A TV personality and Me
“During an interview with Indian-American artist, Kaviya Ravi, featured on NBC show 'Making It!', Sushmita Mazumdar was surprised to recognize little bits of herself in Kaviya.”
It’s my first interview to appear in the community journal India Currents. It’s interesting to note that it all started when they sent a reporter to interview me, many years ago. Read that story, Telling Your Tale, here.
Even as I have interviewed many people before for my various projects, this was the first time I was given the name of the person. And, this time that someone was on a TV show, a first for me! I usually find the people I interview and that itself is a fascinating process.
Starting with my project FREEING! in 2014-15, I tried to go beyond languages and invited people to tell their stories of language in the places where they are, where they meet. As I could not read all the languages they wrote in and they could not translate either, I invited them to make the story into visuals as well. Then it became clearer. Then, I interviewed restaurant chefs and owners for my 2016 project Columbia Pike Recipes for You. It was always at their place and some took many trips and many tries. They are busy people! In 2018 I interviewed people I knew for the Columbia Pike Documentary Project’s Transitions project by inviting them to my Studio and making them some tea/coffee. Then the conversation flowed and I transcribed it all by hand and even one where the interviewee shifted from English to Bangla, I kept translating into English as I wrote!
So as I interviewed Kaviya on Zoom, it felt all new. Add to that the fact that she and my editor were both much younger than me and it was a wonderful thing to see the younger generation so good at pushing aside stereotypes, and speaking honestly and from the heart. I even found a lot of familiar stories and experiences in Kaviya’s answers and in the end wrote into the interview my own experiences. It turned out to be a comparison of the old and the new with so much that doesn’t change and so much that does. You can read the article/interview in their culture section!