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Kavita Das

@kavitadas

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Author of Craft & Conscience: How to Write About Social Issues (2022) and Poignant Song (2019); New Yorker; Daya’s mama; Committed to Joy & Justice

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Big News about a Tiny Love Story! I’m in the New York Times Tiny Love Stories with a short and sweet piece about how I learned to properly crack an egg 🥚 at age 50 from Daya and that lesson became a life lesson on how to end my marriage. This one’s close to my heart ♥️ because it’s about Daya, my beautiful girl, my little Yoda who teaches me to be a better person in big and small ways, and also because this is my first @nytimes byline! by @kavitadas

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23 days ago

Guys! I got to be on my favorite show @trackstarshow and nerd out talking about my greatest passion, music, and specifically the music that makes me who I am - a first generation Indian American New Yorker, listening to Indian ragas at home, and singing and dancing along (on the DL 😂) to everything else I could get my hands on. @jackycoyne - thanks but don’t forget my bonus point for id’ing the Jay Z song blaring from the passing car! I got to shout out some of my favs that raised me: @cyndilauper @georgemofficial @panjabimc @cornershophq @asha.bhosle @jeffbuckleydaily by @kavitadas

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2 months ago

REQUEST - I’m a year into my MFA and it has been such a generative experience especially at this moment in my life when I’m reconnecting with myself on the deepest levels. I’m especially thankful to fellow writer Marie Mutsuki Mockett for nudging me towards getting my MFA and assuring me that “I’m not too late.” And I’m also hugely thankful to my MFA mentor extraordinaire Edgar Gomez for being the best mentor I could’ve hoped for over this past year and for always believing in this project and in me. I’m excited about my next book project, my most personal one to date, and I’m beginning the agent querying process.

So, to my writing peers and mentors, if you have agents whom you trust and recommend or to whom you can introduce me, I’d be so deeply grateful if you could please DM me. I’m looking for an agent who believes in my writing, and who understands that my motivation for writing is as much about aesthetics as ethics, as much about craft as conscience ; ) Thank you to mentors and peers who’ve already helped with connections, - it means the world to me!

Thank you so much and here we go! 🙏🏾♥️ by @kavitadas

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3 months ago

As a writer, I attend a lot of book launches and book events, but the one I attended a few days ago at BAM stands out; it was the launch of The Third Eye, a book of George Harrison’s photographs through a conversation with his wife Olivia Harrison and Martin Scorsese, who directed a documentary film of George’s life. George was always in front of the camera, as one of the most photographed and recorded people of the 20th century, so, it was fascinating to hear about who George was behind the camera. He had a unique vantage point to capture the world around him, from the crushing crowds that thronged him and his bandmates, to his travels to far flung places where he discovered people who somehow hadn’t heard of him. George used photography as a literal and metaphorical lens on his life and the world, to capture reality and to distort it. George observed, according to Olivia, “I love photographs because you can make them look the way they feel, not like what they are.” Reaching the pinnacle of stardom in his 20s made him curious about what lay beyond life, it sparked in him an inner journey for self realization. And his inner journey led him to India, Indian music, and Indian spirituality, and culture. I’ve written about my fascination with George, and how my understanding of George evolved from viewing him as a cultural appropriator of Indian music to a cultural appreciator and ambassador for it. And looking through his photographs of India, George’s love, admiration, and joy for India and its culture is so evident. The Beatles took the world by storm and George documented it from the eye of that storm. Olivia joked, George, Paul, and Ringo were the only ones who never actually got to see The Beatles. I looked up and in the box above me was Paul McCartney, Salman Rushdie, and Tom Hanks, who was taking a selfie. I guess sometimes, even stars get starstruck. by @kavitadas

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15 hours ago

I’m proud of the Cornell student activists and student journalists who are holding the morally bankrupt, misogynist, rape-culture empowering Cornell administration to account for an absolute failure to protect not only Jane Doe but all the Jane Does that came before her. Meeting the students’ reasonable demands is the absolute least the Cornell administration must do. by @kavitadas

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4 days ago

Enjoyed spending yesterday evening learning about the fascinating life of Chapal Rani from Sandip Roy, author of the biography, Chapal Rani: The Last Queen of Bengal. Chapal Rani, a female impersonator in Bengali jatra theater has led a life of highs and lows, being celebrated for their theatrical skills at impersonating women and then being ostracized as women moved into jatra theater. I commiserated with Sandip about the unique joys and challenges of writing a biography about a culture Queen and the realization that the journey to discover their life story helps you better understand your own. taken in NYU Department of Social & Cultural Analysis by @kavitadas

