Video of the Day: The Helix Fix

The Lincoln Tunnel helix starts a massive two-year makeover this August, as the Port Authority hopes to extend the life of one of the most crucial links in the tri-state transportation network. Click the title below to read the full article on MetroFocus:

MetroFocus | Lincoln Tunnel Helix Gets a Makeover

Video of the Day: Free WiFi in NYC

Here's my latest segment for MetroFocus, in collaboration with multimedia producer Bijan Rezvani. Click the title below to read the full article on MetroFocus:

MetroFocus | City Launches Free WiFi Pilot Program

Concert Review: Coldplay at Wells Fargo Center

I finally did it. I finally saw one of my favorite bands in the world, live.

Coldplay started their Mylo Xyloto tour last year, and finally made their way around to the East Coast this summer for the second leg of their US trip, for which I am eternally grateful. As someone who constantly listens to their songs whenever convenient, I hadn't actually seen them in the flesh - until last October when I struck up the courage to sleep outside 30 Rock to see them in the wee hours of the morning on "The Today Show". Even then, as great as it was, the arrangement was not so great and I was painfully made aware of how short I was. Plus, I was carrying blankets from the sleepover and my back hurt.

Last night, I got my second chance to see them at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia with floor seats. The opening acts were decent; Wolf Gang, a British alternative rock band and Robyn, the Swedish recording artist made popular in the US with singles like "Call Your Girlfriend" and "Dancing On My Own". Even though there were plenty of people around me who had no idea who she was, and were just waiting for her to end, she's quite the act. She knows how to have fun on stage, even though her music is a bit too techno-heavy for me. But she's cute.

Before I go into Coldplay, I should note that we were all handed multicolored bracelets as we walked into the stadium, where large LCD screens instructed us to keep them on as they were a part of the show.

Then the lights shut down.

And Jay-z's "99 Problems" came on. What? Don't worry, they had a plan. The band came on while a recording of the "Back to the Future" theme played, followed by the Mylo Xyloto title song.

And cue screaming audience.

(It's been known that Chris Martin is a huge fan of Jay-Z and hip hop, having collaborated with the rapper on a remix of "Lost!" from the Viva La Vida album, as well as "Beach Chair" from Jay-Z's comeback album Kingdom Come.)

With "Mylo Xyloto" playing along, our bracelets came on and started flashing colors. The effect was beautiful, with thousands of bracelets flashing colors around the stadium, giving the appearance of sparkling stars.

With the first hit of the drum and the first strum of the electric guitar, Coldplay flowed seamlessly into their first song of the night, a popular number from the Mylo Xyloto album, "Hurts Like Heaven". It paired awesomely with the flashing bracelets and the rager-like lights and theatrics. Chris Martin doesn't have the strongest voice live, but Coldplay sure knows how to play to their fans. Some time into the song, the ceiling started raining with paper confetti in various shapes taken from the album cover; butterflies, hearts, M's. It didn't matter if you couldn't hear the singing, the confetti and flashing bracelets were enough to stun you.

"Hurts Like Heaven" is probably one of the farther departures from typical Coldplay on their newest album. It starts off with the nice ethereal sound we're so familiar with, but then quickly moves to a bubblegum harmony and a faster tempo than usual. They stated in an interview last year that the album name was to signify nothing and represent a clean state from the past. But Mylo Xyloto sounds more like a mish-mash of all their earlier albums; "Moving to Mars" and "Us Against the World" pays homage to the Parachutes era; "Charlie Brown" and "Paradise" sounds more like Viva La Vida. I could be wrong but it seems that way.

About 2:09 minutes into "Hurts Like Heaven", they've got this really nice, albeit short harmony that sounds like something out of the 70s - if that's even the right era. I can't quite place the sound, but I can listen to this song over and over again just for that short moment. As I was recording the song on my crappy camera during the concert, I stopped right before that part just so I could experience those few seconds live without distraction.

Yes, I feel a little bit nervous.

