Browsing: India

The US has several Indian-Americans doing important work in academia. Meet Beheruz. N. Sethna, President of the University of West Georgia with a budget of $ 100 million and 100 programs of study through the doctoral level.

He’s a Parsi who’s got some important firsts affixed to his name: he is the first person of Indian origin to ever become the president of a university anywhere in the US. He’s also the first person from any ethnic minority to become president of a predominantly white or racially-integrated university or college in Georgia.

Recently US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard got married in a Vedic ceremony in Hawaii. A Hindu, she has even taken her congressional oath on the Bhagavad Gita. Her name Tulsi means the Holy Basil which is so central to Hindu belief. Her mother Carol Gabbard was brought up in the Brahma Madhwa Gaudiya tradition and named her five children Bhakti (worship), Jai (a Hindu salutation), Aryan ( noble one), Tulsi (sacred plant) and Vrindavan ( Lord Krishna’s abode).

It got me thinking – what’s in a name and how can one use such a simple device to enhance the spiritual lives of one’s children? It certainly has deeper connotations than naming a child after candy or a jewelry store!

“I was so amazed at the thought of somebody cycling me, who was just turning 20, who was a fit young American man, that I insisted on bicycling half the way myself. That’s how I entered India, bicycling a rickshaw, with the rickshaw-wallah sitting in the back, wondering what the hell I was doing!”

Getting Hooked on Indian Sweets…

We all love kaju rolls – the cashew nut mithai which comes in cool cigar shapes with a pistachio filling – but I didn’t quite expect a one-year-old Italian- German toddler to be such a fan of this Indian sweetmeat! Call him a Mithai Monster instead of Cookie Monster but he sure loves the desi sweets.

Who would have imagined a Prime Minister of India lying in the middle of the road (the yellow traffic line is visible) on a yoga mat doing yoga asanas with the aam janta, an image which would be flashed across the world for all to see?

Where other leaders in his place may have just made lofty speeches or inaugurated events, PM Narendra Modi sat down cross-legged and actually did what all the citizens of India were doing and kept up with all 35,985 of them. There was no self-consciousness or hesitation, just a passion to pass on the benefits of yoga to everyone.

The world rarely seems to agree on anything ever but this time a simple, peaceful four-letter word has brought them together – Yoga! Thanks to a suggestion by the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, over 177 countries co-sponsored a United Nations resolution to make June 21st the International day of Yoga (IDY).

From the Great Wall of China to the Eiffel Tower, yoga is going to take a bow. So be it Shanghai or Vienna, Belize City or Chandigarh, Berlin or Edinburgh, yoga is having its day in the public square. In countries across the world yoga events are planned on this one day. Who says the world can’t speak the same language? Yoga asanas are certainly bringing people closer together.

As spring turns into fall, we should be seeing a lot of excitement and action in the fashion arena. Will more and more Americans be seduced by Indian fashion through travel to India, through cinema, and through Indian-American friends in an ever increasing Asian population?
Will American designers continue to find inspiration in India’s myriad delights of color, crafts and couture? Will Indian designers make it big in America? Will new mega-fashion stores dedicated to India ring up the sweet music of cash registers?

Kamal Haasan, the enigmatic actor and director, is coming to New York City and you have a chance to meet him and share his thoughts and ideas.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art invites you an informal talk with one of India’s best-loved actors and directors.

City women enjoy all kinds of fashion – here’s a story about the bindi which has been rural women’s style mantra (as well as cultural underpinning) for decades. Now comes a new twist to it, thanks to city slickers!

What is the Jeevan Bindi? One which saves lives – and here is a thinking out of the box idea from an advertising agency which could have an impact on the lives of women in rural India. Hope that it won’t be a flash in the pan and will become a part of daily life… This from Ecouterre.

Enjoy the joy of Holi, the festival of colors, with this delightful video from Hindustani vocalist Ila Paliwal. This beautiful Indian raga embraces the world with its power of celebration and inclusiveness. Indeed, Holi is increasingly becoming a reason to dance and connect with color in many parts of the world and this video by Bharat Bala shows that dance and music have a way of erasing differences and accentuating what we humans have in common.

