Browsing: The Buzz

Foodie Alert! For those who love good food – a great new way to get it! Here are the Top Ten Reasons for Getting MyPref!
10. Missing Ma? Longing for your mom’s daal makhani or mattar paneer? No one can match that but MyPref will get you the closest match at hundreds of Indian restaurants. (Sponsored)

“It’s very Andy Warhol goes Indie-pop,” says designer Sabah Arenja Vig about her collection – and that got me a-wondering: what would Andy Warhol think about our wild, multi-hued surreal Indian fashions? Probably turn them into equally wild, multi-hued surreal art!

Yes, Indian couture is certainly riding high. With a young ever-burgeoning population in India and the diapora, the demand for bridal wear and fashion with a touch of India is only going to grow. Recently Shireen Vinayak of Shehnaai Couture showcased the latest collection and answered some burning questions about the new fashion trends, especially for New York fashionistas.

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!

Given the amount of desi parties available to young and older desis, why are there so many dateless individuals? Studies and biology have suggested that love and intimacy is a great life landmark. Yet more and more people are shying away from that kind of connection. Is fear a factor? Have you viewed your parents’ marriage as something not to be desired and therefore connection is scary for you?

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.

“Stories of extramarital affairs are a class apart, especially in India when penned by Indian authors. Majority of protagonists end up going back to their husbands or wives, leaving the poor lover in the lurch. Nobody wants to cross the Laxman Rekha drawn by the caretakers of morality.”
Guest Blog – Chatty Divas

“When I was in Mumbai on holiday I was invited to an absolutely opulent, lavish Marwari wedding for 5000 guests. The entire set up and décor around the venue of the function was simply exquisite, especially the Mandap (stage on which the Wedding Ceremony is performed by the priest), which was carved with gold arching.
Great food, music and dance – and I got to meet – Karan Johar! ” Guest blog by Zoran Saher

“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.

“Nearly every day for the past year I have been taking the same road to my parents’ house. I don’t live that far from their home. It is very important to me to know exactly where my destination is each day. I love stability and predictability when it comes to driving. I don’t like changes or surprises. I am one of those people that need to take a practice drive to a place I have never been before because I need to know exactly where I am going.

Well, on my way to their house there was a roadblock. No problem, I would take an alternative way. Unfortunately due to my lack of experimentation I didn’t know that many alternatives to get to where I needed to get to. It turns out, I was going to encounter several more roadblocks on my driving journey.” Guest Blog

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.

Desis are a dynamic, evolving breed who are constantly surprising themselves and others with their creativity, success, and growing place in the world. And yet, despite all this, there are some things about desi culture that never seem to change, such as our craving for spicy food, our inherently musical nature, our extremely dry sense of humor…and our work ethic.

No matter how much we evolve, desis just cannot seem to give up the laissez faire style of working that we have long practiced in our motherland and which we import with amazing tenacity to the new world. So mind-boggling is this phenomenon, in fact, that it is difficult to express its essence in plain prose and requires an imaginary conversation between two desis to be communicated effectively. Guest Blog.

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.

“This is really my account of a year of returning to India. It’s strange how eight years of living somewhere else changes your entire outlook. I came back thinking I was coming home and home it was but it was eons away from where I had left it.
It is only when more than a year has gone by in a place that it starts spreading its tentacles around you, shaping you to fit to its contours, nipping you a little here and molding an extension there.”
Guest Blog: Chatty Divas

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.

“Are you single and stuck in the rut of modern technology? Do you know where life is going when you meet people or do you just expect nothing? I mean, are you really going to get married on something started on a casual text message? What happened to phone calls or even the simple email? Is being wooed too much to ask for nowadays?
The new date is hanging out, planning an event and have everyone come. Look for people who may be interested and if they are not interested, move on to the next event. Hey at least you are having fun doing what you like to do and no one is holding you back, right?”
Guest Blog: The Single Desi

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.