How a 14-year-old Zohran Mamdani helped mother Mira Nair choose between Harry Potter 4 and The Namesake

New York has chosen Democratic Party’s Zohran Mamdani as its 111thmayor. Zohran is the first Muslim mayor and first person of South Asian descent to lead the city in its 400-year history. While Zohran has won the election purely on his own merit, his parents are too celebrities in their own right. Zohran is the son of Oscar-nominated filmmaker Mira Nair and Mahmood Mamdani, a Columbia University professor and a scholar on colonialism.

Zohran’s mother, Mira Nair, is a very well-known filmmaker in India and the world and has made some iconic films, including Salaam Bombay, Monsoon Wedding and The Namesake- all of which are considered global hits. Interestingly, Mira credits her son Zohran for helping her at a crucial juncture in her career.

Choosing The Namesake over Harry Potter 4

During the 2018 edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival, Mira Nair had revealed that she was offered to direct the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire film by Warner Bros. Mira spoke during a session at the Lit Fest.

The filmmaker admitted that she was confused about whether she should take up the offer since she was already working on The Namesake.

“I also turned down Harry Potter. They saw Vanity Fair, and they saw how vibrant and whatever voluptuous and successful for them, this was Warner Brothers, and they thought well, they'd had a big success with Alfonso Cuaron from Mexico making Harry Potter 3, so why not get the third-world rainbow coalition making Harry Potter 4,” she said.

“I was deep into making The Namesake at that time from a beautiful novel by Jhumpa Lahiri. I had suffered my very first death in my family, my mother-in-law, who was like a mother to me, and an unexpected death due to medical malpractice, and it completely blew me away. I was deep in that melancholy, and that's what inspired me to make The Namesake because Jhumpa has written in it of this terrible melancholy of losing a parent in a foreign country, which is exactly what I was experiencing. So I was deep in the throes of like almost a month away from shooting The Namesake, and they offered me Harry Potter, and I thought I had to take these meetings because my son had learned to read from Harry Potter.”

Also see: Did you know? NYC's new mayor Zohran Mamdani is son of Oscar-nominated director Mira Nair

Zohran was 14 back when Mira Nair was offered to make Harry Potter 4. The filmmaker revealed that he gave a crucial piece of advice to his mom, that changed her career trajectory for the better.

The filmmaker had wondered if she should give up on The Namesake and take up directing Harry Potter.

"I asked my 14-year-old son what I should do and he said to me, 'Mama many good directors can make Harry Potter but only you can make The Namesake’, and it was such a liberating and clarifying statement,” the filmmaker recalled.

Also see: Dhoom macchale! Mamdani brings Bollywood to NY, mentions Nehru - WATCH

The Namesake starred Irrfan, Tabu, and Kal Penn in leading roles. Based on Jhumpa Lahiri’s book by the same name, the film remains one of the best representations of Immigrant life in America. A story of love and loss, and the great divide between Indian parents and their US-born children, The Namesake earned critical praise worldwide.

About Zohran Mamdani

Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City on Tuesday. The 33-year-old, far-left state lawmaker has promised to transform the government to restore power to the working class and fight back against a hostile Trump administration. Mamdani, a Democrat, defeated former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

Born to Mira Nair and Mahmood Mamdani, Zohran was born in Uganda and moved to New York with his parents at the age of 7. He attended Bronx High School of Science and Bowdoin College in Maine. Zohran has dabbled in multiple careers before he joined politics, including working on sets of his mother’s films, and even was a rap artist for a brief period.