Who would have thought that the princely state of Awadh exists in Manhattan? The flag of Dum Pukht has been unfurled by Gaurav Anand, a passionate culinary crusader, and the crest of the royal house is embedded right on the door of Awadh on the Upper West Side. This is an outpost of old Lucknow with its famous Galouti kababs, Lagan ki Raan and Kakori Kababs. Recently the Village Voice, the NY chronicle of everything cool, declared Awadh the best new Indian restaurant in New York.

Can biryani save the world? As life-long fans we certainly hope so!

Recently Varli Singh of Diya Foundation for Children and Gaurav Anand and Shagun Mehandru of Awadh came together to host a Biryani Festival, which not only tasted good but did good.So now there’s a way to eat your biryani and have it too! Enjoy a great meal and at the same time help kids in need.

The images are searing. Images of children who’ve lost their innocence, their childhood in the harsh world of bonded labor. Their eyes stare back at you without emotion, their lips frozen in a non-smile. This is art but art painted with the colors of true life. Each image by British portraitist Claire Phillips is of a real child, a child slave rescued by Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi’s organization, Bachpan Bachao Andolan. Meet the artist who journeyed to India to document the lives of these children.

Kirti Mukherjee and Sulekha Rawat are the two bloggers behind Chatty Divas. They tell stories of ordinary people, of family love and angst and of lives lived in India and America. Here are some of the highlights of their blogs posted in 2014…Flying the Friendly Indian Skies, Bombay – A train to Nowhere; Diwali on Two Continents. Stories so simple and natural that it’s like being in a circle of friends.

Watch out, the wild Gangs of Wasseypur have come to New York and no one’s going to be spared! Anurag Kashyap’s stunning mafia odyssey will hook you, grab you and get you.
It is the very heart of darkness, a revenge saga where there’s no business like the don business and where firing a gun is as normal as brushing your teeth. Every random unknown on a scooter, armed with an AK47, is a killing machine.
As a visitor to Wasseypur, albeit in the theater, you need to have a high tolerance for bloodshed – after a while even your popcorn seems to be tinged with blood.

He came, he saw, he conquered.

In popular desi lore, even the name of the venue was transformed from Madison Square Garden to Modison Square Garden. The chants of ‘Mo-Di! Mo-Di!’ were more fevered, more fervent than that for any rock star.

Yes, the rock star of Indian politics is undeniably Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and with his American visit he was on the international world stage. He was in New York and Indian-Americans headed out by the thousands to Madison Square Garden to greet him, to hear him, to just be on the same ground that was beneath his feet.

Vikas Khanna has scaled new gastronomic heights with his latest cookbook, ‘Return to the Rivers – Recipes and memories of the Himalayan River Valleys’, written with Andrew Blackmore-Dobbyn. This is a wonderful read not only for passionate cooks but also for those newbie chefs whose idea of cooking is heating up the remains of last night’s takeout. The stories will draw you into the kitchen…

“The only way to work with India’s future is to work with children. India has the highest child population in the world at 40% of the total population. Hence, working with children is essential for the progress of India. In fact, if we solve any problems for the children of India, we can be almost certain that we would be solving it for the world just by virtue of the number of beneficiaries.”
The Sounds of Hope, an India inspired jazz concert on November 14, benefits the Salaam Bombay Fund which works with children in the slums.

This festive season, welcome to Nina Paley’s animated film ‘Sita Sings the Blues’, yet another retelling of India’s great epic, Ramayana. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call it, as some have done, ‘Sitayana’ for it tells the tale from the perspective of Sita, not unlike the oral retellings through the ages by village women that made Sita the focus of the story. Only here the story is told through the jazz tradition of torch songs, of a lovely, smoky voiced lament more often heard in a dark New York lounge or bar, than in the rural outposts of India.

Lord Ganesha enters people’s lives in mysterious ways – sometimes it can even be just a chance encounter on a busy New York street! When photographer Shana Dressler passed a bookstore in Manhattan, she stopped in her tracks. In the window was a photography book which had on its cover a striking 20-foot high plaster of Paris statue of the elephant-headed God in the water, being splashed by a small army of men.