niharika, queen of the screen

It was a sad sad sad sad day last week when I flipped to MTV Desi (Indian-American music channel) and saw some odd programming. It seems MTV decided to do away with MTV World--which includes Chi (Chinese), K (Korean) and Desi--effective May 1.

As you know, I only procured entrance into the wild world of cable television last year. Since then, I have formed a lifelong bond with my DVR and made oh so many friends, like Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs, Stacy London and Clinton Kelly from What Not to Wear and Parvati Aggarwal from Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki (that last one is purely for Hindi education, I swear). One of my biggest guilty pleasures was MTV Desi.

That channel actually(!) showed videos. Lineups included musicians I'd never otherwise have heard of, like Karmacy, Jay Sean, Goldspot, Mentor Kolektiv, plus the standard hoochie-filled Bollywood videos and Bhangra. It was nice to see my fellow brown peeps making it big at something other than medicine and engineering, and especially nice to fall asleep to when I'd get home from the dungeon at 4 a.m. But I guess there wasn't much of an audience; I wouldn't have even discovered it if it wasn't part of the DirecTV package the roommates get.

What I'll miss most is Niharika Desai, the VJ whose approach really grew on me. That's probably because if I'd had the opportunity, I would have tackled the job with much the same attitude. It was refreshing to see somebody who grew up like me being able to express our bi-cultural heritage in a fun way, explaining without being condescending. There's too much that divides people already and it's true, you don't have to be perfect at the language or run around with a long braid and anklets to be a considered a desi woman. Thanks, Nee-hAAr-eeka. You keep on truckin', girl.

You can see some of what's left at the online version. I guess I'll go back to watching subtitled Korean soap operas late at night, when I can't sleep.