Grassroots to global: The personal story behind a newly-elected, politically transformative mayor

Meeting Mira Nair and Mahmood Mamdani in New Delhi when Zohran was a teenager offers insight into the humanism, empathy, and politics shaping New York City's new mayor

- BY IFTIKHAR GILANI

Zohran Mamdani delivers a victory speech after winning New York City's mayoral election.

(WABC News report)

As Zohran Mamdani won the much-watched New York City mayoral election, I could not help but think back to a humid Delhi afternoon decades ago.

Twice, I had the privilege of meeting his parents — encounters that, in hindsight, form the quiet preface to the story of a young man who would one day take on billionaires and a political establishment to lead one of the world's greatest cities.

It was the early 1990s, during my early years in journalism, when I was sent to cover a dhaba (tea stall) run by former street children at Delhi's Inter-State Bus Terminal. The place was small, noisy, and filled with energy.

The story, I soon learned, led back to the Salaam Baalak Trust — an organization founded by filmmaker Mira Nair after the success of her 1988 film Salaam Bombay!, which had portrayed with searing honesty the lives of children surviving on Mumbai's streets.

When the film earned global acclaim, including an Academy Award nomination, Nair decided the story could not end with the film credits. Along with her mother, Dr. Praveen Nair, she used the proceeds to set up the Trust in 1989, giving shelter, education, and opportunity to street children who might otherwise have been forgotten.

During that assignment, I went to meet Mira Nair at her home in Vasant Vihar, Delhi. Unlike most in her profession, she had no secretary or manager. She picked up the phone herself, fixed the time, and greeted me with warmth and simplicity.