Browsing: The Buzz

The Chatty Divas bring you their insights on East and West, and on India and America. Here are some of the best posts from them – witty, friendly and almost always, wise! Kriti Mukherjee and Sulekha Rawat take you into their world and show you Modern India as it is lived by everyday people.
Guest Blog – The Chatty Divas

“It was not easy being young lovers in Bombay, even in 1974. It involved a fair amount of lurking and sneaking. You could hold hands in wooded areas, or on the parapet facing the sea in Marine Drive, but you always felt furtive, even on Valentines Day. There were always leers and frowns.

Kissing was already an obscene act. Never seen in film. Sure, you could kiss at the back of darkened theaters, but there were likely to be leering men who sat in the second last row and looked back. You might even find an uncle. It was better to leave with downcast eyes.

But still, you could go home and listen to the Moody Blues record your boyfriend gave you – after your father went to sleep. Valentine’s Day was romantic, and intense. And private.” Guest post by novelist Nayana Currimbhoy

The Indian-Americans, now numbering a sizable 3.3 million, successful, entrepreneurial and with healthy, happy families behind them, seem to be at a crossroads for the demographics tell yet another story, a more sobering one. The Indian immigrants who came here in the 50’s and 60’s are now approaching their final years and many of these voices are disappearing – and with that, all the untold stories, the celebration of lives well lived.

Stories which are undocumented will surely be lost, silenced. Now is the time to gather these voices and record them for posterity. Some attempts are being made to do this, by institutions and individuals. A major effort is the Indian-American Heritage Project at the Smithsonian Museum in the nation’s capital which is launching a major exhibition spotlighting the Indian community in February 2014: “Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation”

Lately I have been hearing a lot about ‘Sex and the City’. Different news sources are reporting that another story could be told. Sarah Jessica Parker has said that if the script was right, she would do it.

Now there is news that Michael Patrick King gave an interview to EW that a final chapter is forming in his head. Anyone who is in their 20-something or 30-something years understands that meeting strangers isn’t all it is cracked up to be and ‘Sex and the City’ was definitely something most of us single women could relate to.
Guest Blog – The Single Desi

Vishnu Vishwarupa: Sun and Moon Eyes, Blazing Mouth

Can one image encapsulate the essence of the entire universe? Check out this small masterpiece and discover the indiscoverable, the Cosmic Body.

Examine this delicate work with a magnifying glass and you see the gorgeous details, the worlds within worlds…
Catch it at the Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian in DC through January 26.

“When Katrina Kaif was photographed in Ibiza, Spain over the summer in a bikini, I was surprised by the amount of media attention that it got. Having been an avid follower of Hollywood my entire life and seeing paparazzi take invasive photos of my favorite celebrities, to me Bollywood is very tame in comparison. There is more privacy; the focus is more on the work and less on scandals and private lives.

When everyone else is doing a thing of their own, can you maintain a conservative mindset in your 20’s, 30’s and beyond? Most of us were born into conservative families because India was engraved in us. Can we maintain that thought system through life or do we get influenced by the western world?” Guest blog post – The Single Desi

Growing up in India, I found that the jharoo – broom made of grass – was ubiquitous in daily life. It was used in all homes, rich or poor, to restore order and beauty to the surroundings. Years have passed but the jharoo is still very much a part of daily Indian life, even being used in fancy resorts. In fact, it is even available in Indian stores in the US for those who still need their Indian broom! So it is fitting that the Aam Admi party has embraced this humble tool as a symbol to clean up the country.

The Lassi Awards?!! No, no, I would never be so presumptuous! I’m not exactly giving out the Oscars but it’s a humble recognition of five people who are special, people whom you’d definitely want to have a beer with, or at least a lassi. They have all the wonderful qualities that we wish we had, have overcome difficulties to succeed in a complex world, and in turn made it a more humane world.
Well, here are five of these special people – Sheena Iyengar, Jasmin Sethi, Eboo Patel, Pratima Dharm and Leila Janah. As the year ends, it’s worth revisiting their inspirational stories and realizing that even with just the power of one, each one of us can make a difference.

It is all about family ties, informal networks and community support. Small run-of the-mill motels have been transformed into mini hotel empires by the enterprising Gujaratis from India, UK and Africa in America.

Fame is ephemeral. Nobody knew that better than Ustad Vilayat Khan, the legendary sitar player who passed away in 2004. His youngest son Hidayat Khan, growing up as the son of this famous musician, was used to many comforts and luxuries. Hearing his son one day brag to his friends in Maryland, the Ustad packed him off to a small neighborhood Indian restaurant to play the sitar for people eating tikka and kebab. Some guests would even shout out to him “Bhaiya zara rokoge to main khana kha sakaunga!” ( Stop, so I can eat my food!)

Living through the humiliation, the young musician learned to take all life has to offer, and even became friends with the waiters and patrons. Today Hidayat Khan, based in New Jersey, has come a long way but he remembers the main lesson his father taught him: “Humility.”

