The Sound Collector

Around the holidays in 2014, I had a chance to chat with an effervescent and endearing young musician by the name of Zoya Mohan, who is about to release an album this spring. Her approach to the creative process was inspiring, and I enjoyed my discussion with her. More on how I approached it later. The article published in the February 14, 2015 issue of India Abroad. To view it on the newspaper’s platform, click here.

---

Zoya Mohan approaches music the way an international chef approaches a signature dish, gathering sounds from all around the world as if they are spices to flavor the final product she’s going to serve.

“I take every song and just see what it needs,” the 21-year-old singer/songwriter, who recently released a visual album and plans to release another record in the spring, said. Her music is a collection of diverse and manifold sounds: shakers, African percussion, American guitar, vibraphones, and even the Indian bansuri—a flute carved out of hollow bamboo.

“I don’t care if we use American instruments—or if we scratch on walls,” she said of her and her band members’ style.

I met Mohan at a coffee shop on Mass Ave. in Boston, across the street from the Berklee School of Music, where she recently graduated with a degree in music business. It was the windiest New England night in recent memory, and she was wearing a teal cable-knit winter beret. Mohan was ebullient and quick with a smile, and yet also sharply introspective.

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.

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.

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.