June 2012 Northern California Edition

Can Death be Beautiful ?

The Games We Played

In Transit

IndiaCurrents Celebrating 25 Years of Excellence

RAISING AN INDIAN- AMERICAN TEEN!

THEY JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND!

he just doesn’t understand!

june 2012 • vol. 26 , no .3 • www.indiacurrents.com

PARENTS AND TEENAGERS do SHARE SOMETHING IN COMMON...

2 • india currents • june 2012

Raising an Indian American Teen

Parenting Indian American teenagers requires a renegotiation of roles and connections within the framework of culture and heritage.

By Nitya Ramanan

12

TRAVEL

Northern California Edition

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT 38

BOOKS: Review of Narcopolis and Miss Timmins School for Girls By Geetika Pathania Jain and Tara Menon

76

Q&A: A Colossal Cast - Interview of Sajid Khan. By Suchi Sargam

FILMS RVing in Alaska

A Review of Jannat 2, Vicky Donor and Patang

Black bears, glaciers, big skies and a family sized RV.

By

By Rishi Kumar

Aniruddh Chawda

138

56 PERSPECTIVES

RECIPES Cooking for the Golden Years

1 EDITORIAL: Unchecked By Jaya Padmanabhan 5 VOICES

By Shanta Sacharoff

8 FORUM: Should the Minimum Driving Age be Raised?

Two opinions. By Rameysh Ramdas and Mani Subramani 10

ZEITGEIST: Panditji’s Tales By Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan

18

COMMENTARY: How I Met the Real Rose of Titanic. By Sandip Roy

22

BUSINESS: Grooming Leaders. By Vivek Wadhwa

28

PERSPECTIVE: The Games We Played By Sudha Subramanian

30

YOUTH: The Bridge that Spans the Globe. By Charu Srivastava

42

ELECTIONS 2012: The Truth Behind Campaign Ads. By Vidya Pradhan

44

OPINION: Can Death be Beautiful? By Latika Mangrulkar

70

DESI VOICES: Words of Wisdom, Satire, Humor, Muddle and Mis-speak. By P. Mahadevan

54 A Recipe for Fixing Harmful South Asian Diets

By Zain Shauk

112 LIFESTYLE

103 REFLECTIONS: Morality, Independent of Religion. By Joe Samagond.

68 RELATIONSHIP DIVA: Dating Deal-Breakers. By Jasbina Ahluwalia

130 ON INGLISH: Cotton Bales and Calico Tales. By Kalpana Mohan

125 DEAR DOCTOR: Hiding Behind Spirituality. By Alzak Amlani

144 THE LAST WORD BY SARITA SARVATE: In Transit

DEPARTMENTS 32 Ask a Lawyer 33 Visa Dates 137 Most Popular Articles

WHAT’S CURRENT 88 Cultural Calendar 104 Spiritual Calendar 126 Classifieds india currents • june 2012 • 3

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voices 25th Anniversary Celebrations!

Join Us! Friday, June 8 at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, June 9 at 6 p.m., Sunday, June 10 at 5p.m.

Theater on San Pedro Square, 29 N. San Pedro St., San Jose, CA 95110 Buy your tickets at: www.brownpapertickets.com/ event/243920 Another 25 years!

I want to send you the warmest Congratulations on your 25th Anniversary. Let me tell you that I consider myself one of the “pioneer readers” of your magazine ... since the first time I saw one of the issues of India Currents at Little India, in Artesia, Southern California. From the moment I opened this magazine it has captivated my inner soul and awakened my senses to all the subjects published.

I have been able to find activities in my area where I could enjoy my Indian heritage and learn how to cook some extravagant and delicious Indian dishes. Thank you so much for all that you have shared with your readers and I wish you a long long life. Let’s reconnect to celebrate another 25 more years!

Madam Hassoune, email

A Spiritual Consideration

I have enjoyed reading Sarita Sarvate’s beautiful commentary (Bhagavad Gita to the Rescue, May 2012). I am not a religious person, yet your thoughts have made sense to me. Thank you for this article.

Shuchita Rao, online

A Vegan Outlook

I would have wholeheartedly agreed to the article (Is Ghee Good for You? May 2012), if it had been written a couple of centuries ago.

In India, cows are injected with the harmone—oxytocin, to produce more milk. In western countries, the same practice is followed. When the dairy cow no longer produces milk, it is slaughtered. Cows are slaughtered even in organic farms, where organic milk is obtained.

In short, cows are treated like machines across the world.

Fortunately, for those of us, who shun milk and milk products, the supermarkets are awash with dairy alternatives. Soy milk, rice milk, almond milk are great alternatives for dairy milk. Extra virgin olive is a wonderful alternative for butter and ghee.

Following a vegan diet is good for health and the environment. It is the position of The

American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegan and vegetarian diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate and may assist in the prevention of certain diseases.

Kumudha Venkatesan, email

Standing Up for Truth

Prerna Lal’s article (Undocumented, Unapologetic, Unafraid, March 2012) clearly indicates that the problem is not her sexual affiliation but that people are bigoted. Repression is not a viable alternative to deportation.

So many people live a lie every day. I salute the author for standing up for the truth and daring the consequences.

Naresh Rajan, online

Playing Fair

I’m writing this with reference to the cover story by Vidya Pradhan (Where is the Desi Jeremy Lin, May 2012). I’d like to point out that the first Indian woman in the modern era to win a round in a grand slam tournament was Nirupama Sanjeev (Vaidyanathan) and not Shikha Oberoi, as the writer has erroneously stated. Nirupama defeated Gloria Pizzichini in the 1998 Australian Open.

As a professional tennis coach having coached college bound players, kudos to all the parents who encourage their children to play and pursue the sport of their choice, be it basketball, hockey, track, tennis or chess.

At private educational institutions, sports usually takes a back seat to academics and the chances of producing a desi Jeremy Lin is diminished. Lin was a standout basketball player, who led Palo Alto HS to the CIF title and had a 4.2 GPA. Most of the Indian American tennis players I have coached do not aspire to anything beyond college tennis. They and their parents are content with a college education and some college tennis. So it takes a different mindset among the boys and girls playing tennis or any other sports to think about superstardom as Jeremy Lin just accomplished.

