Tag Archives: Lanie Anderson

The Heart of Mishti Verma: Inner Katha Interventions

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Words by Lanie Anderson
photography by Akash Mehta

For five years, Mishti Verma began every workday the same: a nutritional milkshake, sprouts, and boiled eggs for breakfast; Buddhist chanting followed by meditation; and five minutes for writing down on paper her goals for the day. In that order.

When Mishti started Inner Katha Interventions in 2008, the tiny window of her bedroom—a makeshift office with books that lined the walls—only allowed small beams of light into the room and gave tiny glimpses of the hills, trees, and colony landscape of Mumbai, India, where she lived.

Mishti had no view of its center—a city of over 20 million people—with its busy streets, blaring car horns, and aromatic traces of cumin and coriander.

But she needed no view of the city’s heart to catch the spirit of its people—one of determination to succeed.

Curious about Inner Katha Interventions? Subscribe to CAKE&WHISKEY magazine or purchase the single issue here.

Marian Anderson: Ambassadress for All

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Words by Lanie Anderson
Imagery provided by University of Pennsylvania Special Collections

We. The word can have powerful implications depending on its context, and so it did on April 9, 1939, when contralto Marian Anderson sang her own rendition of “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

When Anderson arrived at the third line of the familiar song, she belted “to thee we sing” rather than the original lyric, “of thee I sing.” The audience—a sea of tens of thousands that stretched from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument—might have considered the lyrics a misstep in her performance, but Anderson’s alteration was purposeful.

To read more about Marian Anderson, subscribe to CAKE&WHISKEY magazine or purchase the single issue here.

Island Love

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Words by Lanie Anderson
Photography by Jessica Hill

Imagine a wedding with a center aisle carpeted in leaves and colorful rose petals, gift bags woven by local indigenous women and stuffed with organic body products, ocean waves that welcome the processional, and an outdoor patio made ready for dancing with Chinese parasols hanging just overhead. More like a fairy tale than a reality, this is Larissa Banting’s standard for weddings in Costa Rica and those standards have made her wedding planning business an international success.

Launching a wedding planning company for the first time would have made most sense in her own backyard of Toronto, Canada. Unless you know Larissa. During the summer of 2001, she trekked with an Alberta-based film production company to Costa Rica and fell in love with Roberto Leiva, a Costa Rican actor. A year later she moved to be with him and in 2003 they married.

What her friends and family in Canada deemed crazy—Larissa didn’t know anyone in Costa Rica besides Roberto, had no job, and couldn’t speak the language—she considered adventurous. “I loved the weather, the people, and the country,” Larissa explained. “I wasn’t flighty. Something resonated with me that this was the right place to be.”

To read the rest of the article, subscribe to CAKE&WHISKEY magazine or purchase the single issue here.

Youth Uprising

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Words by Lanie Anderson
Photography by Rebecca Drobis

Hiking in the mountains of Rwanda, snowboarding along the Eastern seaboard, and paragliding in Ecuador, Sarah Green doesn’t necessarily consider herself a risky person. But her track record begs to differ.

Recognized by President Obama for her work as a young entrepreneurial leader in 2012 and 2013, this humble North Carolina native has a running list of accolades in entrepreneurship that she rarely touts. Instead, it’s her wide eyes and sense of conviction that reveal her true purpose in what she does. The deepest desire to see others’ dreams realized and value reclaimed.

A 2009 graduate of Appalachian State University, Sarah turned down a cozy job with an accounting firm in Washington to teach entrepreneurship classes in Uganda, a country to which she says she owes her “life’s career trajectory.” After returning to the United States, Sarah cofounded Empact, a powerful organization that exposes young people to entrepreneurship and helps cultivate mindsets that alleviate poverty around the globe. Recently Sarah said goodbye to her role with Empact to focus on her first love: social entrepreneurship and international economic empowerment and development.

To read more of this article and the full interview, subscribe to CAKE&WHISKEY magazine or purchase the single issue here.