Author: Lavina Melwani

If it’s summer, can a big fat Indian wedding be far behind? The wedding which is creating the most buzz this season is Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding!

Mughal-e-Azam the musical has come to America – meet the director Feroz Abbas Khan and hear the story behind the epic which has won acclaim in India and the Diaspora.

To bite into a mango and get that sweet, sticky juice squirting all over your chin and clothes is to drift back into blissful childhood, into days that seemed to have no beginning and no end.

A Mughal Evening in New York’s only Indo-Persian Garden…

Monsoon Wedding comes to the stage at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn – the hottest Indian wedding of the year created by Mira Nair

NYIFF –  The Stories of Our Lives on the Big Screen Cinema, Cinema and Bollywood Stars too! Missing the joy of endless cinema, conversations about films and brushing shoulders with stars, directors and film people? You’re in luck – the much loved and anticipated New York Indian Film Festival is happening right now! This is an annual feature as welcome as Spring and outdoor dining in New York! So get yourself to Angelika Theater to see some really thought-provoking cinema curated by Aseem Chhabra, director of NYIFF, and his team. For those used to streaming movies, this is a real…

Ranee and Aparna Ramaswamy’s Ragamala Dance Company, now in its 30th year, is an independent dance company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Over the years it has had a dance dialogue with national and international artistes

A Fireside chat with Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee and Prof. Priya Natarajan at the Bathouse

What was special this year was that for the first time India has a president from the tribal community ( she is the second woman president in India – Pratibha Patil was the first) and Rashtrapati Bhavan is her home. Prebsident Droupadi Murmu renamed the gardens, which were created by the British in 1929, as ‘Amrit Udyan’ meaning ‘Garden of the Holy Nectar’.

Hanuman Chalisa is one of the most beloved texts of Hinduism and consists of 40 verses (40 is chalis in Hindi) in praise of Hanuman.  It is written by Tulsidas, who is also the author of Ramchaitmanas or the Tulsi Ramayana.

A visit to YO1 Longevity and Health Resort in the Catskills

The South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art auction at Christies achieved a total of $11,978,670.
The top lot of the sale was Manjit Bawa’s Untitled (Durga), which realized $1,980,000, a new global auction record for the artist

An Asia Week Celebration at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

South Asian contemporary and modern art is highlighted at the Christie’s auction during Asia Week in New York

Asia Week comes to New York and some reporters take a walk to 17 galleries to check out some of the art from Asia.

Naatu Naatu wins an Oscar – and a live performance on the Academy stage! RRR was by far my most favorite movie this year from India – and I think it deserved to win a few more Oscars! I have seen it so many times and I never tire of it.  However it was a thrill to see that ‘Naatu Naatu’ won the Oscar for best original song for M.M. Keeravni and Chandrabose and it was performed live on the stage at the Oscars. It was choreographed by Prem Rakshith. There was another secret Indian factor –  you remember our…

The Elephant Whisperers bagged Oscars for best short documentary for Guneet Monga and Kartiki Gonsalves

A Place in the Oscar sun for South Asians

Black History Month was celebrated at the Indian Consulate in New York to mark the close linkages and common struggles for freedom for both India and African nations.

It’s Holi! An appropriate time to share the exuberance of filmmaker Prashant Bhargavas’s film ‘Radhe Radhe’