Author: Lavina Melwani

McMansions, hefty bank balances, unfettered success, Ivy League schools, a world embroidered with dollar signs.

For many Indian immigrants, that was the fabric of the American Dream. Add to that a Lexus and maybe a BMW in the double car garage, lots of travel, lots of dining out, and the ability to live a rich lifestyle.

For other Indian immigrants, the American Dream was much more modest—just the ability to survive, to consolidate some savings and send funds back home to family members still in the village.
Yet all these dreams, big and small, modest and immodest, have been gathered, whipped up and churned in the ruthless and noisy cement mixer of the economy—pummeled, pushed and battered by the worst crisis in memory as the global economy has taken a severe beating.

The bride in her glittering red sari was carried into the ballroom in a palanquin held aloft by four burly Westerners dressed in turbans. As the gathered guests watched, the bridegroom came forward to claim his bride and the couple walked to the stage. Standard wedding fare you’d say – except both the bride and bridegroom were children!

Mohammed Naushad and Mohammed Sharashad – two young boys of school-going age who were working 9-hour days in a tea stall making approx $1 per day to support their family. At my prior job, I was often worn out after the typical 8 hours. I could only imagine what this kind of toil does to a young child.

They’ve come from different parts of America, each finding their way to India. With their cameras, eleven American photographers have captured the essence of the country, each drawn to the lush, visual kaleidoscope that is India.

All you Bollywood fans, do you ever wonder how the Indian film industry got started almost a hundred years ago? Forget superstars, overseas locations, musicals and spicy dance item numbers – there wasn’t even sound! It’s hard to believe women’s roles were played by men since even prostitutes considered acting in the cinema too demeaning a task.
‘Harishchandrachi Factory’ is a wonderful little film – only 95 minutes compared to the 3 hour Bollywood blockbusters – and it is a journey into the making of India’s first film by Dhundiraj Phalke, who is acknowledged as the father of the Indian film industry.

Looking at those powerful images, I was reminded of an evening many years ago spent interviewing Francis Newton Souza in his rundown Manhattan apartment. Art was everywhere and not a spot to sit on, until he pointed to a big bundle of magazine covers with his bold pen-work on it. Quite irreverently he commanded ‘Just sit on it!’ – and I did.

“This is the pleasure of making films as a woman – I get to break the rules!” says the thoroughly feisty, unconventional Gurinder Chadha.
Fans who have been waiting for their Bend-It fix will be happy to know her new comedy ‘It’s a Wonderful Afterlife’ has been selected for a world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival which runs January 21-31.
Gurinder Chadha did a quick Q and A with Lassi with Lavina about the making of the movie. (Take a FIRST PEEK at the video!)

In the 1990’s, tens of thousands of ethnic Nepalis living in Bhutan were stripped of their Bhutanese citizenship. Born and brought up in Bhutan, they were ruthlessly expelled by the government, compelled to live in a wasted no-man’s land, in seven crowded refugee camps on the outskirts of Nepal.Difficult as their situation has been, the one silver lining has been the offer of the United States to resettle up to 60,000 of the 106,000 refugees. About 8,000 of them have arrived in the US and will be given government assistance to settle down. I checked out a Little Bhutan which is beginning to bloom in the Bronx.

I have a new respect for Twitter since I started following Bollywood celebs – it’s the democracy of interaction and the immediacy of hearing the news from the horse’s mouth without the intervention of gossip magazines. The complete lack of punctuation and slaphappy grammar makes it even more laid back and buddy-like.

As a writer, I often wonder what happens to the people one reports on. How do their stories pan out? Do they find happiness and their way in the world? Recently I had written about the influx of Bhutanese refugees into the US, spotlighting their lives in New York. I’m happy to provide a follow up and a happily ever after – several non-profit organizations have got involved in helping the newcomers get a foothold in America.

I’m always amazed by the passion India evokes in those who visit her. I’ve met people in New York elevators and on the streets whose eyes light up when they hear you are from India. All of them have love stories to relate, wonderful anecdotes about what the country means to them. In the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks, people everywhere have expressed their solidarity with the city and the country, showing their caring in many different ways.

It’s not every morning that you get to chat with a big Bollywood star even before you’ve had your morning cup of tea. So there I was, a bit bleary-eyed with the hot star Riteish Deshmukh on the phone, me in New York and he in Mumbai.

His big movie, the Ram Gopal Varma film ‘Rann’ is being released this month, and so Riteish was chatting up the international media. We talked about Rann, Amitabh Bachchan, and how Riteish developed his passion for cinema

Haiti lies in ruins after the catastrophic earthquake, the streets of Port-au-Prince awash with dead bodies. It seems surreal that we are all going about our daily lives while a nightmare unfolds in our backyard. How can one help in such a mammoth tragedy?

Snow, blizzards, ice, the grim topography of winter. Caught in the clutch of cold, hazy mornings and dark evenings in New York, I suddenly got a gift from the artist Birendra Pani. An image of Spring, sent via email. It certainly lifts up the spirits, making one’s heart soar like a kite. So if you’re feeling the winter blues, take a whiff of Spring. It’s not too far away!

Can Indian men throw off the tyranny of the necktie – and save energy too? A group of corporate workers in Mumbai are trying to pass a ‘No-Tie Day’ on May 3, 2010, their reasoning being that when men dress cooler, they will require less air-conditioning.

When you need to find a wonderful restaurant where do you turn? Forget reviews and restaurant guides, just hop into a cab and consult your taxiwalla!

Layne Mosler is a New Yorker who has found that the cabbie who knows his way on the streets of Manhattan can also guide you to the right restaurant. Constantly navigating the city, cabbies are a great resource for off-the-beaten-track inexpensive places with authentic food.

Does IIT Madras have answers to New York City’s energy dilemma?

Three students Aashish Dattani, Sriram Kalyanaraman and Vinayshankar Kulkarni were the big winners in Mayor Bloomberg’s NYC Next Idea Global Business Plan Competition, winning over teams from ten leading business and engineering schools in Europe, Asia and Latin America. The criteria were for the business concepts to have a connection to NYC and be commercially viable.

The next time you shop at Wal-Mart or Best Buy, you’ll be able to pick up a Bollywood DVD with your milk, potato chips or your electronics. And for those of us having to wait to get to an Indian store to pick up our DVD masala, it will be fun to just order it from Amazon.

Although Disney already has a presence in India, this is the first time the company is distributing a Hindi film on DVD in the US. The movie is ‘Like Stars on Earth’ – better known to Bollywood fans as ‘Taare Zameen Par’ – Aamir Khan’s award winning film which has moved audiences everywhere and was India’s official selection for the Academy Awards 2008 in The Best Foreign Language Film category.

Jehangir Mehta’s Graffiti Food and Wine Bar is probably one of the smallest restaurants and its kitchen is just 50 square feet, but Mehta produces some big tastes, using spices from many parts of the world, including India and Persia. Recently Zagat gave it a 26 for food which says a lot about the quality of Graffiti’s food. Mehta is indeed a fearless warrior who is not afraid of strong spices or of blending them in unconventional ways.

Well, guess what – Shah Rukh Khan is the next celebrity to succumb to Twitter! Doesn’t he know from Shashi Tharoor that it can get you into trouble? Seems he was pushed into it by Karan Johar who is an avid tweeter. So is Shah Rukh really tweeting himself or is it a PR exercise for ‘My Name is Khan’? Only time will tell!