Author: 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!

It’s almost an annual rite of Spring – the Children’s Hope India luncheon in New York – where women come together to celebrate the end of winter with a joyous get-together which supports the girl child. It was all about women helping women and women celebrating women.

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 11,431 people reached on Lassi with Lavina FB page – 1214 post clicks – 111 Likes  Rita Sharma, Sonika Pal and 91 others like it on Lassi with Lavina FB page 341 views on LinkedIn  Anita Dongre Takes Manhattan [dropcap]D[/dropcap]uchess Kate Middleton, Hillary Clinton, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, Hollywood and Bollywood stars have worn her clothes – and now so can you! Yes, we are speaking of Anita Dongre, one of India’s most loved designers. And now you don’t even have to go all the way to India to get her current Spring/Summer 2018 collection. No air ticket needed –  just hop…

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Yes, it’s that time of the year when New Yorkers get wrapped up in intriguing cinema from the Indian sub-continent, wonderful stories of the diaspora and varied lives – thanks to the New York Indian Film Festival  (NYIFF) which has been a gift of the Indo-American Arts Council and Aroon Shivdasani to New York City

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A vegetarian Sindhi meal at the James Beard House is indeed a unique event, and the one selected to introduce it to the larger world is Chef Roshni Gurnani who is the chef at Hotel Derek in  Houston, Texas. She offered a really old world treat for gourmets but as interpreted by a modern day Sindhi chef.

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In the 60’s this bitter-sweet story about changing times and a changing India became a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and was made into ‘Shakespearewallah’ – a winsome little gem of a film by the intrepid team of James Ivory and Ismail Merchant – just their second venture after ‘The Householder’.

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The New York Indian Film Festival, organized by the Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC)  has always prided itself on being about real people, ordinary people, and at the cinematic table there’s room for stories from every kind of independent film maker, in every format and in every regional language.

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Ten ticking minutes which won’t ever come back are a valuable commodity.
You could spend them waiting for the subway train to arrive or watching your chicken biryani cook on the stove.
Or you could spend ten minutes having a most happening conversation with the very happening Kumail Nanjiani! Well, that’s what I was lucky enough to do – and I tried to squeeze an hour’s conversation into those ten minutes – and we really talked fast!

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For those who’ve lived in and loved Calcutta – or Kolkata as it’s now known – feasting is an important part of life. Here four Bengali-Americans share their best memories of the city’s innumerable, incomparable eats: Partha Banerjee, NY activist, talks of his favorite haunts in his favorite city; Mukti Banerjee, home cook, shares some delicious Bengali food through her meetup group in Brooklyn; Kriti Mukherjee, foodie and consultant, reflects on the importance of food in a Bengali’s life, and businesswoman Priyashmita Guha shares a tale about eating street foods with her father in Maddox Square.

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Indian immigrants who have spent time in the homeland will remember their childhood passion for Cadbury chocolates – the only big brand available in India in the good old days! In those days chocolate was a rarity and a treat. NRI relatives visiting India would always be asked to bring back  just about any kind of ‘foreign’ chocolate and as much as could fit into a suitcase. Now some of them are turning into chocolate-preneurs!

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