Madhur Jaffrey, the elegant, 85-year-old culinary icon and award-winning actress, has a wild new avatar, thanks to Queens desi rapper Mr. Cardomom, known in real life as Zohran Mamdani – and she couldn’t be more pleased.
Author: Lavina Melwani
Lavina Melwani
Lavina Melwani is a New York-based journalist who writes for several international publications. Twitter@lavinamelwani & @lassiwithlavina Sign up for the free newsletter to get your dose of Lassi!
A new study MASALA has some startling new facts for Indians, heart disease, and diabetes. The two investigators are Dr. Alka Kanaya & Dr. Namratha Kandula
Kalank is about love and violence in time of partition and tells the story of six entangled lives.
Learning Upgrade, a small business in California headed by Vinod Lobo has hit the big times by being selected as the co-winner for the grand prize in the $7M Barbara Bush Foundation Adult Literacy X PRIZE.
Shiraz – A Romance of India’, one of India’s films of the silent era, has the distinction of being reviewed twice in The New York Times – once in 1929 when it was first released and now in 2019 in its new avatar. The film which has had a 2 K restoration by the British Film Institute and a fabulous new musical score by Anoushka Shankar has been shown in several US cities
Indian-American students are among the 40 finalists in the Regeneron Science Talent Search
Adda’ means a hangout in Hindi and New York’s Adda India Canteen is exactly that – a small homey place in an industrial neighborhood in Queens, next to a 711 and set close to a rumbling overhead subway track, small businesses and a community college in prosaic Long Island City, away from Manhattan’s frenetic dining world.
In my column, From Me to You, I share the tale of the last rose which battled the snowfall to tell us about optimism and beauty and how we can go out in a blaze of joy and color.
Ek Ladki Ko Dekha To Aisa Laga’ begins, in true Bollywood fashion, with a Big Fat Indian wedding but as you meet the people in this universe you soon realize that it’s not more of the same and that Bollywood is actually taking some risks.
On Valentine’s Day we share some of the fabulous chocolates and desserts created by Indian pastry chefs, culinary experts and entrepreneurs – and to add some extra sweetness, we also unearth their personal romance tales, from New Delhi to New York! Meet Divya Burman, Shefalee Patel, Monica Bhide, Surbhi Sahni and Aarti Mahtani Raman – taste their chocolates and hear what Valentine’s Day mean to them. We ran this story last year – and this year it’s twice as sweet!
Forget the Vedas, forget the Bible, now we are getting infinite wisdom from chocolate wrappers! When did we start consulting our chocolates for knowledge about life and living?
No matter which part of the world Indian immigrants live in, they each carry with them their special memories of India filed away in their heads and hearts. For these diasporic Indians, many now with hyphenated identities, India’s Republic Day does bring in a whole lot of memories and a feeling of pride in being a part of India, and India being a part of their emotional DNA.
Nashville, Tennessee is the home of American country music but now it’s also getting known as the home of Indian street foods, thanks to Maneet Chauhan, 42, who is striking some spicy notes in Nashville with her brand new restaurant Chaatable which brings the delight of Mumbai street food to Nashville.
Calcutta was once known as ‘City of Palaces’ and in the days of the British Raj there were opulent buildings built by the rulers as well as the Bengal elite. Today many of these grand structures are in decay and a passionate chronicler of these disappearing stories is Prabir C. Purkayastha, award-winning photojournalist who tells evocative tales through his camera.
Purkayastha was recently in New York where the Sundaram Tagore Gallery showcased Stories in Stone: Colonial Calcutta, images which tell the story of grand edifices in decline.
Hers is a true immigrant story of an unknown brown woman who came to America as a 16-year-old student and rose to become a powerful Congresswoman, the very first Indian-American woman in the US House of Representatives in the history of America.
These Monday motivations will get you through Monday – or any day! They are about persistence, joy and gratitude.
When Chandrika Tandon first came to America at the age of 24 to interview for a job at McKinsey& Company, she had no American degree and no green card. She did not even own a western outfit, interviewing in a sari and chappals, wearing a borrowed coat. Yet within a few years she went on to become a partner at this prestigious company, the first Indian-American woman to be selected.
Most viewers in America have seen or at least heard of ‘New Amsterdam’ the NBC medical drama which has brought actor Anupam Kher to New York. In fact, as work becomes increasingly global, more and more Indians live on two continents, and actor Anupam Kher is the latest to call both Mumbai and New York home.
Can South Asians survive without cinema? I think not. It’s the surreal chicken tikka of their dreams, the spicy samosa of their entertainment. There are desi film festivals in many US cities, and NY as not one but two festivals back to back.
Books of every stripe, the Internet and family folk lore are full of great advice on how to live life – the trouble is it’s an overwhelming tsunami of information!
What do you read, what do you absorb and what do you discard? It’s like having an unending army of guides to take you through the maze of life!
Let’s take the journey together!