Author Lavina Melwani

24/7 Talk is Cheap - The Blog
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The arts need creators, facilitators, patrons and an audience – and all were there in full measure at the IAAC 15th anniversary gala.
Salman Rushdie and Mira Nair both received awards for their contribution to the arts, as did Dr. Manjula Bansal for her contributions to medicine but also for being a stellar devotee and patron of the arts.
And the facilitator of the arts was there in the shape of Aroon Shivdasani, the founder and director of IAAC, who has brought art, music, dance and cinema to New York audiences for the past 15 years.

The Buzz
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If the Pilgrim Fathers revisited America this year, they would certainly be amazed by the aromas, tastes and colors of the diverse Thanksgiving table. New York is, of course, one of the most diverse cities in the U.S. and its residents trace their roots to hundreds of countries and ethnicities. Each immigrant family brings its own culture and food habits and incorporates them into the Thanksgiving meal.

CyberCircles: For You!
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Dr. Eboo Patel is a man of peace in a time of violence. At a time when a Muslim name automatically gets equated with terrorism and Islam itself is misunderstood, this young Muslim Indian American shows the power of interfaith dialogue.

Recently he was honored in New York with the 2012 Guru Nanak Interfaith Prize, established by Hofstra University with a gift by the Bindras, a prominent Sikh American family in New York. This award has earlier been given to the Dalai Lama, Rabbi Arthur Schneier and Religions for Peace.Patel has been successful in propagating the very commonsense yet outrageous idea that given a choice, young people of different religions will prefer love over hate, peace over violence.

Food Articles
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A no-turkey Thanksgiving should make both vegetarians and the turkeys very happy!
As each successive wave of immigrants come to America, they introduce their own well-loved foods to the Thanksgiving table and in the process create new traditions.

24/7 Talk is Cheap - The Blog
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When Sunita Advaney, now married and settled in Forest Hills, was seven years old, she came home from first grade and asked her immigrant parents about Thanksgiving. Her father Lal Lakhati, who had migrated from India, didn’t just explain the holiday to her, he actually went out and bought a small rotisserie bird and all the trimmings and the family had a Thanksgiving dinner. In later years they did two turkeys – one traditional and the other a bright red, coated with tandoori spices, coloring and stuffed with biryani and boiled eggs. Says Sunita, “We need our chillies and it was a good way to ease people into turkey because turkey is not our culture.”

24/7 Talk is Cheap - The Blog
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It’s not every day that New York actor Samrat Chakrabarti, who’s acted in a ton of movies and TV shows, gets to go back to his roots and star in a Bengali film. And a Hitchcockian thriller, no less! Samrat, who grew up in London, is currently in Calcutta – the city where his parents grew up and he’s seeing himself, larger than life, on huge billboards in the city.

Samrat, who’s done two big movies in the North and South of India – ‘Midnight’s Children’ and ‘Vishwaroopam’ respectively, is doing a movie in Calcutta for the first time and that too in Bengali. The film is ‘Sada Kalo Abcha’, directed by the innovative digital filmmaker Riingo Banerjee, known as the most experimental and technology driven filmmaker in Tollywood. The entire film has been shot with a range of Panasonic cameras.

24/7 Talk is Cheap - The Blog
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Mukesh & Nita Ambani, the richest couple in India, swear by his food, and so do the Ruias, the Mittals and other biggies. Who is he?

‘The man who started his career 30 years ago by supplying milk in the Matunga Labour Camp-Dharavi area later graduated to selling idlis and dosas at the ramshackle Uma Shankar Hotel in Dharavi, he has since come a long way. His annual turnover runs into a few crores, but he doesn’t like to discuss it. “You know why,’’ he says.’

24/7 Talk is Cheap - The Blog
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Oh, the things people do for love! In his latest film, ‘Gori Tere Pyaar Mein’, dashing city slicker Imran Khan abandons urban comforts to pursue his love, Dia, a social activist played by Kareena Kapoor, in the remote wilds of Jhumli, a small village. Recently the star was in New York and chatted with Lassi with Lavina about this romantic comedy which is being released on November 22.
“Punit, the director, is very, very clear in his intentions,” said Imran during a quick interview at his hotel. ” His intent is to make a fun movie that people should laugh, people should enjoy while they are watching it. He wants to have the kind of songs that make people sing along, make people dance, and you should walk out at the end of it feeling that you have not wasted your time and you have not wasted your money. It is that simple!”

24/7 Talk is Cheap - The Blog
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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.

24/7 Talk is Cheap - The Blog
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Where would you get to rub shoulders with Salman Rushdie, Shabana Azmi, Danny Boyle, Shashi Tharoor, M.F. Husain, Mira Nair, Deepa Mehta, Madhur Jaffrey – and the late, great Ismail Merchant? Well, I met all these topnotch names in New York, all thanks to a small, spunky organization which has survived and thrived by sheer chutzpah. It’s brought a mix of Indian cinema, art, theater and dance to barren city streets, making them all a natural part of American life.

Indeed, if you’re talking about Indian art and culture in the city, you can hardly go a few sentences without mentioning Indo American Arts Council or its creator, Aroon Shivdasani. This year IAAC celebrates its 15th tumble and toss year, and so here’s the story of the little engine that said I think I can, I think I can, against all odds.

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