Not too many new fashion design graduates get to debut at the prestigious Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York but that’s what happened with Dipti Irla, a young Maharashtrian designer from Mumbai. There she was soaking in the limelight of this fashion circus at Lincoln Center, surrounded by buyers, editors and paparazzi.

“Right from my childhood, when I would be getting ready for school, my mom would be getting her makeup done for her shoot,” recalls Esha Deol, star daughter of super stars Dharmendra and Hema Malini. “So instead of being in uniform, I would try on her wig, put on her lipstick.
I used to love watching ‘Seeta Aur Geeta’ which I saw every day. I loved dancing on all Hindi songs of the 80’s, so I knew that this is what I have always wanted to do.”

She’s out of sight but not out of our minds – we’re talking of none other than the bubbly, ever vibrant superstar Madhuri Dixit. Well, here are some nuggets from a brief but fun interview she gave to me during her New York visit. What comes through is her warmth and easiness as she adapts avidly to a very un-Bollywood lifestyle.

She’s probably the sexiest mechanical engineer around, and by her own admission, she’s also a bit of a geek who loves all things techie. And yet, Melanie Kannokada, 24, is so much more than a geeky mechanical engineer.
Her debut film ‘Bicycle Bride’ won the best feature film award at the South Appalachian Film Festival, and she was nominated Best Actress in this, her very first role. ‘Love, Lies and Sita’, her second film, has three guys madly in love with her – and it’s set for a summer release. In this recurring post spotlighting emerging South Asian talent, Lavina Melwani checks out her story…

“We were the first Sikh family in Bamberg. It was a small town in South Carolina, a closed community at that time,” recalls Ajit Randhawa of the 70’s. “Our daughters Simmi and Nikki entered the Little Miss Bamberg contest but the school selected only a White Queen and a Black Queen. So Nikki and Simmi were not eligible as contestants. Nikki was five years old at that time and sang, ‘This land is your land, this land is my land, from California to New York Island’ and received a resounding applause.”

Fast forward to 2010 and Nikki Haley (nee Randhawa) is not only a contestant in the most powerful contest there is – US politics – but has won big time. Forget black and white, she has shown that an Indian-American can be a game changer where race and gender is concerned in the Deep South.

Chandrika Krishnamurthy Tandon, the dynamic chairman of Tandon Capital Associates, who has done major restructuring surgeries in the global financial world, is executive-in-residence at New York University Stern, a member of the board of overseers of New York’s Stern School of Business, a member of the President’s Council of International Activities at Yale University, and an arts patron.
There’s more: she has the voice of an angel. ‘Om Namo Narayanaya’ is the chant that will calm and strengthen you. Newsbreak: Soul Call has just been nominated for a Grammy in the Best Contemporary World Music Album category

She’s made Madhur Jaffrey, Preity Zinta, Yoko Ono and even Cherie Blair, the former First Lady of Britain, taste her cakes. She says with a smile, “Preity Zinta called them ‘yummy’; Yoko Ono said ‘Nice cupcakes’ and Cherie Blair said, ‘These are great!’”
Indeed, if Parul Patel has a mission in life, it’s to get a cupcake inside you!
(Parul offers a tasting to Britain’s former First Lady, Cherie Blair, at a fundraiser)

The US has several Indian-Americans doing important work in academia. Meet Beheruz. N. Sethna, President of the University of West Georgia with a budget of $ 100 million and 100 programs of study through the doctoral level.

He’s a Parsi who’s got some important firsts affixed to his name: he is the first person of Indian origin to ever become the president of a university anywhere in the US. He’s also the first person from any ethnic minority to become president of a predominantly white or racially-integrated university or college in Georgia.

Bollywood fans will be intrigued to know that their favorite hunk John Abraham is part of ‘Damaru’, Isheeta Ganguly’s new album – in a very different way than they usually envisage him. Rather than a Bollywood hero, his is the thoughtful, strong voice behind the words of “Bande Mataram” and the Tagore poem, “Where the Mind is Without Fear”.

Imagine this: just one actor on stage. No set transformations, no costume changes, little or no action. Yet you sit for a full hour, totally engrossed, and are almost surprised to find that, though you’ve sat immobile in your seat, you’ve traveled into complex worlds, into the innermost reaches of mind and heart.

Few people could pull this off but the combination of actor Shabana Azmi, director Alyque Padamsee and playwright Girish Karnad makes ‘Broken Images’ a play to watch and relish.