Among more recent hits like "Paradise", "Every Teardrop is a Waterfall", and the lesser known "Us Against the World", I was pleased to hear older hits like "Warning Sign", "God Put a Smile Upon Your Face", "In My Place" (which I never thought they would play live), and "Violet Hill".

Of course they covered "Fix You", "The Scientist", and "Yellow", probably three of their concert favorites - the audience always ends up screaming out the last verses for them - but I mentioned the former list because I was glad to see those hadn't fallen by the wayside. It's easy to forego them for the more popular tunes merely for theatrical purposes. I mean, had I had it my way, I would have requested every song from every album be played, especially "The Hardest Part". It's got such a simple melody with such simple lyrics, it's recently become my favorite. But alas, the concert cannot go on forever.

"God Put a Smile Upon Your Face" came with a bit of twist when the band started the song in a major key, confusing a lot of people trying to sing along. Really amusing actually, but brilliantly executed and a refreshing sound. But then in came Guy Berryman with the bass and Will Champion with his strong drums, and all of a sudden, the key changed to more familiar, haunting tones and everyone was in their groove again.

"The Scientist" of course got all the attention it deserved and ended with a bit of call and response with Martin and the audience vocalizing near the end.

At one point he stopped and said, "I do believe we have the best fans in the world." Judging by the energy and half-gone vocal chords of almost every audience member, I would say so, yes. Then again, Coldplay knows how to give the fans what they want.

"Us Against the World" came after what seemed like the end of the concert - but of course, the audience wasn't going to have that. There was a bit of confusion and "Where did they go, are they coming back?" as the lights came on and crew members started moving equipment around.

But then Martin popped up somewhere near the middle of the back raised section with a guitar, which I'm sure made everyone in that section piss their pants. After a bit of monologue about wearing a "fucking pink shirt", he started the slow number, joined gradually by Jonny, then Guy, then Will. And somehow, they fit that graffiti-ed piano up there too.

The concert overall was one of the best concerts I've been to. I can't stress enough how much Coldplay knows how to entertain. Along with the confetti came huge balloons floating down from the ceiling, glow-in-the-dark structures placed throughout the audience, and the wonderful runway that the band so generously used so that we could be that much closer to them.

With such an immensely passionate fan base, obsessed with everything Coldplay-related, I wonder what Martin's wife Gwyneth Paltrow thinks on a daily basis of her frontman husband's career. Probably that he better remember to get some groceries on his way back home or he's dead meat.

Movie Review: Where Do We Go Now?

Besides my regular dose of flashy Bollywood films, it's not often I watch a foreign-language film. But they always seems to pleasantly surprise me - sometimes I need to hear insults, declarations of love, and sarcasm in another language to freshen up my life a little bit. Needless to say, this one was a breath of fresh air.

Where Do We Go Now? (Et maintenant, on va où?) is a comedy/drama directed by Lebanese director Nadine Labaki (Caramel), set in a remote Lebanese village amidst a country engulfed in a civil war. Christians and Muslims live amongst each other, men and women gossip and joke with each other, and the priest and imam live happily as friends with their respective houses of God.

The village has one TV, and possibly one radio, but news of fighting and violence among Muslims and Christians reaches nevertheless. The women, who have lost too many husbands and sons to the war, decide to take action. The fact of the matter is, Christians and Muslims may live together in this village, but not always so peacefully, and the women have no more room to mourn.

What ensues is a mix of the funniest scenes I have ever seen, and the most tragic. Many films disguise themselves as a comedy/drama, while actually just being a straight drama with a few jokes thrown in here and there. But this film really defines the word. What starts as a simple destruction of the village's only TV, turns into hiring a busload of Eastern-European strippers and eventually, feeding their husbands weed cakes. The dialogue is snappy, and at one point, I actually fell out of my theater seat laughing.

