Author: Lavina Melwani

New York Diary Diwali Reception with New York Governor Kathy Hochul in Flushing, Queens Diwali is Everywhere in New York! It was quite a thrill to meet Gov. Kathy Hochul, New York’s first-ever woman governor. She held a Diwali celebration for New York’s large Indian community at the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Flushing. Hundreds of New Yorkers representing various desi organizations were there. After she spoke, she took selfies with each of the guests and everyone enjoyed a program of dance and music by talented community members. They were also treated to the most delicious vegetarian food and Diwali…

      New York Diary When Even A Storm Advisory Can’t Keep the Givers Away…… New York City is a Giving City where people love to wine and dine and celebrate the power and potential of transforming lives. Over 400 people came to Pier Sixty to rally around the education of vulnerable children, changing lives and making futures at the Children’s Hope India Gala by raising funds for early learning education centers in the slums and villages. This year major corporations and individual givers had come together to create a force for good.   A striking performance about hope…

  Twenty-Five Years of Celebrating One World, Cross-Cultural Artists There are no borders at Sundaram Tagore’s eponymous gallery in Chelsea for on its walls you’ll see the work of artists from countries as far apart as South Korea, Morocco, Iran and the US. Tagore, who started his first gallery in Soho in 2000, has gone ever more global in his embrace of artists whose work defies cultural and geographic demarcations in their cross-cultural dialogue. Celebrating 25 years, it’s only appropriate that the Sundaram Tagore Gallery has mounted an exhibit of paintings, sculptures, photography and installations by more than thirty artists…

They spin round and round, going faster and faster, but never breaking the sacred circle, as they clap their hands rhythmically, dancing around the Garba or earthen pot. They smile as they twirl around for in these nine nights they are celebrating the Goddess that is enshrined in all of us.

This hugely empowering dance is called the Garba and it is the centerpiece of the celebration of the Hindu festival of Navratri or Nine Nights.

Christie’s Sells Untitled Gaitonde for $2,393,000 at its Asia Week Auction in New York It’s one of the lovely rites of the autumn season in New York – viewing iconic South Asian contemporary art over a glass of wine at Christie’s.  Art collectors, artists, dealers and art lovers had gathered to view the work of some of India’s noted artists at  a reception at Christies in Rockefeller Center. It was a precursor of its auction of South Asian modern + contemporary art as part of Asian Art Week in New York.  At the reception there were familiar faces and many…

  MIT’s Provost Anantha P Chandrakasan – A Man for All Seasons   What if I were to tell you that Anantha Chandrakasan, the newly appointed and much celebrated Provost of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, was also the same man whose application as a graduate student to the same MIT was rejected? His story is truly one of grit, focus and persistence, of winning against the odds. As the leader at MIT, Provost Chandrakasan navigates a rarified world, a galaxy of high achievers and innovators, not only from all 50 states of America but also 159 countries.…

Our Communities: Celebrating Janmashtami – At the birth of Krishna, Small People Rule! Photos: Lavina Melwani     Children were center-stage at the celebration of Janmashtami – the birth of Krishna – at the Satya Narayan Temple in Queens. There were several little Krishnas and Radhas dancing the night away, anticipating the big baby reveal moment at midnight when a bejeweled, curtained cradle was to be opened to introduce the God with 108 names to the waiting, troubled world. Temple devotees dressed in their finest for this celebration, listened to spiritual stories and music and feasted on a delicious community…

  Our Communities: Children’s Hope India – Celebrating Those Who Change Lives Shaping Futures, Changing Lives is the mantra of the upcoming Children’s Hope India Gala at Pier Sixty on October 12, and nobody embodies that more than these honorees: there’s Nitin Rakesh, CEO and Managing Director of Mphasis who is the Lotus Honoree for this year; there’s M R Rangaswami, founder of Indiaspora, a changemaker who receives the Special Impact Award for his groundbreaking work in nurturing the diaspora community; Priti Patkar gets the Making a Difference Award for her passionate work with vulnerable children in India; and highlighting…

Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre: My Visit to NMACC  – A Place of Art with Heart in Mumbai   Last year I was fortunate enough to visit the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Center – now this September it’s coming to you in New York at  Lincoln Center! No other country in the world has the riches of the arts that India has: 5000-year-old dance forms, music from classical to modern to jazz, hundreds of languages, theater of every dialect and visual arts from ancient to contemporary.   Now India also has a gorgeous jewel box to showcase these magnificent arts…

  Global Flavors Shine at the 2025 Summer Fancy Food Show Assamese tea, Gujrati Rotlas and Mango Kulfi for the World Photos by Lavina Melwani For three blissful days you could experience the foods of the world at the 2025 Summer Fancy Food Show which featured over 2,492 exhibitors from 59 countries, embracing the taste buds of the entire globe. While the real world may be squabbling over borders, sovereignty and tariffs, here the countries came together as one. From China to the Soviet Union to America, from India to Pakistan to the Middle East. Smiles and camaraderie were the order…

