Preston Merchant

Reena Patel: "Working the Nightshift" Launch Party

Geographer and American Foreign Service officer Reena Patel held a party at the Roger Smith Hotel in Manhattan to launch her book "Working the Night Shift: Women in India's Call Center Industry."

The book explores the economic and social issues of Indian women working in this new and untraditional environment that challenges long-held assumptions about their personal and social mobility. 

See more photos. Buy the book.

Salil Tripathi -- "Offense: The Hindu Case"

Journalist and human-rights advocate Salil Tripathi read from his new book "Offense: The Hindu Case" at a private home in Connecticut.  Alan Murray, deputy managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, moderated the discussion.

 
Salil Tripathi (center left) with Alan Murray (center right)

Udayan Tripathi, Salil Tripathi, and Alan Murray

Salil Tripathi

Asian American Writers Workshop

The Asian American Writers Workshop is using one of my photos as part of its membership drive.  Here is the crowd gathered to hear Amitava Kumar in conversation with Jhumpa Lahiri at the PageTurner Literary Festival:

 

Asian American Writers Workshop Honors Sonny Mehta

As part of its PageTurner Literary Festival, the Asian American Writers Workshop  honored Sonny Mehta, Knopf Publisher & Editor-in-Chief with a Lifetime Achievement Award. The special guest was Michael Ondaatje, author of "The English Patient."  The event was held at the restaurant called At Vermilion in Manhattan. (Hover over the images for captions; click to go the image archive.)

Delhi Noir at the Rubin Museum

The Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan played host for the launch of Delhi Noir, a collection of stories by various Indian authors about murder, sex, and intrigue in India's capital.  Edited by Hirsh Sawhney, the book presents fourteen authors, including Meera Nair, Siddharth Chowdhury, and Tabish Khair. 

The event at the Rubin featured readings by actors Rita Wolf (My Beautiful Laundrette, Homebody Kabul) and Ajay Naidu (subUrbia, The Guru, Loins of Punjab Presents), as well as a conversation among Sawhney, Meera Nair, and journalist/novelist Pete Hamill, a contributor to Brooklyn Noir, the first installment of the series.

Ajay Naidu (right) reads from Delhi Noir during a break in the conversation with Hirsh Sawhney and Pete Hamill

Meera Nair, Hirsh Sawhney, and Pete Hamill

Meera Nair

Minal Hajratwala - Leaving India: My Family’s Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents

At the SAWCC LitFest this past weekend, I met Minal Hajratwala, author of Leaving India: My Family's Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents, about her family's migration, over a century, from India to Fiji, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.  She spent seven years researching and writing the book, traveling the world to interview more than seventy-five members of her extended family.

Minal Hajratwala is a writer, performer, poet, and queer activist based in San Francisco, where she was born before being whisked off to be raised in New Zealand and suburban Michigan.

Her website includes a wealth of materials about the book, including a video trailer and a slide show (no direct link but you can get to it from the main page).  There is also a good collection of resources about the global Indian diaspora.

South Asian Writers Speak Out for Obama

A group of prominent South Asian writers came together to speak at a fundraiser for Barack Obama on October 4th at Le Poisson Rouge in Greenwich Village.  Above are Mira Nair, Kiran Desai, Suketu Mehta, Salman Rushdie, Akhil Sharma, and Manil Suri (Jhumpa Lahiri was at the microphone when I took this picture).  With over 500 people attending, the event raised $56,000.

You can see more of these pictures at Ultrabrown, Rediff (click "next" at the bottom -- there is a whole series of posts by Aseem Chhabra with my pictures), Indus Diary, and Sepia Mutiny (with a post by V.V. Ganeshananthan).

You can also see pictures from the whole event at my archive.

Brick Lane

Tannishtha Chatterjee, the Calcutta-born actress who stars in Brick Lane, the new movie based on Monica Ali's novel about Bangladeshi immigrant life in London, spoke at a special screening of the film at the SAJA Convention on June 20th.  The BBC called her "glamorous and effervescent," which is certainly true.