Author: Lavina Melwani

“I want you to know that this wasn’t fate, and it wasn’t an accident. You made this happen,” wrote President Barack Obama to his supporters on the day after his stunning victory.
“You organized yourselves block by block. You took ownership of this campaign five and ten dollars at a time. And when it wasn’t easy, you pressed forward.”

Yes, for the hard-pressed supporters who had hoped against hope that Obama would get another four years to complete the architecture of their dreams, it is morning in America. Not a golden sunlit surreal morning but morning nevertheless, tinged with the chilly reality of the world as it is. This victory is a remarkable coming together of different people and races, reflective of the changing face of the nation, the browning of America.

Diwali in America is all about innovation and creating new traditions and each family follows its past rituals but also adds in new ones. Indeed, Floyd Cardoz, the celebrated chef of North End Grill in Manhattan, is a Catholic married to Barkha, a Hindu, and is an avid celebrator of Diwali.
“Even though Floyd and I come from different religious backgrounds, our kids are lucky and blessed to be able to celebrate both holidays,” says Barkha. “They absolutely love Diwali – we do Lakshmi puja in the evening and then it’s followed by the food that is a tradition from when I was a little girl – Pooris with aloo rassa, makhani dal, a paneer dish, gobi sabji, lots of mithai and then the all time favorite – sabudana kheer.”
(Barkha Cardoz with extended family at the Diwali table)

While ‘English Vinglish’ is about a big starry comeback – that of the wonderful superstar Sridevi, it’s also about new beginnings – that of Gauri Shinde’s directorial debut. And there’s yet another story in there of particular interest to New Yorkers – that of the debut of local model-actress Neelu Sodhi in a big Bollywood film, playing the niece of Sridevi.

Neelu Sodhi has gone from a career in finance to modeling and commercials to the big desi dream – Bollywood. Indeed, such is the power of Bollywood in Indian lives that you never know when it’s going to enter your life and give it a 360 degree turn. Read on for a heartwarming Cinderella story. Yes, Bollywood Dreams do come true…

Assemblyman Upendra J. Chivukula of New Jersey is very much a people’s man, rubbing shoulders with the person on the street and well aware of the difficulties the middle-class faces. He’s been there and he’s walked in those shoes. He is running for US Congress from New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District but he’s come up the hard way and understands the concerns of his constituents.

He was born a continent away in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh in a lower middle-class family. He and his five siblings, parents and grandmother lived in a mud hut with thatched roof without electricity where schoolwork had to be done outdoors under the street lights, and life had to be lived on a fixed income. The family even moved to Chennai in search of work.

“My father held many jobs including that of cashier and teacher and was a very honest man who taught us good values,” recalls Chivukula. “My mother was a music teacher, teaching classic Karnataka music and she played the veena. We still have the veena back home and when I visit her, I see that she is still singing. She is 83 years old and I wish I had the gift and talent that she has!”

After being the chef at Vermilion, the acclaimed Indian-Latin fusion restaurants in Chicago and New York for eight years and the first Indian woman to be a competitor on The Iron Chef and The Next Iron Chef, what do you do for an encore?

Well, if you’re Maneet Chauhan, you take a break. You go have a baby, become a judge on Food Network’s ‘Chopped’, work on two cook books and plan a new restaurant in Nashville, TN, partnering with the M Street Restaurant Group.
Here Maneet shares her life and recipes with Lassi with Lavina readers!

India gave us the sari, the salwar kameez, the lengha. So what’s coming next?

“The Indian gown!” says Shirin Vinayak of Shehnaai Couture, who just got back from Lakme Fashion Week. “Indian fabrics, Indian embroideries and Western silhouettes seem to be the way to go, not only for the red carpet but also for reception wear as well.”

Gowns are all the rage with Bollywood stars like Katrina Kaif and Kareena Kapoor, as well as the Page 3 crowd in India, tricking down to young women in the metros.
Vinayak is bringing that trend of the Indian gown in – “I feel like culturally that works for us here and so this is the first year that we have a full display of gowns on our rack.”