      New York Diary  UPLIFTNY25: A Day of Mental Well-Being, Music and Yoga in Central Park   Now you no longer have to travel to India to learn about spirituality, meditation, yoga – or even to taste Kathi rolls! you can get it all in New York. And on one special day, UpliftNY25,  thousands of New Yorkers had access to it all in their own favorite backyard – Central Park.   The occasion was UPLIFTNY25, a day of free yoga, meditation, music, and holistic healing. Marking both International Yoga Day and Summer Solstice, the event was presented by…

“Pride was so powerful for many of us. We Bhangra’d and garba’d our way through the gay district of Chicago, Boystown.  Not only has it been 50 years since the riots at Stonewall, but it is the first pride for me after IPC 377 was overturned,”

“we’re both fighting for something universal and something specific, and the specificity is about being an Indian-American, a desi Muslim American running to represent our communities which have been shut out of the conversation for far too long.”

    New York Diary: The Yogis of Times Square Celebrate Summer Solstice Every year on June 20, thousands of yogis descend on Times Square, lay out their mats and turn the streets of Broadway into one giant yoga dham. These are mainstream Americans, mothers and grandmothers, teenagers and schoolkids all happy to do their asanas and sun salutations with honking traffic and buses on surrounding streets. The event is Solstice in Times Square: Mind Over Madness Yoga and experienced yoga practitioners as well as newbies come together for free yoga classes on the pedestrian plazas of Broadway. There are…

  Mahabharata: A Retelling of a 4000 Year Old Family Feud     Mahabharata’s epic journey asks, “When everyone believes they are right and their opponents wrong, how can one end a spiral of revenge?” Mahabharata, India’s epic tale in Sanskrit is 4000 years old but its story is relevant ever more in today’s challenging world. It is a story heard by Indians from childhood, and has been told and retold by families, made into books, films and serials. At its heart it  is about profound spiritual and moral ideals which are universal and touch us all.  Now this saga of…

    NYIFF –  A Feast of Award-Winning Indian Films in New York Anupam Kher, Anurag Kashyap, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and More!     Yes, it’s that time of the year when the long-awaited New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF) lights up the city with a collection of the most buzzy festival finds as well as award-winning films not only in Hindi and English but a riot of regional languages. In fact, it is an empowering festival where many regional languages of India, from Tamil to Bengali to Marathi, can be enjoyed by all, thanks to subtitles. It is a chance…

  From Chennai to Harlem: Breaking Barriers Meet Dr. Anitha Srinivasan, First Woman CMO of Metropolitan Hospital   Talk of woman power! She is the first woman Chief Medical Officer at Metropolitan Hospital, currently one of only two female CMOs across the 11 NYC Health + Hospitals hospital facilities, and the only woman of color in that role. Dr. Anitha Srinivasan, born and brought up in Chennai, found herself in Harlem at the age of 23 – and instantly felt connected to that essential part of New York – and has now spent the last 20 years caring for this often-forgotten…

What is Indian genius? Does it exist? A look at the meteoric rise of the Indian-Americans    It’s the photograph that defines Indian-American success, big time. On the cover of the book Indian Genius by Meenakshi Ahamed, 16 of the celebrated Indian success stories seem to be posing side by side, beaming, as if sitting for a class portrait.   There are the demi-gods of the tech world – Kanwal Rekhi, Vinod Khosla, Shantanu Narayen, Satya Nadella, Suhas Patil, Nikesh Arora; there are celebrated names like Dr. Deepak Chopra, Grammy winner business dynamo Chandrika Tandon, Fareed Zakaria, Dr. Vivek Murthy.…

New York Diary Photo of the Day The Sky is Blue, the River is Blue, but We don’t have to be Blue There’s a crazy, nippy rippling breeze on the East River waterfront; the unsettling cacophony of the news and the drumbeat of the world seems very far away. Life is just this moment. It’s just the here and now. This moment is to be savored in gratitude for all of life’s blessings. The river flows on, calm and peaceful. Unperturbed, unmoved, non-judgmental.  It has seen many dreamers and strugglers like you and me through the ages. And still, it…

  New York Diary An Evening with Indian Genius: Deepak Chopra, Chandrika Tandon and Fareed Zakaria In New York anything is possible, and you may find yourself rubbing shoulders with the likes of Deepak Chopra, Chandrika Tandon and Fareed Zakaria and some very stimulating and high-powered guests at a private book party hosted by Carol and Timothy Geithner. The celebration was for the launch of Meenakshi Ahamed’s thought-provoking book ‘Indian Genius: The Meteoric Rise of Indians in America’. At this sparkling event, she had a conversation with Andrea Elliot,  Pulitzer award-winning NYT journalist and author of ‘The Invisible Child’.  …