Month: September 2012

From the Harvard South Asia Initiative Newsletter:

On Monday, Sept. 17, 2012, Chef Vikas Khanna, Michelin Starred Indian Chef, restaurateur, food writer, film maker, humanitarian and the host of the TV show MasterChef India will bring True Business, a film about Sikh community kitchens, or langars, which provide free food to everyone who comes, regardless of belief. The langar has been a part of Sikh tradition since the first Sikh Guru, Guru Nanak. The tradition is based in the ethic of equality, sharing, community and inclusiveness.   True Business is the first film in Khanna’s Holy Kitchens film series, which visits sacred places, religious leaders, philosophers and devotees of the world’s religions to examine the experience of sharing food in a spiritual context. 

Watch the trailer on YouTube, or you can also see the entire film at the Culture Unplugged Website.

The Holy Kitchens series also includes  films on the relationship between food and other faiths including Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism and others.

Here’s an interesting analysis from the Pittsburg Post-Gazette (!) of the “Slumdog Millionaire” debate that began a few years back.

Check out  “Oprah Travels to India,”  on “Oprah’s Next Chapter,” especially the first episode, in which Oprah discovers that a family of five can live happily–by their own account–in a 100-square-foot room.

In this clip from “Oprah Travels to India,”  Oprah says she now understands what’s really important after visiting the Hegde family’s 10-foot-by-10-foot home in Mumbai. Oprah  also visits the family’s bathing area, where 60 neighbors share four toilets and a small room for washing.  Accompanying Oprah is “Shantaram” author Gregory David Roberts.  

There will be a Raj Kapoor Film Series at Harvard Film Archive, September 2012: Raj Kapoor Film Series Schedule.