Finally, I’m not sure if champions like Agassi, McEnroe, Sampras, Serena, Venus would ever trade their Grand Slam titles for a college degree.

Ganesh, online

At the Mercy of Jobs

Point well said, Vivek Wadhwa (Incentivizing Math and Science Education, May 2012).

But after seeing how much physicians or investment bankers are making, I dont think there is much incentive for young people to pursue a Ph.D. in any field! I am wrapping up a postdoctoral fellowship at a premier Ivy League institute in the Northeast, and I feel bad for most of the Ph.D.s entering a bad job market. Plus I cannot imagine my life being at the mercy of grants and papers to publish. I

am grateful for the medical degree I have and for the doors it is opening for me.

Leena, online

Countering Arguments

This is in response to Rameysh Ramdas’s Forum column (Should Obama have Warned the Supreme Court? May 2012).

If Ramdas had been denied insurance coverage for himself or a loved one, he might perhaps not have been so quick to criticize President Obama for using the presidential platform to convey a strong message for what he firmly believes in and for what undeniably benefits the majority of Americans; rather he should be lauded for having the courage to use his implied powers so wisely, that too in an election year. Moreover, there is a definite contradiction of ideas in Ramdas’ argument when he states correctly that Supreme Court Justices are immune from political and presidential pressures by the very nature of their appointment, yet somehow goes on to argue that President Obama has the power to threaten these lifetime appointees. Most middle school children will be able to tell him that Wikipedia is not considered a legitimate source of information. Mr. Ramdas, I do enjoy reading your frequent letters to the editor in the Mercury News, but writing professionally for a magazine is a different kettle of fish!

Gai Chakravarthy, email

The House We Live In

A lovely piece (That Bungalow in Chennai, May 2012) and useful to know the true origin of the word—one I use frequently to describe my small home in the Oakland hills, built circa 1940. I’m fond of the term verandah, too, which I assume is also Indian. The attachment to my house, however, goes by the rather more contemporary American and much less lyrical word, deck.

Joanna Biggar, online

The Art of Possibility

In his article, (Synchronicity: Intention to Manifestation, May 2012), Gopi Kallayil inspires us to believe in the 3.14 degrees of separation and the art of possibility.

The essay pulls us right into the action and emotion.

Raj Oza, online

SPEAK YOUR MIND!

Have a thought or opinion to share?

Send us an original letter of up to 300 words, and include your name, address, and phone number. Letters are edited for clarity and brevity.

Write India Currents Letters, 1885 Lundy Ave. Suite 220, San Jose 95131 or email letters@indiacurrents.com.

india currents • june 2012 • 5

6 • india currents • june 2012

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IC

forum

Should the Minimum Driving Age be Raised?

Rameysh Ramdas

Mani Subramani

Yes, the minimum driving age should be raised

No, the minimum driving age should not be raised

s we approach summer break when 16 year olds are eagerly taking Drivers Education classes and getting their permits, we must stop to ponder if 16 is indeed the appropriate minimum age to start driving. A vehicle, if not driven carefully, can become a weapon of mass destruction even with a small mistake by a distracted and inexperienced driver.

The statistics in our nation are sobering—according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 3,466 teenagers ages 13-19 died in motor vehicle crashes in 2009, 16-year-olds have higher crash rates than drivers of any other age, and vehicle crashes were the leading cause of death among 13-19 year-olds. Further, the National Highway Safety Administration says that teenage drivers and passengers are among those least likely to wear their seat belts and most likely to use their hand held cell phones while driving.

Besides having a proclivity for impulsive actions at this age, there is now medical research evidence that backs up the theory that a 16 year old is not ready to drive. Brain researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, have found that the “executive branch” of the brain—the area that is responsible for weighing the risks, make judgments and control impulsive behavior is not fully mature at age 16. Careless attitudes and rash emotions often drive teen decisions, says Jay Giedd, chief of brain imaging in the child psychiatric unit at the National Institute of Mental Health, who leads the study.

While it may be an inconvenience for parents to chauffeur their kids for an extra two years, I believe it is well worth the bother to mandate a higher minimum driving age. Efforts to do so have been unsuccessful as driver’s permits and associated laws are under the purview of individual states—some like Michigan and South Dakota have a minimum age of just 14 to get a learner’s permit while New Jersey has the highest at age 17.

Safety experts are unanimous that such a move will dramatically reduce teen fatalities. “The bottom line is that when we look at the research; raising the driving age saves lives,” says Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

It is time for federal action to enforce a higher and standard minimum driving age across the nation. In 2011, the Safe Teen and Novice Driver Uniform Protection Act (also called the STANDUP Act) was introduced to do just that along with a three step graduated scheme with restrictions to drive lifted only at age 18. Unfortunately, the effort stalled and the bill is yet to be law.

Between having to drive your child an extra two years to the unthinkable calamity of an accident or fatality—the choice is clear and any thinking parent should gladly be willing to play chauffeur for an extra two years. n

s an immigrant to this country without prior driving experience I can still recall the independence and freedom that my first car gave me. Grocery shopping, going to school and all the other routine activities that did not require herculean advance planning.

Having gone through that experience why would we now delay that feeling of independence and liberation for our teenagers today?

We should instead use this opportunity as a way to teach them responsibility and safety. Driving has become safer over the years. According to the NHTSA the number of fatalities declined steadily from 43,510 to 32,885 from 2005 to 2010. Similarly 16 and 17 year-old fatalities reduced from 881 to 408 during the same time period. According to the Governors Highway Safety Association(GHSA), this is attributed to graduated licencing laws which allows young beginning drivers to obtain on-road driving experience in a manner that protects them while they are learning, keeping them out of higher risk situations until they are ready. This data clearly suggests that sound policies can make a huge impact on teen safety.

Fatalities are tragic, especially teen fatalities. It is true that increasing the minimum driving age to 18 would eliminate fatalities among younger teens. But, as Alex Koroknay-Palicz of the National Youth Rights Association summarizes, “Studies show that it is inexperience, and not age, that causes accidents. Raising the driving age will just create inexperienced, accident-prone drivers at 18 instead of 16.”

Driving has a 37 times higher fatality rate per mile travelled compared to flying for instance. And men are 77% more likely to cause accidents.

