New York City's South Asian Cultural Guide

Bollywood.NYC

We don't list everything. That's the point.

Issue No. 011 · May 14, 2026

Editor's Note

Tonight in Queens. Friday in Brooklyn. Sunday in Chelsea. None of it is far.

Tonight, Salim Sabri performs Qawwali at PYO Chai on Steinway Street in Long Island City. Salim Sabri is a student of the late Haji Maqbool Ahmed Sabri — of the Sabri Brothers, whose recordings of "Bhar Do Jholi" were so definitive they became the version. Tonight, in a tea house in Queens, that lineage continues. If you're reading this before 7:30pm, you can still make it.

Friday, Kavish Seth performs at Barzakh Café in Brooklyn. The series is called Kareebkhana — "a place of closeness." Not a concert. A gathering. The room is small by design. That is the point.

Sunday afternoon, Āvartan brings Garba to New York Live Arts in Chelsea. Garba is a devotional circle dance — originally performed in honor of the goddess Amba, now performed wherever a community decides to mark time together. 3pm on a Sunday. Ninety minutes. The organizers produce GHAR/BA, a house-music-meets-Garba fusion. They understand the form deeply enough to play with it.

Two weeks out: Russell Peters at NJPAC. Prudential Hall, 2,800 seats, May 29. If you know his work, you know what the room feels like. If you don't, this is a good place to start.

Bulleh Shah, below in Words, said it better than we can. None of it is far.

— The Editors, Bollywood.NYC

This Week

Tonight, May 14: Salim Sabri Qawwali at PYO Chai, LIC — 8pm, doors 7:30pm. Friday, May 15: Kareebkhana with Kavish Seth — Barzakh Café, Brooklyn, 6–8pm. Sunday, May 17: Let's Vibe Garba by Āvartan — New York Live Arts, Chelsea, 3–4:30pm. May 29: Russell Peters at NJPAC. Book now.

The Edit
01
Editor's Pick Stand-Up

Russell Peters: Relax World Tour

Friday, May 29 · 8 PM · Prudential Hall, NJPAC, Newark

Russell Peters has been performing stand-up for four decades. He is one of the highest-grossing touring comedians alive and has sold out arenas on six continents. His comedy is built on the specific — on accent, on family, on the particular friction of growing up South Asian in a country that wasn't built with you in mind. Prudential Hall at NJPAC holds 2,800 people. The Relax World Tour is his current material. May 29, Friday, 8pm.

If you've seen him before, you know what the room feels like — it's one of the few rooms where the whole audience already understands the premise. If you haven't, this is a good place to start.

Worth the Trip from Manhattan: 30 minutes on NJ Transit from Penn Station. Book now — this moves fast on name recognition alone.

Tickets — NJPAC
02
Dance This Sunday

Let's Vibe — A Sunday Afternoon Garba by Āvartan

Sunday, May 17 · 3–4:30 PM · New York Live Arts, 219 W 19th St, Chelsea

Garba is a devotional circle dance — originally performed in honor of the goddess Amba during Navratri, now performed wherever a community decides to mark time together. Āvartan knows the form deeply; they also produce GHAR/BA, a house-music-meets-Garba fusion that has found its own audience in the city. This Sunday afternoon event at New York Live Arts — a serious dance and performance venue in Chelsea — is a different iteration: daytime, all-ages, accessible, community-first.

Sunday, May 17. 3pm. Ninety minutes. You don't need to know how to dance.

Tickets — Eventbrite
03
Music This Friday

Kareebkhana with Kavish Seth — Barzakh Café

Friday, May 15 · 6–8 PM · Barzakh Café, 147 Utica Ave, Brooklyn

Kareebkhana translates as "a place of closeness" — a compound of Urdu and Persian that evokes nearness, proximity, a gathering held close. The series is presented at Barzakh Café, which has become the most consistent room in the city for this kind of programming. Kavish Seth performs Friday May 15, 6–8pm. Two hours. An intimate room. The name tells you what to expect.

