LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Mira Nair
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Mira Nair was born in Rourkela[1], Orissa, where her father (having his roots in Amritsar, Punjab) was employed. She was the youngest of three children from a middle-class family. Her father was a civil servant and her mother a social worker. Mira did her early schooling at Catholic schools, including Tara Hall in Shimla. She studied sociology in Delhi University, where she became involved in political street theater and performed for three years in an amateur drama company. She left for the US at age 19 with a scholarship at Harvard, where she met her first husband Mitch Epstein, as well as Sooni Taraporevala.
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Mira Nair was born on October 15, 1957 in Bhubaneshwar in the Indian state of Orissa, the third daughter of a civil servant. She studied sociology in New Delhi and was involved in theater. In 1976 she received a scholarship to Harvard, where she completed her degree in sociology in 1979 with a documentary film about a Muslim community in Old Delhi. Finding theatre work at Harvard University too dull, she had decided to take to the camera. Her first documentary film was followed by three more: about an Indian newsstand owner who lives in New York, separated from his family in India (“So Far from India”, 1982), about Indian striptease dancers in Bombay (“India Cabaret”, 1985) and about the conflicts for mothers-to-be in India when they learn that their child is to be a girl (“Children of a Desired Sex”, 1987).
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Returning to the small screen, Nair directed Uma Thurman, Ben Gazzara and Gena Rowlands in the HBO TV movie Hysterical Blindness. The teleflick won three Emmys (one each for Rowlands and Gazzara), while Thurman was awarded a Golden Globe.
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Nair now lives in Cape Town (South Africa) with her husband Mahmood Mamdani, a political scientist, and their young son Zohran. Her interest in the themes of identity, culture and exile continues. Faithful to her own personal tradition she is currently preparing for yet another trans-continental move.
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For Hysterical Blindness, Nair was juggling multiple generations of actors and acting techniques. Gena Rowlands plays Debby's mother, Virginia, and Ben Gazzara is Rowlands' love interest, Nick. Juliette Lewis plays Debby's best friend, Beth. Despite this experienced cast, Nair did not direct the actors according to how they were trained or their specific methods.
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Nair’s son, Zohran, who goes to school in Manhattan, pressured her to cast Penn. Penn is the rare Indo-American actor who has a huge teen following in the wake of playing Kumar, a cult hero to stoners everywhere.
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Mira Nair