Afshan Bokhari, assistant professor of art history at Suffolk University's New England School of Art and Design in Boston, is finding that a combination of art and science is the key to personal and professional success.

Author Susan Oleksiw's new mystery novel, "Under the Eye of Kali," is the first in a planned book series featuring Anita Ray, an Indian American photographer-cum- amateur detective.

World-jazz ensemble Natraj, a Boston-based band featuring Indian influences, will welcome special guest Senegalese master drummer Lamine Touré for ground-breaking, cross-cultural music concert at the Be Here Now! festival, to be held at Harry Brown's Farm, 43 Abijah Hill Road in Starks, Maine. Natraj’s show begins at 7:00 p.m., on Saturday, Aug. 14. Cosmic Circus will add a visual dimension with hoops, puppets, acrobats, belly dance and fire, taking the audience on an interstellar voyage with Natraj’s music. Cosmic Circus includes One World Puppetry, Nova Dance, Neveah Dance, Starma Circus and Fantasy Fuel.

Weinstein Plans Reopening of Museum’s Space Showcasing Indian Works

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has named Laura Weinstein its first curator of South Asian and Islamic Art. As the museum’s first Ananda Coomaraswamy curator, so named for the museum’s first keeper of Indian art, Weinstein is busily awaiting the day she will reinstall the museum’s South Asian art exhibit.

Weinstein has plenty of ideas for raising the profile of South Asian art at the MFA, including exhibiting some long-held pieces that have not been shown in recent years. However, the Brookline, Mass., resident will have to exercise patience before getting her chance to make her mark at one of the world’s best-known arts institutions. The museum is currently under construction, as a new Art of the Americas wing takes shape. The Indian art wing, taken down in June, will be reopened a few doors down from its former location in about a year.

While the wait is difficult for Weinstein and for the South Asian community, Weinstein said she is savoring the time the situation affords her to be able to lay out her designs for the space, which includes bringing to light some pieces not viewed by the public in decades.

Author Padma Venkatraman has a formula when it comes to choosing the topic of her next book: she follows her scientific curiosity, which invariably leads her to a question for which she seeks an answer. It is a method in which curiosity leads to imaginativeness. So far it has worked well, according to the Providence, R.I., author, whose second novel is due to be published next year.

Thirty contestants and a large music-loving audience gathered at noon on June 26 at Sorenson Theatre of Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., for a Bollywood song competition put on by Hindi Manch.

As a young girl, Nupur Kohli never talked about make-up and boys and instead spent her time being what she calls “constructive” – always engaged in one activity or another. Then the music fever hit Kohli and she started her own radio show. Twenty-five years later she is still the voice of WNTN 1550 on the AM dial and loving every syllable.

In December 2009, Ranjan Ajitabh released his debut album, “My Name is Ajitabh,” produced by World Wide Records. The album has met with more success than Ajitabh could have hoped, he said.

Swaralipi, a music academy based in Wayland, Mass., brought to the New England audience a raag-sangeet concert by veteran Hindustani vocalist Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty of India. The event was held on June 13 at the J. Sleeper Auditorium at Boston University and was co-sponsored by Learnquest Academy of Music and Boston University School of Medicine. The event was a commemorative celebration of the 150th birth anniversary of the great Indian poet, philosopher and Nobel prize winner of Rabindranath Tagore.