Should we permit only women to drive, then or give up driving and take up flying? Certainly, safety laws need to be in place to reduce automobile fatalities such as seat belt laws and banning texting or talking on cell phones while driving. However, the biggest bang for the buck comes from technology. For example seat belts and airbags have been estimated to reduce the likelihood of fatalities in head-on collisions by 66% and there have been exciting developments in sensor and safety technologies in automobiles, too. Side impact air bags, auto cruise control and self parking cars are some examples.

Google has been working on futuristic vehicles that can drive themselves, using artificial-intelligence software that can sense anything near the car and mimic the decisions made by a human driver.

There are seven such cars in California which have already completed 140,000 miles with minimal human interference. Such solutions will not only dramatically reduce accidents and fatalities but also create exciting economic opportunities. So instead of taking away junior’s car keys lets invest in key life saving technologies. n

Rameysh Ramdas, an SF Bay Area professional, writes as a hobby.

Mani Subramani works in the semi-conductor industry in Silicon Valley.

A

16-year olds have higher crash rates than drivers of any other age.

8 • india currents • june 2012

A

“Raising the driving age will just create inexperienced, accident-prone drivers at 18 instead of 16”—Alex KoroknayPalicz

india currents • june 2012 • 9

IC

zeitgeist

Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan

Panditji's Lesson Teaching, it is increasingly clear to me, is much more than the sum of its parts. At best, it is a dialogical act of commitment and engagement with the world and others in it.

A

mit Chaudhuri’s 2009 novel, The Immortals, is a portrait of the vexed relations between music gurus and their students.

Pandit Ram Lal, a senior guru, is particularly attuned to matters of protocol between students and teachers: “There was a story of how Lata Mangeshkar wanted a guru to train her in the finer points of classical music, and of how she had thought of him, Ram Lal, having heard his abilities as a teacher praised highly…Panditji did not call. ‘She should call me,’ he said. ‘If she wants to learn from me, she will call me.’ The call did not come.”

This Lata is, of course, a fictionalized version of the singer, but Chaudhuri uses the real name to make a point. The fictional Panditji was not willing to compromise his code of conduct for anyone, even a famous Bollywood singer, but Lata dismissed his traditionalist ideas about the guru-shishya relation. Importantly, Panditji’s son, Shyamji, is a music teacher who disavows the status of guru-ship, saying to his students, “There’s no need to tie the nada.”

“Shyamji lived in the real world,” the narrator says, “not in some imagined idea of antiquity.”

As the novel unfolds, Chaudhuri shows that by disavowing a guru’s rituals, Shyamji has also partially disavowed the role of guru.

He becomes preoccupied with his many appointments and travels; he sings into a Panasonic recorder, which serves as a proxy “guru” for students in his absence.

T

his past year, I had my first taste of inhabiting the teacherly role as an instructor of two college courses. While I certainly do not have illusions of guru-ship, I have begun to cultivate my own ideas about the potential of the teacher-student relation. Reading Chaudhuri recently, I wondered: Are Panditji’s ideas about the teacherstudent relationship really that old fashioned? Or is there something about teaching that is quasi-sacred? Is there something about the pedagogical relation, which demands that we treat it differently from any other relation—something that we must defend and protect against the incursion of technologies that would replace us and market forces that would reduce our students to customers?

What, in other words, does it mean to teach? This is as important a question as “what” is being taught in any given classroom. For it is one thing to determine “what” to teach by establishing a course theme and trajectory, determining what writing and research skills students must develop, and drawing on your expanding toolbox of texts, exercises, and assignments in the preparation of a syllabus.

It is another thing to remain responsive to and vigilant about the question of teaching itself. What am I doing when I step into a classroom? I am not giving a presentation. I am not delivering a talk.

I am not presenting material. I am not there to collect homework.

Teaching, it is increasingly clear to me, is much more than the sum of its parts. At best, it is a dialogical act of commitment and engagement with the world and others in it.

I learned this lesson on day one. Five minutes before class, we were strangers in the hallway, scooting between trashcans and orphaned desks and trying not to listen in on each other’s conservations. But when we emerged from the classroom, we were teacher and student, bound by an unceasingly complex, age-old and dynamic relation. We entered into a relation of interlocution and communication and a dynamic space of possibility, in which I got to know my

10 • india currents • june 2012

students as thinkers, writers, readers, and speakers, with their own attachments, commitments, politics, aspirations, and vision of the world. In return I helped them clarify their thinking, sharpen their vision, and make every sentence crafted more precise. I felt ownership of them as “my” students, and even now when I pass one of them in the halls, I feel the tenacity of the connection built.

And yet, teaching continues to be a radically misunderstood and undervalued practice. Perhaps this is because we tend to use the term “teacher” to describe those who work with children and young adults. We speak of pre-school teachers and college “professors,” eliding the fact that at their best, what professors do, too, is teach.

And remember our schoolteachers? They led us through lessons, assigned homework, organized activities, gave feedback on our papers and tests, met with parents to discuss our progress, commented on penmanship, coached us at recess, intervened in our squabbles, corrected our pronunciation… In high school, they exposed us to the complexities of world systems, great literary traditions, and interdisciplinary fields of inquiry like feminism and social justice. In other words, our teachers instructed, but also coached and advised us, led and mentored us. They were charged not simply with delivering information, but with preparing us for full lives, and they did so in conjunction with whatever family, parents, and friends comprised our individual networks and support structures.

The teaching of adults is, of course, different from the teaching of school-age children. In college, there are no more parent-teacher conferences. We spend less time with our students. We know less about them. We might never see their handwriting. And graduate instructors are trained to prioritize our research, even though most of us will eventually be employed in full-time teaching positions. But no matter what monographs we publish or experiments we conduct, teaching will be the work of our days. And the role we play in students’ lives is rich with possibilities for meaningful human exchange.

C

haudhuri’s Panditji identified foremost as a teacher, and as a teacher he expected certain respect from would-be students.

There is a lesson here for any graduate student who would prematurely deemphasize the value of teaching. It is fundamentally as professors and instructors, with a robust sense of what teaching is and does, that we will be able to defend the public university, stave off the encroachment of online education, redeem the liberal arts curriculum, and reinvigorate a new generation of critical thinkers who can be more than the technocrats the market wants them to be. n Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley.

