With Zohran Mamdani now elected as the Mayor of New York, one of the most compelling backstories behind his rise to power has a strong Mumbai connection. His father, Mahmood Mamdani, was born in Mumbai in 1946, while his mother, acclaimed filmmaker Mira Nair, shares deep creative and emotional ties with the city that inspired some of her most iconic works.
Mira Nair’s Mumbai memories
Nair’s groundbreaking 1988 film Salaam Bombay! not only put her on the global cinema map but also immortalised Mumbai’s street life and resilience on screen. The film’s success led her to establish the Salaam Baalak Trust, a non-profit organisation that continues to support the city’s street children even decades later.
Her 1984 documentary India Cabaret, too, was filmed in Mumbai, offering an unflinching look at the lives of women working in the city’s cabaret bars. For both Nair and Mamdani, Mumbai has remained a place of inspiration, intellectual engagement, and cultural belonging.
In interviews, Nair has often credited the city’s chaos, colour and contradictions for inspiring her cinematic voice. Whether capturing the streets of Byculla or the dance bars of Grant Road, her lens has consistently reflected Mumbai’s layered reality.
The scholar from Mumbai
Mahmood Mamdani’s journey began in Mumbai before his family migrated to Kampala, Uganda, where he was raised. One of Africa’s foremost scholars of postcolonial thought, Mahmood’s work has bridged continents, addressing questions of identity, governance, and displacement.
Expelled from Uganda in 1972 by Idi Amin’s regime, he went on to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University and later became a professor at Columbia University in New York. His acclaimed book Citizen and Subject (1996) remains a seminal work on postcolonial governance.
Despite his global academic footprint, Mamdani’s Mumbai origins are often noted in scholarly circles, a reminder of the city’s role in shaping thinkers who transcend borders.
A legacy of art, intellect, and activism
Zohran Mamdani, born in 1991 in Kampala, grew up surrounded by these influences, a scholar father who questioned systems and a filmmaker mother who gave voice to the voiceless. The family moved to New York in 1999, where Mahmood joined Columbia University’s faculty. Zohran became a naturalised U.S. citizen in 2018 and has since risen as a progressive voice in American politics.
Married to Syrian artist Rama Sawaf Duwaji, Zohran represents a generation that embodies global citizenship while carrying forward his parents’ legacy of thought and empathy.
Mumbai’s imprint on a New York story
From Mahmood’s birth in Mumbai to Mira Nair’s cinematic tributes to the city, the Mamdani family’s story remains deeply entwined with Mumbai’s spirit, cosmopolitan, resilient, and unapologetically global. As Zohran makes his political mark in New York, Mumbai continues to echo in the values and vision that drive him.
