Author: Lavina Melwani

Anurag Kashyap. Aparna Sen. Buddhadeb Dasgupta. Gurinder Chadha. Nagesh Kuknoor. Nagraj Manjule. What if they all wandered into the New York night with megaphones and cameras and created their own tapestry of the city? While that did not happen, the combined star wattage of several talented directors certainly amped up the proceedings at the recent New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF).

It was quite surreal to sit just seats away from noted directors and dissect the movies with them after the screenings. What you realized was that all these directors were passionate fans of cinema and as anxious to catch new, offbeat films as the next moviegoer!

Lavina’s Picks – Cruising the Web. There’s info overload, so what do you read? Well, certainly about George Clooney’s upcoming wedding to Amal Alamuddin! Also about Zubin Mehta’s passion – chilies and his love affair with Indian food. And all about the young Indian-American who created E-Mail!

The most beloved god in the Hindu pantheon is surely Ganesha, the son of Shiva and Parvati. He is the God of Auspicious Beginnings, the one whose presence assures the success of any venture. Whether it is the birth of a child, the opening of a new business or even the buying of a new car, nothing begins without the blessings of the Elephant-headed God. He is beloved by students too because a prayer to Him ensures better grades in an exam.
So it is no surprise that Lord Ganesha’s birthday is a time for great joy and celebration. Ganesh Chaturthi is the 9 day festival celebrating the birth of this joyful deity and is one of the most colorful Hindu festivals. This year the festival is celebrated from September 11 to 20th.

“For most of the dancers, our childhoods were tinged with nostalgia for a life we never actually had,” says Payal Kadakia, New York based dancer and artistic director of Sa Dance Company. “Our memories are lush with images, songs, stories we heard from our grandparents, parents, or picked up during extended trips to India.”

The dancers have varied dance experiences from Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, Odissi, Kathak, to folk dances like Garba, Bhangra, Rajasthani, as well as Jazz, Ballet and Hip-Hop. As she adds, “it’s about time we address this fragmented, dislocated subconscious. Through dance we are attempting just that; not to create a new identity but to shape the one we have.”

Forget sex, forget travel, the biggest fantasies people seem to have are about – Indian food! Yes, home-cooked comfort food just like mom made. The fantasy is to have such a meal whenever and wherever the urge arises – with minimal effort.

Well, that’ s a reality now thanks to Saffron Fix, a brand new creation by two entrepreneurs, Ankita Sharma and Madhuri Sharma.There is such a hunger for this that the duo, hoping to raise $10,000 on Kickstarter, were rewarded within days with $13,761 – and are still going strong.

I had just got out of my car when I came across two complete opposites, the big and the small, the tall and the short – a humungous stretch limousine and one of the tiniest cars I’ve ever seen, one of the frugal Smart cars.

The difference between the two was so dramatic that I couldn’t help thinking of the very different lives these two autos must be leading. One would need a huge garage, an unending supply of gas to guzzle and a chauffeur to pamper it; the other, no gas, no space, no fuss. One looked a star, the other a sparrow. A little like different human lives, of kings and commoners.

Indian cooking fans! Welcome to Lassi with Lavina’s blog which flies you to quite another universe – Foodiesphere! Alka Keswani of Sindhi Rasoi.shares some very authentic, typical home recipes for vegetarian Sindhi food which have been made by grandmas and mothers for decades. Sindh is the lost homeland of hundreds of thousands of Hindu Sindhis who had to flee as refugees in the Partition of 1947, and their food, culture and language are the anchors they hold on to.

Bollywood superstars hardly ever play second fiddle to anyone – be it heroines or villains. They dance with beauties who are often just icing on the cake and they bash carloads of villains. Yet now we have Bollywood biggie Akshay Kumar deferring to – a dog!

In ‘Entertainment’, a fun comedy being released this week, it’s a dog’s life for the swashbuckling Akshay as he competes with man’s best friend for his family inheritance – and what can one say but – may the best dog win! Yes, this dog does everything – even get married! And the Big Fat Indian Wedding is quite hilarious. An interview with Akshay Kumar on everything from dogs to dreams.

Ah – social media – amazing space! You never know whom you’re going to meet! Today I was introduced to someone who is, among other things, in his own words, a very good bad boy, a brain eater, a back bencher, a heart stealer, a true liar, a truth finder, and “very anger – but I know it’s very danger.”

