Podcast appearances and mentions of bharati mukherjee

Niloufer Ichaporia King lives in a house with three kitchens. She prowls through six farmer's markets a week in search of unusual greens, roots, seeds, and traditional food plants from every immigrant culture. She is an anthropologist, a kitchen botanist, a one-of-a-kind cook, a Parsi from Bombay living in San Francisco, and the author of My Bombay Kitchen: Traditional and Modern Parsi Home Cooking. Niloufer is known for her ritual celebrations of Navroz, Parsi New Year, on the first day of Spring, when she creates an elaborate ceremonial meal based on the auspicious foods and traditions of her vanishing culture. The Parsi culture is some 3,000 years old and goes back from India to Persia. It's estimated that there are now under 100,000 Parsis in the world. Also featured in this Hidden Kitchens story are author Bharati Mukherjee, sharing her memories of the forbidden Bengali kitchen of her girlhood, with its four cooks and intricate rules of food preparation. And Harvard Professor Homi Bhabha, born in Mumbai to a Parsi family, who talks about auspicious lentils and the birth of his son. The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson) with Nathan Dalton and Brandi Howell. We are part of Radiotopia from PRX, a curated network created specifically for independent podcasts—some of the best stories out there. Special thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and contributors to the non profit Kitchen Sisters Productions .

A version of this essay was published by firstpost.com at https://www.firstpost.com/india/the-indian-american-paradox-indians-expect-them-to-be-indians-but-they-are-not-10185071.html so please read it there. The podcast can be heard above by clicking the ‘Play’ button. The promotion of Parag Agarwal to the position of CEO of Twitter created a bit of a commotion online. Many celebrated the fact that several Indian-origin people now head large technology companies such as Alphabet, Microsoft, Adobe, IBM and now Twitter. Elon Musk said something to the effect that he appreciated talented people from India.Others bemoaned the fact that many Indians apparently had to leave the country to do well. The usual reasons were trotted out: reservations prevent the meritorious from rising; the bureaucrats and the system mess everything up; there is no room for independent thought, and you must kowtow to the Big Men on Campus; and so on. There is a little truth in all of them.In this narrative, the US is the place where they reward merit; there is opportunity for all; and if you keep your nose clean and work hard and produce results, why, they will let you rise to the top. There is a little truth in all these claims as well. But that’s not the whole story, either.The fact is that there is a brutal selection process. Among a billion people, surely there are some who are exceptional, and some more who are outstanding. So the fact that a few Indian-Americans do well may also be attributed to the fact that they are not 1%ers, but 0.001%ers. They might truly stand out in any crowd. But that doesn’t mean the average Indian-American is doing amazingly well.Having been one of said average Indian-Americans before returning to India, I have seen the beast from the inside. We saw an opportunity and took full advantage of it. Those fortunate enough to get through the IIT JEE got a world-class engineering education for peanuts, subsidized heavily by the taxpayer.Then we managed to get into good US universities because of good test-taking skills, GRE scores, and grades. They gave us financial aid for graduate school; we got jobs, and at least in my day, got the coveted Green Card in a year or two. Then we raised families, and lived middle-class lives (or better, if we managed to join the right startups). We began enjoying a kind of American Dream.We made annual trips to India, though the kids rebelled against the heat and dust. We forced the kids to attend Indian classical music or dance classes, and the Tiger Mothers amongst us groomed them to win Spelling Bees and get perfect 4.0s and perfect 800s in the SATs, and get into Ivy League schools and onwards to med and law school.Thanks for reading Shadow Warrior! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Somewhere along the line, especially after our parents died, we realized that we had almost nothing that connected us back to the old country, especially now that we, finally, caved in and acquired our US citizenship. It’s just easier to travel with, we’d console ourselves, and in any case, just like Jews did about Jerusalem, we could always toast each other: “Next year in Mumbai” when we got together for a Christmas party.Imperceptibly, as Vikram Seth, who knew a thing or two about the California of the 1980s, wrote in ‘Diwali’, America rose, and India sank in their hearts:… Kalidas, Shankaracharya,Panini, Bhaskar, Kabir,Surdas sank, and we welcomedThe reign of Shakespeare….This is not to blame anybody’s life choices. It is a dilemma: should you immerse yourself in the culture of where you live, or should you hang on to an identity that you once had? Bharati Mukherjee, who best chronicled immigrant angst (Jhumpa Lahiri is second-generation), felt that one had to abandon, in fact cremate, the old identity; and immerse oneself in the melting pot.Let me note in passing that this is the life of upwardly mobile Indians, some of whom have become fabulously wealthy, and the rest are solidly middle-class or upper-middle class. They are at ease in American society, contribute to National Public Radio, read the New York Times, go to the Opera, the Symphony, and Lake Tahoe, to be simpatico with their native peers, even if they don’t enjoy it very much. They may also have married Americans.There is another whole class of bluish-collar Indians, and they tend to carry a cocoon of Indian-ness with them. They mostly socialize with the local Malayali Association, the Tamil Manram, the Bengali group, etc. They live in America, but they are not of America. That, too, is a reasonable choice, and some of them end up wintering in India as they get older. There is a small connection left.What is the point in all this? It is to emphasize that it is futile to expect Indian-American CEOs to suddenly swing their companies in directions that help India, or Hindus. They have other compulsions, and they don’t find it advantageous to wear their Indian origin on their sleeves. They have assimilated, and probably acquired native prejudices about India.The narrative about India, assiduously cultivated by the Deep State and its organs, is that it is a benighted place, should be balkanized, is full of “beastly natives with their beastly religion”, as infamously said by war criminal Winston Churchill. The ‘caste, curry and cows’ narrative, in Rajiv Malhotra’s words. Indian Americans over time begin to believe that narrative.The other thing that I find odd is the cult-like obsession many Indian Americans have with the Democratic Party. I used to identify myself as a Democrat, but over time I began to believe that their world view and narrative are fundamentally in conflict with both India’s interests and the US’s own long-term survival. So I became a Republican, although that I am aware of their (many) faults. But I believe they are better for the US and for India in the medium term.I am in a WhatsApp group of former IIT classmates, and I am astonished at their groupthink about Biden, Fauci, far-left Democratic politicians, and so on. They swallow as the truth and the whole truth anything that is pushed by their favorite media. An Indian leftist piles on to this love-fest despite knowing virtually nothing about the US. Similarly, most of my old acquaintances in Silicon Valley are staunch Democrats, anti-Modi and pro-Congress. It seems to be a package deal.Let us be very clear. Indian-Americans may do well in America. Good for them! That has nothing to do with India, except that they may urge their companies to invest in India, if it makes financial sense for the company. I did this: with a colleague named Deepak B, I got my former Silicon Valley employer to invest in India. I chose to stay on in India; Deepak, bless him, must still be in California.1130 words, 2 December 2021 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com

