Author: Lavina Melwani

If there’s something five generations of Rockefellers have been fascinated by – it is Asia. They were into Asian art and culture long before it became fashionable and certainly long before Asia became a major emerging global power.

With deft, intricate brush-strokes Jhumpa Lahiri creates characters that are so real you could swear you recognize them, you know them, or at least people like them.

Manish Arora, who’s designed for celebs and society divas, was one of the noted names invited to design for this client who really is the cat’s meow!

He is quite the rock star in the world of cigars because he is the creator of one of the hottest selling cigars in the US and many other parts of the world – the Rocky Patel.

The Mumbai native, who came to the US with just $10,000 in 1977, has been building luxury condominiums in New York for over three decades worth over $600 million

Sundaram Tagore has been jumping continents as contemporary Indian art and India influenced art goes global.

Vijai Nathan, Nandini Mukherjee and Pooja Narang prove that there’s nothing more rewarding than following a passion and making it a profession!

To look at his resume is to wonder if it’s the resume of just one man – or several!

Forty years ago everyone’s favorite rockers John, Paul, George and Ringo had journeyed to India to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s ashram to find themselves. Noted Canada-based photographer and film-maker Paul Saltzman – at that time another lost soul – was also there and photographed the famous foursome.

Indian art is still well priced and westerners simply love the unbelievable color and imagery, so reminiscent of India.

Playwright Ayub Khan-Din is an astute chronicler of the new Britain where south Asians are very much a part of the cultural landscape

Decadent, rich, irresistible, addictive – and actually good for you! It’s a sweet, secretive, passionate love affair that’s finally coming into the open. Aphrodisiac, pep pill, fashion statement, reward and bribe – chocolate is fast taking over the world! You see it everywhere from airport shops to elegant boutiques, from haute cuisine to haute couture, from special cocktail drinks to beauty products. Yes, the hottest new ingredient in lifestyle is luxury chocolates! Is chocolate the new black? Sexy models walked the ramp in New York recently dressed in nothing but gourmet chocolate and stiletto heels. The occasion was the runway…

His eyes are smiling as he hands the little girl a chocolate bar and sees her eyes light up; his photographic memory can recall the first names and faces of hundreds of devotees he hasn’t seen for many years; he delivers soaring ex tempo speeches which younger intellectuals would stumble on. He can quote from the Bhagwat Gita and from Thoreau with equal felicity. At a gathering at New York’s Town Hall, thousands of followers and well-wishers had gathered to greet Dada JP Vaswani, spiritual head of the Sadhu Vaswani Mission, on his 90th birthday. As Krishna Kumari, the working…

Who doesn’t love chocolate? Chocoholics turned up in droves for the New York Chocolate Show which took place on the waterfront at Pier 94. This 55000 sq feet area was changed into a sinfully rich chocolate universe with unending tastings from 65 brands of chocolates, demonstrations by pastry chefs and chocolatiers including famous names like Knipschildt Chocolatier, Valrhona, Jacque Torres and Francoise Payard. Nor are chocolates just for eating: at the Chocolate Spa, you could try beauty products such as creams and lotions infused with chocolate, which is such a feel good ingredient. A highlight of the show was the…

Feeling hungry? Then let’s introduce you to New Yorker Divya Gugnani who’s turned a passion for food into a delicious new start-up company.This savvy venture capitalist gave up a solid financial career – much before the current downturn – to start a fun new online business called Behind the Burner.

Forget about the amateurish fight scenes and burning toy cars of the past – special effects, animation and action shots are now all the trend, and very serious business in Bollywood!

The crowds were as thrilled to see Abhishek and Ash together as if they had done the matchmaking themselves, and they erupted into cheers when Aishwarya said, “New York has special significance in my life – this is where Abhishek proposed to me! It will always remain very, very special to me.”

It was a great day for celebrity spotting – Salman Rushdie, Shashi Tharoor, Suketu Mehta, Madhur Jaffrey, Konkona Sen-Sharma, Boman Irani, Shabana Azmi, Deepa Mehta, Mira Nair and Ketan Mehta were all there.

Can cinema change the way you think? Can it shape the way society collectively views difficult choices – or can society change the way films reflect certain stereotypes? Rarely do you get an opportunity to mull social issues while enjoying endless cinema and this was the special attraction of I View Film, an annual film festival with the ambitious title of New Ways of Seeing Human Rights Cinema.

“I have never flown, spoken, moved from hotel to hotel or country to country. Those are activities I long ago delegated to my body. I am always at home and have never left.”