Author: Lavina Melwani

Guess who’s in town? Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Shah Rukh Khan, Hrithik Roshan and Kareena Kapoor! They are all in Times Square and why this hasn’t quite caused a stampede yet is because they are not quite the real thing. Not even the reel thing. They are here in the wax! At Madame Tussauds, traveling all the way from London.

For thousands of fans this may be the closest they’ll get to the Bollywood superstars. You can stand inches away from them, breathe the same air and even get your photograph with them! True, Amitabh Bachchan can’t give you his autograph nor will you hear Aishwariya’s voice or Kareena’s laugh. Nor will King Khan rattle off an inimitable dialogue for you. But you can stand real close and maybe even shake their hand or sneak a hug! Won’t your friends weep with envy when they see your photo with Hrithik Roshan? Who’s to know he’s a fake?

Every day is an opportunity to learn something new and enter new worlds.
Here are three great events during April and May which guarantee you a new perspective and maybe even help you mobilize a new talent.
Really Useful News tells you about free lectures on innovations in technology sponsored by Tata at the Liberty Science Center; free scholarships for Indian students by the Government of India; a free art exhibition at the undiscovered architectural gem of the Flushing Town Hall in Queens, and more. The best things in life are free!

Ah – March! Comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb – not! Just yesterday New York was suddenly blanketed in snow even as the floral buds were beginning to bloom in our backyards.

Today it’s supposed to be officially spring. So let’s think positive and prepare for a glorious golden season. And if spring is here, glorious summer and the barbecue season can’t be far behind!

Hemant Mathur, the noted chef of Tulsi, creates classic Indian tandoor dishes in the Homdoor, a Made in America tandoor.

Call for Artists, Graphic Artists and Photographers by the Indian-American Project

What do you think of the H 1-B Visa? What are your thoughts on Immigration, outsourcing and the diaspora? If you’re an artist or photographer who can put these experiences into art, the Smithsonian wants you!

“I wish that my family could pay our electricity bill because I would really like to study in the evenings but I can’t. Also, every morning I wake up with 5 new mosquito bites and I don’t like it.” – Laxmi, 8

“I wish that we had more computers because I love computer class but I get impatient having to wait my turn!”- Mansi, 13

“I wish that I could go for driver training. I LOVE cars and everything mechanical.” – Jeetu, 16.
Such small, modest dreams. The young professionals supporting Children’s Hope India granted all these in one evening of fun – Winter, Wine and Wishes.

It’s true – there’s hardly an Urdu couplet without the mention of wine, yet wine has rarely been part of an Indian meal. So it was only a matter of time before you had an entrepreneur looking to fill this gap. Sam Bhatia has just introduced a trio of offerings under the name of the poet Mirza Ghalib to the American market.

The name of the company is even more ambitious – Sufi Wines. Says Bhatia, “The Sufis were people who celebrated life, art and poetry, We wanted our wines to invoke that kind of creative spirit in the people who drink it, and so we named our company Sufi Wines.”

In the larger scheme of things, what does one minute signify? Nothing. Yet in the universe created by Radhika Khanna, fashion entrepreneur and yoga expert, these mini one-minute poses can translate into the difference between stress and calm, good energy and bad health. In fact, utilized well, these minutes can make all the difference in the world of busy professionals.

Khanna knows through her own experience, because yoga literally saved her life. While working in the fashion industry in New York, she got Lupus, for which there is no cure. Normal, day-to-day life was a thing of the past and she found after many treatments that yoga was her best ally in fighting this disease.

This Valentine’s Day women finally sent a valentine to themselves. Isn’t It about time? After having always put themselves last, isn’t it time to love themselves, to stand up for themselves? Jyoti Singh Pandya was the catalyst for the awakening, for the realization that no one is going to watch out for women but women themselves.

The candlelit vigils, the protest marches and finally the opening up of the floodgates: women are now openly talking of the abuse, the violence so many of them have faced in silence, the covering quilt that has been thrown over transgressions within the family. Now women are talking about their trauma freely and in doing so are freeing up others to speak up too.

Can you appropriate two worlds? Or to put it less elegantly, can you eat your cake and have it too? The Sa Dancers once again prove that you can, shifting effortlessly as they do between the world of business and the world of fabulous dance.
Their latest showcase at the Alvin Ailey Theater showed how effortlessly they mix their roots and faraway homelands with the here and now of frenetic New York.

The SA Dance Company took an audience of over 200 people on a journey into Indian villages, sitting on an imaginary slow-moving boat, then to Mughal India, and yes, out into the pouring Indian monsoon. The music was a wonderful blend of folk and Bollywood, modern and pop and the dance steps spawned from many different choreographies created a pattern all their own.

So what’s on the menu? Chef Roshni Gurnani showcases Fusion Sushi, Curry Infused Swordfish with creamed spinach, and Coriander crusted rack of Lamb with Bombay smashed potato, baby carrots and an onion tomato salad. Bon Appétit!