Hilma Wolitzer discusses with Ivan six things which she thinks should be better known. Hilma Wolitzer is a recipient of Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and a Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award. She has taught at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, New York University, Columbia University, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Her first published story appeared when she was thirty-six, and her first novel eight years later. Her many stories and novels have drawn critical praise for illuminating the dark interiors of the American home. She lives in New York City. Her latest collection of short stories is Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket. Bharati Mukherjee https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/11/07/nnp/mukherjee-middleman.html Stanley Elkin https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3712/the-art-of-fiction-no-61-stanley-elkin Agha Shahid Ali https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/agha-shahid-ali Mary Lou Williams https://www.npr.org/2019/09/10/749743012/how-mary-lou-williams-shaped-the-sound-of-the-big-band-era Dr Rick Hodes https://rickhodes.org/ The Little Fugitive https://www.highonfilms.com/little-fugitive-1953-review/ This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

It’s the birthday of novelist Bharati Mukherjee (1940-1917), who wrote “The Tiger's Daughter” (1971), “Jasmine” (1989), and “Miss New India” (2011).

Writer Jana Marlene Mader and art historian Kaitlyn Allen discuss the lives of Bharati Mukherjee and Rose Piper. This episode was originally aired on 10/25/2019 on 88.1FM in New York City.

Niloufer Ichaporia King lives in a house with three kitchens. She prowls through six farmer’s markets a week, at least, in search of unusual greens, roots and seeds, and traditional food plants from every immigrant culture. She is an anthropologist, a kitchen botanist, a one-of-a-kind cook, a Parsi from Bombay living in San Francisco, and the author of My Bombay Kitchen: Traditional and Modern Parsi Home Cooking. Niloufer is known for her ritual celebrations of Navroz, Parsi New Year, on the first day of Spring, when she creates an elaborate ceremonial meal based on the auspicious foods and traditions of her vanishing culture. The Parsi culture is some 3,000 years old and goes back from India to Persia. It’s estimated that there are now only 75,000 Parsis in the world. The prediction is that by 2020 the numbers will have dropped to 25,000. This story also features writer Bharati Mukherjee, who passed away this last year, sharing her memories of the forbidden Bengali kitchen of her girlhood, with its four cooks and intricate rules of food preparation. And Harvard Professor Homi Bhabha, born in Mumbai to a Parsi family, who talks about auspicious lentils and the birth of his son.

