, more money at age 25 and the balance when she celebrates her 30th birthday. Houston had long guarded against media intrusion into the life of her only child, whose father is entertainer Bobby Brown. But Bobbi Kristina, who turned 19 on Sunday, has been thrust into the spotlight since her mother’s death at age 48. Bobbi Kristina has given an interview to Oprah Winfrey that will air on the television personality’s OWN cable network this coming Sunday. The singer did not enjoy a very large share of revenues from her work because her label, Sony’s Legacy Records, owned the catalog of her albums and paid the singer royalties for her performances. Houston did not write her hit songs, and did not have revenues for those publishing rights. The pop star, whose powerful voiced fueled her rise to global fame in the mid-1980s, was found underwater in a bathtub at a Beverly Hills hotel on February 11. An exact cause of death has yet to be deter-mined, but authorities do not suspect foul play.

Vidya Balan prefers to step out in saris and traditional attires but she admits that after the success of The Dirty Picture she has become bolder in her personal life though not in appearance but in attitude. When asked whether she has become bolder, she is quick to reply: “yes, I have. I am no more apologetic to anyone for whatever I did in my life. People’s perception towards me has changed a bit and I am fine with it.” After the release of the movie director Milan Luthria revealed that he chose to cast Vidya in Silk’s role because he wanted to associate respect with sleaziness.

This was the one compliment that Vidya still remembers. “I kept asking Milan why he cast me but he said he will tell me later and when I heard his compliment I was over-whelmed.”Vidya Balan prefers to step out in saris and traditional attires but she admits that after the success of The dirty Picture she has become bolder in her personal life though not in appearance but in attitude. When asked whether she has become bolder, she is quick to reply: “yes, I have. I am no more apologetic to anyone for whatever I did in my life. People’s perception towards me has changed a bit and I am fine with it.” After the release of the movie director Milan Luthria revealed that he chose to cast Vidya in Silk’s role because he wanted to associate respect with sleaziness. This was the one compliment that Vidya still remembers. “I kept asking Milan why he cast me but he said he will tell me later and when I heard his compliment I was overwhelmed.”

As many as 71, 240 men have expressed their desire to marry Pakistani actress Veena Malik on Imagine’s show ‘Veena Ka Vivaah – Swaymavar Season 4′. While men across the globe, from countries like the US, UK, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, New Zealand, Nepal and Pakistan are hopeful of making Veena their bride, majority of the entries have come from India. Reacting to the response for her swayamvar, a delighted Veena said , “I am hum-b l e d by the response I have received and am thrilled that majority of the entries have come from India. I want to thank everybody for their continuous love, support and faith in me and I hope they will hold my hand in the most important journey of my life.”