Kavita Das

Freelance Writer

New York

I worked in the social change sector for fifteen years on issues ranging from homelessness to public health disparities to most recently, racial justice. Now, I'm an award-winning writer focusing on culture, race, social change, feminism, and their intersections, featured in Longreads, NBC News, The Atlantic, Quartz, Guernica, The Rumpus, The Aerogram, and other outlets.

Kavita Das

Freelance Writer

New York

Struggling with a Puzzling Illness, Then Living with Its Answer: A Conversation with Porochista Khakpour
Given Khakpour’s gifts as a writer and her candor about her health struggles, an issue to which I relate, I’ve eagerly anticipated her upcoming memoir, Sick, and I’m glad to have had the opportunity to talk with her about it.
Los Angeles Review of Books
Book Reviews Interviews
Oral Histories to Help Readers ‘Better Understand the World’
Just after graduate school, writer Mimi Lok worked on a project that validated her belief in the power of storytelling. A volunteer researcher and interviewer for an anthology called “Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives,” Lok collected the stories of refugees. “It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, and was a chance, at last, to really ‘go deep’ with people’s stories in a way I couldn’t before,” Lok told NBC News.
NBC News
Interviews
Featured
India has changed a lot in 70 yrs. But arranged marriage remains norm.
When non-Indians ask me if I had an arranged marriage, I sometimes slyly reply: “in a sense.”. I’m an Indian American born and raised in the United States, married to someone who grew up in India. But it was our mutual friend, a white woman from Oregon — not our families — who played matchmaker. When I explain this to them, I know it is not the answer they expected.
The Washington Post
Cultural Criticism Interviews Essay Film Review
Immigration and Infertility: Talking with Shanthi Sekaran
A central conflict in Lucky Boy—the loss of parental rights by immigrants held in US detention centers—was at the heart of “Shattered Families,” a 2011 report I helped push out into the world when I worked at Race Forward, a racial justice organization.
The Rumpus
Interviews
Featured
Anoushka Shankar and NY Philharmonic Is a Debut 35 Years in the Making
Anoushka Shankar is not new to performing her father's compositions. But, because the piece includes several interludes of improvised sitar solo, there's opportunity to make it her own. "Having played it for a few years, in the beginning I really focused on improvising and 'what would my father have done' in order to try and be true to the piece," she said. "Now, I don't do 'what would my father have done' so much as feel confident that I know that, and ask how I can bring myself into it."
NBC News
Interviews
Featured
'Good Girls Marry Doctors' - Family, Obedience, Rebellion
But just as important to Bhattacharya was that the anthology have a unifying theme while including many, diverse voices. "The whole point of creating this book was to weave it out of an assortment of voices," she said. "Writing this book based on only one person's experiences would have been more like a memoir, and less like taking a survey of an entire community of women whose opinions have never been sought out before." Bhattacharya added that she wanted to give many South Asian American women the opportunity to be heard and share their experiences. "That can only happen when a diverse array of women are all speaking their truths at the same time," she said.
NBC News
Interviews
Featured
Thanu Yakupitiyage Is Amplifying Sounds, Immigrant Voices
Whether she's marching in a rally for immigrants' rights or spinning tracks after hours as a DJ, Thanu Yakupitiyage is challenging geopolitical and sonic borders.
NBC News
Interviews
Featured
From Red Carpets to Banana Peels, Rebecca Louie Is Paving Her Own Path
Rebecca Louie is as at home in a compost heap as she is when covering red carpet events.
NBC News
Interviews
Featured
Tanwi Nandini Islam Is Crafting 'Bright Lines' and 'Beautifully Universal' Scents
Tanwi Nandini Islam pours herself into everything she creates — whether it's a novel or a perfume, an article or a scented candle.
NBC News
Interviews
Featured
Envisioning and Enacting Racial Justice: Rinku Sen the Force Behind Race Forward
The topic of race has been coming up more and more these days, but often the conversations aren't nuanced or informed by facts or history. For Rinku Sen, president and executive director of Race Forward and publisher of Colorlines, race comes up in most of her conversations—and that's all right with her because, as she explains, "every issue I've ever come across has a racial dimension.
NBC News
Interviews
Featured
Force for Good: Angie Wang on Waging Peace and Forging Hope
There's a saying that often those who move mountains are themselves firmly rooted. That paradox perfectly defines the life and work of Angie Wang, Executive Director of Peace Is Loud and longtime advocate for women and immigrant rights issues. Wang was born in 1973 to Noel Shung Wang and Tami Tsu, Taiwanese immigrants who settled in California, where Noel studied Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.
NBC News
Interviews
Featured
Drawing Inspiration: A Conversation With Visual Artist Chitra Ganesh
Chitra Ganesh is a South Asian American visual artist who has earned accolades and awards and exhibited her bold and inventive work all over the world. She’s also one of my oldest friends. Not only did we share many common experiences of a desi upbringing in New York City, our mothers were also high school classmates in Calcutta.
The Aerogram
Interviews
Featured
Behind the Scenes With Film Composer Gingger Shankar
Even if you haven’t heard of Gingger Shankar, you’ve likely already heard her music. Her compositions have been the sonic backdrop to momentous films such as Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. Shankar also stands out because of her musical pedigree — she is the grandniece of musical icon, sitarist Pandit Ravi Shankar and granddaughter of famed Hindustani singer Lakshmi Shankar.
The Aerogram
Interviews
Featured
Turning Today's Immigrants into Tomorrow's Leaders
There is a simple explanation to Sayu Bhojwani's relentless devotion to improving the lives of America's immigrants. "I'm restless," said the 47-year old. "For better or worse I get bored with what I'm doing and I start thinking about what problem I can solve." But her commitment to the immigrant cause -- leading Bhojwani to start not one, but multiple organizations to move forward that mission -- come as no surprise to anyone with an understanding of her own, itinerant upbringing.
NBC News
Interviews
Featured
Curating the Indian American Experience for the Smithsonian: Q&A on ‘Beyond Bollywood’ with Masum Momaya
On February 27, Beyond Bollywood: Indian Americans Shape the Nation will open at the Smithsonian. This landmark exhibition is part of the Smithsonian’s Indian American Heritage Project, an initiative “to chronicle the experience of immigrants from India and Indian Americans in the United States.”.
The Aerogram
Interviews
Featured
Lakshmi Shankar: A Life Journey That Echoes Indian Music’s Journey to the West
In 2009, Lakshmi Shankar, an eighty-three year old acclaimed Indian classical music singer, received a Grammy Nomination for Best Traditional World Music Album. Many in the West came to know Lakshmi Shankar through her cross-cultural collaborations with George Harrison of The Beatles. But few know that offstage, they counted each other as good friends.
The Smithsonian Indian American Heritage Project
Interviews

About

Kavita Das

Writing

Strategic Communications

Marketing (MBA)

Project Management

Kavita Das worked in social change for fifteen years on issues ranging from homelessness, to public health disparities, to racial justice, and now focuses on writing about culture, race, feminism, social change, and their intersections. Nominated for a 2016 Pushcart Prize, Kavita’s work has been published in Longreads,The Atlantic, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Washington Post, Kenyon Review, NBC News Asian America, Guernica, Quartz, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, Colorlines, and elsewhere. Her first book, Poignant Song: The Life and Music of Lakshmi Shankar (Harper Collins India, Fall 2018), is a biography about the Grammy-nominated Hindustani singer, who played a pivotal role in bringing Indian music to the West. Connect with Kavita on Twitter @kavitamix