At the same time, tragedy is everywhere. Throughout the film, we see that the village is physically connected to the outside world by a small land bridge strip, and a village boy Roukoz, along with his cousin Nassim, are responsible for selling and buying the necessary groceries for the whole village. It's a treacherous path, and it's evident that they continuously face danger from the violence on the outside. Though Nadine Labaki's character, Amale, is arguably the main female character, it's really Takla (Claude Baz Moussawbaa), Nassim's mother, who is the strongest woman of the film. Every morning at dawn, she prays for her son's safe return from the market, having already lost her eldest son (I'm not completely clear about this, as there are many characters, but she has definitely lost a member of her family).

As always, violence breaks out in the village, when the Muslims find their mosque has been trashed by wandering animals - but blame the destruction on the Christians, breaking their Virgin Mary statues, and getting into fist fights in the square. As the little things escalate, the women decide that something must be done, and decide to hire the Eastern-European strippers that Takla has found in a magazine in her son's room. They feed the men a story that their bus has broken down outside the village, and need a place to stay for a week. Oh lord.

This film is a bit of a departure from Labaki's first feature film, Caramel, about five Lebanese women dealing with issues such as love, sexuality, age, and duty vs. desire, which was more of a romantic comedy. Caramel was praised for avoiding a war-ravaged Beirut during the Lebanese civil war, but instead focusing on universal topics.  

I say departure, because Where Do We Go Now? tackles the war head on - just not in a Saving Private Ryan kind of way. Not that it's uncommon for Christians and Muslims to live together, but to see it solidly acknowledged from the first scene is refreshing, given that the same probably does not hold 20 miles away.

What struck me as odd, and is probably my only issue with this film, is the over-the-top "stupidness" of the men. In one scene, one of the men violently grabs hold of a handicapped boy, telling him he will kill his father, and continues to harass him until one of the women must forcibly drag him away, yelling at him, "Is this what it means to be a man?" I find it hard to believe that the men of the village would be so sensitive to the smallest problem, that stolen shoes would justify broken noses and child harassment. It doesn't surprise me then, when Amale loses it in her bakery, half screaming half crying at the men to stop fighting, to stop acting like mindless people, driven only by religion.

"Do you think we were put here to always mourn you?" she screams at them, voicing the sadness of every women in the village. Your mother's tears haven't even finished drying from mourning the death of your brother, she accuses one of the young men.

Still, I must say that Claude Baz Moussawbaa is the star of the film. She begins as a devout Christian women, but with the death of Nassim when he is tragically shot outside the village by a Muslim, she breaks down in such a haze of grief and anger at her precious Virgin Mary, that you grieve with her as she hides Nassim's body in the well, unable to properly bury her son, so that none of men find out and start fighting again. She shoots her now only son, Issam, in the foot when he finds out so he can't leave and act on his intense anger - such is her grief.

The title of the film alludes to the last scene, after the woman have played their last card and switch religions, swapping hijabs for holy water, Allah for Jesus. The men, completely confused, have no idea how to react when they see their loved ones donning the symbols of their enemies. It's both funny and heart-warming, and when the village finally comes together to bury Nassim's body, they stop at the edge of their segregated cemetery and ask "Where do we go now?"

Is Nassim now a Christian or a Muslim?

It's a fairy tale of a story, complete with a few, soulful, song-and-dance numbers. Labaki's narration in the beginning and end makes you think of child's bedtime book. The message is cliche, I'll admit, but the journey towards it is well worth taking.

 

Diversity: The Past, Present, And Future

In my experience, the best conversations come from long, summer-evening walks with my dad. I'm grateful to have a parent who loves a healthy debate about society, politics, music, etc. It challenges me to learn more and really become a jack of all trades, just so I can take part in the discussion.

As a first generation Indian-American, one topic that seems to pop up every so often is the idea of diversity - not in a general sense, like diversity in the workplace or diversity in our schools, but the diversity of our own social circles.

I won't hide from the fact that in the past 20 years, Indian and Chinese immigrants have taken over my small town in New Jersey. Granted, they were always there - with such a dense population in the homeland, they've got to go somewhere. But with the influx of Asian immigrants, one would think that our neighborhoods have become more diverse - and they have. From a outside viewpoint, a majority of the people you cross in your local supermarket, shopping mall, etc. will most probably not be speaking English. 

