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Dance at the Most Magical Place on Earth!

Join Bollywood Groove at the Diwali Dance Fest 2026 in Walt Disney World® Resort. Perform in a world-class parade and showcase your talent on an international stage!

Once in a while, AI does something worthwhile (barring the extra cobwebs 🙂 )!

​The one thing I didn’t have growing up in Bhopal was the USA’s fantastic public library system. My city had one ancient library, a relic of colonial times, named, of course, “The British Library”. The collection was old and outdated, and was too far to visit on a regular basis. But the library that became my gateway to world literature was a tiny Bengali library attached to a Kali Bari. My mom and I shared a ravenous appetite for books and reading, and I used to so eagerly look forward to my visits.

The library was small but filled with books from floor to ceiling. The librarians were extremely well-read, friendly, and warm. It also didn’t hurt that Bengali writers were some of the finest translators of famous works. In some of the cases, when I finally read the original texts, the translation actually seemed better!

So the other day, on a whim, I described my tiny Bengali library to AI, and I was shocked by how accurately it captured it. Except for the unnecessary cobwebs that it decided to add, this is exactly how I remember my source of all reading adventures. The image literally made me emotional and brought back the delightful childhood memories.

​I tried to write a recap of this year many times and gave up. That alone says what the year was like – fulfilling, chaotic, beautiful, overwhelming, often all at once.

As I watched with horror of every effort around diversity being mocked and torn down, it filled me with an even bigger fire to counteract with joy. A tiny, one-woman rebellion that may not have shifted the world, but created small, impactful change in the rooms I was lucky enough to enter. In some of those spaces, I was the very first Indian cultural educator they had ever encountered!

Just as meaningful was the community that found me. Rebuilding our kids’ classes brought an unexpected gift: families who are open-hearted, empathetic, and deeply aligned with the values I hold. Without knowing it, they helped heal parts of me shaped by past loss.

2026 will not be easy. This year’s policies are taking effect, and funding is drying up. I can already see the strain ahead for a small, mission-driven business like mine.

So the word for 2026 is STEADFAST.

Because this is not a year for grand leaps or glossy optimism, it’s a year for staying rooted and continuing the work with quiet conviction.

Here’s to a new year where we hold STEADFASTLY to joy, culture, and community, especially when they are treated as optional.

Our work:

When people think of Christmas in India, the images are predictable. Goa beaches. Colonial churches. Plum cake. Twinkling lights.

That version exists, but it barely scratches the surface.

Across India, especially among tribal communities, fishing villages, and deeply local cultures, Christmas is shaped by land, livelihood, ancestry, and community values. It often looks nothing like the Western version.