Chef Roshni Gurnani’s earliest memory of cooking is having her own mini rolling pin set and of rolling out chapatis next to her mother. The first meal she ever cooked was at the age of 5 when she whipped up some eggs and toast. By the time she was 13, she was working at a local Toronto restaurant.

No surprise then that for Gurnani, food was destiny.

She became the winning contestant on the popular Food Network show Chopped, and also participated in Hell’s Kitchen. She went on to become executive chef at an elite club, supervising a staff of 22. She is now part of 5 Star Chefs, noted chefs who travel and cook around the country. Food has certainly taken Chef Rosh, as she is popularly known, full circle.

Imagine circling the world while sitting perfectly still, almost meditatively, in a darkened cinema hall. You witness real lives, real people in places as far apart as Bahia, Brazil, a Navajo reservation in New Mexico, and the isolated Arnhem Land in Australia. You see the differences between varied people but also the commonalities: people face love and loss, and try to make sense of being human, of grief, of injustice.
All these triumphs and tragedies of human existence are captured on camera by diverse filmmakers in films you may never get to see. This was after all at the Margaret Mead Film Festival at the American Museum of Natural History in New York – it is the oldest and best known festival for documentaries from around the world.

“These movies are NOT coming to a theater near you; they are limited distribution, truly independent films that come from around the globe,” says Bella Desai, Director of Public Programs and Exhibition Education.

They may not even have a passport or American visa but everyone from a farmer in an Indian village to a street urchin in Mumbai will have visited Times Square, Fifth Avenue and the skyscrapers of New York – thanks to all the Bollywood movies which are being shot in the US!

Indeed, location shooting in America seems to be one of the hottest trends in Indian cinema, and superstars like Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Rani Mukerjee, Katrina Kaif and Preity zinta have all danced their way through the streets of Manhattan.

Many in the Indian-American community will agree that they haven’t heard three more beautiful words than ‘Four More Years’ in this political season. Large numbers of Indian-Americans supported Obama and have stood by this president through thick and thin. So for many, his inauguration was particularly sweet; there was a feeling of relief, of contentment, a fuzzy feeling of security that the next four years, no matter how rough, were in good, workman-like hands. Bruised and battered, America was headed toward positive happenings.
What came through was he solemnity of the oath, the crowds as witness and participants; the pomp and circumstance of parades and inaugural balls. All part of the new beginning, a new year.

“My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it — so long as we seize it together,” said Obama and these words surely resonated with the millions watching live or at home.

Who would have thought Tribeca would turn into an outpost of Southern cooking – dosa, uttapam and sambhar, that is! For those who thought they have to go to Chennai or at least to Jackson Heights or Curry Hill for their sambhar and dosa hankerings, the place to head to is – Whole Foods Market.

Early immigrants would have just about fainted if they had heard that America’s tres chic Whole Foods supermarket has now got their finger-lickin’ fiery sambhar and choice of dosas and uttapams too.

Hari Nayak’s Semolina Dosa with Pulled Butter Chicken with Brie Cheese – recipe!

‘Matru ki Bijlee ka Mandola’ – it’s a real mouthful of a movie title but what a tasty morsel! It is a reminder of why I love going to the movies. At a time when so many Bollywood films are warmed up repeats of what’s gone before, films where you can easily check out the beginning and the ending, fast forward to a few item numbers on Netflix or simply watch a few song scenes on Youtube, Matru ki Bijlee is a film which is quite delicious and warrants watching.

They gathered in the dark, in the biting winter cold in Union Square, Manhattan’s instinctive gathering place for protests and vigils, for remembrance and for times of loss.
Encircled by towering buildings and rushing, frenzied traffic, they had come together, carrying lighted votives which glittered in the dark of the disappearing day.

It was appropriate that they had gathered here for though Jyoti Singh Pandey’s story may have taken place in a street in Delhi, it has gone on to become a global catalyst, not just for women but for men of good will, for all human beings.
Looking at the somber faces, not only Indian but of every race, one realized that sexual violence is something everyone has to contend with. I could even imagine Jyoti Singh Pandey, huddled in a coat with a votive in her hand, standing in solidarity with the crowd.
She was us and we were her.
(Photo: Athanasia Kotopoulos)

‘India’s Daughter’ – that is hardly an endearment, a belated title of honor for the courageous young woman, a citizen of India Shining, who was left to fend for herself in the crowded, uncaring streets.

Where was India when its daughter waited, waited late in the night for safe public transportation? Where was India as six goons brutally beat and raped her in a moving bus with tinted windows and curtains on public streets? Where was India when she and her male companion were beaten senseless, stripped and thrown from the bus like unwanted commodities?

We did not know her first name nor her last name. We would not have recognized her if we had met her face to face in the marketplace. Yet in her terrible travails, in her slow, excruciating death, she is us. Every Indian woman who exists anywhere in any country is related to her.

As we begin 2013, I invoke Ganesha, the God of New Beginnings.

Let there be peace.

Let there be love.

Let there be happiness for all.

A very lucky 2013 for everyone and a lot of joy!