The Rith Initiative

08/01/2026

Got a question for our panelists?

On August 16, we're bringing together Lt. Governor Ghazala Hashmi, Mayor Danny Avula, Neil Bhatt (Founder, nbj Architecture), and Bhumika Tharoor (Managing Editor, The Atlantic), moderated by Niraj Verma for a conversation on Being Indian-American: Its Responsibilities and Possibilities.

This is your chance to shape the conversation. Scan the QR code in this post or use the link https://forms.gle/46U3CiuVY2cXp8DV8 to submit your question — about identity, leadership, belonging, community, or anything else on your mind.
�Note: Submissions close August 9th

Selected questions may be asked live during the panel at the Threads & Bridges Festival, Aug 16 at VMHC.

🎟️ And don't forget register for the festival - https://secure.virginiahistory.org/5543/5541

The culture we carried, the culture we are becoming.

07/31/2026

07/31/2026

The schedule is here.
Two days, one story unfolding in real time — from lamp lighting on August 15th (the anniversary of Indian independence) to a panel on what it means to carry two worlds at once.

AUG 15�🪔 12 PM — Festival Opening & Lamp Lighting�💃 12:15 PM — Ganesh & Shiva Dance�🎙️ 12:30 PM — Oral History Presentations�📖 2:30 PM — Kids Story Time: Bindis, Bridges & Books�🎶 3:00 PM — Prabir Music & Kathak

AUG 16�💬 12 PM — Finding Belonging Within (Discussion for Older Kids)�🎵 1:00 PM — Charishnu (ever flowing) Music Performance�🗣️ 1:30 PM — Panel Discussion: Being Indian-American: Its Responsibilities and Possibilities�👗 3:30 PM — Fashion show: Textiles of India
Ongoing both days (12–4 PM): Community Exhibition + Artisan Market + Henna + Food

📍 Virginia Museum of History & Culture�🗓️ Aug 15–16 | 12–4 PM
The culture we carried, the culture we are becoming.

Registration link in bio — see you there.

07/20/2026

Being Indian-American isn’t just an identity, it’s a set of responsibilities and possibilities we’re still writing.

As part of the Threads & Bridges Festival, we’re bringing together five extraordinary voices for a conversation on what it means to carry a culture forward while building something new in it.

This isn’t a panel about looking back. It’s about what comes next — for the people who carried this culture across an ocean, and the generations now deciding what to keep, what to reshape, and what to build new.

📅 August 16 | 1:30–3:00 PM
📍 Virginia Museum of History & Culture
🎟️ Free event — reserve your seat

The culture we carried & the culture we are becoming.

07/15/2026

India did not send everyone. America did not invite everyone.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 ended race-based quotas and selected for education and skill and the community that arrived through that double filter became one of the most consequential diasporas of the modern world.

India gained independence on August 15, 1947. Our festival opens August 15, 2026 - 79 years later, in Richmond, Virginia.

Threads & Bridges is a community-led, interactive exhibition built on one metaphor: the loom. The warp threads are what the Carriers brought — language, faith, memory, identity. The weft threads are what their children and grandchildren wove in. What emerges is neither fully Indian nor fully American. Something still being made.

15 stations. Two threads - Golden (celebrated openly) and Invisible (hidden to belong). Both part of the same cloth.

This isn't culture explained to outsiders. It's our community witnessing itself.

📍 Virginia Museum of History & Culture�🗓️ Aug 15–16, 12–4 PM�🧵 Supplemental programming to We the People: The World in Our Commonwealth, marking Virginia's 250th