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india currents • june 2012 • 11

Raising an Indian-American Teen

By Nitya Ramanan

Parenting teenagers is undoubtedly a challenge, especially for Indian-American parents of children caught in the cross currents of two cultures.

I

n the 1995 James Bond movie, Golden Eye, M tells Mr. Tanner, played by Rory Kinnear, “… if I want sarcasm, Mr. Tanner, I’ll talk to my children, thank you very much.” That sentiment satirizes and underscores the parent-teenager relationship, a relationship pixelated by sarcasm, rebellion, and vulnerability. Every childhood stage has its challenges, but teenage/adolescence behavior is probably the most tempestuous for parents and teens alike.

A

dolescent behavior manifests in thought and behavior between the ages of eight and 14, right after puberty, which is the catalyst for emotional and intellectual developmental changes that trigger adolescent behavior. Sushma Trivedi, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in the SF Bay Area, attributes several teenage 12 • india currents • june 2012

behavior patterns to the fact that the brain is not fully developed until we are well into our 20s. “A major developmental task during the teenage years is to figure out how a person is going to belong in the world, or develop a group identity.” She goes on to elaborate that this developmental stage causes conflicts with parents around academic and social issues,

not limited to grades, attire, values and activities. She stresses that it is important to send teens the message that everyone is different and fits into society in different ways.

When I was Growing Up …

Why are there so many problems surrounding teens in today’s society?

Michael J. Bradley, author of “Yes, Your Teen is Crazy,” writes “Parenting an adolescent in today’s world is much the same as flying a jet aircraft or performing brain surgery.

Any training you received 30 years ago is not only useless, it can actually impair your ability to perform well. Successfully parenting an adolescent in today’s world requires levels of skill, endurance, wisdom, and strength, which makes piloting an aircraft pale in comparison.”

In short, what worked during the 70s and 80s may not work anymore. Relationships between parents and children, social interactions and channels of communication have changed greatly over the past decades. Our present generation of teenagers is not as receptive to authoritative decisions or parental control as the previous generation may have been.

Technology and the Internet were not social tools of the past. Today, they exert tremendous influence on teenagers and don’t lend themselves to much control. Hemalatha Prakash, whose twins recently graduated out of their teens, says, “The main problem is that too much information is available on the Internet on any topic and social networking sites make any small issue balloon into a very big thing.”

Looking back to her own growing years, Shanti, the mother of an adult daughter and a 19-year-old-son, recalls that she had a lot of freedom when she was growing up, but times were indeed different then. “Now, with the modern day of Internet and other technologies, kids are out there in the big world, with access to different kinds of information that you are not even aware of,” she stresses. The problem is that often they are led into irresponsible actions by their web interactions.

It’s a dangerous world out there and the kids just haven’t acquired the wherewithal to process all the available information, no matter what they think.

“The Internet has been linked to teenage depression, isolation, and suicide. Kids are creating ‘cyber-relationships’ to supplant ‘real time’ relationships in sometimes strange and frightening ways,” explains Bradley.

Talking Sex

Discussing sex in an age and country where children are inundated with sexual images in varying degrees is a tough task for parents who have been brought up to be less forthright about sexual matters.

Sushma counsels parents who are worried about their daughter’s relationship with a boy and the possibility that it might progress into a sexual relationship. Drawing from her experiences as a parent and a counselor, Sushma sheds light on this aspect of parenting discord. “Parents talk about sex and teenagers talk about sex. They don’t talk to each other about sex. The underlying belief seems to be that it is vulgar to talk about sex and any such

Photo Credit: A Creative

“Parents talk about sex and teenagers talk about sex. They don’t talk to each other about sex.”—Sushma Trivedi

talk will encourage sexual activity and even promote promiscuity.” In fact, this lack of communication could have the opposite effect when children venture to explore, with little or no caution and knowledge to inform their actions of possible dangers. “American parents are practical. Most parents are unhappy to discover that their 16-year-old is having sex.

However, American parents immediately worry about the child’s safety and discuss testing for STD. An Indian-American parent on the other hand, will be worried about the ‘loss of virtue’ and its societal impact on their child and the family,” she explains.

Cross Currents

Do Indian-American teens have it harder than their peers?

Both, teens and parents, agree that the dual cultures play a great role in defining the parenting of teenagers. Kamini Iyer, now a college senior, confesses that as a teenager, she did sometimes feel torn between Indian and American cultures because the two were often fundamentally at odds with each other. Rules for her, at times, did seem different and stricter than for her non-Indian peers, however, “… many of my family friends who I grew up with were facing similar rules, so I did not question it too much,” she explains. Her twin broth-

Commons image

er, Kedar, offers a different perspective. He shares that there were many tribulations during his transition from middle to high school, and he also felt that he faced stricter rules as an Indian-American teen. “It led to lots of conflicts and rebellion. Peaceful resolutions were rare.” He does point out, though, that that he was never prohibited from participating in any activity simply because it was not acceptable in the Indian culture.

“Indians tend to shine in academics and do better in school than most others. I think this comes from the values that Indian children in America are brought up with, including hard work, ambition and a thirst for success. Furthermore, the family/community aspect of being Indian in America is amazing,” says Preeta Dharan, as she appreciates having a large family network to turn to in times of need.

Kedar agrees. “If anything, Indian-American teens have it easier. Indian families are strong and usually the parents are together and the parents place high priority on looking after their children,” he says. Kamini concurs with her brother, “Indian-American teens more or less have supportive families and a community support system that many other teens do not have.”

The teens I spoke to also confirmed that trust was the biggest factor that solidified their relationship with parents. Kedar explains why it is more important to make sure your teens have trust in you than to have control. “They are going to find ways around the control anyway, but once they start lying to you, the relationship is gone,” he says wisely, adding, “I don’t know how many other teenagers in my situation say this, but I am most grateful for my parents’ trust in me. They give me freedom, and because of that, I have made my own mistakes and am learning how india currents • june 2012 • 13

14 • india currents • june 2012

to use this freedom responsibly.” These are sage words uttered by the very teenagers we worry about. Kedar does believe that in general, “cultural differences between immigrant parents and their American children,” are one of the greatest factors affecting the upbringing of an Indian-American teen. “Teenagers want freedom, parents don’t trust teenagers to use it properly,” he explains.

