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.
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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.
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
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!
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.
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!
When the underworld don Chota Rajan threw a bash, Mumbai cops were actually seen dancing at the party along with the don’s henchmen, to a song from a popular Bollywood movie about the underworld, no less! Reel life? No this is real life in Mumbai
2010.
Stare at the numerical long enough and you get the sense of the start of an almost futuristic, hefty new decade. At such a moment, it’s a good idea to evaluate the past and think about the future by sharing some thoughts from N.R. Narayana Murthy, the founder-chairman of Infosys Technologies Ltd.
His ideas could be a road map, a blueprint for a better tomorrow. In just two words, his mantra for a better world – Inclusive Growth.
There was a time in the old days in India when it was regarded as almost sacrilegious to cross the oceans, and to leave one’s homeland was to leave it forever. Now, hopping between continents and countries and cities has become commonplace and there’s a new breed of global Indians who think nothing of breakfast in one country and dessert in another, with homes, networks and emotional ties in multiple cities.
You have to hand it to Myna Mukherjee, Director of Engendered, the small but spunky human rights organization dedicated to gender, sexuality and minority rights. She not only talks about these difficult topics in the South Asian diaspora, be it HIV-AIDS or sexual orientation, but also makes them more accessible through music, dance, movies – and now fashion.
‘Positive’ by Manish Arora, who is one of the biggest names in fashion, was a tribute to the resilience of AIDS victims: “I chose color to signify ‘positive’ because that is a sign of happiness for me – and I took ‘positive’ to mean happiness – I love happiness! It doesn’t take much to make yourself happy.”
Richard Gere, Mira Nair, Salman Rushdie and more…star spotters had a field day at the special preview of ‘Amelia’
A visit to Naeem Khan’s penthouse showroom is like being transported into a different world. It’s embedded in the bustling garment district of New York with its countless wholesale showrooms, and you see racks of dresses and the occasional store mannequin being ferried on the crowded pavements. Ascend to Khan’s 10th floor showroom, and you are in an 18,000 foot space with soaring ceilings and a touch of 30’s Hollywood.
Ever since the news broke that he was designing First Lady Michelle Obama’s gown for the State Dinner in honor of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Khan’s phone hasn’t stopped ringing. Now with the passing of a few weeks, I managed to have a face-to-face chat with him, asking him of course, about the famous dress.
When Bhairavi Desai met President Barack Obama on the receiving line at the Administration’s first State Dinner at the White House, she introduced herself as the director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. Obama smiled his high voltage smile and bending down, confided: “I was an organizer too!”
“It was such a thrill to hear him say that – it was such a nice endorsement of my profession,” recalls Desai, who is a fearless advocate for the rights of New York cabbies. She and co-founder Javaid Tariq were both guests at the glittering dinner with celebs and politicos, a party which possibly America’s entire population wanted to attend but to which only 320 guests were invited, not counting the gate-crashers Michaele and Tareq Salahi.
Riveting.
That’s probably the word one is searching for when asked about the new face of Pakistani art which is now being shown in art centers internationally. For a country in so much pain politically and socially – not to mention economically – Pakistan is surprisingly on top of things where art is concerned.
“The steel structure of Spine is transformed through the stitching of red suede, and was inspired by the two-piece choli that is worn at weddings in the Subcontinent. Spine led me to rethink the function of the choli and the inherent contradictions it carries; it is, at the same time, flirtatious and oppressive.”
– Naiza Khan