A screenshot showing Madhur Jaffrey in the 'Nani' music video. YouTube
A screenshot showing Madhur Jaffrey in the 'Nani' music video. YouTube
A screenshot showing Madhur Jaffrey in the 'Nani' music video. YouTube
A screenshot showing Madhur Jaffrey in the 'Nani' music video. YouTube

How rapper Mr Cardamom brought out the rebellious side of Madhur Jaffrey


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In a career spanning six long and illustrious decades, renowned actress and culinary legend Madhur Jaffrey has been seen in varied avatars.

She has won awards for her acting talent in film, several of her cookbooks have won James Beard Foundation Awards (considered the Oscars of cooking), including the revered Cookbook Hall of Fame Award, and she has earned herself a reputation as "the godmother of Indian cooking", thanks to several hugely popular TV shows from the '80s and '90s, in which she is seen introducing the world to the rich spices and flavours of Indian cuisine.

With such a long list of accomplishments to her name, you'd be forgiven for thinking there's precious little that could stoke the creative fires of Jaffrey at the grand age of 85. The truth, as it turns out, couldn't be more different.

Zohran Mamdani, aka Mr Cardamom, who wrote the song. Getty Images
Zohran Mamdani, aka Mr Cardamom, who wrote the song. Getty Images

The world recently saw the diminutive actress as a foul-mouthed grandmother in the YouTube video for Nani, a rap song by a little-known American-Indian singer and songwriter who goes by Mr Cardamom. The delightfully cheeky song has the otherwise mild-mannered Jaffrey sporting a canary-yellow beret over a snowy white wig, mouthing lyrics full of expletives as she traipses across New York City, dancing in a food truck, in the subway, at the supermarket … all the while making profane gestures, and even planting several loud, stinging, thwacks across the faces of young men who annoy her.

A little over two weeks old, the song has already won the hearts of young men and women around the world, particularly those with roots in eastern cultures. An obvious reason is Mr Cardamom's deliberate and complete departure from the norm. The loveable "nani", or maternal grandmother in Hindi, is almost always seen as a gentle, docile character in pop culture, not someone who would slap her son-in-law because he berated her for "meddling" or "neglecting her duties".

"You can't show nani her place," Zohran Mamdani, or Mr Cardamom, 27, tells The National. "The world is her place and she'll do what she wants," he says with a laugh.

Mamdani recorded the song almost two years ago as a dedication to his own grandmother, Dr Praveen Nair, then 85 and a children's welfare activist from India, to whom he is very close. Landing Jaffrey for the video was a stroke of luck. "A friend thought Madhur Ji would be great for the part. I was excited, but I didn't know her personally. A few months later, I was discussing the song with another friend who happened to know Madhur Ji and volunteered to email her on my behalf.

“After a few rounds with her manager and agents, I found myself being invited to her home in New York for tea. I didn’t even have a script at the time. I explained my idea to her and she was excited. And just like that, she was on board. I wrote the script after that.”

Madhur Jaffrey, as she's more often seen. Getty Images
Madhur Jaffrey, as she's more often seen. Getty Images

Mamdani can best be described as a part-time fledgling musician. He has a demanding full-time job that involves counselling people in financial crisis on how they can save their homes from foreclosure. His claim to musical fame is the song, #1 Spice, which he recorded with childhood friend and rap artist HAB for his mother, internationally acclaimed filmmaker Mira Nair's 2016 film Queen Of Katwe.

In the four years since he started making music professionally, he has only produced 10 songs. Nani, too, was shot and recorded on a shoestring budget, using Mamdani's own savings. Naturally, the prospect of working with someone as prolific as Jaffrey was a daunting one. After all, the scale of her popularity and versatility has spanned the length and breadth of her roughly 60-year career.

Jaffrey started her professional journey with small parts in radio plays and children's programmes for the All India Radio in India pre-independence while still in school. She went on to become an acclaimed actress (winning the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin International Film Festival for her role in the 1995 movie Shakespeare ­Wallah), and appeared in dozens of films and television series. Jaffrey's culinary career skyrocketed in the 1970s with the release of her first cookbook, An Invitation To Indian Cooking in 1973, and she has since published 30 more, with another in the works.  


Despite the differences in their professional statures, Mamdani describes the experience of working with Jaffrey as one of the most enriching ones in his life. "It's humbling to see how easy Madhur Ji was to work with. She's unfamiliar with rap, so she was worried about lip-syncing at that speed to keep to the beat of the song, but we worked through that with several practice sessions. You feel a bit self-­conscious about asking someone so experienced to give multiple takes, especially when you're a newbie. But she never once made us feel awkward about it," he says.

Jaffrey, Mamdani tells me, also refused her fee – already just a token amount – for the video. "She asked me to put it towards the cost of production. She only wanted to keep the yellow beret she wears in the song," laughs Mamdani. "And what nani wants, nani gets." Indeed.

