In a victory speech capping his meteoric rise, New York's mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani quoted at length from the famous "Tryst with Destiny" address by independent India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

As he left the stage to a cheering cross-section of the metropolis, the song on the speaker was not one of the many well-worn tunes about New York but the beats from a Bollywood blockbuster, "Dhoom."

Mamdani, winning a mandate with a left-wing agenda focused on making New York more affordable, has made history in many ways -- as the first Muslim and first South Asian to lead America's largest city, and, at 34, its youngest mayor in a century.

But Mamdani's victory is a watershed not just for his identity but how he embraces it -- fully.

"I am young, despite my best efforts to grow

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