Obviously, this is a riff on
Salaam Bombay! is a 1988 Indian Hindi-language drama film, directed, co-written and co-produced by Mira Nair. This was the first feature film directed by Nair. The film grossed an estimated $7.4 million at the overseas box office, against a production budget of only $450,000. It won the Caméra d’Or and Audience award at the Cannes Film Festival. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film at the 61st Academy Awards.
Why?
Because Zohran Mamdani is Mira Nair’s son.
You may have read this NYT article from a few weeks back:
Inside the Improbable, Audacious and (So Far) Unstoppable Rise of Zohran Mamdani
What intrigued me me about him was the use of phrase “Progressive Capitalist”:
“Zohran, to me, is more of a progressive capitalist. He’s someone that wants to figure out how to use the government in an appropriate way on things that help equality and help the underserved.”
Yes, I know you saw this coming a mile away:
Mamdani: Progressive Capitalist == Tayur: Academic Capitalist.
Talking about history, let me take the opportunity to announce another gift (along with Tayur Poetry Fund) I made as part of my 60th birthday celebration, to seed the creating of Encyclopedia of South Asian American History (through SAADA, see La Femme Nikki?), building on my earlier gift that created Kedia-Tayur Distinguished Lecture in South Asian American History, with the first Minimum Viable Product (MVP, in the style of a software startup!) focusing on South Asian Women who arrived to the US pre-1946:
The phrase Progressive Capitalist also reminded me of Puritanical Hedonism, coined by Marilynne Robinson, which, as you also know, I have repurposed to describe my current lifestyle primarily driven by curiosity-driven research (Spooky Imaging!) with the primary goal being intellectual pleasure: Academic Hedonism.
Speaking about writers (recall Short List of Booker Winners), having just finished Arundhati Roy‘s candid memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me, I enjoyed the interview of (and brief reading by) Kiran Desai (at the City of Asylum in Pittsburgh) of her new novel, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, which I have started to read, prioritizing it over Ian McEwan‘s What We Can Know. Will she win her second Booker – her first win was for The Inheritance of Loss, a thoroughly enjoyable read – on November 10th?
And, also next week, on November 12th, I am the Keynote Speaker at From Qubits to Business Value, being held (online) at Fox School of Business at Temple University.
Yes, “Salaam Bombay!” is a great film. Mira Nair was the photographer at Rajan Suri’s 1st marriage to Catherine last century!