सभी का स्वागत
All Welcome
All Welcome
Sparklers, pinwheels, rockets, ladi bombs, mithai, colourful celebrations, fun and laughter… this is the picture of Diwali in so many homes in India.
For us here in London, we try to capture the spirit of Diwali and share it with as many residents of this dear, dear city as possible. This year, we held our brightest, happiest, loudest Diwali celebrations yet, with our good friends at Dinerama. Alongside first-class fare from London’s finest street food traders, we celebrated the festival of light with music and spoken word performances from a selection of outstandingly talented South Asian artists.
We were incredibly humbled and delighted to have the brilliant, Indian-born, London-raised, super-talented musician, composer and sarod player, Soumik Datta headlining our celebrations this year. He totally charmed audiences with his unbearably beautiful tunes on the sarod, and he was also responsible for the finest line-up our Diwali celebrations have ever hosted. It was an honour to work with him and his charity Soumik Datta Arts (SDA), which is dedicated to creating ground-breaking arts projects that bring people together by promoting exceptional talent from under-represented communities.
Thus, to the stage, we welcomed:– Vibs Bhatia, Amrit Kaur Lohia, Saachi Sen, Khiyo and Side Partition. All excellent, all sparkling with talent, and all complemented by spoken word from award-winning Jaspreet Kaur.
And at the end – the audience found their dancing feet, inspired by the awesome tunes from Ryan Lanji – DJ, curator and founder of queer South Asian club night Hungama.
Truly – this was an event to remember. To all who came, thank you. We captured the evening here, so do take a look and tag yourselves if you were there!
Warmest Diwali wishes to all.
The sun is momentarily out again. Calendars are fast filling up. There’s many a thing to do and many a friend to meet. And if we may kindly add to the excitement and the plan-making, here’s our list of what we’re looking forward to in September.
While we were at Edinburgh Fringe Festival, we caught Evening Conversations, an engaging show by Sudha Bhuchar. We caught up with her after the show to talk about her journey and her views on South Asian representation on screen, which you can read below. And for those who didn’t walk down the cobbled streets of the city or stumble into an impromptu performance this year, we highly recommend it for 2024.
Each year as August dawns, the streets and rooms and corners of Edinburgh fill with music, art, laughter and song. Wander into grand halls and pokey pubs, as the morning sun rises or in the dark of night, to see creations of every kind as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In honour of this wonderful celebration of the performing arts (and as a little treat), here’s a special edition Dishoom Loves, covering all the acts we’ve circled on our festival programme.
For anyone looking to learn or read more on Partition, this page holds a series of resources, for all ages, created by people knowledgeable and knowing about such matters. It is by no means definitive – we have simply found them to be useful, inspiring and accessible.
Dishoom will mark this joyous festival of light on Thursday 28th October 2021, with an all-day event fuelled by finest vegetarian fare and featuring a wonderful line-up of South Asian talent. To read on and to purchase tickets, kindly click here.