Author: Lavina Melwani

Tired of your desk job and longing to take on the world? Love food and want to follow your culinary dreams? Yes, it can be done. Take a page or two from the game plan of Divya Gugnani, a New Yorker who chucked her day job to create her own nascent start-up, Behind the Burner.

It’s been chosen as a critic’s pick by The New York Times, and has received pretty glowing reviews in the west. Technically, I would agree, it’s a marvel but it didn’t get my heart – and with a film by Mani Ratnam, you expect things to happen to your heart.

The much anticipated ‘Raavan’ starring Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Vikram, the superstar from the south, and directed by the great director Mani Ratnam, who is idolized by the film industry as ‘Mani Sir’, should have been a terrific movie. Should have. Could have. But in the end, wasn’t.

Recently 12-year-old Akash Viswanath Mehta, founder of Kids for a Better Future, along with his 14-year-old brother Gautama and other volunteers, tried to deliver a warrant for the arrest of Warren Anderson, former CEO of Union Carbide, in Manhattan. Not much happened but at least some awareness was created, especially in the media. Even symbolism is better than no protest, because without protest, it’s an easy road to indifference, and eventually to forgetting.

Ah, the things citizens choose to tell their presidents! Recently a New York based Indian artist, Anand Patole, didn’t quite like what he saw in a newspaper picture of the big Nuclear Security Summit – President Barack Obama’s shoe was pointing like a missile toward the Indian prime minister!

So what did Patole do? He shot out a letter to the Prez, advising him that pointing one’s footwear at someone was a no-no in eastern culture.

If brainpower, great looks, accomplishments and sheer good intentions could be harnessed for solar energy, then you’d have quite a surplus at the AIF Awards Spring Gala held in the grand ballroom of Manhattan’s Hilton Hotel.

A quick glance of the crowded cocktail circuit and you spotted famous faces including Adi and Parmeshwar Godrej, Salman Rushdie, Richard Gere, Karan Johar and Madhur Jaffrey mingling with the brightest and most powerful of New York’s Indian-American corporate czars and entrepreneurs. Just the bold face names would have been enough to cause a surge in the NASDAQ numbers!

The surroundings could not have been better: the beautiful, peaceful Rubin Museum of Art was the venue for a gala fundraiser for a new school building for the children of Manjushree Orphanage in Tawang, India.

It’s not every day that something dearly loved by Indian parents becomes a Twitter trending topic but that’s what happened with the 2010 Scripps National Spelling Bee championship finals! We are speaking of course of the annual spelling-fest in which Indian children do so well, and which becomes a magnificent obsession for the concerned parents.

Interestingly, there was a desi word which one of the spellers stumbled over and which seems fast to be becoming a recognized word in the English language – Lassi, which Hannah Evans spelled as lasse. Just shows the importance of eating out frequently at Indian restaurants (and reading L-a-s-s-i with Lavina!)

BREAKING NEWS: SURRENDER FEE HAS BEEN WAIVED BY THE INDIAN GOVT – BUT THE SAGA CONTINUES

Planning to visit India this summer? If you’re not an Indian citizen, be prepared for some mighty long lines at the Indian Consulate. If you gave up your Indian citizenship, the pigeons are coming home to roost – you now have penalties to pay. According to new rules, persons of Indian origin who acquired foreign citizenship, must surrender their Indian passports immediately after the acquisition of foreign citizenship and also obtain a Surrender Certificate – and pay a price.

Else, no visa and no travel to India!

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President Barack Obama dropped in at the U.S- India Strategic Dialogue Reception hosted by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna – and amongst all the serious issues, Indian food, inevitably, found its way into the conversation!

“Secretary Clinton, I think as you may be aware, is a great admirer of India, and I know the sentiment is shared in return,” said Obama. “In fact, I’m told that one of the Secretary’s favorite restaurants in Delhi added a new item to the menu —- the ‘Hillary Platter.’ This is true. What does it have — chapatti?”

Ravan, the villain in the Ramayana through the ages and in myriads of Ramlilas across the world, has now been co-opted by Bollywood. Soon ‘Raavan’ will be blazing in lights across the diaspora and the big blockbuster which bears his name is being directed by none less than the iconic Mani Ratnam with super stars Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai. The music is by everyone’s favorite A R Rahman, lyrics by Gulzar and cinematography by another major name – Santosh Sivan. Now what could make for a better debut for Ravan?
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Goodbye, Wall Street. Hello, Start-Up! The world is a-changing, the economic landscape is re-aligning. No doubt about it. In the days of the economic downturn, Wall Street had been handing out pink slips to workers – now you have three workers who have given Wall Street the pink slip!