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BIGGEST CYBER SECURITY INCIDENTS IN RECENT TIMES

SolarWinds supply chain attack: Came to light in December 2020 but had taken root for several months, compromising major tech companies, governments and its entities

Microsoft Exchange server exploitation: March 2021; attackers used a vulnerability to steal emails

Kaseya attack: July 2021; ransomware hit perpetrated REvil, resulting in severe downtime for more than 1,000 companies

Log4j breach: December 2021; attackers exploited the Java-written code to inflitrate businesses and governments

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'Moonshot'

Director: Chris Winterbauer

Stars: Lana Condor and Cole Sprouse 

Rating: 3/5

MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW

Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman

Director: Jesse Armstrong

Rating: 3.5/5

Our family matters legal consultant

Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais

Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.

Abu Dhabi traffic facts

Drivers in Abu Dhabi spend 10 per cent longer in congested conditions than they would on a free-flowing road

The highest volume of traffic on the roads is found between 7am and 8am on a Sunday.

Travelling before 7am on a Sunday could save up to four hours per year on a 30-minute commute.

The day was the least congestion in Abu Dhabi in 2019 was Tuesday, August 13.

The highest levels of traffic were found on Sunday, November 10.

Drivers in Abu Dhabi lost 41 hours spent in traffic jams in rush hour during 2019

 

The%20specs
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Libya's Gold

UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves. 

The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.

Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.

INVESTMENT PLEDGES

Cartlow: $13.4m

Rabbitmart: $14m

Smileneo: $5.8m

Soum: $4m

imVentures: $100m

Plug and Play: $25m

Race card

4pm Al Bastakiya Listed US$300,000 (Dirt) 1,900m

4.35pm Mahab Al Shimaal Group 3 $350,000 (D) 1,200m

5.10pm Nad Al Sheba Turf Group 3 $350,000 (Turf) 1,200m

5.45pm Burj Nahaar Group 3 $350,000 (D) 1,600m

6.20pm Jebel Hatta Group 1 $400,000 (T) 1,800m

6.55pm Al Maktoum Challenge Round-3 Group 1 $600,000 (D) 2,000m

7.30pm Dubai City Of Gold Group 2 $350,000 (T) 2,410m

The National selections:

4pm Zabardast

4.35pm Ibn Malik

5.10pm Space Blues

5.45pm Kimbear

6.20pm Barney Roy

6.55pm Matterhorn

7.30pm Defoe

Company profile

Date started: 2015

Founder: John Tsioris and Ioanna Angelidaki

Based: Dubai

Sector: Online grocery delivery

Staff: 200

Funding: Undisclosed, but investors include the Jabbar Internet Group and Venture Friends

Tonight's Chat on The National

Tonight's Chat is a series of online conversations on The National. The series features a diverse range of celebrities, politicians and business leaders from around the Arab world.

Tonight’s Chat host Ricardo Karam is a renowned author and broadcaster who has previously interviewed Bill Gates, Carlos Ghosn, Andre Agassi and the late Zaha Hadid, among others.

Intellectually curious and thought-provoking, Tonight’s Chat moves the conversation forward.

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German intelligence warnings
  • 2002: "Hezbollah supporters feared becoming a target of security services because of the effects of [9/11] ... discussions on Hezbollah policy moved from mosques into smaller circles in private homes." Supporters in Germany: 800
  • 2013: "Financial and logistical support from Germany for Hezbollah in Lebanon supports the armed struggle against Israel ... Hezbollah supporters in Germany hold back from actions that would gain publicity." Supporters in Germany: 950
  • 2023: "It must be reckoned with that Hezbollah will continue to plan terrorist actions outside the Middle East against Israel or Israeli interests." Supporters in Germany: 1,250 

Source: Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution

Scoreline

Switzerland 5

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The biog

Job: Fitness entrepreneur, body-builder and trainer

Favourite superhero: Batman

Favourite quote: We must become the change we want to see, by Mahatma Gandhi.

Favourite car: Lamborghini

Living in...

This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home. 

Visit Abu Dhabi culinary team's top Emirati restaurants in Abu Dhabi

Yadoo’s House Restaurant & Cafe

For the karak and Yoodo's house platter with includes eggs, balaleet, khamir and chebab bread.

Golden Dallah

For the cappuccino, luqaimat and aseeda.

Al Mrzab Restaurant

For the shrimp murabian and Kuwaiti options including Kuwaiti machboos with kebab and spicy sauce.

Al Derwaza

For the fish hubul, regag bread, biryani and special seafood soup. 

THE LOWDOWN

Romeo Akbar Walter

Rating: 2/5 stars
Produced by: Dharma Productions, Azure Entertainment
Directed by: Robby Grewal
Cast: John Abraham, Mouni Roy, Jackie Shroff and Sikandar Kher 

The specs

Engine: 3.8-litre, twin-turbo V8

Transmission: seven-speed automatic

Power: 592bhp

Torque: 620Nm

Price: Dh980,000

On sale: now

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Unresolved crisis

Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a bitter conflict since 2014, when Ukraine’s Kremlin-friendly president was ousted, Moscow annexed Crimea and then backed a separatist insurgency in the east.

Fighting between the Russia-backed rebels and Ukrainian forces has killed more than 14,000 people. In 2015, France and Germany helped broker a peace deal, known as the Minsk agreements, that ended large-scale hostilities but failed to bring a political settlement of the conflict.

The Kremlin has repeatedly accused Kiev of sabotaging the deal, and Ukrainian officials in recent weeks said that implementing it in full would hurt Ukraine.