But they're also probably not mingling with others that don't speak their language. Yes, I understand language barriers - some American citizens have a better grasp of English than others, and therefore are more free to mingle and chat with those outside of their own ethnicity. But the thing is, this still happens among those immigrants that do have a proper grasp of the English language. And that brings me back to us Indians.

Here is a fun fact I learned from my dad: As a young child, group birthday party packages at the ice rink, arcade, or your local Chuck E. Cheese usually had limits of 10-12 kids for a certain price, that went up proportionately with the number of kids attending. That meant, as a parent, you were inclined to prioritize, pushing family friends to the top of the list. As an Indian-American who is part of a vast community of fellow Indians in my neighborhood, I know for a fact that inviting all your family friends alone would include much more than 10-12 children. So depending on how parents saw their child's birthday party - whether as a social gathering for the adults, or as a social gathering for their children - the ratio of school friends to family friends would vary. 

When I was young, I remember having birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese that included a majority of school friends, with a couple of family friends. Now, I see the complete opposite. Don't get me wrong, it's completely fine to want to invite family friends first - I'm not a parent, but I'm at an age where I understand the need for someone familiar to talk to while the young'uns run around. But what does that mean for your child growing up, and how will it affect their social circles as an adult?

I see a spectrum of possibilities. On one hand, I see children growing up in an Indian household, mixing with Indian children as a child, growing up among other Indian teenagers, and forming lasting friendships with  mostly Indians for life. On the other hand, I see children growing up in an Indian household, mixing with a variety of children as a child, growing up among a variety of teenagers, and forming lasting friendships with a diverse group of people for life. 

Personally, I don't like the first option. In this option, I also see people (and personal friends of mine) say things like, "I didn't join that sorority because there were too many white people in it."  That friend then went on to join a South Asian sorority. 

Um, what?

We are diverse as a society, but as individuals, we will never be that diverse, because human nature dictates that we form bonds will people that are similar to us. But for those that never break the bonds of homogeneity, I strongly feel that they're missing something, because people of the same ethnicity or background will tend to have the same tastes and values. So how can they ever hope to learn something different?

We are influenced most by our friends and those we encounter in school and the workplace, which means that those with an American education and career will most definitely mix with people of a different culture/race/background throughout their lives. But at the end of the day, it's our decision who we form actual friendships with, and if you've grown up in a homogeneous world, that will play a huge part in who you decide to form these bonds with.

I will repeat again that I am a first generation Indian-American. So what I'm seeing in my generation is the product of Indian immigrants making a world for themselves among their own kind. As a first-generation, I already have close childhood friends that are not from my culture. So my family friends won't be what it used to be - people who speak your language or come from your culture. But for many others, it will continue to be that way, because of the way they are choosing to live now. 

I have complete respect for my culture, and in no way am I rejecting where I came from. But at the same time, I just worry about those around me who are, in a way, holding onto it for dear life.

The Listserve: What Happens When One Person Speaks To The World At A Time

If you could say something to a million people, what would you say? You probably already do speak to many people daily, if you're lucky enough to have hundreds or maybe just dozens of followers on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and just as many friends on Facebook. And I'm sure you always have a lot to say.

No offense, but is everyone really listening to you?

While you may think the most important thing for the world to know right now is that you made a mean apple pie (pictures included), your followers and online friends may have a different set of priorities, and as such, your apple pie photos get lost among the chaos that is the Internet.

But a group of students at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) graduate program are playing and experimenting with something pretty cool. They call it The Listserve.

So here's what happens. You subscribe on their website, just like any other listserv (there's a cute video on the homepage that you can distract yourself with before you subscribe). Each day, one person out of the vast list of subscribers is chosen to send an email to the entire listserv. Talk about pressure, right? Especially considering that the 11,000+ subscribers include people from all over the world, from Lithuania to Vietnam. No more does that apple pie you were dying to show everyone seem so great.

On the other hand, if you do happen to make a mean apple pie, feel free to let me know. I'm a sucker for a good apple pie recipe.

