Home About Contact Fifty Grande Magazine Photography Medium Pavement Pieces

Medium

Medium •

South Asian students are financially insecure in the United States.

South Asian students are financially insecure in the United States.

It was Rudra Vora’s dream to study in the United States. He grew up watching influential adverts of educational consultants selling the quintessential “American dream”. And the dream seemed even more inflated to him since he was from a small town in India called Anand in the state of Gujarat and Vora was relatively lower-middle class. Posters of professional Indian students smiling widely, (almost like they’d made it in this co
Medium •

Anthony Bourdain’s dream: an Urban hawker center in NYC

New York’s first-ever authentic Singaporean and Malaysian street food joint has opened in Midtown, NYC. It is called the Urban Hawker Center. Hawker was the late chef Anthony Bourdain’s vision; he wanted to open a global market comprising Southeast Asian street-style food.

In 2013, he first met with street food guru K.F. Seetoh at the World Street Food Congress in Singapore to discuss workable strategies to open the Bourdain Market. He envisaged a massive street food junction in the city’s hear
Medium •

Mental health and Acculturative stress of South Asian Immigrant students in the United States…

Mental health and Acculturative stress of South Asian Immigrant students in the United States: Reported memo

Despite rising costs and inflation rates, which are now at 6%, South Asian students continue to immigrate in large numbers to the United States for a better quality of education. A report by Open Doors 2022 shows that the number of Indian International students in the United States grew to 199,182 between 2020 and 2021, representing nearly a 20% increase.

But, the transition to a new co
Medium •

A homely place in the overwhelming New York City - A reported piece on the McSorley’s pub in New…

A homely place in the overwhelming New York City - A reported piece on the McSorley’s pub in New York City.

​​Amid the steely spires of New York, in the heart of the East Village, is a bar that has remained

unchanged for nearly two centuries. Established in 1854, McSorley’s Old Ale House has witnessed some of the most unfathomable slices of history. There’s the wanted poster for “the murderer,” John Wilkes Booth, from 1865. There is also another poster of a revolt by the Irish Brotherhood in M
Medium •

In the best company of both kinds of spirits, a fictional story about McSorley’s Old Ale House, an…

In the best company of both kinds of spirits, a fictional story about McSorley’s Old Ale House, an old-timer pub in New York City

It was pouring heavily, like one of New York’s unpredictable weather days. While I was trying to wade through sidewalk potholes, raindrops dripped hurriedly down pedestrians’ black umbrellas. It was dark, and there was hardly any color except for the large displays of marijuana dispensaries. I was trying my best to get to 15 East 7th Street. McSorley’s was the place
Medium •

Q/A Article profile about the South Asian immigrant experience, mental health, and racism.

Q/A Article profile about author Suketu Mehta's South Asian immigrant experience, mental health, and the racism he experienced growing up

When Suketu Mehta was 14, his family immigrated from Bombay to New York in 1977 — to set up a business as diamond merchants (as most people in the Gujarati community from India do). He was put into an all-boys Catholic school, where he endured bullying and racism to no end. Being part of the early waves of immigration from India, the racism he experienced was especially bad. He recounts an incident from h
Medium •

A free, rickety ferry ride on the most expensive island — My experience on the Staten Island Ferry

A free, rickety ferry ride on the most expensive island — My experience on the Staten Island Ferry

“We were very tired, we were very merry, and we went back and forth” — a verse from a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay — is emboldened on Whitehall ferry terminal. Written over a hundred years ago, it still captures the essence of the New York ferry, except for the “merry” part. As if a testament to that, I witness hoards of fatigued commuter faces trying to go home, dragging their feet along to ge
Medium •

Profile of Ananya Mohapatra, an international student struggling with dislocation and mental…

Profile of Ananya Mohapatra, an international student struggling with dislocation and mental illness.

Sitting in her window seat on a flight from Mumbai to New York, Ananya Mohapatra felt anxious. As if on cue, she tied fistfuls of her colored, wavy hair behind her, revealing a sea of tattoos all over her body. Most of which were deeply personal and remnants of the people she lost in her life due to death or distance: her grandmother, her best friend, and her long-lost childhood sweetheart. She
Medium •

How the challenges of childhood influenced Sakshi Venkatraman to be a journalist.

How the challenges of childhood influenced Sakshi Venkatraman to be a journalist.

As a child growing up in Dallas, Sakshi Venkartraman always pictured herself moving far away from the town where she was buffeted by one hardship after another.

At school, she endured bullying from classmates because of her South Asian heritage. Her family struggled financially, and a significant elder in her family was abusive towards them. Her mother, hoping to bring a sense of normalcy to her daughter’s life,
Medium •

Why is body-shaming so rampant in South Asian cultures?

Why is body-shaming so rampant in South Asian cultures? And often seen as a cause of concern instead of the true evil that it is?

Shivani Kondekar was just a preteen when her neighbors started making intrusive comments about how thin she was. What they didn’t understand was that she was experiencing a growth spurt, which is a sudden change in height and physicality that often happens during puberty in a relatively short period of time. They would make statements like, “Do your parents not feed
Medium •

Highlighting Ayurveda as an alternate, holistic way to cope with mental illness

Highlighting Ayurveda as an alternate, holistic way to cope with mental illness

Marissa Soroudi, a native New Yorker, was thirty when her divorce pushed her over the edge.

She had spent most of her twenties harboring an unhealthy lifestyle — drinking and smoking — and the odd hours at her restaurant job in Australia kept her sleep deprived. After the divorce, Soroudi moved back to New York, emotionally exhausted and physically drained from the years of excess. Desperate for change, Souroudi, o