Tickets — Viewcy
Coming Soon — Worth a Look
Tue, May 20

An Evening of Indian Classical Music — DROM

Sougata Roy Chowdhury on sarod and Siddharth Ashokkumar on Carnatic violin at DROM, 85 Avenue A, East Village. Tuesday May 20. Sougata trained under Dhyanesh Khan, son of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan; Siddharth is a Brooklyn-based Carnatic violinist in the Lalgudi Bani tradition. Hindustani sarod and Carnatic violin on the same stage is uncommon and worth noting. $20 table minimum, 21+.

Tickets — Viewcy
Saturdays from May 23

Bahauddin Dagar: Asynchronous Duets — 873 Broadway

Four Saturday afternoons from May 23 through June 20, Ustad Bahauddin Dagar — a 20th-generation practitioner of the Dagarvani tradition of Dhrupad, the oldest living form of Indian classical music — holds structured one-on-one encounters with collaborators Shara Lunon, Brandon Ross, Anh Vo, and Aakash Mittal. 873 Broadway, Suite 503, Manhattan. 2pm, doors 1:30pm. This is not a conventional concert. It is closer to a public rehearsal of mutual understanding. Presented by FourOneOne.

Tickets — pools.events
Tue, May 27

Quadrature — City Winery NYC, Pier 57

Quadrature is a quartet emerging from Brooklyn Raga Massive sessions: Neel Murgai on sitar, Indofunk Satish on trumpet, Tripp Dudley on drums, Damon Banks on bass. Raga, rock, jazz, and psychedelia in a configuration that has played Globalfest at Lincoln Center, Pioneer Works, and Joe's Pub. Their debut album Black Hole Blues is out now on Deko Entertainment through Warner Music Group. City Winery at Pier 57 is a proper seated music venue — a different scale than the club circuit.

Tickets — City Winery
May 28–31

New York Indian Film Festival 2026

The 26th annual NYIFF. Pre-festival gala May 28: a 4K restoration of Sholay. Opening night May 29: BAFTA-winning Manipuri film Boong. The festival spans 19 narrative features, four documentary features, 27 shorts, and several world premieres. Presented by the Indo-American Arts Council. May 29 is a crowded night — also Russell Peters at NJPAC and Bahauddin Dagar in Concert at DiMenna Center. Plan accordingly.

Tickets — Eventbrite

Words

"O Bullah, the Lord pervades both the worlds; None now appears a stranger to me."

Bulleh Shah — Punjabi Sufi poet, 1680–1757

Bulleh Shah wrote in Punjabi at a time when the language itself was considered low — the language of farmers and women, not of scholars and courts. He wrote anyway, in the vernacular, about the dissolution of the self into something larger. Tonight someone sings the Sabri Brothers' legacy in a tea house in Queens. Friday a room in Brooklyn is called a place of closeness. Sunday a circle forms in Chelsea. None of these rooms requires you to be anything in particular before you arrive. That is what Bulleh Shah means.

Know someone who should be reading this? The list grows one good recommendation at a time.

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ICYMI — The City Around You

May 29 is one of the busiest nights on the South Asian cultural calendar this year — Russell Peters at NJPAC, NYIFF opening night, Bahauddin Dagar in Concert at DiMenna Center, and Khayal Manthan at Barzakh, all on the same Friday. Plan now. Also on the radar: Zarna Garg at NJPAC on June 20 as part of North to Shore. Ammy Virk at Nassau Coliseum August 8 — his first-ever New York show. More on both as we get closer.

Be Part of It

If you have something worth saying,
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Bollywood.NYC proudly supports South Asian comedians and women-run businesses. These are not afterthoughts — they are priorities. If you're a comic building an audience, a founder running something with purpose, or an organizer putting on something this community needs to know about, write to us at contact@bollywood.nyc. We read every one.

We're especially looking for:

  • Comedy shows and stand-up showcases
  • Women-led businesses, brands, and events
  • Cultural performances and live music
  • Panels, professional mixers, and community gatherings
  • Anything that feels intentional, not just loud

We don't feature everything. But when we do, we mean it — and so does our audience.