If you have a tiara, now’s your chance to wear it! This is the year that everyone gets to be a maharaja or maharani and indulge in a royal celebration. Falu will be performing live with her band and there’s a dance presentation of Royal India. All for children’s health and education in India.
With all the fashionistas in New York, this was bound to happen. Against the grand canvas of New York Fashion Week, a group of young South Asian women entrepreneurs created their own hurrah, a showcase of the sparkling talent of desi designers from the US and the Indian-subcontinent.
At the Fashion for Compassion event at the Ritz Carlton honoring Ranjana Khan, there was a happening buzz with lots of star power on the red carpet : Abhay Deol, Preeti Desai, Archie Punjabi, Samrat Chakrabarti, Janina Gavankar, Anusha Dandekar, Pooja kumar, and Shenaz Treasurywala.
“It is one thing to get out of an abusive relationship. It is another thing to be able to support yourself and your children afterwards,” says Reshma.
Quilt making has always been a community effort and so it seems particularly appropriate in a commemoration of a horrific day when in spite of destruction and death all around, the community came together; strangers clasped hands and lit candles on the sad streets.
The age-old craft of quilting has seen generations of women through rough and tough times. Artist Faith Ringgold herself learned quilting from her grandmother who learned it from her mother who was a slave. Story quilts use painting, quilted fabric and storytelling to create powerful narratives about issues which effect humanity.
Great music lives on forever, and great artists are never lost. If you look at the Google doodle today, it’s a tribute to the legendary performer Freddie Mercury who died at the age of 45. The doodle opens out into a wonderful video which captures the essence of Freddie Mercury perfectly – check it out!
Mercury, who has been hailed as Britain’s first Asian Rock Star and one of the greatest singers of all time, would have been 65 today. This charismatic performer has a huge fan following all over the world.
“I was looking through the list of runway shows at Lincoln Center and saw that there was not one South Asian woman designer presenting,” says Reema Rasool, the founder of SayWe. “It actually made me mad, with all of the amazingly talented South Asian women designers we have worldwide! I wanted to do something to correct the situation.”
The result is the upcoming Fashion for Compassion event which honors noted designer Ranjana Khan and showcases the collections of South Asian designers.
Like all New Yorkers, playwright Rehana Lew Mirza has turbulent memories of 9/11 when the world seemed to come crashing down. That night, aware of the rising backlash against Muslims, she and her sister remained barricaded in their one bedroom apartment, watching the horrific images on TV.
A week after that, just as they were struggling to get back to work, Mirza found a flier pinned to her door: it had the image of a missing South Asian woman – and someone had burnt holes into the paper, into the eye-sockets and mouth with a cigarette.
It was at that chilling moment that she knew that for New York Muslims the tragedy was a double whammy – not only were they too the victims but were also being demonized as the perpetrators.
Her response was the play ‘Barriers’. Now on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, ‘Barriers’ is back.
“As many of you will come to know in the weeks and months ahead, the door to my office has a sign for all to see every time they walk through my doorway. The sign says, ‘Can’t Is Not an Option.’
These are the words of Nikki Haley, nee Nimrata Randhawa, the feisty new Governor of South Carolina, the Indian-American daughter of Punjabi immigrants. Haley, 38, has gone from being an obscure Southern legislator to a nationally known rising star on the Republican circuit.
The first thing I spotted was rows and rows of footwear lined up outside the door, neatly stacked. I dutifully shed my sandals too, and going inside found an Indian-style behthak in progress with silk cushions scattered on the woven carpet.
Arts lovers, some with babies in tow, were already sitting cross-legged, facing the empty expanse of a large wooden floor. Musicians were tuning up their instruments, in anticipation.
The space is the Anamika Navatman Studios, an innovative organization for South Asian Arts and the production was Bhinna Pravaaha: Memories of a Performing Artist – Maya Kulkarni. This is a first undertaking to record and pay tribute to the noted artists of the past.
“And then there was the rainy season, and the accompanying sounds of the flirty breeze playing with the leaves of the mango tree in our backyard, the rustic smell of wet earth, and the thud of mangoes falling to the ground,” recalls chef Hari Nayak in his new book ‘My Indian Kitchen’. “We kids often dashed out to pick them up before the sky broke loose! This priceless robbery of ours would mean that soon spicy green mango chutney would be on our dining table!”
Enticing tales such as this, traditional home recipes explained lucidly and photography that’s luscious enough to eat make this a welcome addition to the books on Indian cooking.