Preeta Dharan, a high school senior, stresses that parents’ treatment of their teenagers determines the level of rebelliousness of the teenagers. “In my experience, the craziest, wildest teenagers I know have very strict and intense parents. I even have friends who would do things that are not appropriate, simply because they know their overbearing parents would not approve of them.” “Some parents do not want to be open-minded about the differences in cultures,” says Shanti. “They are very rigid themselves and expect their children to be too, not understanding that their children are surrounded and affected by peer pressure all the time,” she adds.

Kala Murali, a SF Bay Area resident who has two daughters, admits that parenting has a steep learning curve. “With my first child, I realized that I was too possessive of her, and I was always worried about her clothes, activities, her friends, etc. But I always had an open relationship with her and she took the time to explain things to me. For example, with clothes, when I commented that something wasn’t appropriate, she replied that she could easily dress conservatively in front of me and wear a sweatshirt on top of the ‘inappropriate’ blouse, but she could always go to school, remove the sweats and put it in her bag,” she confesses. Her daughter’s question to her, as to whether she would want her to cheat behind her back, forced her to think about her approach. “She taught me to trust her by asking me to tell her what I felt was right, but not force it on her to follow the values,” she says.

While approaches and strategies varied on the subject of punishments, consequences, and curfews, cultural constraints apart, all the parents I talked to agreed that trust, open communication and consistency were key to a healthy relationship with their teens.

In the book “How to Talk So Teens Will Listen & Listen So Teens Will Talk,” authors Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish advise parents to maintain an open channel of communication. They suggest that parents use tact, and humor to respond to teens, to get them to listen, or to engage them in a reasonable negotiation. The key, however, is to offer choices instead of saying a flat-out NO.

“Parenting an adolescent in today’s world is much the same as flying a jet aircraft or performing brain surgery. Any training you received 30 years ago is not only useless, it can actually impair your ability to perform well.”—Michael J. Bradley she wrote why it was productive to make her daughters practice the piano for six hours a day, or why it was prudent to deny them the small joys of sleepovers with friends; in fact, Chua went so far as to say that this “tiger mom” approach was far superior (and successful) to Western parenting techniques.

Speaking from my own observations and experiences being raised in India, it is not difficult to see why many Indian-Americans might take well to the “tiger parenting” approach. After all, discipline, hard work, excellence in education and a successful career are inherent to our upbringing. In addition to these core reasons, this parenting style might be favored among Indian-Americans.

“The ‘tiger mom’ style may have some advantages,” says Sushma. “It may teach the child the value of persistence and help the child in becoming proficient in her chosen

field of work. However, what is it that the child is not doing when she is practicing piano for six hours?” she questions.

In his op-ed piece, “Amy Chua is a Wimp” (The New York Times, Jan. 17, 2011), columnist David Brooks criticizes Chua for not allowing her daughters to have play-dates, thus depriving them of valuable opportunities for socializing. In defense of their mother’s parenting style, Amy Chua’s daughters, Lulu and Sophia, have publicly spoken to the merits of having a tiger mom, and how their teen years spent under strict discipline have only brought them self-discipline, laurels and a successful future. In her blog, tigersophia.blogspot.com, Sophia responds to the criticism, “… Let me indulge my not-so-inner nerd for a second: when you spend seven hours at school a day, 180 days a year, for 13 years, you rack up 16,380 hours of social interaction. That’s the equivalent of over 3,200 five-hour playdates.

So overall, I don’t feel too deprived.”

Sushma cautions that “the ‘tiger mom’ style is an extremely authoritarian style and is not for all parents or all children. While it may be possible for a parent to cultivate this style, in my opinion it is not worth the effort. We want our children to be successful, but more importantly we want them to be happy and know that they make a difference, just because of who they are.”

Is It Easier in India?

The return wave to India (R2I as it is more commonly known) is often motivated as much by the perceived challenges of raising teens in the United States as it is by the desire to be close to aging parents or career growth.

However, raising a teen in India is not necessarily easier as we are often misled to be

What is Your Parenting Style?

Early in 2011, Yale law professor Amy Chua made headlines when she wrote “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” where she boldly shared her convictions about her strict parenting style with a Chinese flavor. In the face of much flak from the media and parents alike,

Photo Credit: A Creative Commons image india currents • june 2012 • 15

16 • india currents • june 2012

lieve. When asked if she had ever considered returning to India to raise her teens, Kala responded that the thought never crossed her mind. “I, who grew up in India, was a challenging kid myself,” she confesses. It made her aware that where she lived didn’t matter.

Shanti concurs that she didn’t consider even for a moment that it would be easier to raise a teen in India. “In my opinion, it’s not the place but knowing how to deal with the issues that is important,” says Shanti.

“Teen problem is a universal situation that I am sure every parent must be facing, whether here or in India,” agrees Kala.

Many parents confessed that often times when they felt they had lost control of their teenager, they turned to friends, family or peers for support. “There was nothing we could achieve by shouting or threatening to take away privileges. All we could do was to explain the possible consequences of their actions, and let them know clearly that they would have to deal with the fallout,” explained Hemalatha.

Jayanti Nayak, an expatriate Indian parent who is raising a teen daughter in Australia, says “India has changed. Raising a teen in Delhi, Mumbai or any metro is as difficult as raising them abroad.”

Hemalatha adds to this thought. “From what I saw when I went on vacations, parents and kids in India are trying to adopt a Western lifestyle without understanding the underlying concepts of Western life. I see more of a trying-to-fit-in mentality rather than maintaining your roots, which I feel we are able to do a better job of here, at least in the Bay Area.”

Comparing this with the current situation in India, Hemalatha reflects that “India is also facing a much bigger problem with this issue since they are thrust into the global networking scene without any learning curve for the whole society and this makes it much harder for them to decide whether to let their kids fit into this global society … ”

Bridging Differences

As we mull the words of parents, teens, and experts on the subject of teen parenting, some common sentiments emerge on this challenging issue. Parents’ acceptance of cultural differences; delineation of responsibility; and open communication on all matters pertaining to teenagers, are crucial pillars of raising a responsible teen. A teenager is a teenager, no matter where in the world you live. n Nitya Ramanan is wondering how much armor to acquire as the mom of a soon-to-be teen. She lives, writes, works ... and tackles tantrums, in San Jose, Calif.