But what's the idea behind this online social experiment? According to co-creator Alvin Chang, a second year graduate student at ITP, the creators wanted to see how people could interact differently with an old medium - in this case, the "old medium" is email (isn't that weird to hear?).

There's something intimate about an email inbox, no? In an increasingly non-intimate world, an email seems like a personal letter to you, and only you, complete with scented stationary and your name handwritten on the front of the envelope. Of course, we all go through the daily ritual of cleaning and scrubbing out spam and junk messages. But giving someone your email address, as opposed to your Facebook ID or your Twitter handle, is like saying "Hey, I'm really interested to hear what you want to tell me. Let's talk in private."

So imagine sending an email just like that, except to a million people. Really, what would you say? All these people have signed up, wanting to hear you. Suddenly, you're in the spotlight, and the world is literally your stage.

Fortunately, the emails have already started coming in, and I love getting them. One of the first emails was from Emil Stenström, an interface developer from Stockholm who decided to use his bit of fame to preach the idea of "Everyday Action", and the power of making the little things in life exciting, rather than sitting and waiting for the next big adventure. Pretty powerful stuff, and a great way to start this potentially viral experiment. Writers also have the chance to include their contact information if they want to continue the conversation with the people they've reached, and according to Stenström, he's gotten over 90 replies in his inbox already.

Something weird is happening. After receiving that first message from Stenström, I looked him up (naturally), and found that a variety of other Listserve enthusiasts, blogs, and online news websites were talking about that first message they received as well - the same one, of course. All of a sudden, I imagine the entire world  at one moment in time, thinking of the same person, and their message. Obviously, The Listserve is only at 11,000+ subscribers. But imagine if it did really go up to 1 million? And beyond? These ITP students have found a way to get people to stop and listen, through the simple power of the inbox.

The Internet is vast, and the world is even more vast. But your email inbox is not.

The Epilogue Of The Dharun Ravi Story

So. The very infamous case of Dharun Ravi has left him with 10 years of jail and guilty on all counts (including bias intimidation, harassment, and invasion of privacy), with a possibility of appealing the ruling, although it won't get rid of the jail time completely. In fact, had he pleaded guilty in the first place, Ravi would have only been sentenced to 600 hours of community service and probation. A teeny-tiny bit better than 10 years in jail, but that's just me.

But here's the bigger question.

What are universities going to do now about cyber bullying? Now, it's not just about Ravi, but about Rutgers, and every other university out there. After all, the suicide of a student reflects badly on a university, and that is the understatement of the century. As an NYU student, I've heard many horror stories about the effects of harassment (check out the floor of Bobst Library...). While people may argue about whether or not what Ravi did was considered "harassment" - he in fact, was not charge with Clementi's actual death - there's no doubt that what was done, had a part in the suicide. Which means, in an age of the ubiquitous social media, college administrations are under more pressure to do something about it.

In this article from WNYC, the writer raises a very interesting point about the fine line between freedom of speech and harassment. With internet censorship (re: SOPA) at the forefront of our nation's issues, it's definitely hard for university administrations to find a solution to cyber bullying. And it's even more difficult to figure out what cyber bullying is.

I'm sure everyone at some point in their Facebook lives, has had their account hacked by a friend, a relative, or maybe some stranger who just got lucky guessing your password. Most of the time, these hackings result in nothing more than, say, funny status changes and a sudden awkward profile picture. For most, it's just annoying.

But is it cyber bullying? I'll admit, I'm guilty of having done said "hackings" to others' Facebook accounts for fun. But when a friend hacking turns into an enemy hacking, things can get ugly, and there's no set solution to fix that. In fact, one of the only ways to prevent cyber bullying is to confront the person or tell someone else about it, but you can't guarantee that someone who has already been beaten down so much will come forward.

The unfortunate thing about freedom is that "with great power, comes great responsibility" - meaning some people decide to act irresponsibly or dangerously with the freedom they are given. So what are universities to do? Can they really impose any sort of cyber bullying act that doesn't restrict their students' freedom to use the internet as they please?