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9 days ago

This is the first personal essay I ever published as a fledgeling writer in January 2013, 13 years ago, following the brutal gang rape of Nirbhaya/Jyoti in India. Sadly, 13 years later, it is just as relevant both in my country of birth, the US and my homeland, India, where gang rapes of girls and women continue and are aided and abetted by men in power. Whether it’s a dark park in Delhi or a frat house of an Ivy League college, it’s the same horror of men sexually assaulting and degrading women, and men (and women) excusing it. I have never been more disaappointed in men, American and South Asian, the ones I know and the ones I don’t, than I am in this moment. Because here we are again. Your silence, and “not all men” disclaimers communicate loud and clear that girls and women are all alone in this. This is not your problem, just like abortion rights, childcare, etc... On the personal front, my life has changed radically over the last 13 years in ways I couldn’t have predicted: published 2 books and dozens of articles and essays, I’m doing a dual MFA, while raising a little girl in the midst of a divorce. But I’m proud that this was my first published essay and that it was selected and edited by the “Bad Feminist” herself, Roxane Gay for The Rumpus, which she thankfully now helms. I just wish my piece was obsolete and irrelevant. by @kavitadas

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11 days ago

As big newspapers fail to call out lies and genocide (NY Times), and big media fall like dominoes to an authoritarian regime (CBS), and universities not only fail to protect the rights of their students but put them in harm’s way (Columbia, Cornell), I’m glad to see student journalists and student journalism demonstrate the integrity of free press. by @kavitadas

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12 days ago

When the first 3 works you cite for your MFA Long Critical Paper are your own. 🤓 by @kavitadas

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14 days ago

I’m not a big fan of Macklemore’s music or Ed Sheeran’s music but years ago, when he was in the spotlight, Macklemore had the guts to walk into the racial justice organization where I had worked and have a conversation about the cultural appropriation of Black culture and music, and his role in that and how it connects with the racial justice movement. More recently, he has not only consistently spoken out on Palestine, but released a song Hind’s Hall in memory of the horrific murder of Hind Rajab, a young Palestinian girl, by IDF, as she waited for help. This week, after being kicked off Ed Sheeran’s tour, Macklemore didn’t make it about himself and he also didn’t bad mouth Sheeran. He urged us to keep the focus on what’s really at stake and who’s most in danger, innocent Palestinian civilians. And he donated his tour earnings and urged Ed Sheeran and gross POS Kraft to do the same.

Meanwhile, after firing Macklemore, Ed Sheeran blamed his promoter, claimed that as an artist he was neutral, and said he just didn’t want to offend any fans. And then as his own fellow artists dropped out of his tour one by one because they value integrity over neutrality, he got back on stage and cried and said this has been one of the worst weeks of his life. He said this in the same week that I watched a video of a Palestinian child begging to be saved from beneath the rubble of a building that collapsed due to a previous strike by IDF, killing and injuring several women and children.

Ed Sheeran is what “white saviorism” looks like while Macklemore is what “white allyship” looks like. And just to be clear, Sheeran didn’t do Arijit Singh any favors by collaborating with him or by putting SRK in his video Arijit Singh was the most streamed artist on Spotify and SRK is the king of Bollywood, so, who’s saving whom? by @kavitadas

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17 days ago

A great night hosted by Sue Shapiro celebrating new books and their authors 📚 including Naima Coster (Take What You Can), Aatish Taseer (A Return to Self), Ian Frazier (Coyote vs. Acme, the adapted film in theaters now, The Snakes that Ate Florida). Also, it is officially denim jacket season which for me lasts until the first snowfall so I can keep wearing summer dresses for as long as possible. 👗😋 taken in Manhattan, New York by @kavitadas

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19 days ago

There are Readings and then There are Readings - Burlesque Edition: While I truly appreciate getting to focus on reading and writing in my MFA program, I must confess that I haven’t been able to read for pleasure and because of this I’ve lost some of the joy and fun of reading. Well, nothing like Books & Burlesque to remind me! I had so much fun hearing these writers read from their books and then watching as talented burlesque dancers transformed these works of literary art into the art of seduction. I enjoyed talking to the MC for the evening @fortunecookie_burlesque who’s also a fiction writer.
Kudos to everyone! Nicholas Boggs (Baldwin: A Love Story), Emma Copley Eisenberg (Fat Swim), Harriet Clark (The Hill), Malavika Kannan (Unprecedented Times), and Bobuq Sayed (No God But Us). While this was my first Books & Burlesque event, it was my second time seeing Malai perform - the last time was a 2 year old birthday bash where they got all the kids, big and small, and the Uncles and Aunties on the dance floor! 🪩 📚 👏🏾 taken in Caveat by @kavitadas

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25 days ago