By Arul Louis
New York– Zohran Mamdani brought touches of his South Asian heritage to his formal inauguration as this multicultural city’s Mayor on New Year’s Day.
While acknowledging his parents during his speech, he also gave a shout-out to relatives in Delhi.
He is the son of Mira Nair, a movie director, and Mahmood Mamdani, a Columbia University Professor from Uganda, who claims Indian ancestry.
“Thank you to my parents, Mama and Baba, for raising me, for teaching me how to be in this world, and for having brought me to this city,” he said in his inaugural address on City Hall steps after being sworn in.
“Thank you to my family – from Kampala to Delhi,” he added.
Two of the three Korans that he used to take the oath of office belonged to his grandfather and his grandmother.
Before his swearing-in, a Hindu, Arun Khosai, and a Sikh, Sandeep Kaur, stood by with Christian and Jewish religious leaders as an imam from New York invoked Allah in a prayer.
Mamdani made a culinary reference to his heritage in his speech while talking about making the city work for workers like “those who feed us biryani”.
Another nod to his heritage came from singer Babbulicious, who sang ‘Gaddi Red Challenger’ in a mix of Punjabi and English during the inauguration ceremony.
Babbu Singh, whose stage name is Babbulicious, is also a social media influencer, comedian, artist, and author of children’s books.
Mamdani clapped in rhythm to Babbulicious’ song as the singer wearing a pink turban jumped around the stage.
“NEW YORK VICH MUNDA RENDAAAAA”, Babbulicious posted on Instagram.
Maamdani had a line in his speech, ‘Logon ke dil badal gaye hein’, which he translated as “softness in people’s hearts”.
He said a Pakistani Auntie named Samina told him that was how she perceived the effect of his movement on the city.
While Mamdani mentions his father’s religion, which he has embraced as his own, he has been silent on the religion his mother was born into, Hinduism.
Mamdani had a trifecta of firsts, as he became the 111th or 112th Mayor (the city is unable to count the number of Mayors before him, and he acknowledged that in his speech).
He is the first Muslim, the first South Asian (as he is generally referred to), and the first born in Africa.
He spent his first five years in Uganda, where he was born, and the next two in South Africa, where his father taught, before landing in New York at the age of seven when the professor joined Columbia University.
He was given the middle name Kwame, after the late Ghanaian president, Kwame Nkrumah, showing his link to Africa.
Mamdani is married to Rama Sawaf Duwaji, an artist and illustrator of Syrian origin.
She was born in the US but spent her childhood in the Persian Gulf countries. (Source: IANS)
