Pearl Padamsee (1931–2000) was an Indian theatre personality as a stage actress, director and producer of English language theatre in Mumbai active in 1950s–1990s. She also acted a few Hindi and English language films. She performed in at least ten films including Khatta Meetha, Junoon (1978 film), Baaton Baaton Mein, Kama Sutra: A Tale of…
Nissim Ezekiel (16 December 1924 – 9 January 2004) was an Indian Jewish poet, actor, playwright, editor and art-critic. He was a foundational figure in postcolonial India’s literary history, specifically for Indian writing in English. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1983 for his Poetry collection, “Latter-Day Psalms”, by the Sahitya Akademi, India’s…
Sir Anish Kapoor, CBE RA, (born 12 March 1954) is a British-Indian sculptor. Born in Bombay, Kapoor has lived and worked in London since the early 1970s when he moved to study art, first at the Hornsey College of Art and later at the Chelsea School of Art and Design. He represented Britain in the XLIV…
Amrita Sher-Gil (Punjabi:) (30 January 1913 – 5 December 1941) was an eminent Indian painter born to a Punjabi Sikh father and a Hungarian Jewish mother, sometimes known as India’s Frida Kahlo, and today considered an important woman painter of 20th century India, whose legacy stands on a par with that of the Masters of…
Esther David (born 17 March 1945) is a Indian Jewish author, an artist and a sculptor. She was born into a Bene Israel Jewish family in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. She won Sahitya Akademi Award in 2010 for The Book of Rachel. Her father, Reuben David, was a hunter-turned-veterinarian, who founded the Kamala Nehru Zoological Garden and…
This is the first book describing the roles of Western Jews in South Asian political affairs, medicine, painting, architecture and religion. A time-line summarises their contributions and those of the Indian Jews to the Indian subcontinent. Many of these foreign Jews left behind their Jewish identities. Others remained Jews, but functioned as individuals unconcerned with…
Florence Ezekiel Nadira (5 December 1932 – 9 February 2006), commonly known as Nadira, was an actress in Indian cinema. She is best remembered for her performance in films in the 1950s and 1960s such as Shree 420 (1955), Pakeezah (1972) and Julie (1975), which won her Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award. Early life Nadira…
David Abraham Cheulkar (1909 – 28 December 1981), popularly known as David, was a Jewish-Indian Hindi film actor and a member of Mumbai’s Marathi speaking Bene Israel community. In a career spanning four decades, he played mostly character roles, starting with 1941 film Naya Sansar, and went on to act in over 110 films, including…
Ingredients: For the rice 2 cups of basmati rice Few strands of saffron 2 tablespoons of canola oil (if cooking on a stove top) 1?4 teaspoon of salt 4 cups of water For the lamb 2 pounds deboned leg of lamb, cut into medium-sized cubes Water to cover 1?4 teaspoon of salt 2 bay leaves…
A prize-winning actress (for some reason, the word ‘award’ wasn’t as much in vogue then), she was a triple M A, plus she did her Ph.D. after twenty years of marriage and two children. The first MA was in Sociology from the University of Mumbai, the second was a Diploma in Social Service Administration from…