Badmash.org was a

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google Search, Google, Facebook, Amaz ...

which hosted animations, sketches and video clips, as well as a regular

webcomic Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are comics published on a website or mobile app. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or comic books. Webcomics can be co ...

. A weekly email and print-media newsletters reached over a million people. The works on ''Badmash.org'' had a mix of political and social

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...

. The website was started by three friends, Sandeep Sood, Nimesh Patel and Sanjay Shah. Badmash is a

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

neologism A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...

, meaning "naughty".Maxwell, Kerry. ''MED Magazine'' (July 2005)
New Word of the Month
Archived fro

on 2007-09-28. ''Badmash.org'' weekly South Asian-themed animations — such as an Indian spoof of ''

The Simpsons ''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, ...

'' opening theme, nicknamed ''The Singhsons'' — drew millions of visitors to the website. The success of Sood, Patel, and Shah helped them earn consulting work for

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

New Line Cinema New Line Cinema is an American film production studio owned by Warner Bros. Discovery and is a film label of Warner Bros. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye as an independent film distribution company; later becoming a film studio after acq ...

and

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

Webcomic

The regular webcomic strip on ''Badmash.org'' features various regular characters, including Raju, one of the comic strip creators who is a Gujarati-American Hindu, his sister Beti, his traditional grandmother, his mom, his belligerent dad and his Sikh Punjabi friend who is also one of the comic strip creators. Beti also has a Desi friend named Meena. Also, there is an old

Sikh Sikhs ( or ; pa, ਸਿੱਖ, ' ) are people who adhere to Sikhism, Sikhism (Sikhi), a Monotheism, monotheistic religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Gu ...

taxicab driver and two culturally removed young Punjabi-American party boys named Motu and Chotu and Raju's dark skinned friend named Vivek. The comic strip deals with racial issues involving

Indian American Indian Americans or Indo-Americans are citizens of the United States with ancestry from India. The United States Census Bureau uses the term Asian Indian to avoid confusion with Native Americans, who have also historically been referred to ...

s in the United States. Some strips deal with South Asians being accused of terrorism. Others involve White America's misconception and intolerance about India,

Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...

, and

s which usually are confrontational. The misconceptions dealt with include negative stereotypes created by ''

the Simpsons ''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, ...

'' and ''

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom ''Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom'' is a 1984 American action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg. It is the second installment in the ''Indiana Jones'' franchise, and a prequel to the 1981 film ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'', fea ...

''. A few have Raju and Beti's interracial relationships with whites of the opposite sex. Some strips involve Indian social dances and Indian social pressures to only marry other Indians. It deals with some larger political issues. It comments on

Bobby Jindal Piyush "Bobby" Jindal (born June 10, 1971) is an American politician who served as the 55th Governor of Louisiana from 2008 to 2016. The only living former Louisiana governor, Jindal also served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives a ...

Sonia Gandhi Sonia Gandhi ('' née'' Maino; born 9 December 1946) is an Indian politician. She is the longest serving president of the Indian National Congress, a social democratic political party, which has governed India for most of its post-independ ...

, President Bush, and

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

Current status

The website moved to the domain name "badmash.tv" before becoming inactive in 2011.

References

*Chris Parnell at ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...

'' (2006-01-09)
Right to the Top
Archived fro
the original
on 2007-04-16. *Ismat Mangla at ''Nirali Magazine'' (November 2004)
Shamless: The Boys of Badmash
*Anand Shah at ''

India Currents ''India Currents'' is, according to the ''San Jose Mercury News'', "the oldest and largest Indian-American magazine on the West Coast" of the United States. Fully digital today, it earlier offered Northern California, Southern California, and Wa ...

'' (2004-07-13)
Pursuing Their Passion

External links

Badmash.tvBadmash in the Press
{{DEFAULTSORT:Badmash.Org 2003 webcomic debuts 2000s webcomics Asian-American mass media Indian-American culture Cultural depictions of Mahatma Gandhi Cultural depictions of George W. Bush Hinduism in popular culture American webcomics American comedy webcomics