What happens when there is a massive power cut and Mumbai’s trains stop running? The buses are jam-packed and cabs are at a premium. Can one walk three hours to the suburbs? On a dark and rainy night, nameless people become friends and it’s all about the kindness of strangers. Guest Blog post from The Chatty Divas.
Lavina’s Picks – Cruising the Web. There’s info overload, so what do you read? Well, certainly about George Clooney’s upcoming wedding to Amal Alamuddin! Also about Zubin Mehta’s passion – chilies and his love affair with Indian food. And all about the young Indian-American who created E-Mail!
“For most of the dancers, our childhoods were tinged with nostalgia for a life we never actually had,” says Payal Kadakia, New York based dancer and artistic director of Sa Dance Company. “Our memories are lush with images, songs, stories we heard from our grandparents, parents, or picked up during extended trips to India.”
The dancers have varied dance experiences from Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, Odissi, Kathak, to folk dances like Garba, Bhangra, Rajasthani, as well as Jazz, Ballet and Hip-Hop. As she adds, “it’s about time we address this fragmented, dislocated subconscious. Through dance we are attempting just that; not to create a new identity but to shape the one we have.”
Disney’s ‘The Hundred-Foot Journey’ is produced by Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey and Juliet Blake and directed by Lasse Hallström; it has the music of maestro AR Rahman and the beauty of South of France; it’s a delightful comedy with enough gourmet food in it to get the mouths of all foodies watering, with Manish Dayal as the young culinary genius Hassan.
In this film Dayal gets to interact with topnotch stalwarts like the remarkable Helen Mirren – and the equally wonderful Om Puri, both embroiled in quite a rowdy Indo-French food fight. A report on the special tribute to Om Puri at the Museum of the Moving Image.
Forget sex, forget travel, the biggest fantasies people seem to have are about – Indian food! Yes, home-cooked comfort food just like mom made. The fantasy is to have such a meal whenever and wherever the urge arises – with minimal effort.
Well, that’ s a reality now thanks to Saffron Fix, a brand new creation by two entrepreneurs, Ankita Sharma and Madhuri Sharma.There is such a hunger for this that the duo, hoping to raise $10,000 on Kickstarter, were rewarded within days with $13,761 – and are still going strong.
I had just got out of my car when I came across two complete opposites, the big and the small, the tall and the short – a humungous stretch limousine and one of the tiniest cars I’ve ever seen, one of the frugal Smart cars.
The difference between the two was so dramatic that I couldn’t help thinking of the very different lives these two autos must be leading. One would need a huge garage, an unending supply of gas to guzzle and a chauffeur to pamper it; the other, no gas, no space, no fuss. One looked a star, the other a sparrow. A little like different human lives, of kings and commoners.
Indian cooking fans! Welcome to Lassi with Lavina’s blog which flies you to quite another universe – Foodiesphere! Alka Keswani of Sindhi Rasoi.shares some very authentic, typical home recipes for vegetarian Sindhi food which have been made by grandmas and mothers for decades. Sindh is the lost homeland of hundreds of thousands of Hindu Sindhis who had to flee as refugees in the Partition of 1947, and their food, culture and language are the anchors they hold on to.
Immigrants often cry for the moon – for the lost rhythms of a disappeared homeland, for loved, remembered sounds and tastes. Well, this summer season, a full golden moon is coming right into their embrace in the shape of Drive East, a unique festival of the arts which brings music and dance from across India into their New York neighborhood.
While slowly the arts of India have infiltrated the US, some dance traditions are rarer than others. When did you last see Sattriya, the 600-year-old dance from the Vaishnavite monasteries of Northeast India, live in New York? This wonderful dance form is just one of many which will be showcased in Navatman’s Drive East concerts.
(Sponsored Content: Smart Tips That You Can Use.)
Bollywood superstars hardly ever play second fiddle to anyone – be it heroines or villains. They dance with beauties who are often just icing on the cake and they bash carloads of villains. Yet now we have Bollywood biggie Akshay Kumar deferring to – a dog!
In ‘Entertainment’, a fun comedy being released this week, it’s a dog’s life for the swashbuckling Akshay as he competes with man’s best friend for his family inheritance – and what can one say but – may the best dog win! Yes, this dog does everything – even get married! And the Big Fat Indian Wedding is quite hilarious. An interview with Akshay Kumar on everything from dogs to dreams.
While the new world continues to discover brand new diseases with fancy names, we haven’t quite been able to cope with the existing ones plaguing us for years now.
Water borne diseases have become an all pervading evil around us at present times. Humanity is being made to become cowards like never before. We are made to fear not just the age old demons but things that were close to our hearts always ; blessings like food, water, fellow human beings, darkness, school, transport are now also things to fear!