Exclusive: Two encounters that foretold Zohran Mamdani’s rise

By Iftikhar Gilani

As Zohran Mamdani won the much-watched New York 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 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 global success of her 1988 film Salaam Bombay!, which portrayed with unflinching honesty the lives of Mumbai’s street children.

When the film earned international acclaim, including an Academy Award nomination, Nair decided the story could not end with the closing credits. With her mother, Dr. Praveen Nair, she used the proceeds to establish the Trust in 1989, creating a lifeline for thousands of street children.

During that assignment, I went to meet Mira Nair at her Vasant Vihar home. She answered her own phone, fixed the time, and received me with warmth and simplicity — no assistants, no pretense. Her conversation flowed not around film festivals or fame but around children who needed a chance to rewrite their lives. Zohran had not yet been born then, but the sense of purpose that filled her home was already palpable.

A decade later, in the mid-2000s, I received a call from Mahmood Mamdani — the Ugandan-born professor whose book Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror had just reshaped debates about Islam and the West. He was in Delhi researching Muslim youth and the law, and wanted to meet after reading my own book, My Days in Prison, recently published by Penguin.

When I arrived at his Vasant Vihar residence, I realized he was Mira Nair’s husband. As we discussed identity, surveillance, and the politics of fear, a young boy moved quietly around the room — observant, polite, curious. Mahmood introduced him: “My son Zohran.” A teenager at the Bronx High School of Science, he listened intently as the conversation turned to how Muslims were being defined and divided in post-9/11 America.

That was my first glimpse of Zohran Mamdani — a boy at ease in a home where art met activism, where books and empathy occupied the same shelf.

The Salaam Baalak Trust that Mira Nair co-founded has since grown into one of India’s most successful models for rehabilitating street children, supporting more than 100,000 young lives. The dhaba I had once written about became a symbol of empowerment rather than charity. Among its many success stories is Vicky Roy, a former street child who became an acclaimed photographer chosen to document the rebuilding of New York’s World Trade Center.

When news of Mamdani’s mayoral victory reached the Trust’s centers, quiet celebrations broke out. “Mira didi gave us a future,” one alumnus said. “Now her son gives a voice to others like us.”

Obama and Mamdani: two names, two eras

Mamdani’s journey inevitably invites comparisons with Barack Obama. Both men are sons of Africa, both products of multicultural homes, both fluent in the moral language of empathy and inclusion. But the resemblance ends there.

Obama rose at a time when America demanded reassurance from its first Black president. His very name — Barack Hussein Obama — became a battlefield. When his opponents weaponized his middle name, he distanced himself from it. He downplayed his Muslim heritage to appear “safe” in a country uneasy with difference. His rhetoric of unity often meant smoothing away sharp edges — offering hope without discomfort.

Mamdani belongs to a different generation — one that no longer seeks permission to exist. He does not flinch from his identity; he centers it. He introduces himself slowly, insisting that people pronounce Zohran correctly. He speaks Urdu and Arabic on the campaign trail, visits mosques and synagogues alike, and calls himself “a Muslim New Yorker” without hesitation. For him, visibility is not a risk but a declaration of belonging.

Obama used faith quietly, carefully, almost apologetically. Mamdani wears his faith like truth — neither weaponized nor hidden. In a city built by immigrants, his clarity resonates deeply. His campaign slogans — “rent, groceries, buses, dignity” — spoke to everyone, yet his story reminded voters that inclusion must be practiced, not promised.

From Mira Nair’s compassion for street children to Mahmood Mamdani’s fearless scholarship, to Zohran’s politics of empathy, the thread remains unbroken. It is the belief that ideas must translate into care, and care into action.

The teenager I met two decades ago, listening quietly to his father discuss identity and fear, now governs one of the world’s most dynamic cities. His rise marks not only a generational shift in politics but also a moral one — from hiding who you are to building a future from it.

If Obama’s story was about transcending identity, Mamdani’s is about transforming it into strength. And that, perhaps, is what makes New York’s newest mayor not just a symbol of diversity — but a sign of how far authenticity can travel.