Jai Ho at Mehrauli’s Onam Festival
A rousing performance of A. R. Rahman’s Academy Award winning song Jai Ho is performed at the annual Onam festival in Mehrauli, Delhi. Click to hear a clip of Jai Ho: Onam is Kerala’s biggest festival but its especially celebrated with gusto by the over 1,000 Malayali immigrants from Kerala living in the Delhi suburb, Mehrauli. The M

Glow of Hope
A welcoming image hangs on the wall of an art-framing store in my neighborhood. Its an original-size reproduction of H.L. Haldankar’s painting of a woman with a lamp, titled “Glow of Hope”. Haldankar, a famous Bombay artist, conceived the painting in 1945 while his daughter Gita posed for three hours. He used watercolors to show he could paint without corrections.

Devotional Music
Rashmi Agarwal performs an evening of devotional music of bhajans and sufiana kalam. Click to hear Agarwal sing: Author of Indian art, culture and history, Pran Nevile, opened the evening with an introduction to devotional music in India. The history of the arts in India is dominated by spiritual devotion

Protecting India’s Heritage
Karan Singh, son of the last ruler of the House of Jammu and Kashmir, launched the Journal of Heritage Studies with S. K. Misra, Chairman of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH). Singh was introduced at the book launch as a philosopher king to which Singh

Ambedkar and Gandhi: what about the Caste System?
Gandhi gazes at Ambedkar during Asmita’s performance of Rajesh Kumar’s new play, Ambedkar aur Gandhi. Ambedkar broke a glass ceiling as a dalit completing higher studies. He’s the chief architect of the Indian Constitution and fought social discrimination in the Caste System. Kumar’s play recreates the disa