Talk about Devyani Khobragade in New York, and you get many opinions, some vociferous, some guarded. While Khobragade has not yet been tried, she has certainly been tried in the court of public opinion in the US. As one Indian-American notes, ” Who knows what the real facts of the case are but people bring their individual background perspectives to what’s happening. I do understand and identify with India’s feelings and I think this rush to judgment is very simplistic. You have to see what are people’s motives – everything is not what it seems and to be taken at face value.”

He’s been mocked as Uncle Tom on Twitter, asked if he uses Fair and Lovely and accused of being more white than the whites. This for someone who was earlier lauded as being the Sheriff of Wall Street and appropriated by Indians as their own Blue-Eyed Boy.

In the escalating drama of the Deyvani Khorbagade case, one figure who has gone from great acclaim in India to great notoriety is Preet Bharara, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. So the question arises: Did Preet Bharara Go Too far?

The last time I saw Dr. Devyani Khobragade the setting was festive, the event a celebration of the newly installed India Chair at Stony Brook University in New York. Since the consul general of India was out of town, Khobragade as acting consul general was one of the chief guests at this gala event, feted at the head table with all the major donors.

It was indeed the lull before the storm.

Four days later the storm broke and what a turbulent storm it’s been!

When I was a kid, I remember going to the Ramleela for the very first time in the grounds in Old Delhi, full of excitement, anticipation, not knowing what I would be seeing. I came out, thoroughly mesmerized – the bands of monkeys, the giant Jatau bird, the ten-headed demon and the explosion of fireworks did it for me.

Now years later I went to another kind of Ramleela – Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s ‘Ramleela’, also known as Goliyon ki Rasleela, and I have to say, I was knocked out once again – but not quite.

Bollywood may be loved by the frontbenchers in Indian cinema halls but it has friends in high places too – the elite world of contemporary art. There is just something about the surreal, over-the-top world of masala films and item dance numbers that strikes a chord in the more rarified world of contemporary Indian art.

A new show ‘Cinephiliac’ at Twelve Gates Art in Philadelphia, PA, checks out this phenomenon with the work of emerging as well as noted artists, a creative dialogue between art and film. This new exhibition reinforces these influences and shows the work of both Indian and Pakistani artists, for the effect of Bollywood cheekily crosses borders and permeates different cultures.

“My mother hasn’t forgotten how to bake a cake but she sometimes doesn’t remember all the ingredients, missing out a few in the process. She recounts funny incidents making us laugh heartily with her but she repeats them again after a while, forgetting that she had already shared the same with us a couple of hours earlier. It kills me to see her uncertainty and confusion. However, the only consolation is her lack of awareness of this condition.
I fear forgetting basic things like reading or writing; the mere thought of losing my memories is terrifying. What if one day I wake up and don’t recognize my family members, forget their names and how much I love them?” Guest Blog – Chatty Divas

The arts need creators, facilitators, patrons and an audience – and all were there in full measure at the IAAC 15th anniversary gala.
Salman Rushdie and Mira Nair both received awards for their contribution to the arts, as did Dr. Manjula Bansal for her contributions to medicine but also for being a stellar devotee and patron of the arts.
And the facilitator of the arts was there in the shape of Aroon Shivdasani, the founder and director of IAAC, who has brought art, music, dance and cinema to New York audiences for the past 15 years.

It’s not every day that New York actor Samrat Chakrabarti, who’s acted in a ton of movies and TV shows, gets to go back to his roots and star in a Bengali film. And a Hitchcockian thriller, no less! Samrat, who grew up in London, is currently in Calcutta – the city where his parents grew up and he’s seeing himself, larger than life, on huge billboards in the city.

Samrat, who’s done two big movies in the North and South of India – ‘Midnight’s Children’ and ‘Vishwaroopam’ respectively, is doing a movie in Calcutta for the first time and that too in Bengali. The film is ‘Sada Kalo Abcha’, directed by the innovative digital filmmaker Riingo Banerjee, known as the most experimental and technology driven filmmaker in Tollywood. The entire film has been shot with a range of Panasonic cameras.

Mukesh & Nita Ambani, the richest couple in India, swear by his food, and so do the Ruias, the Mittals and other biggies. Who is he?

‘The man who started his career 30 years ago by supplying milk in the Matunga Labour Camp-Dharavi area later graduated to selling idlis and dosas at the ramshackle Uma Shankar Hotel in Dharavi, he has since come a long way. His annual turnover runs into a few crores, but he doesn’t like to discuss it. “You know why,’’ he says.’

Oh, the things people do for love! In his latest film, ‘Gori Tere Pyaar Mein’, dashing city slicker Imran Khan abandons urban comforts to pursue his love, Dia, a social activist played by Kareena Kapoor, in the remote wilds of Jhumli, a small village. Recently the star was in New York and chatted with Lassi with Lavina about this romantic comedy which is being released on November 22.
“Punit, the director, is very, very clear in his intentions,” said Imran during a quick interview at his hotel. ” His intent is to make a fun movie that people should laugh, people should enjoy while they are watching it. He wants to have the kind of songs that make people sing along, make people dance, and you should walk out at the end of it feeling that you have not wasted your time and you have not wasted your money. It is that simple!”