Simran Devidasani

Listen Up, Parents!

W

e children are taught to trust our parents. Trust them when they tell us that we will not fall when they let go of our bicycles. Trust that they’ll come back to pick us up once they leave. Trust that the loose tooth will grow back in once it falls out. I believe that when a child becomes a teenager, parents must give the same trust in return.

The Truth about Lies

A few years ago, I lied to my mother, telling her that I was going to study biology with a friend, when in reality I went to a nearby restaurant with my friend for lunch. The guilt of lying to my mother worried me so much that I eventually told her the truth. She wisely told me that she had known all along as she had seen me with my friend walking back.

The fact that she had known but still hadn’t said anything made me feel worse about lying.

It became a learning experience for me.

A lot of issues stem from lack of trust and confidence. “My parents are not letting me get my license because they think I’ll crash or something,” seventeen year old Victor Ngyuen said. “It sucks that they don’t have that confidence in me.” Not only is lack of trust a bubble-burster to the teenage morale, but it can also lead to lack of confidence in other character building areas.

It’s important to give us teenagers room to make mistakes and to trust us to do the right thing, eventually. It is from those mistakes that true learning occurs.

Those Pesky Chores

Parents often have task lists for their children, and sometimes that list is so time consuming that we feel stressed and burdened. Is it really that important to keep a room tidy when the teenager is coping with tests and homework and practice sessions for extra-curriculars?

“Once my mother was so busy screaming at me for not cleaning my room, that she didn’t even notice that I had been working on my homework and studying for three hours,” sixteen-year-old Radha Goyal said. “I was literally trying to flash my homework in her face, but she just didn’t listen.”

ally understand when it comes to my grades,” fifteen-year-old Nikhalesh Gupta said. “If [my parents] got mad at me for bad grades, I’d probably just give up.” Making comparisons is something all teenagers abhor. “I got a B on an Algebra II test in mathematics once, [which is] my weaker subject and my mom compared me to a family friend who is taking Calculus and who got an A in her finals,” fifteen-year-old Prachi Shiva admitted.

Words of encouragement and love would count for a lot more than threats and punishment for bad grades. In the end, I do believe that children do want to please their parents, too. Instead of arguing about hemlines, necklines or curfew time, isn’t it better to calmly talk about issues? Chances are, if parents are calm and patient, so will the teenager.

Anyway, didn’t you act the same way, make those same mistakes, maybe with a different flavor, when you were growing up?

Nothing’s changed. n Simran Devidasani is a junior at Monta Vista High School. Along with her love for news and opinion writing, she indulges herself in her passion for photography. She is extremely proud to be an Intern for India Currents this summer.

The DO List Manifesto A Teenage Perspective DO not compare them to others DO give them words of encouragement DO not argue without listening DO try to talk things out DO not succumb to shouting DO listen to what your child has to say DO not criticize them unnecessarily DO appreciate them for what they are DO not bind them down DO remember that you were a teenager once

Can’t You Be Like Her?

Yes, I do understand that parents want to see us succeed, so they push us to work hard and be disciplined. “My parents re-

india currents • june 2012 • 17

IC

commentary

Sandip Roy

How I Met the Real Rose of Titanic

I

was told she was the real Rose of Titanic.

When James Cameron was looking for a feisty old woman as a model for the 100 year-old Titanic survivor in his film, he came across Beatrice Wood. The American ceramicist, though she liked to call herself a potter, was already over a hundred but she was still throwing pots in her Southern Californian studio. Cameron modeled the old Rose, played by Gloria Stuart, on her.

“You must try and meet her,” said a friend.

“She’s quite something. I’ve heard she only wears saris.”

That was how I found out about one of the most amazing characters I’ve ever encountered in my life.

“Come in the afternoon,” her manager told me. “That’s when she usually receives people.” So I did.

Mama of Dada

I remember her perched on a couch by the window, the mellow afternoon streaming in.

The room was filled with her lustrously glazed ceramic bowls. Wood was wearing a vivid bougainvillea coloured desi skirt and lots of clunky silver jewellery, the kind we call “ethnic” these days. She didn’t want to talk about the Titanic. Or even about her ceramics for which she had been named one of America’s Living Treasures.

She wanted to talk about India. This was the mother of all curry queens.

“I just love saris,” she told me. “They are all I have worn for the last 35 years. I would today but I have no balance any more.” She had just turned 104 and had watched two centuries turn. When I asked her what she remembered about the first one, she retorted coquettishly, “What kind of question is that to ask a lady?”

This woman had lived every year of those 104 years. She had fled from an oh-so-propah blue-blooded family in New York’s Upper East side where she had a debutante ball. She had ended up in Paris and in the middle of a life that was an artist’s dream and a mother’s nightmare (think Rose’s mother in Titanic).

Wood had seen Monet painting in his garden in Giverny. She was an extra in a play with Sarah Bernhardt. She tie-dyed costumes for Isadora Duncan and learned folk dances from Anna Pavlova’s choreographer. The relationship between her, the French diplomat Henri Pierre Roche and the Dadaist artist Marcel Duchamp was apparently the basis of

18 • india currents • june 2012

Truffaut’s film Jules et Jim. That affair earned her the moniker The Mama of Dada.

“I am not the Mama of Dada,” she chuckled. “I was on the sidelines, in love with two of the men.

All these people are dead, and here I am getting the publicity.”

Mother of all Curry Queens

Photo Credit: Gregory T. Roberts

Beatrice Wood, or Beato as everyone called her, loved the publicity. At 104, she was still a bundle of flirtation. “Make sure my hearing aid cannot be seen,” she said as she posed happily for pictures. Her great joys in life, she said, were chocolates, a daily massage, and young men. What kind of young men, I asked her. “Oh at my age, any kind,” she chortled uproariously. Her manager Ram Pravesh Singh smiled indulgently. I didn’t know if they had a relationship. I didn’t dare ask. At 75 or so, he would have been quite the boytoy. With Beato anything was possible.

