Browsing: The Buzz

“The only way to work with India’s future is to work with children. India has the highest child population in the world at 40% of the total population. Hence, working with children is essential for the progress of India. In fact, if we solve any problems for the children of India, we can be almost certain that we would be solving it for the world just by virtue of the number of beneficiaries.”
The Sounds of Hope, an India inspired jazz concert on November 14, benefits the Salaam Bombay Fund which works with children in the slums.

What is Diwali without family? A lot of immigrants who are far from home and family will identify with this Diwali video from Pepsi. Get ready for some emotional tears this festive season – after all, who doesn’t miss home food and hugs and Diwali memories?

We Indians love a good 3 hankie sob to feel really happy!

There is a maniac energy about ‘Haider’ – and a maniac desire among viewers to immerse themselves in this film. Yes, a film scribe I know turned up at this advance screening, bleary-eyed and disheveled, suitcase in tow, straight from the airport – rather than miss this first screening of Vishal Bhardwaj’s much awaited film!

It is a brutal, blood-stained Kashmir, etchings of a brooding, bereft landscape, a city of disappeared people. It shows that Shakespeare’s tale of deceit and murder, of treachery and lost ideals is a universal tale and relevant to all humans. Bhardwaj has successfully transported the ill-starred Danish Prince to Kashmir, and made it an indigenous, very authentic Indian tale.

Goddess Lakshmi sits resplendent on a lotus; Lord Shiva strides atop a vanquished demon; there is Ma Kali, fierce and blood-thirsty, garlanded with the skulls of evil-doers; and Ganesha, calm and peaceful with a bowl of ladoos in his hand.

These are familiar images of Gods and Goddesses that Hindus have worshiped since childhood, and have seen in sacred texts, in temples, in homes, in bazaars and in calendar art.
Now what if I was to tell you that these are not paintings at all but life-size photographs of living human beings in the guise of Gods and Goddesses? That the ferocious Ma Kali is really an artist in real life, Hanuman is a body builder who works in a gym, Ma Saraswati is a television anchor and Lord Brahma is an architect? That Goddess Lakshmi went on to compete in the semi-finals of Miss India 2014, winning the titles of Miss Beautiful Smile and Miss Beautiful Hair?

As the last days of summer fade away I did one of my favorite things – buy a street lunch from a vendor’s truck in Herald Square in Manhattan – and eat it while sitting in the public outdoor spaces which have sprung up in busy city areas. It’s hard to believe how these small parks have spruced up life and how easy it is now to catch a few moments of respite from the hurly-burly of Sixth Avenue with its endless crowds, its endless shopping and its endless drama.

Lord Ganesha enters people’s lives in mysterious ways – sometimes it can even be just a chance encounter on a busy New York street! When photographer Shana Dressler passed a bookstore in Manhattan, she stopped in her tracks. In the window was a photography book which had on its cover a striking 20-foot high plaster of Paris statue of the elephant-headed God in the water, being splashed by a small army of men.

Anurag Kashyap. Aparna Sen. Buddhadeb Dasgupta. Gurinder Chadha. Nagesh Kuknoor. Nagraj Manjule. What if they all wandered into the New York night with megaphones and cameras and created their own tapestry of the city? While that did not happen, the combined star wattage of several talented directors certainly amped up the proceedings at the recent New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF).

It was quite surreal to sit just seats away from noted directors and dissect the movies with them after the screenings. What you realized was that all these directors were passionate fans of cinema and as anxious to catch new, offbeat films as the next moviegoer!

What happens when there is a massive power cut and Mumbai’s trains stop running? The buses are jam-packed and cabs are at a premium. Can one walk three hours to the suburbs? On a dark and rainy night, nameless people become friends and it’s all about the kindness of strangers. Guest Blog post from The Chatty Divas.

Lavina’s Picks – Cruising the Web. There’s info overload, so what do you read? Well, certainly about George Clooney’s upcoming wedding to Amal Alamuddin! Also about Zubin Mehta’s passion – chilies and his love affair with Indian food. And all about the young Indian-American who created E-Mail!

The most beloved god in the Hindu pantheon is surely Ganesha, the son of Shiva and Parvati. He is the God of Auspicious Beginnings, the one whose presence assures the success of any venture. Whether it is the birth of a child, the opening of a new business or even the buying of a new car, nothing begins without the blessings of the Elephant-headed God. He is beloved by students too because a prayer to Him ensures better grades in an exam.
So it is no surprise that Lord Ganesha’s birthday is a time for great joy and celebration. Ganesh Chaturthi is the 9 day festival celebrating the birth of this joyful deity and is one of the most colorful Hindu festivals. This year the festival is celebrated from September 11 to 20th.

