This past weekend, I set up a short phone interview with a really bright, ambitious, and precocious young man who had just been appointed to the Governor’s Statewide Youth Council here in Massachusetts. As part of this council, his role was to represent the voices of minority youth and speak up about issues that plague our young adult population these days—education inequality, bullying, and violence, for example. He already had his hands in a variety of humanitarian causes, and he was quite well spoken and confident in his mission. I could tell while talking to him that he was going to be one of those people who worked hard to make a difference.
Month: November 2014
My 5 Step Interview Prep
I’m extremely excited about my next project this month. It sprung up a few weeks ago because of my last assignment—my interview with A.R. Rahman at the Berklee College of Music here in Boston. A publicist for a burgeoning Indian-American folk musician named Zoya Mohan got in touch with the news about an upcoming album release and asked if I’d consider doing a feature profile for my primary publication, India Abroad, to educate readers about it.
I love this stuff—talking to artists about their craft and getting to really showcase a person’s story. After a discussion with my editor, I set up a time with Zoya to meet for an interview at a local Boston coffee shop. We’re scheduled to chat this Tuesday evening after my work at my publishing company. But there’s always a bit of prep that’s involved, and that’s what I’m sharing with you here.
So far, here’s what I’ve done to get ready:
On Interviewing A.R. Rahman
All professional journalistic rapport aside, as a long-time A.R. Rahman fan since the magic he brought to Bollywood sound in 1990, I had never expected to meet the man. As the accolades kept piling up for Mr. Rahman well into noughties and the Western world began to discover him, I couldn’t say I was surprised. It was obvious, as everyone knows now, that it was all well deserved.
The first time I saw him in real life—when he walked out onto the stage in jeans, a T-shirt, and a black blazer to greet the crowd at the Berklee Performance Center who had gathered for his Friday afternoon Master Class—he paused to put a hand on his heart as the thunderous applause and unrelenting cheer took over. His apparition—and that was all it was to me at this point still—brought tears to my eyes, which surprised me. It was clear that Mr. Rahman was deeply moved, and his humility was contagiously touching: kind of like when the presence of emotion in someone standing near you may cause a similar stir in you by proximity. Continue reading
Mindy Kaling and Preet Bharara speak at Harvard
“Apparently it’s India Day at Harvard Law School,” Preet Bharara, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, mused with a smirk at the podium last Wednesday in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
It was Class Day at Harvard University, and both Bharara and comedian-producer-actress Mindy Kaling—who first became an American household name in 2005 when she starred as Kelly Kapoor in NBC’s The Office—addressed the crowd about humility, humor, and the bright futures that await the recent law school graduates. They did so, though, not without a touch of irony, drawing laughter from the crowd of approximately 500.
“From where I stand from an outsider’s perspective, you’re all nerds, OK?” Kaling said in feigned dismissiveness. “All of you. Except, here’s the difference—you are the nerds that are going to make some serious bank. Which is why I’m here today: to marry the best-looking among you.”
LGBT, a first ever at Harvard India Conference
“This is very emotional,” Amit Dixit told the audience at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Malkin Penthouse, reflecting on the December 11 Supreme Court of India ruling that upheld Section 377 and consequently criminalized homosexuality.
“I mean, one day, we woke up, and we were illegal.”
Dixit is no stranger to witnessing cultural change. At the first-ever panel of its kind at the Harvard India Conference, the activist known for his work with the Boston LGBT organization MASALA, the LGBT Film Festival, and GLAD—New England’s leading organization dedicated to ending discrimination based on sexual orientation—said he was motivated to effect change and make a difference from an early age.
Rocker in a sari
Around the holidays in 2013, I had a chance to sit down with Boston rock avatar Saraswathi Jones. The article published in the January 24, 2014 issue of India Abroad. To view it on the newspaper’s platform, click here.
There’s a new urban rocker emerging on the Boston scene. And this one’s likely a kind you haven’t yet come across.
This particular rocker is five-feet-two, sports dotted chandan and vermillion over the arcs of her eyebrows, and stands at the mic dressed in a sari and clutching a Fender.
She is known by her fans and followers as “Saraswathi Jones.”