Puneet Mehta was a SVP with Citi Capital Markets, Archana Patchirajan was a senior consultant with the same company; and Sonpreet Bhatia was a vice president at Merrill Lynch/Bank of America.

Now why would people throw up hard-to-get, prestigious jobs in the financial sector and go off into the unknown? They’ve heard the siren song of ‘entrepreneurship’ and their grand dream is being funded by venture capital and endorsed by none less than Mayor Bloomberg!

Got $20,000 to spare? You can live like a Mughal emperor in New York’s own Taj – the iconic Pierre Hotel in New York.

It’s always nice to see the Indian tricolor flag flying outside the landmark Pierre Hotel on Fifth Avenue, which was acquired by the Taj Hotels of the Tata Group in 2005. Now known as the Taj Pierre Hotel, the hotel underwent a multimillion dollar transformation recently and is the very visible US flagship of Taj Hotels, a stone’s throw from Central Park.

‘Kites’ Review
‘Kites’ is the face of the new global Indian film industry – fast-paced, fast-moving and completely at home on the world stage. From beginning to end, it has the look and feel of a big international film, and moves flawlessly and boldly, from glittering Vegas casinos to raw desert terrain to fabulous mansions. But where is the soul?

It was a chance to pull out the shimmering ghararas and heavy jewelry and go royal for a day. Well, the Manhattan Mughuls and nawabs made it out to Bombay Palace’s K Lounge not by horse carriage or on the backs of elephants – probably by a more mundane car, taxi or subway!

Pop artist Anoop Desai has been on everybody’s radar ever since he became a finalist on the eighth season of “American Idol.” Now his first independently released EP ‘All is Fair’ has hit the airwaves. His new single is titled ‘My Name.’

Was growing up in North Carolina with a name like Anoop difficult?
“Kids made fun of it all the time, in the school bus, and I remember coming home from kindergarten and demanding that my mom change my name, because I wanted to be a Bill or something,” he recalls.

“I cringe at that now because I am lucky to have my name, lucky to have my culture. That’s what makes me unique and a lot of people don’t have that.”

Like hundreds of fans, I’m headed out for the AR Rahman show tonight. Will have a report for you tomorrow. Meanwhile some Rahmanisms to keep you going!
I recalled a very different, calmer afternoon with Rahman several years ago when I was doing an interview with him for Beliefnet, the spirituality website. It was a one-on-one with the maestro in his hotel room and his staff had placed an Indian lunch for us on the table. Learning that I was fasting on that day, Rahman himself disappeared and returned with a glass of orange juice which he silently placed before me. Such is his empathy for other people.

New York’s hot new veggie restaurant has a cool concept – eat out and save the earth. It’s the city’s first low-carbon restaurant chain. Opening nights usually mean a red carpet but it was a green carpet which was laid out for celebs like Mary-Kate Olsen, Mark Indelicato and Vanessa Williams for the opening of Radhika Oswal’s Otarian restaurant in Manhattan.
In fact, if Oswal, a billionaire environmentalist (yes, the two words do sound strange together!) has her way, you can enjoy life and yet preserve it. You can paint the town red while going green because Otarian in New York’s Greenwich Village is all about vegetarianism and sustainability, offering fun dishes with a low carbon footprint.

A gossamer web of stories ensnares the reader in ‘One Amazing Thing,’ Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s new novel, taking you into distant lands, hidden places in the heart and into the hidden strengths people have.

Nine very different people drawn by chance or luck or destiny into the same spot just as disaster strikes. They are all gathered for obtaining visas to India in the basement of the Indian consulate in an unnamed American city when a powerful earthquake strikes. ALSO LISTEN TO A LIVE INTERVIEW WITH CHITRA DIVAKARUNI

Curry Hill’s new eatery is such a guilt-free space it doesn’t even have a deep fryer! ”Even our papads are roasted,” says Mamta Mulloi, who owns this brand new little restaurant in Manhattan with her husband Dinu. Indeed, ancient Ayurvedic seers would have given their stamp of approval to the pristine menu at Yogi’s Kitchen and so will modern day vegetarians, healthy eaters, and those watching their wallets. For starters, the food is wholesome, based on India’s 5000 year old Ayurveda, the science of life-balance.

Then there’s the visual pleasure of eating from steel thalis, with little katoris encircling the thali with a touch of all the ingredients necessary for a nutritious meal. Says Mamta, “We don’t do a la carte because people will order one dish – and that will not have all the elements to make it a balanced meal.”

When different lives, different experiences intersect, you get something totally unexpected and fresh. That’s the story of The Sa Dance Company – twelve dancers coming from diverse disciplines and filtering their moves together into something unique. Many of them are from Ivy League colleges and work at blue chip corporations but through it all they’ve kept their deep passion for dance.