Browsing: India

Missing India? Love Bollywood? Want to know more about the music and dance of different regions of the home country?

Well, now you can travel back to India without a passport or air-ticket – by way of New Jersey!

Imagine over 60 dancers, acrobats and musicians taking you on a wonderful journey to India, fueled by music and dance. The event is Mystic India: The World Tour at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center’s Prudential Hall on March 8th for one performance only, by the noted choreographer Amit Shah, director of Aatma Performing Arts.
(Sponsored Content – Tips that You Can Use)

It’s International Women’s Day again and in a way, kind of grim that we still need to have a specific day set aside for women.
Why do we need one special day – why aren’t women treated like the special people they are every day of their lives?
The past year has been horrific with atrocities against women, young girls, even toddlers. When will all that end?

Like a breath of fresh air from the Himalayan river valleys here are some mouth-watering recipes from Vikas Khanna’s new book ‘Return to the Rivers’ (with Andrew Blackmore-Dobbyn). Vikas Khanna traveled to India’s Himalayan valleys as well as countries of Tibet, Bhutan and Nepal to gather a taste of dishes rarely eaten in the West. Here are a few tantalizing bites – and recipes.

“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”

I also invite you to add your voice to the daily blog, 24/7 – Talk is Cheap. I hope this will be a fun Tower of Babel, with many voices discussing many topics. In the beginning I tentatively bring one solitary voice – my own – and hope many others will join in. Be it Indian art, movies, books or spirituality – do bring in your point of view.

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.

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!

Without a doubt, she’s a literary rock star.

Jhumpa Lahiri receives the kind of frenzied adulation reserved for celebrities. Her new novel ‘The Lowland’ has created a buzz in the US, with reviews carpeting every media from The New York Times to the most obscure little blog.

She was nominated for both the Man Booker and the National Award – and ‘The Lowland’ had hardly even hit the stores! Her book tour took her to several American cities and social media lit up with Jhumpa talk.

Few writers of Indian origin command this kind of fanfare – except perhaps Salman Rushdie. So is she the next big Indian writer after Rushdie, in terms of international standing?

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

For all those separated by artificial, manmade borders, here is a love story, a story of friendship which can make you cry – in a happy sort of way. And guess who made it happen? Google! Really, I think we are getting over-dependent on Google to help us in our search for knowledge, words, images, addresses, cat videos – and now even in our search for emotional well-being.

Never knew a Google commercial could make us cry, reach deep down to our better selves, to our aspirations for reunion and healing. The Big G seems to have become an indispensable part of our lives.

Wandering around the web, you find hidden facets of India: towns and cities you had no idea existed, a fabulous Indian jewelry collection that exists outside of India, and images from the past when an American First Lady visited India and won over the nation.

Best of the Web – India’s Tall Ambitions
How should India spend $340 million? Watch the video and give your opinion!

Long before Hindi cinema was rechristened Bollywood, there were film posters and showcards under glass in the lobbies of the theaters in India.

As you bought your tickets to enter a magic world, you sauntered by the display cases to check out these show cards, a collage of hand painted photographs which whetted your appetite for the treat to come.

Most of these old markers have disappeared but recently cinema fans got a chance to see a cache of vintage cards, lovingly preserved.

The fireworks still explode in the memory, and the taste of nuts and cream and sugar still linger on the tongue. For immigrants from India, the childhood memories of Diwali are strong, for it is a time when India transforms into one glittering celebration. Public buildings are illuminated with neon lights and every home, no matter how humble, is ablaze with earthen lamps. In fact, entire villages are turned into fairylands, dotted with millions of lamps, glowing in the dark of night.

“It is that time of year again…Diwali, the festival of lights is upon us….those of you who are just graduated college and are 20-something women probably have a lot of family and friends that they celebrate with.
Those of you 30 or 40 year old single women are probably trying to figure out a way to keep the spirit alive in your heart and soul without the frequent trips back to India and the constant reminder that India lives inside of you.” Guest Blog – Single Desi

India’s towns and cities are full of surprises and religion is part of the landscape. Small, functional temples are everywhere – an idol of an Hindu God, a few temple bells, a scattering of marigolds – and it becomes God’s abode. All that’s needed is faith – which there is in plenty. Yet nothing is quite as it seems – or there is at least a footnote to the larger story.