Her love affair with India really started when she was in her sixties. But before that while browsing in a bookstore she came across a book by Annie Besant, a leading light of the Theosophical Society (and who later became the first woman president of the Indian National Congress). She then met Besant and was very impressed.

“I’m the oldest living Theosophist in the world,” she said with a sigh. “Disgusting.”

The Theosophical Society led her to two other people who really introduced her to India—Rukmini Devi Arundale and Jiddu Krishnamurti. Krishnamurti was shocked at all the silver tribal jewellery she wore. She told him if she were younger she’d get her nose pierced. Vice President of India, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan told her she looked like a gypsy.

Ethnic jewellery was not yet fashionable. Ram Singh said an Indian official told her “Oh my God, what are you wearing? These are worn by low castes.” She told him “It’s a shame that you do not know the beauty of your own art.”

At that time India was rapidly industrializing. It had discovered plastics and synthetic dyes. She went into villages to photograph the vanishing traditions of folk art. “I don’t know

Beatrice wood at her home in Ojai

“I left home, a luxurious home, with $15, to be free,” she told me. “And I went through a few years understanding the word poverty.

But I was free. And freedom means a great deal to me.” whether India really appreciated the greatness of its folk art,” she said sadly.

Beato’s own art came to India in the 1960s after freedom fighter Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay who ran the All India Handicrafts Board came across her work. At her invitation the U.S. Department sent her to exhibit her work. In her memoir, she remembered walking into a show in Bombay to find all the pottery jammed against each other “like a rummage sale” on top of a bright blue tablecloth. She just stopped worrying about it and embraced India with open arms, sometimes a little too freely. She asked Nehru’s sister Krishna Hutheesingh what her brother did. Biju Patnaik sent his men to take her off the train in Puri so he could meet her. But the caste-conscious Deputy Speaker of the Bihar Assembly was petrified she would just march into his kitchen.

Move Over Jack and Rose

But her deepest Indian connection was a

love affair that rivaled the Titanic’s. Beato fell in love with a top Indian scientist but knew his conservative parents would never approve of the match. But she still went back to India twice to snatch moments with him. An astrologer told her she had been an Indian woman who had left her husband in a past life to become a sanyasin and had been cursed to never have luck with men.

“I never married the men I loved, I never loved the men I married,” she said. She never revealed the name of that scientist. “I would have married him. And he would lived unhappily the rest of his life,” she said with a grin.

“But I think it was very hard for him because I was not only from a different culture but from a different wild culture. Southern Californians are very free living.”

She had a telegram from her love after she left India for the last time in 1972. She could still quote it. “Have not written. Could not know the sadness. My love goes with you.”

She never went back to India and spent the rest of her life in California, reliving India through her saris. How many saris do you own I asked her. About 20 she said. “Close to a hundred,” protested Ram Singh.

“I didn’t sleep with that many men,” she retorted without hesitation.

Freedom—A Great Deal

At 104, Beatrice Wood could not really get into her work studio any more. She couldn’t go to the premiere of Titanic so James Cameron and Gloria Stuart brought the video to her. She refused to watch it. She said it was too late in life to be sad.

“I left home, a luxurious home, with $15, to be free,” she told me. “And I went through a few years understanding the word poverty. But I was free. And freedom means a great deal to me.”

I asked her what she wanted to take with her to her next life, the way the Egyptian pharaohs took their favourite possessions.

“A nice young violent man with black hair,” she said with a wicked smile. “And I would like to be in a beautiful sari.”

I named my cat after her. She told me she was honored. She died a year later. I still have an autographed copy of the July 1997 India Currents magazine which published the profile I wrote after meeting her.

Sometimes I look at it and can hardly believe I actually met her once. I held her wizened hand in my palms, listened to her chuckle, and watched the sunlight play on her silvery hair.

I don’t need James Cameron to make my Titanic three-dimensional. Beato already did that for me. n

Sandip Roy is the Culture Editor for Firstpost. com. He is on leave as editor with New America Media and host of its radio show New America Now, on KALW 91.7 FM. This article was first published in First Post.

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IC

business

Vivek Wadhwa

Grooming Leaders Is leadership training in the tech industry a bygone perk?

W

hen I was ready to transition from computer programmer to project manager, my employer, Xerox Corporation, sent me to its huge training center in Leesburg, Virginia. Over two weeks, the people there taught me some of the skills I needed in order to succeed in my new role: managing projects, motivating people, complying with employment regulations, and preparing status reports and presentations. The company also encouraged me to complete an MBA, on a part-time basis, at New York University. It gave me lots of time off and paid for the tuition.

Technology companies in the Internet era offer their employees some great perks.

But do you think that Facebook, Groupon, or Zynga provide budding professionals with any serious management training? Not at all.

Given the way technology companies grow and the HR challenges they face, management training and career development are more important than ever. But few have the time—they are too busy surviving.

Professors Robert Fulmer and Byron Hanson of Duke University’s Corporate Education group researched the management practices of 23 leading high-technology firms.

Corporate executives in an overwhelming majority, 89 percent, believed that leadership development was becoming increasingly important for their companies; 58 percent ranked this as a high corporate priority. Yet less than one-fourth of the managers interviewed had a clear roadmap for how they could develop themselves, and more than half didn’t even know who in their organization was responsible for the development of leaders. The conclusion of the researchers wasn’t surprising: many high-technology companies are young, so their systems and procedures for grooming leaders aren’t well developed or firmly established.

Maybe this is why so many technologynology companies suffer from morale problems, missed deadlines, customer-support disasters, and high turnover. And this may be one of the reasons why so many technology startups who succeed in selling their vision and raising millions in financing are just a flash in the pan.

One of the interesting findings in the Fulmer and Hanson research was that more than 70 percent of the technology executives interviewed said that leadership development in technologynology-driven firms is different than in other industries. The researchers 22 • india currents • june 2012

believed, just as I do, that these technology executives were dead wrong. The lessons that leading companies like Proctor and Gamble and General Electric have learned about management development and training apply as much, if not more, to Technology companies.

This means that if you’re a fresh graduate joining a hot new technology startup, you shouldn’t expect your managers to train and groom you, or the company to provide you with time off to complete an MBA. You’re on your own. If you are working at some of the more established companies, such as IBM and HP—which do have excellent managementdevelopment practices—take full advantage of them. You need to learn all you can.