“For most of the dancers, our childhoods were tinged with nostalgia for a life we never actually had,” says Payal Kadakia, New York based dancer and artistic director of Sa Dance Company. “Our memories are lush with images, songs, stories we heard from our grandparents, parents, or picked up during extended trips to India.”

The dancers have varied dance experiences from Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, Odissi, Kathak, to folk dances like Garba, Bhangra, Rajasthani, as well as Jazz, Ballet and Hip-Hop. As she adds, “it’s about time we address this fragmented, dislocated subconscious. Through dance we are attempting just that; not to create a new identity but to shape the one we have.”

Forget sex, forget travel, the biggest fantasies people seem to have are about – Indian food! Yes, home-cooked comfort food just like mom made. The fantasy is to have such a meal whenever and wherever the urge arises – with minimal effort.

Well, that’ s a reality now thanks to Saffron Fix, a brand new creation by two entrepreneurs, Ankita Sharma and Madhuri Sharma.There is such a hunger for this that the duo, hoping to raise $10,000 on Kickstarter, were rewarded within days with $13,761 – and are still going strong.

I had just got out of my car when I came across two complete opposites, the big and the small, the tall and the short – a humungous stretch limousine and one of the tiniest cars I’ve ever seen, one of the frugal Smart cars.

The difference between the two was so dramatic that I couldn’t help thinking of the very different lives these two autos must be leading. One would need a huge garage, an unending supply of gas to guzzle and a chauffeur to pamper it; the other, no gas, no space, no fuss. One looked a star, the other a sparrow. A little like different human lives, of kings and commoners.

Immigrants often cry for the moon – for the lost rhythms of a disappeared homeland, for loved, remembered sounds and tastes. Well, this summer season, a full golden moon is coming right into their embrace in the shape of Drive East, a unique festival of the arts which brings music and dance from across India into their New York neighborhood.

While slowly the arts of India have infiltrated the US, some dance traditions are rarer than others. When did you last see Sattriya, the 600-year-old dance from the Vaishnavite monasteries of Northeast India, live in New York? This wonderful dance form is just one of many which will be showcased in Navatman’s Drive East concerts.
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While the new world continues to discover brand new diseases with fancy names, we haven’t quite been able to cope with the existing ones plaguing us for years now.

Water borne diseases have become an all pervading evil around us at present times. Humanity is being made to become cowards like never before. We are made to fear not just the age old demons but things that were close to our hearts always ; blessings like food, water, fellow human beings, darkness, school, transport are now also things to fear!

Ah – social media – amazing space! You never know whom you’re going to meet! Today I was introduced to someone who is, among other things, in his own words, a very good bad boy, a brain eater, a back bencher, a heart stealer, a true liar, a truth finder, and “very anger – but I know it’s very danger.”

Bad English, wacky lyrics, home-grown philosophy – I really don’t know what to make of him! Meet Vennu Mallesh, a pop singer from Hyderabad who’s had 3,995,102 views on Youtube for his Vennglish song “It’s My Life whatever I wanna Do ”

In moving from LA to Mumbai, actress/writer Tori Roy discovers many truths: That heat stroke is real, so is heat rash. That cockroaches DID inhabit the earth long before mankind and will outlive us by any years by hiding out in India. That when Indians do the ubiquitous head-wobble, it means ‘I hear You’ – nothing more. Read on – Guest Blog.

Sometimes entire worlds disappear yet art survives and tells us the stories which would have remained untold. Fabulous life-sized images of Shiva, Vishnu, Ganesha, and a pantheon of Hindu Gods have been unearthed in Southeast Asia and they look not quite like the deities as we know them in India. The features seem Southeast Asian, the headgear is different but there is no doubt as to their Supreme Power. Though the inspiration is Indian, local aesthetics and local artists have given these vibrant, exquisite masterpieces of Hindu and Buddhist icons a flavor all their own.

For the first time, the cream of the cream of the treasures have been gathered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York: – ‘Lost Kingdoms – Hindu Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia’ which brings to light this long-forgotten world.

I wouldn’t want to be in this valet’s shoes! One false move and hundreds of thousands of dollars down the drain! No one knows exactly what happened but he managed to crash a $400,000 white Lamborghini Gallardo at Le Meridien Hotel in New Delhi. A very expensive evening out for the owner. Check out the video.

Holy cow, the world get’s crazier by the day! This veggie burger is made with 100 percent beef. Where’s the logic?

Vegetarians who wouldn’t even dream of breathing on fries which were cooked in beef tallow are now expected to eat vegetarian burgers made of beef? Aggrieved parties who eat these 100 percent beef burgers masquerading as veggie burgers may insist on plane tickets to Haridwar so they can dip for atonement in the sacred Ganges!