Author Lavina Melwani

The Buzz
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Portrait of a mother – as this young artist, who is very close to me, has depicted in this art from the heart, may the flowers always bloom for you, the sun shine on you and your lives always be full of love. Roses, gifts, visits to the spa, jeweled baubles, lunches and dinners, lots of pampering – you deserve them all! A perennial post I love to share on Mother’s Day.

Yet today we pay tribute also to the other mothers – the invisible women all over the world who struggle to give their children a roof and sustenance, a future…Watch Breakthrough’s moving video about the nameless women whose lives get subsumed in making a livable life for their families.

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What constitutes an Indian? Are you Indian if you are born in India or is it your Indian genes which make you Indian? Are you not Indian if you are of a different religion or pray to a different God? Are you seen just as a vote bank by conniving politicians in the great tumult of the Indian Elections?

Sabina Himani, an Indian artist who is Muslim and lives in New York, reminisces on a comment which has dogged her through the years and now she hears once again, due to the ongoing elections.

“All Muslims should leave India and go live in Pakistan ..”

Here’s her answer to all those who make that statement.

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It is indeed telling that while the elections are being played out in India, some of the most avid watchers are thousands of miles away and separated by oceans and continents – in America. Indeed the Indian Diaspora from Africa to the Middle East to Europe are all deeply involved in the outcomes but nowhere is the connection so deep as in America. Men and women who left their homeland over 30 to 40 years ago, still are moved enough to catch all the details on television, Indian newspapers and by phone calls to the family in India. (Photo – Narendra Modi supporters in Silicon Valley hold a tea rally in California)

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When in India, do as the Indians do! Kentucky Fried Chicken, known globally as KFC is the latest American food chain to have undergone a transformation in India.

The chickens are still coming home to roost but it has introduced a substantial vegetarian menu with its ‘So Veg So Good’ campaign to reel in lots of new customers who eat neither egg nor chicken nor meat.

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Dekh, cinema, dekh! In the old days, people in small towns and villages in India would wait anxiously for the traveling cinema to come to them with surprise offerings and entertainment.
In a way, the annual New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF) does the same thing for New Yorkers who are a savvy lot. Yet the festival brings unexpected cinematic treats of found gems, lost stories and glimpses into lives lived.

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East is increasingly meeting West on the red carpet. It’s great to see couture by an Indian designer showcased on New York red carpets – especially by the sizzling Padma Lakshmi.
The host of Bravo’s Top Chef and the must-click subject of every photographer in NY, Padma was seen at two NY events in Payal Singhal’s elegant yet fun outfits which debuted recently in the Lakme Fashion Week.

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It’s the City of Dreams, of Make-believe.

The strivers, the strugglers keep coming but Hollywood’s gates are often closed. Can their stories ever be told, if they are a minority, an outsider? Writers of color are often underemployed in cinema.

Recently the Writers Guild of America, an influential Hollywood entity, set up the Features Access Project to rectify this by encouraging diversity in writing.

Among this year’s eight multicultural honorees, three trace their roots back to India – Radha Bharadwaj (Final Boarding), Nayan Padrai (Billion Dollar Raja) and Tianna Majumdar-Langham (Guns and Saris) who won the honor with her co-writer Chris Bessounian.

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Update: Ritesh Batra’s award-winning drama THE LUNCHBOX has now become the highest-grossing Hindi film of 2014 in North America.

The Irrfan Khan hit has grossed $1.45 million to date surpassing the $1.3 million grossed by both Salman Khan’s latest action picture Jai Ho and the sleeper hit Queen to set a new record for this year.

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Could there be a filmi success story brewing in here? We saw some young unknown and aspiring filmakers with cinematic dreams – and we saw how far they went! We’re talking M.Night Shyamalan and Nagesh Kukunoor here.

Well, meet Ajmal Zaheer Ahmad, a young filmmaker from Detroit with a passion to stir up a devilish hell with his supernatural thriller ‘Jinn’. The film had a glamorous premiere in the fabulous Detroit Institute of the Arts with a packed hall. Get ready to get goose-bumps and some sleepless nights for ‘Jinn’ releases nationwide tomorrow and in Canada.

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Imran Khan comes from a famous film family – he is the grandson of director-producer Nasir Husain, creator of some of the most rocking musicals of the 70’s. He is also the nephew of actor Aamir Khan and director-producer Mansoor Khan. He acted as a child star in several movies, disappeared to America, and then re-emerged as a romantic hero in Jaane Tu, Ya Jaane Na which won him the Filmfare Award for the Best Male Debut.
Bollywood loves his romantic ‘chocolate hero’ image in films but chatting with him, you realize he’s not just about style and stardom – but about substance. Here he muses about life, family, love and social activism.

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