When different lives, different experiences intersect, you get something totally unexpected and fresh. That’s the story of The Sa Dance Company – twelve dancers coming from diverse disciplines and filtering their moves together into something unique. Many of them are from Ivy League colleges and work at blue chip corporations but through it all they’ve kept their deep passion for dance.
Ever met a bartender who made $900 in tips in two hours? Meet Priyanka Mathew – she accomplished this – and all in the name of philanthropic imbibitions! Mathew, who is in reality Director of the Aicon Gallery in Manhattan, had probably never thought she’d be mixing drinks and looking for tips – until she went to Pakistan.
What better way to launch a film series about a rich culture than with a Mughal feast?
Fabulous jewels, opulent palaces, courtesans, high melodrama and a vanishing way of life is what enthralled us in the classic historical movies like ‘Pukar’, ‘Najma’, ‘Mirza Ghalib’, ‘Mughal-e-Azam’, and more recently ‘Jodhaa Akbar’.Now you can get the flavor of those bygone days with a rich cinematic feast worthy of the Mughals – and actually indulge in a royal celebration.
How can young girls get a sense of self and confidence in tackling the larger world? On the recent Take Our Daughters to Work Day, two South Asian organizations came together to make this a reality. South Asian Women’s Leadership Forum (SAWLF) partnered with South Asian Youth Action (SAYA!). Over 45 high school students got a chance to visit corporate offices such as JP Morgan Private Bank, Harper Collins, MTV, Infosys and Colgate, thanks to SAWLF women who are already working in these companies.
They may live in American cities, go to American schools but Bollywood runs in their blood. We’re talking of young Indian-Americans, thousands and thousands of them, scattered across American towns and cities. Weaned on Bollywood movies on DVD since babyhood, they learn the Shah Rukh moves, the Madhuri moves, the Shahid moves, almost by osmosis in family living rooms.
Later many of them learn dance, classical and Bollywood, at the scores of Indian dance schools that have sprouted up in towns and cities. They dance at family events, birthdays and weddings, as naturally as if they were in a Bollywood movie and it was written into the script of life.
Do Hindus eat monkey brains? You would think so if you saw the film ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’. Of the western viewers who might have taken this with a pinch of salt as Hollywood excess, many still have the most vexing perceptions about Hinduism from the horrors of caste to the burning of widows. Yes, and don’t forget rat worship, arranged child marriages, female infanticide, dowry and the killing of young brides.So who will set the record straight in the West?
Enter the Interpreters of Dharma, the Myth-Busters.
In the wake of recent events, what’s happening with Shashi Tharoor will need much more than 140 characters of Twitter analysis! You could of course say ‘Storm in a Teacup’, ‘Much Ado about Nothing’ – or ‘There’s More to This Than meets the Eye’. All would be essentially correct.
He’s fifty percent Japanese and fifty percent Indian, so does that make him a Lexus-Nano hybrid? Or a Toyota-Ambassador? This might be my own sorry attempt at stand-up, but Dan Nainan’s mixed heritage has certainly had him laughing all the way to the moolah house. Always squeaky clean, his humor has found many takers in the South Asian community across the diaspora. Here the funny man answers some serious questions.
A store is born – or should we say a star is born?
Misha Nicole, a new fashion concept store which is opening in Soho in fall 2010 gave shoppers a peek at things to come with Global Runway’s Night Out, a fashion show organized with the Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC) at the Paramount Hotel. Over 300 people turned up for an evening of cocktails and style-gazing as a battalion of models showed the collections of 10 designers from India, the US and Canada in a series of looks conceptualized by Misha Nicole Shivdasani.
Indians are getting all sorts of recognition worldwide – now are they going to be known as the world’s biggest drinkers too? Thanks to Vijay Mallya, Chairman of the UB Group, they may get that distinction! United Spirits Limited (USL), the flagship company of The UB Group, has crossed the milestone of a sales volume of 100 million cases for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2010.