Manu J. Krishnan has extended an invitation for another special Travancore Sisters photo exhibition (this time happening on September 8 and 9), with funds going to awareness of breast cancer, the disease that took the lives of both Ragini and Lalitha. It is a beautiful invitation (and I wish I could make it to Kerala for this!):

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P.S.  For a fuller-sized copy of the invitation, go here.

I could have gone to this really easily, but I missed it. Mayuri Dance Group, you have commented on this blog before. Why didn’t you tell me? Oh, well.

This is an excellent new video from the political Pakistani rock band Laal. And my favorite moment occurs right before the four-minute point.

As some readers out there know, I have joined Facebook during the past couple of weeks (having been nudged by a good friend after resisting for quite some time), and I am now subscribed to Desi Oldies. And at Desi Oldies, I have just discovered a list of the kind that I have wanted to see for some time, From A through Z: Hindi-Urdu Singers of British India. By the way, readers will notice at the top of the page that this is still “*A WORK IN PROGRESS*.” Could there possibly be more to come? Looking at the list as it is, I think it will give me plenty to work with for a while.

August 1 and August 2, respectively.

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P.S. Special thanks to Ann for reminding me about Raksha Bandhan!

OK, so I am supposed to have a Jewish background (which I don’t really, except going back to my grandparents’ generation from Russia and Ukraine), and I never was raised with any religion, nor have I ever fully found any (yet).  But there is one religious holiday that I would like to celebrate – more than any other – and that is the Urs of Lal Shabaz Qalandar!  I think readers of this blog should at this point know why (unless you are absolutely “brand new” here).  And, much to my chagrin, I missed it again this month!  (I understand that the Urs was on July 12.)  But last night, I did finally find a good short clip in English that explains what this is all about:

There is also a very interesting description of the celebrations in a book that I’ve mentioned before, The Dancing Girls of Lahore. Though it isn’t quite as positive, and is much more amusing in places…but it still reveals some fondness for this tradition, from another westerner who has usually self-identified as an agnostic or atheist.  I might transcribe that here fairly soon.

To find out why, go to Dustedoff.

Many thanks to Padmini Fan for supplying the link in comments to the last post. This is Padmini’s first Tamil film, her first film of all in terms of release date, and the second film she ever danced in after Uday Shankar’s Kalpana.