Local author Nidhi Thakur will read from and discuss her book When She Married Dr. Patekar And Other Stories with Hunter College Professor Deepsikha Chatterjee. Copies will be available for purchase and autographing. 

About the book:

Mehak, a famous Bollywood star who marries an ordinary NRI doctor in small-town America, is stunned at the fickleness of fame. Dark and untold memories of an Uncle in Sarla’s Indian childhood continue to define the word ‘family’ for Sarla as she raises a family in America. These and other global desis in a post-9/11 and pre-WhatsApp world navigate different geographies guided and misled by a lingering nostalgia. Leaving a place is never easy.

About the speakers:

Dr. Nidhi Thakur is an Indian American poet/writer writing on all things culture-climate-chaos. She was born in Dehradun, India, and by way of graduate school, arrived in the U.S. around the turn of the century. She currently teaches Economics and writes and lives in Short Hills, NJ, with her husband and two daughters. Her previous works have been published in anthologies, and her spoken poetry has been featured in various venues, including the Jaipur Lit Fest-virtual. When She Married, Dr. Patekar and Other Stories is her debut book, on immigrant sensibilities in a post-9/11 U.S.A., and is available globally on Amazon. She is at www.nidhithakur.com.

Deepsikha Chatterjee teaches design, theatre, and cultural studies at Hunter College CUNY. She is a practicing costume designer with several awards to her name. She received her undergraduate degrees in India before moving to the US for her MFA in Costume Design from FSU. Her Ph.D. dissertation is on South Asian masked performances at the CUNY Graduate Center. She researches Bollywood, costumes, masks, and performance design from South Asia and publishes on these topics. Her essay on Indian dance costumes won the USITT’s Herbert D. Greggs Honor Award in 2021. She produces and presents dance from India in New York for Indo American Arts Council.