Browsing: Features

What better way to start a new blog than with Ganesha, the Lord of New Beginnings? Give him whichever name you choose – He is that consciousness that is within us and around us and in the very breath we take.

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initial feeling when I spotted these very Indian hands laden with gorgeous red wedding bangles and mehndi was one of disorientation. I must be in a Bollywood movie or at some Big Fat Indian Wedding. Or at least in a street in Colaba or Kalbadevi! But no, I was not even in Jackson Heights or any ethnic enclave but in the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

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‘Family Life’, Akhil Sharma’s new novel, is devastating – about the unpredictability of life, of how 3 minutes can change it forever.

Yet it is also about the resilience of the human spirit and how we can keep raising the bar on the amount of grief and pain we are able to tolerate – all for love. And sometimes for guilt.

Deceptively small, ‘Family Life’ comes with a lot of turbulence packed into it – each page takes you into human lives which are raw and conflicted.

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Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is the city’s largest art museum, has always been New York’s crown jewel. Now along with its iconic Fifth Avenue space and the Cloisters, it has a new avatar, Met Breuer (pronounced Broy-er) on Madison Avenue.

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Over 250 women turned up for a fabulous Spring Luncheon at Swan Club organized by Children’s Hope India to support the children living in homeless shelters in New York City. A highlight of the 2015 spring luncheon is the Woman of Distinction Award, given to a woman who has managed to balance the challenges of the workplace, home and social responsibility. This year we honored Ila Paliwal who is a classically trained vocalist, song writer and producer. She was presented the award by Sadhna Shanker, wife of the Consul General of India, Ambassador D. Mulay.

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Without language, there is emptiness, a void. Each of us has a unique memory of our earliest words, the numbers, nursery rhymes. In invoking those we get a word picture of our childhood, our deep joys, our irrational fears. The language that we speak gradually becomes a layering, a part of us, an extension of everything we do. ‘In Other Words’ is Jhumpa Lahiri’s first book in Italian.

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Maha Shivaratri – “Himself creates. Himself preserves. Himself destroys.”

For millions of Hindus Mahasivaratri is a very meaningful day, a day of oneness with the Supreme Being. Why do Hindus observe it? What is the Sivalinga? And do believers fast or feast on this day?
If you’ve ever wondered what the different rituals signify, the editors of Hinduism Today share an all-comprehensive report with readers of Lassi with Lavina, dispelling the myths and clarifying the power behind this observance.

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Are you all Oscar-ed out with the talk of black, white and brown, who said what, and who wore what? It’s been a real blitz on social media with the coverage of the 88th Academy Awards but one thing is certain – desis were really tickled to finally see South Asians at the Oscars. Yes, there was an Oscar for Asif Kapadia’s ‘Amy’ and for Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy’s ‘Girl in the River’, and Sanjay Patel’s short animated film ‘Sanjay’s Super Team’ was nominated for an Oscar.

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Who is the Indian Bollywood star with a huge mainstream fan following in Spain, Germany and France? Amitabh Bachchan? No. Aishwarya Rai? No. Shah Rukh Khan? No. It’s Sally Bollywood!

Who would have thought a time would come when there would be a Bollywood movie made by a totally non-Indian team, and its heroine Sally Bollywood would become a super-star with French, German and Spanish fans, her own series of books, stationery line, a comic strip, a luggage and textile line. WATCH THE VIDEOS!

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Prashant Bhargava 1973-2015

Deeply sad to share this news – it’s a loss for all of us. Today the world has lost a wonderful human being and filmmaker – Prashant Bhargava, 42. We remember his brilliant filmmaking, his great potential and his unfinished stories. He gave us many gifts, from ‘Patang’ to ‘Radhe Radhe’ and the last, ‘Ammaji’ – a small meditation on the power of love.

The aspirations behind ‘Patang’ made everyone a part of Prashant Bhargava’s world, his humanity and his caring.

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