Phoolan Devi, India’s notorious Bandit Queen, was gunned down at the age of 37 – yet she continues to live on in the popular imagination. Rape victim and avenging angel, oppressor and oppressed, she finally won respectability, embraced Buddhism, and a seat in Parliament before a barrage of bullets ended it all.

Vengeance. Rape. Murder. Bloodshed. Violence. Her short, chaotic life was indeed the stuff of melodrama, and several artistic ventures have tried to capture its turbulence.

There is a continuing fascination with Phoolan Devi’s life, and in her latest avatar she is the central figure in an opera – ‘Phoolan Devi: The Bandit Queen’

Portrait of a mother – As this young artist has depicted in this art from the heart, may the flowers always bloom for you, the sun shine on you and your lives always be full of love. Roses, gifts, visits to the spa, jeweled baubles, lunches and dinners, lots of pampering – you deserve them all!

Yet today we pay tribute also to the other mothers – the invisible women all over the world who struggle to give their children a roof and sustenance, a future…Watch Breakthrough’s moving video about the nameless women whose lives get subsumed in making a livable life for their families.

The latest salvo, of course, has come in the wake of the Delhi rape scandal, and has tarnished the reputation of the country immeasurably. Not that rape and women’s rights are not real problems in India, but the persecution of an entire nation and culture is unjustified.

After all, we are still talking about a nation with thousands of years of rich history and advancement behind it and a cultural pedigree that frankly far outpaces that of America; not Iran or some tribal village in Afghanistan where they still use the abacus and stone women for adultery.

We are also talking about a nation with more than a billion people and very complex sectarian, cultural, religious, and economic dynamics that don’t lend themselves to black-and-white characterization or blanket judgment. Guest Blog – Sanjay Sanghoee

You’re in the comfortable upper middle-class home of Changez Khan’s parents in Lahore where a qawwalli concert is in full swing and the mesmerizing sounds of Sufi devotional music pervade the room.
The camera zones in on the red paan-stained mouths of the performers, then cuts to the kidnapping of an American academic on the dark streets of Lahore, then back to the musical energy, the total civility of Urdu poetry in bloom. Paan stains and blood. Ethereal music, gun shots and screams. The crescendo rises and you are totally hooked.

There’s no shame in it – so let’s just face the world and say it out loud: we Indians are addicts – filmi addicts! We are incomplete without cinema; we have our withdrawal symptoms if we don’t get our quota of films, be it in a darkened theater, a borrowed video or a sighting on Netflix.
Life without our desi cinema is unimaginable, for who will teach us about love and heartbreak, truth and beauty, family and sacrifice? We need Raj Kapoor’s blue blue eyes to tell us about yearning and lost love; we need Amitabh Bachchan to paint the harsh complexities of life and strife; and we need Shah Rukh Khan to tell us how to battle a million obstacles and win the sweetheart we all dream of.
All this – set to the music which every lover of Indian cinema has coursing in their veins. ( Also check out the wonderful video which says it all! )

The great thing about New York City is that you never know whom you’re going to meet and where. It’s like pulling a slot machine lever every morning and watching a waterfall of casino coins tumble out – or not!
So if you had told me that before the week was midway through I’d be sipping wine at Tina Brown’s fabulous apartment and hobnobbing with celebrated author William Dalrymple and a bunch of celebrities, I would have been skeptical. But that’s the way the week turned out. Only in New York City…

Few 100-year-olds are this vibrant but Indian Cinema has all the sass and punch in its centenary year and we can expect exciting things from an industry which has embraced so many different genres. The upcoming New York Indian Film Festival, presented by Indo-American Arts Council, promises to serve up a feast of movies which are making waves. So here’s to a taste of cinema, past and present.

“All the film industry is going to Cannes to celebrate the 100th year of Indian cinema. We are the perfect global kick-off because in 1913 on May 4th was the first-ever Indian movie – and that’s the date of our closing night!” said Aroon Shivdasani, the Executive Director of IAAC, who along with Aseem Chhabra, director of the festival, has selected the eclectic mix of films.

Do you have a few extra million dollars lying around? Did you just pick up the phone and bid $39 ,323,750 on a diamond? No? Well, someone did!
An anonymous collector bidding by phone just parted with $ 39.3 million at Christie’s. This was no ordinary sparkler – a rare 34.65 carat Fancy Intense Pink diamond named the Princie, which originated from the ancient Golconda mines in India.
It is the most expensive diamond ever sold at Christie’s – or in the US.

Home and exile are two of the most evocative words in the English language, and they are seared into the work of Zarina Hashmi, noted printmaker and sculptor, who was born in Aligarh in India. Zarina, who goes by only her first name, has been a nomad, a transient who has taken many journeys, crossed many borders. The floor plans of past homes, the many stories of dislocation and the sweet lost language of Urdu are embedded in her prints.

Having worked in relative anonymity for 35 years from her small loft in Manhattan, NY, Zarina, 75, is now suddenly on the international art world’s radar. The prestigious Guggenheim Museum is showcasing “Zarina: Paper Like Skin”, the first retrospective ever of an Indian woman artist, featuring 60 works dating from 1961 to the present.

‘Midnight’s Children’ – a major film collaboration born out of an epic book – is about to be released in the US, and film-goers are waiting in excited anticipation, popcorn and soda ready.
At a preview screening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, author Salman Rushdie and director Deepa Mehta were in a fun mood, completing each other’s sentences, putting a light-hearted spin on things, and what came through clearly is the rapport they share.

Since reviews of the film are embargoed till its New York release on May 26th, I think I’ll entertain you all meanwhile with the goings on of that evening.