Bad English, wacky lyrics, home-grown philosophy – I really don’t know what to make of him! Meet Vennu Mallesh, a pop singer from Hyderabad who’s had 3,995,102 views on Youtube for his Vennglish song “It’s My Life whatever I wanna Do ”

Sometimes entire worlds disappear yet art survives and tells us the stories which would have remained untold. Fabulous life-sized images of Shiva, Vishnu, Ganesha, and a pantheon of Hindu Gods have been unearthed in Southeast Asia and they look not quite like the deities as we know them in India. The features seem Southeast Asian, the headgear is different but there is no doubt as to their Supreme Power. Though the inspiration is Indian, local aesthetics and local artists have given these vibrant, exquisite masterpieces of Hindu and Buddhist icons a flavor all their own.

For the first time, the cream of the cream of the treasures have been gathered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York: – ‘Lost Kingdoms – Hindu Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia’ which brings to light this long-forgotten world.

I wouldn’t want to be in this valet’s shoes! One false move and hundreds of thousands of dollars down the drain! No one knows exactly what happened but he managed to crash a $400,000 white Lamborghini Gallardo at Le Meridien Hotel in New Delhi. A very expensive evening out for the owner. Check out the video.

Holy cow, the world get’s crazier by the day! This veggie burger is made with 100 percent beef. Where’s the logic?

Vegetarians who wouldn’t even dream of breathing on fries which were cooked in beef tallow are now expected to eat vegetarian burgers made of beef? Aggrieved parties who eat these 100 percent beef burgers masquerading as veggie burgers may insist on plane tickets to Haridwar so they can dip for atonement in the sacred Ganges!

It costs nothing and you can’t buy it in a store. Yet we all hanker for it. We are talking, of course, about “Happiness” and everyone wants it. There’s nobody who says “I want to be unhappy. I want sorrow.” Yet, happiness is elusive. We all think we will be happy if only we could change our job, our spouse, our status, our lives. If only, if only!

The change happens and initially we are happy but very soon we are once again needing some other change to be really happy.
But what is real, lasting happiness – and how do we find it?

These things were probably not in your formal education but really useful stuff to know if you’re traveling to India!

Did you know the top ten phrases Mumbai cops use to ask for bribes?

Did you know bagpipe music is played at Indian weddings?

Did you know this luxury bathroom showroom existed in India where millions don’t have access to toilet facilities?
Did you know there’s a town where you can get training if your life’s ambition is to be a disco bouncer?

Read on for bits and pieces of wisdom from the web…

You have to give it to South Asians for out-of-the-box thinking. No access to a school bus? An auto-rickshaw will do.
No budget? How about a bicycle with seating made out of a plastic crate which fits two school kids and gets them where they have to go?
Not the ideal solution and certainly not the safest but typical of what is known in India as ‘jugaad’.

I was in the fabulous Udaivilas in Udaipur, enjoying the morning breakfast feast, when my eyes lit up. No, it wasn’t some grand Rajput jewels which had so excited me, though these gems I speak of were a rich golden orange and came wrapped in a delicate outer covering of gossamer beige.

She is Bollywood’s Sweetheart for everyone in the cinema halls, from front benchers to the elite. But don’t let those dimples fool you – Preity Zinta is one of the smartest women in Bollywood who takes on tough challenges, is fearlessly outspoken and is the proud co-owner of the IPL Kings XI Punjab, along with ex-boy friend industrialist Ness Wadia.

The two are very much in the news, due to the FIR lodged by Preity Zinta, accusing Ness Wadia of molestation. The media is agog with all the details. While all that works itself out, I thought I’d share a chat I had with her some years back.

‘Anti-rape jeans’ – the term seems to have gone viral on social media. A link to an article that I posted about this phenomenon was seen by over 190,114 people on the Lassi with Lavina page, over 22,126 have clicked on the shortlink and 228 have shared it. The result to articles in the Guardian and Daily Mail are even more mind-boggling – with over 9660 shares.

Clearly, this is a topic which strikes a chord with everyone. According to statistics, a rape occurs every 22 minutes somewhere in India and each case diminishes us all. Everyone is sick to the heart, is looking for solutions and every new idea is welcomed because it brings hope for change.

This mesmerizing image by the artist Anil Revri is called Ram Darwaza – and you wonder why.
“These works pay homage to my mother. A leading exponent of the classical Indian Dance forms of Bharat Natyam and Kuchipudi she had, in her final days, expressed a great desire to be able to enter into one of my geometric compositions, and, accompanied by Lord Rama, dance her way into the distant horizon.”
This painting has just been acquired by the Asian Art Museum in Berlin.

What better way to grab victory from the jaws of defeat than to watch ‘Million Dollar Arm’, Disney’s fun tale of two village kids from India making it in the big, big world of professional baseball in America?

The fact that this is a true story makes it all the more enjoyable and relevant. The film stars ‘Mad Men’ star Jon Hamm, along with Lake Bell, Madhur Mittal, Aasif Mandvi and Suraj Sharma in a very likeable film. A benefit screening in NYC raised $5000 for AmeriCares India