As we approach the date when the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) announces the legality of Same Sex Marriage, this video clip  below and the story [Y]ral: ‘Homosexuality In Ancient India’ – Stories from the Ramayana and Mahabharata based on the writings of our friend Devdutt Pattanaik takes us on a short journey into the roots of Hinduism and the stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata where homosexuality, transgender souls, and other gender bender characters

Posted: June 17th, 2015

While India has taken two steps back and made homosexuality illegal in India, we have trailblazing ad companies that reflect the mindset of the younger generation for whom this is a non issue. The political pundits are so far from the issues that affect the youth of India today that instead of dealing with infrastructure, education, jobs etc, they waste time discussing how yoga should be banned in schools. Here

Posted: June 14th, 2015

We always love and support a wonderful cause, especially when a friend or family member is involved.  Recently, Ashu Rai’s 15-year old nephew, Saahil Rai, set up his own effort to assist elementary and secondary schools in his grandfather’s hometown of Nabha in Punjab.  Saahil’s goal is $5,000 and the money will go towards a filtration system for water fountains and desks for all of the classrooms.  You can read

Posted: June 5th, 2015

If you are in town over the weekend, be sure to head down for an early evening treat at LPR and the CD release party for Arooj Aftab, a New-York based Pakistani female vocalist, composer and music producer.  Based in Brooklyn,  Arooj worked on creating “a sound that culminates the energy and sensibilities of jazz upright bass tones, inverted chords and modal scales, americana acoustic folk guitar, south asian ancestral vocal melodies

Posted: June 4th, 2015

Kudos to our good friend D’Lo and his recent article in the Guardian! You probably caught D’Lo in the first season of Amazon’s “Transparent”,  HBO’s “Looking” and he just completed a successful tour of “D’FunQT“, where he “considers queer love and the artist’s personal and complicated relationship with Sri Lanka as a trans masculine person”.  And, he’ll be in the upcoming Netflix series, “Sense8″ directed by the “The Matrix Trilogy” creators,

Posted: May 28th, 2015

“Seeking 25-40, well-placed, animal-loving, vegetarian GROOM for my SON (36, 5’11”), who works with an NGO, Caste No Bar (though IYER preferred)” Harish Iyer’s mom, Padma, felt her son needed a little push in the romance department and like many meddling Indian parents, she decided to take the matter into her own hands by placing a personal ad in a local Mumbai newspaper. The fact that her son—an activist and

Posted: May 21st, 2015

We were shocked and saddened early Saturday morning to hear that Prashant Bhargava suddenly passed away the previous evening .  Prashant, born and raised in Chicago and based in Brooklyn, was a vital part of our South Asian creative community in New York.  He made international headlines with his debut feature film “Patang“, which was based in Ahmedabad during India’s largest kite festival.   His most recent venture was “Radhe Radhe”, a collaboration

Posted: May 18th, 2015

If you woke up early this morning with your alarm clock set to NPR and heard Desilicious and ‘gay desi“, you weren’t dreaming. NPR reporter Alexandra Starr, who wrote a piece on Desilicious for the “New York Times” in 2007, attended our Sholay Birthday Bash last month.  You can listen to the audio version of Alexandra’s  “Weekend Report” here and read the text version.  A big thanks to Sazzad Reza,

Posted: May 9th, 2015