Maneet Ahuja, 27, certainly knows a thing or two about hedge funds. In fact, she is CNBC’s hedge fund specialist and a producer on Squawk Box, the noted morning program for the business world.
“The level of coverage we’ve developed for hedge funds did not exist in any business news TV outlet,” she says. “Our viewers definitely want to hear what these hedge fund managers have to say. They guide the smart money, and we’ve been able to carve out a niche for ourselves in an industry that wasn’t previously covered.”

September 6, 2012 was no ordinary day – it was the day that fashion became thoroughly democratized with Fashion’s Night Out taking over Manhattan. Every man and woman even remotely interested in style was invited to the citadels of couture for an open party.

The streets of Manhattan were over-run by hordes of fashionistas – all dressed to the hilt, many in designer dresses, others in their own unique styles and they had taken over the city. It was like one big, glorious feista, especially in lower Manhattan. Women in groups, women with boyfriends, generational groups too – everyone out to celebrate something as whimsical, as fleeting as fashion.

The very first party I stopped at was at Soigne K, the luxury boutique on Madison Avenue owned by Soigne Kothari. It was pure carnival as crowds gathered to see fiery dancers in the store windows and indulge in shots of tequila, rose and white wine, and dainty little finger foods.

Once upon a time three young rising chefs were handed shrimp, an immaculate kitchen. limited time and a medley of ingredients to orchestrate into an award-winning new shrimp masterpiece. They dashed and they mashed, they mixed and they fixed, they chopped and they pureed as a lineup of pedigreed judges and VIP guests watched with bated breath and hungry stomachs.

The event was Varli’s ‘Rising Star Chef 2012’ live competition at Junoon featuring chefs under the age of 35 – Bhavesh Patel (Moghul Caterers), Shravan Shetty (Urban Spice), and Sylva Senat (Tashan). Each created a signature entrée and served a tasting to the celebrity panel of judges – noted chef Jehangir Mehta of Graffiti and Mehtaphor; restaurateur Rajesh Bhardwaj, and award-winning cook book authors Monica Bhide and Ramin Ganeshram.

Three Shrimp Creations from Varli Rising Star Chefs at Junoon Restaurant in New York

The world knows of Dropbox, which is estimated to be a $ 5 billion company but few know that its genesis happened at Y Combinator, an incubator of start-ups which also nurtured the $1. 3 billion Airbnb.
“Y Combinator has become the central place to see where the next huge companies will be born and this makes it tremendously exciting to be a part of,” says Harj Taggar, 29, who is part of the core team at Y Combinator.

Since 2005 Y combinator has funded over 380 startups, including Reddit, Scribd, Disqus, Dropbox, ZumoDrive, Justin.tv, Posterous, Airbnb, Heyzap, Cloudkick, DailyBooth, WePay, Bump, Stripe, AeroFS, and Hipmunk.It has been called the most prestigious program for budding entrepreneurs and has created an entirely new method of funding early stage startups.

Bali. Las Vegas. Hong Kong. Dubai. Miami. Mumbai. Singapore. And the list keeps growing! ‘Have Make-Up Kit, Will Travel!’ This could well be the mantra of Sanjana Vaswani, a traveling cosmetologist in New York who has flown to many cities and driven many miles to transform everyday women into dazzling brides at countless weddings.
It’s interesting how new careers can be created and willed into being, and now with the ever-burgeoning Indian-American community in the US, the business of beauty is a multi-million dollar industry, part of the Indian-American wedding industry. Along with wedding planners, caterers, decorators, and photographers, you have the make-up artistes…
For Sanjana, her car keys are crucial in the business, and she’s driven from Pennsylvania to Virgina. “Thank God for GPS!” she says. At any given time her car carries her makeover cases of cosmetics and accessories which are geared for any beauty emergency.

In a very material world of designer haircuts and stylish togs, Vikram Gandhi, 33, did a radical thing: he grew his hair long and nurtured a massive beard. Forsaking all, he donned saffron robes, a fake accent and armed with a trident, became Kumare, the enlightened founder of the Sri Kumare spiritual movement.

