In December 2001, the release of Monsoon Wedding brought two enemies and neighbours — India and Pakistan — back into a charmingly ambivalent cultural dialogue. The film, incrusted with varicolored threads, also revivified Farida Khanum's 'Aaj Jaane Ki Zid Na Karo' in a tragically comic moment that only our desi urban audiences, caught between modernisation and tradition, can truly appreciate. I was personally enthused by the subtle exposé of the girl child abuse and the perfidy of a so-called father-figure uncle. It was notable that the director was Mira Nair.

Almost a quarter-century later, her 33-year-old son Zohran Mamdani, a Gujrati Shia Muslim through his father, the renowned political theorist Mahmood Mamdani, is making headlines for entirely different reasons. After winning the June 24, 2025 Democratic primary, he is poised to become New York City's first Muslim and Indian-Ugandan mayor, with his bold "lunatic" political agenda.

I hold profound respect for him not only for his principled stance on the genocide in Gaza, but also for his courage in calling out Narendra Modi, the butcher of Gujarat. In doing so, he stands apart perhaps even above most of the living recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize. His moral vision, one can only hope and pray, is authentic, and his elite connections in India and Pakistan do not lead him to bargain it away. While his victory will remain unique and grand like the city itself, it is essential to acknowledge that he is not the first one in this role in the secular West, a part of the........

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