The Lotus and The Storm (Viking Books) An epic tale of love, loyalty, and war from the acclaimed author of Monkey Bridge.   Alternating between the voice of Mai, a Vietnamese-American woman and law librarian in the DC area and her father, Minh, a former commander of the airborne brigade in the South Vietnamese army, The Lotus and the Storm transports us to one family's past in Saigon during the war while at the same time showing us how the drama of what began in Vietnam nearly 40 years previous continues to play out in US Vietnamese refugee communities.   The book opens in 1963 in Cholon, Saigon's twin city, where Mai carves out a wondrous existence of innocence shared with her elder sister and a large group of family and friends, including several Chinese business women, U.S. servicemen and even an uncle in the Vietcong who makes secret visits to the family home. Their life is largely tranquil and lush, continuing relatively unaffected by the war until a series of explosive events rock their world, ultimately leading to Mai and her father's evacuation by U.S. helicopter during the fall of Saigon.  The story of Mai's father Minh begins in 2006, when the U.S. is in the thick of another prolonged armed conflict and Minh relives his battles in Saigon, Da Nang, and Hue as the television switches between scenes of fighting in Baghdad and Basra. Day by day, he unravels his life's story through its most defining moments: from the assassination of President Diem in 1963 to the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975. Each event is punctuated by irreparable personal loss. His is a story of lost innocence, of broken promises, and of sudden reversals in love and war. Working across a broad and astonishing canvas, Lan Cao has delivered in The Lotus and the Storm a truly epic drama of love, loyalty, and the legacies of war, and offers a rarely heard Vietnamese-American perspective on events that have been central to twentieth-century American history..  Praise for The Lotus and The Storm"The Lotus and the Storm is part beautiful family saga, part coming-of-age story, part love story, but above all a searing indictment of the American campaign in Vietnam and its incalculable toll on generations past and future. A powerful read from start to end."--Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner "A profoundly moving novel about the shattering effects of war on a young girl, her family, and her country. Lan Cao brings Saigon's past vividly to life through the eyes of Mai, following the girl and her father halfway around the world to a suburb in Virginia, where forty years later, Mai's trauma unravels. In this fractured world where old wars, loves, and losses live on, The Lotus and the Storm is a passionate testament to the truth that the past is the present--inseparable, inescapable, enduring."--Ruth Ozeki, author of A Tale for the Time Being "A heartwrenching and heartwarming epic about war and love, hurt and healing, losing and rediscovering homelands. Lan Cao dramatizes landmark battles in the Vietnam War and the toll such battles take on winners and losers. The Lotus and the Storm establishes Lan Cao as a world-class writer."--Bharati Mukherjee, author of Jasmine "Lan Cao is not only one of the finest of the American writers who sprang from and profoundly understand the war in Vietnam and the Vietnamese diaspora, but also one of our finest American writers, period. The Lotus and the Storm is a brilliant novel that illuminates the human condition shared by us all."--Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain Lan Cao grew up in Saigon and her own father was a high-ranking paratrooper in the South Vietnamese army. In 1975, when South Vietnam was defeated by the Communist North, she was adopted by an American friend of the family and taken out of Vietnam to live with his family in Connecticut until her parents made their way to the US several months later. Lan went to high school in Northern Virginia, and ultimately went on to earn her law degree from Yale. She is now a novelist and a professor at the Dale E. Fowler School of Law at Chapman University in Orange, CA. Her critically acclaimed debut novel, Monkey Bridge, was the first work of fiction published by a major publishing house about the Vietnam War written by a Vietnamese-American and has become a modern classic.

A farewell gathering held by the Calcutta Heritage Society of Northern California is the starting point for Bharati Mukherjee's story "The Going-Back Party". Shefali Sinha watches as the actions of the guests reveal the envy, nostalgia, and uncertainty that direct their interactions. The story goes on to offer a wry and insightful meditation on distance and closeness, and on the ways in which our emotions can surprise us.

'The Astral' by Kate Christensen, 'Miss New India' by Bharati Mukherjee and 'Robopocalypse' by Daniel H. Wilson

Born in 1940 in Calcutta, Bharati Mukherjee spent her childhood in India and Britain before moving to the United States. Her celebrated titles include Days and Nights in Calcutta and The Middleman and Other Stories. Clark Blaise has published numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including If I Were Me and Lunar Attractions. Both have served as faculty in Berkeley's English department, and they have been married for 45 years.  

Born in 1940 in Calcutta, Bharati Mukherjee spent her childhood in India and Britain before moving to the United States. Her celebrated titles include Days and Nights in Calcutta and The Middleman and Other Stories. Clark Blaise has published numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including If I Were Me and Lunar Attractions. Both have served as faculty in Berkeley's English department, and they have been married for 45 years.