Really?

Well, not really. Vikram Gandhi, you see, is a New York based-filmmaker and he is a fake guru in a real documentary, ‘Kumare’. Or as the film is billed, ‘The true story of a false prophet’.

Sacrilege or a seduction? Chocolate Dosa!
The other day wandering in the pleasurable desi by-lanes of Jackson Heights, admiring the mounds of mangoes, lychees and papayas, I stopped at Dosa Delight, a small family-type vegetarian eatery. There along with the traditional idli, medhu vada and Pondicherry Dosa was – Chocolate Dosa!

Now this is not a gourmet city restaurant but a tried and tested homey Southern outpost. So how did something as contrary as Chocolate Dosa find its way here? And could I have a taste?

New York fashionitas rejoice! Soon noted Indian designer Anita Dongre will be making her US debut, and in her many labels you are bound to find your vibe. Her style has brought cachet to everything from the airlines to the hospitality industry and her designs can be found in films like ‘My Brother Nikhil’, ‘Bas Ek Pal’ and ‘Sorry Bhai’. Fresh from her dazzling show at Lakme Fashion Week, Anita Dongre shows her latest couture and answers your questions.

“Q: Do you think you need a different fashion lingo for New York or are you planning to bring the same looks to the US? How different or similar are the sensibilities in Mumbai and Manhattan?

A: Women all over the world share a commonality which is to discover new trends and style statements so the lingo in New York isn’t necessarily different. We as designers have to constantly be reinventing our designs whether for the consumer in Manhattan or Mumbai. There is a similarity between the two cities as both are fast paced cities and women are always on the go and they want to dress efficiently yet trendy.”

On this golden summer afternoon, it seemed quite a good option to be jobless, a tourist or a window shopper browsing the Financial District rather than a hedge fund guy or a banker immersed in a dry office!

In a surreal juxtaposition, sparkling Bollywood, Indian music and dance had come to NYC’s downtown business area, with costumed dancers doing high kicks against the skyscrapers and bringing the ‘nakras’ and ‘chakras’ of Indian dance to this rather sober part of town.

Tourists gaped from the top of open double decker tourist buses which rolled past the plaza with its unexpected celebration of Bharat Natyam, Kuchipudi, Kathak and ‘filmi’ Bollywood dance. Right on One New York Plaza was Erasing Borders: Festival of Indian Dance, a free event co-presented by the Indo-American Arts Council and Battery Dance Company as part of the 31st Downtown Dance Festival.

New York is the place where nothing is impossible. You can be a medical student, decide to take on a fashion career and actually see it materialize before your very eyes. All you need is chutzpah – and of course, talent.

Ask Siddhi Vaishnav and she will tell you New York is indeed the place to test-drive the most amazing vehicles. Just a few months back she was immersed in medical studies – and now here she was, the center of ‘A Tale of Two Cities’, a NYC fashion event choreographed by her newly formed company Clic by Siddhi.

Imagine thousands and thousands of stone, brick and glass skyscrapers rising in the concrete canyons of New York City, blocking out the sun and stars. The streets of Manhattan are gridlocked with vehicular traffic, horns blaring, tempers flaring, sometimes drowned out by the wailing siren of a rushing ambulance.

Now imagine lush greenery, idyllic ponds on which swans and ducks glide, virtual forests of old trees and acres and acres of plush green grass where families can relax, dogs run about and children play ball. Welcome to the parks of New York City which are the virtual lungs of the city and provide the breathing room, the thinking room that millions living in the frenzied city require.

A look at the parks best for a Summer celebration.

Why is the langar such a remarkable meal?

“It’s the simplicity of it. The humbleness of service. The server and the served work like a complete circle of Universe.
Sitting on the floor in simple lines define the equality of us all.
The way everyone prepares, cooks, the energy, the chanting is all about seva and sharing. It’s truly remarkable that how much pride Sikhs take in even cleaning. It’s a Utopian experience.”
– Vikas Khanna

Recipes from the Langar meal, blended with blessings from Gurdwaras in the US and India