Browsing: South Asian Diaspora

A gossamer web of stories ensnares the reader in ‘One Amazing Thing,’ Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s new novel, taking you into distant lands, hidden places in the heart and into the hidden strengths people have.

Nine very different people drawn by chance or luck or destiny into the same spot just as disaster strikes. They are all gathered for obtaining visas to India in the basement of the Indian consulate in an unnamed American city when a powerful earthquake strikes. ALSO LISTEN TO A LIVE INTERVIEW WITH CHITRA DIVAKARUNI

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.

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.

You have to hand it to Myna Mukherjee, Director of Engendered, the small but spunky human rights organization dedicated to gender, sexuality and minority rights. She not only talks about these difficult topics in the South Asian diaspora, be it HIV-AIDS or sexual orientation, but also makes them more accessible through music, dance, movies – and now fashion.
‘Positive’ by Manish Arora, who is one of the biggest names in fashion, was a tribute to the resilience of AIDS victims: “I chose color to signify ‘positive’ because that is a sign of happiness for me – and I took ‘positive’ to mean happiness – I love happiness! It doesn’t take much to make yourself happy.”

If all the world is a stage, then who better to tell the story of the ongoing drama of Indian immigration and Diaspora tales than playwrights? For years insightful writers from Africa to the UK to Canada have been documenting the stories of those who left the homeland for uncharted territories, and now some of them gathered in New York to share their experiences.

When you look at Gauri Gill’s images in her touring collection ‘The Americans’, it sometimes feels as if you’re gazing into a mirror and seeing a reflection of yourself. Indeed, there will be few immigrants who do not see a piece of themselves, a bit of their story echoed in her photographs.