Vassup! I'm Sacha Baron Cohen.

Sacha Baron Cohen is one person whose company, I suspect, most people wont enjoy much; especially when he is masquerading as Borat, an uncouth Kazakh or Bruno, an aggressive Austrian gay fashion designer. He manages to insult every group he could: gay and straight, black and white, Kazakhs and Americans, Jews and Christian evangelists, New-yorkers and Southerns, celebrities and middle America, stage parents and terrorists. But even after he insults us so much, I still believe we really need him. Not just because he is supremely talented- perhaps the best comedian of our times- but more because we do need somebody really courageous who pushes all limits and holds a mirror for us to see our not so beautiful face.

The New Sardars of Bollywood

Since early days, Bollywood or Hindi film industry has been dominated by Punjabis. Many producers, directors, writers and especially heroes of the past were Punjabis. Quite a few among those Punjabis were either Sikhs or came from mixed Hindu-Sikh Punjabi families. But still the Sikh characters in Hindi films during those days were mostly reduced to stereotypes. Either they were there to provide a comic angle or to play an over the top super nice/super brave character. I guess the reason that in spite of the presence of many Punjabis at the helm of affairs during those days, we still didnt ever see a full Sardar as a hero was that both producers and the directors thought that a turbaned Sikh with a beard wont find much takers among the masses. Also, remember that those were the times when even some Muslim actors and actresses changed their names to more North Indian sounding Hindu names. I guess most people wanted to play safe in the still nascent Bombay film industry of the 50′s and the 60′s.