Show Me The Rupees

Mittal

Forbes magazine’s annual ranking of the world’s richest people has just been released.

In 2007 India has become home to the most billionaires in Asia—taking the top spot from Japan (effectively ending that country’s 20-year-domination ).

Lakshmi Mittal is the richest man in Asia (fifth globally). Estimates put his net worth at $32 billion.

This year India, where 400 million people live on less that one dollar a day, has added 14 new billionaires to the Forbes list.

“Holy Disobedience”

Church in Southern India

Jane Magazine readers (guilty) will want to check out desi guest writer Jay Dixit’s piece “Why can’t a woman become a priest?” in this month’s issue. Dixit, a Yale grad who has written for the New York Times and Washington Post, follows a group of twelve reformist Christians—the “Roman Catholic Womenpriests” as they become ordained priests—a first for women in the United States.

There are about ten million twentysomething Catholic women in this country, says Dixit. Many are “questioning the church’s teachings on contraception and women’s and gay rights.”

More:
IndiaChristian.Com
Christianity in India

GTA Gets Desi Life

Desi Life (thestar.com)

Canada’s largest daily newspaper, The Toronto Star, launches a new glossy magazine called Desi Life. Editor Shree Paradkar speaks about her vision for the bi-monthly in this short video, describing the publication as a “voice of integration” for the over half million South Asian population of the Greater Toronto Area. Staff writers include Besharam’s resident DJ Amita Handa and author of Their Jihad…Not My Jihad, Raheel Raza. The inaugural issue comes out April 19.

Viewers Not Silent About Nishabd

Photo courtesy of http://www.nishabdthefilm.com/

The film has left many upset. Some are even asking for its lead actor to retire.

Amitabh Bachchan stars in the controversial new movie Nishabd. Earlier this week, protesters lined the streets of his hometown (Allahabad), asking for the film to be banned.

Nishabd, being called the Indian Lolita, is a remake of a classic Bengali film of the same name.

The plot revolves around an aging photographer and his infatuation with a young girl. Its subject matter has left some Indian film-goers feeling uncomfortable. “We’re still very orthodox and conservative about something like this,” says critic Taran Adarsh.

Bachchan insists he is pleased with the movie. “I like my performance, which is quite rare.”

More:
Unauthorized Bachchan biography out in the UK today
Bachchan’s daughter makes her small screen debut
Nishabd film stills

Got Kites?

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Aaron Huey/ ATLASPRESS

The services of Noor Agha, a fourth-generation kite-maker, have been commissioned by the producers of The Kite Runner, the soon-to-be-made film based on the eponymous best selling book by California-based MD Khaled Hosseini.

These days Agha spends his time in his “factory” (his living room) where he has been putting his two wives and 11 children to work. One wife, he describes as the second best kite maker in Kabul–but quickly adds that he has 45 years’ experience and “she’ll never be able to catch up.”

“In a country where most success stories are haunted by failure…about the only thing going right these days is the kitemaking industry,” Time Magazine tells us. Go here to read their full feature on Agha and The Kite Runner.

Texas Twins On Next Deal

Deal or No Deal (nbc.com)

Look for contestant Uzma Lone from the Lone Star State on the Sunday, March 11, episode of TV game show “Deal or No Deal” hosted by comedian Howie Mandel. Uzma will have her twin sister Saima Bukhari on the show as her helper and the two will be donning desi duds, giving the show’s models a run for their money. Nirali interviewed Saima, the owner of Dallas salon and med spa Glow, for the October 2006 “Fall Beauty Trend Report.”

More: Play Deal or No Deal online
“‘Deal or No Deal’ risky business for Plano contestant”

Nair A Breath of Fresh Air

Photo Credit: FoxSearchLight

NPR’s Terry Gross interviews filmmaker Mira Nair in this Fresh Air feature.

Nair speaks candidly about her latest project (The Namesake), and her first impression of Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel (“I read The Namesake purely by chance on a plane…I was just absolutely captured by the distillation of Jhumpa’s writing of, especially, the death of a parent. I felt like I had found solace, I had found a person in the world who understood exactly what I was feeling…I wanted to make the film as personal to the Lahiri family as Monsoon Wedding was to my family”).

Listen to the full 20-minute interview here.

More:
On The Namesake (Nirali)
Salaam Shantaram!

Radhika’s Rad Rings

Radhika Tandon

Lawyer by day, jewelry designer by night, Radhika Tandon is responsible for the latest evolution of the timeless cocktail ring. Her company Isharya—which she runs with her sister-in-law Gauri Tandon—features precious and semi-precious stones set in silver and gold.

“If we don’t love it, it’s not going to be in our collection,” Tandon, 32, says. “Ohmigod, how fabulous. Where did you get it?’ That’s the feeling we want to evoke.”

Radhika Tandon is a patent lawyer based in Menlo Park, California, while her sister-in-law (a London School of Economics grad) lives in Mumbai, working with “the artisans who translate their vision into fabulous creations of tourmalines, smoky topaz, coral and rose-cut diamonds.”

Check out the goods at: Jennifer Kaufman in Los Angeles, or by visiting www.isharya.com

The Little Black Dress That Could, Does.

Dominique in Kolkata. Bikas Das (AP)

When the ultimate little black dress was put up for auction last year, estimates suggested it would bring in about $150,000.

The dress, famously worn by Audrey Hepburn in the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s, was designed by Hubert de Givenchy, and most recently modeled by Natalie Portman (“I was so nervous that I wasn’t going to fit. Everyone kept telling me how small it was”).

The frock brought in an astounding $800,000, and proceeds were donated to the City of Joy Foundation–a charitable organization working to better conditions in West Bengal.

Last week, thousands gathered around the City of Joy author and philanthropist Dominique Lapierre as he inaugurated a new school in Kolkata–a school that was built with with the auction-proceeds.

“I hope to build 15 schools with the money for destitute children of West Bengal,” he said. “I am very happy that my efforts are fructifying. Things are changing with more and more children going to school.”

Before her death in 1993, Hepburn visited South Asia (Bangladesh) as an ambassador for UNICEF.

More:
Audrey Hepburn’s Children’s Fund
Tribute to Hepburn’s humanitarian work
City of Joy the book

A-List Akhil

Credit: Village Voice

Granta has come out with (its second-ever) list of best young American novelists .

Among those who made the exclusive cut is Akhil Sharma, author of An Obedient Father (“a powerful debut novel that establishes Sharma as a supreme storyteller with a gift for the macabre”). When the book first came out (2000) it was said to have been in the running for the Booker Prize.

Sharma was born in Delhi, grew up in Edison, New Jersey, attended Princeton and Harvard Law. The former investment banker now lives in the City where he is at work on another novel to be published by W.W. Norton. He is married to Lisa Swanson, a lawyer almost a decade his senior.

More:
An excerpt of Mother and Son
Listen to Sharma read from An Obedient Father
Granta’s first list of best young American novelists (1996)
Sharma interviews Frank Gehry for the WSJ