From Me to You:

From Salaam Bombay to Monsoon Wedding – the Musical

How time flies! As a new immigrant/journalist in NY one of my first interviews in 1988 was with a filmmaker making her debut feature film. The filmmaker was Mira Nair and the film was the iconic ‘Salaam Bombay!’

Jump a few decades and here I am now introducing her work to a whole new generation – to my two grandsons Tyler and Ethan! We were at ‘Monsoon Wedding – the Musical’ and it was probably an auspicious thing but the skies really opened up and it poured just before the performance, a monsoon in Brooklyn!

 

There was Mira, as feisty as ever, dancing in the baraat with the performers before the show. This is a desi wedding you don’t want to miss – it’s got the drama, the joy and the tensions of a real Indian wedding – and great music and sets too. Read my review in Lassi with Lavina soon and a larger story on South Asians on Broadway in the newsmagazine, The Week.

Indeed, If it’s summer, can a big fat Indian wedding be far behind? The wedding which is creating the most buzz this season is Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding! For those of us who saw the original, much-loved movie, it’s almost like a family affair and a wedding we all want to go to. For many of us from the tri-state area, the location is exotic enough – Brooklyn!

As Mira Nair says, “I began in the theater and after several decades of making films, have returned to the theater. Tired of seeing mostly Western stories on the world stage, I wondered: for our own absurdly rich sub-continental culture—so marinated in story-telling and gaana-bajana—why can’t we have our own Fiddler on the Roof? This is our offering :Monsoon Wedding, The Musical.”

Nair’s stage musical has the wonderful music of Vishal Bharadwaj and the book is crafted by Arpita Mukherjee and Sabrina Dhawan. So get yourself to St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn to catch the wedding of the year – before it’s over. And like at any good wedding, people are planning on feasting after the celebrations. Check out the scores of great eateries in Dumbo and catch the wedding of the year – before it’s over!
(May 6th – June 25h)

Catch the wedding before it closes on June 25. The Melwanis even managed to have an Indian feast of bhel puri, chaat papri and chicken tikka masala at Chote Mian in the Time Out Marketplace.
#monsoonwedding #desiwedding #miranair #monsoonweddingthemusical