Tanya Palit, 32, A.K.A. Saraswathi Jones, is not your average American singer/songwriter. A Fulbright scholar, she grew up in a Hindu household to Bengali parents who constantly played vinyls of everything from 1970s Bollywood songs to Rabindrasangeets to rock and roll.
“They made me a lover of music and curious about the world,” Palit says.
She has been gracing Boston venues for a little over 2 years, performing songs that explore political themes relevant to South Asians and South-Asian Americans, and she just released her debut album, Lingua Franca—literally meaning a bridge language that people who don’t speak a common tongue use to communicate with one another.
Professor Vijay Iyer
This past May, I had a chance to interview renowned jazz aficionado and MacArthur Genius Grant winner Vijay Iyer. To view it on the India Abroad platform, click here.
Vijay Iyer leaned against the wall and listened.
In a classroom of scored chalkboards, two pianos, and scattered music stands scrawled with the words “HARVARD MUSIC DEPT,” his students listened with him. Two college students, one clutching an electric guitar and the other sitting on a piano bench, performed a brief, improvised jazz duet with a subtle and unpredictable rhythm.
After it was over, artist-scholar Iyer reflected a moment.
“My impression was that … you didn’t stray from the parts. Was that out of necessity, do you think?” he asked the two students pensively. “How do you sustain that quality of groove, pulse, momentum, bounce—whatever you call it—without always playing it?”
It was a Tuesday evening in Harvard Square, and about fifteen undergraduate students with exceptional and expansive musical ability had gathered in Iyer’s spring semester music course at Harvard University, entitled “Creative Music: Critical Practice Studio.”
Rocking the Purple
This past August, I interviewed the new majority owner of the Sacramento Kings. This article published in the October 24, 2014 issue of India Abroad as the issue’s cover feature. To view it on the India Abroad platform, click here.
Vivek Ranadivé has never been afraid to dream big.
As a teenager freshly accepted to MIT, he flew from Mumbai to the United States with less than $100 and visions of the first-ever moon landing on his mind.
It was the 1970s, and the Indian government was not allowing students to exchange rupees for American dollars, which Ranadivé needed to attend school in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But his tenacity was born early in life: Prior to his trip he had camped out overnight in front of the Reserve Bank of India and convinced the office to allow him to exchange just enough currency to pay first-semester tuition costs.
Ranadivé wanted to be a part of the population that did big things.
The maestro’s dream
On October 23 and 24, 2014, A.R. Rahman visited the city of Boston to receive an honorary degree in music. I got a chance to interview him as well as numerous members of the Berklee Indian Ensemble, who put on a tribute performance at Boston Symphony Hall.
This article below published in the November 7, 2014 issue of India Abroad as the issue’s magazine feature. To check out the article on the India Abroad platform, click here.
What was it like to interview A.R. Rahman? Check out my personal reflection here.
A.R. Rahman magazine feature in India Abroad (November 7, 2014).
The city of Boston got a glimpse into the psyche of one of the most prolific and celebrated composers of our time this past week, as the Berklee College of Music awarded A.R. Rahman an honorary doctorate of music and organized multiple events where he headlined, all culminating to a Friday night concert tribute by the Berklee Indian Ensemble and the Berklee World Strings.
“I was a bit sad that my family couldn’t come,” Rahman told the sold-out crowd of 2625 at Symphony Hall as he accepted the degree. “My mother isn’t well … and my wife—her mom died. So it’s great to see you all. It’s like my whole family is here—my whole musical family.”
And for two days, it felt like the Maestro of Madras—who has inspired millions of people around the world since he first broke onto the scene in 1992 with the Roja soundtrack—had come to life before our eyes, sharing the honest and unfiltered inner workings of his musical mind.
On October 23 and 24, the Grammy- and Oscar-winning composer spent time with the Berklee community, attending a variety of events in his honor: his tribute concert’s raw rehearsal; an open-admission Master Class led by a panel of Berklee faculty where students, parents, and long-time fans alike could ask Rahman their most burning questions; and a critique class where Berklee students shared film scenes they scored specifically for the composer’s feedback.
“It’s the first time we’re able to work with somebody of his stature,” Annette Philip, the Berklee Indian Ensemble artistic director who was instrumental in getting Rahman to the musical institution, told India Abroad on the night of the rehearsal. “We’re so, so excited.”
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