Many people are born with an innate sense of vision; they readily learn new technologies and master them. Some are very good at communicating and inspiring others.

But you can’t be born with the skills needed to plan projects, prepare budgets and manage finances, or to know the intricacies of business and intellectual property law. All this has to be learned. Some skills can be developed on the job, but this is usually through trial and error.

I usually recommend that engineering students who want to become managers and CEOs complete a fifth year of education.

There are one-year long engineering management programs which cover such subjects as marketing, finance, intellectual property, business law, and management—similar to the key courses in an MBA program; plus technology-oriented subjects like innovation management, operations management, and entrepreneurship. One such program (and there are many) is the Duke Masters of Engineering Management program, which I teach.

For experienced technology workers in Silicon Valley, Berkeley and Stanford both have excellent MBA programs. Berkeley Haas School dean, Rich Lyons explained his vision of making his school the premier training ground for Silicon Valley executives. Boston’s Babson College has also launched a program in San Francisco.

But not everyone needs to spend two years doing an MBA. Berkeley’s college of engineering is creating a much shorter program targeted at Silicon Valley technologyies with leadership potential. Under the aegis of Fung Institute Chief Scientist and Director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Entrepreneurship and

... if you’re a fresh graduate joining a hot new tech startup, you shouldn’t expect your managers to train and groom you ...

Technology, Ikhlaq Sidhu, the school has developed a professional program in Engineering Leadership. This will meet one evening a week for six months and teach subjects like product management, entrepreneurial thinking, leadership and finance. It will also teach team building, business management, and motivation.

The new Berkeley program is highly selective however. It will only accept 25 candidates in 2011, based on recommendations from senior executives in the valley. Sidhu says that he hopes to address the “symptoms of engineering without leadership”—which include organizational indecision about new products and services; unresolved conflict between product management and engineering; and superficial technologynology strategies. Berkeley will likely expand this program significantly over time and add many others.

After all there is a great need. n Vivek Wadhwa is an entrepreneur turned academic. You can follow him on Twitter at @ vwadhwa and find his research at www.wadhwa.com. Originally published in Tech Crunch.

india currents • june 2012 • 23

IC Celebrates 25th Anniversary

IC’s First Issue (April 1987)

N

aveen Chandra Gupta of San Francisco has died, leaving behind an unusual request in his will—that he be cremated on the shore with the “proper rites and ceremonies,” exactly as he cremated his father in India 30 years ago. As his friends struggle to honor his last wish with some suggesting that it be ignored, they learn a little about him, a little about themselves, and a lot about what it means for an Indian to die in America.

Keeping with its tradition of being “different,” India Currents (IC) magazine collaborates with local theater company Naatak, to present the premiere of “Death in San Francisco” in celebration of its 25th anniversary. “Death in San Francisco,” a play in English, is a dark comedy written and directed by Sujit Saraf, and performed

by Naatak.

Two community organizations, Naatak and Narika, deeply rooted in the community, are partners in the celebration of the evolution of IC through the years. Naatak, a theater company founded to bring relevant, thought-provoking and responsible Indian drama to residents of the San Francisco Bay Area, have produced several cutting-edge plays over the years, including “Kamala” and one of the most controversial yet popular plays to come out of India, “Sakharam Binder.” Narika is a local nonprofit organization that empowers South Asian women to confront and overcome cycles of violence and exploitation.

Founded in 1987, IC quickly became a community resource, a mainstay in most

24 • india currents • june 2012

IC’s 25th Anniversary Issue (April 2012)

Indian homes. IC began as a small blackand-white newsletter covering Indian cultural events in the SF Bay Area. Rooted in the classical arts of India, IC’s initial focus was on dance and music events in the Bay Area. Interviews with notables in the music and dance world were the main focus of the publication.

In the years that followed, the magazine became a leading source of information pertinent and relevant to a fast growing South Asian diaspora. (Today IC is a two-edition print publication with over 125,000 readers, its arc following that of the community it serves). As the community grew so did the magazine’s editorial content. From featuring only events stories, IC evolved into telling stories of the growing diaspora. Our editors and writers tackled issues such as domestic violence, homophobia, interracial relationships, and assimilation vs. acculturation. The magazine emphasized courage and honesty in its editorial content, despite two death threats along the way.

This journalistic intrepidity has won several awards from South Asian Journalists Association, New California Media, New America Media, Best American Essays, as

well as recognition from Arts Council of Santa Clara County and Utne Reader.

Run by a small team of dedicated professionals, including an all-female publishing and editorial staff, IC has adapted to a changing media landscape.

After 25 years, the voice of India Currents remains—a monthly reflection of life in California’s South Asian community, a printed product that has never lost its focus: the community it serves, remaining firmly connected with the information he or she needs most, consistently delivered.

We invite the community to meet the India Currents team—the faces and voices behind the magazine, past and present, with a reception on all three days. McArthur genius fellow, Sandy Close, is the guest of honor for the inauguration (Jun 8). The Consul General of India, N. Parthasarathy will attend as our Chief Guest on Sat Jun 9 joined by several prominent members of the community to celebrate one of their own. The Chief Guest for the closing ceremony is Suhas Patil on Jun 10.

Proceeds from the shows will benefit Narika.n Friday, June 8 at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, June 9 at 6 p.m., and Sunday, June 10 at 5p.m.

Snacks and drinks will be served on all three days.

Theater at San Pedro Square, 29 N. San Pedro St., San Jose. VIP: $40, General: $30 www.indiacurrents.com/25thanniversary/, Tickets: (408) 905-6831.

Death in San Francisco, a play, presented to celebrate our 25th Anniversary

india currents • june 2012 • 25

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perspective

Sudha Subramanian

The Games We Played

I

t is impossible to explain some of the games we played as kids to my eight-year old son, Sid. Many times, my descriptions of some of my childhood games sends him into reels of laughter. Sid enjoys his evenings with his friends. But, Sid and his friends usually need a bat, a football, a basketball or a bike for casual play. On rare occasions, they play in the sand. Sometimes, Sid wonders what to play with, in spite of all the options he has. When I hear him lament, I am reminded of my childhood when I played outside in the evenings.

I spent my entire childhood in a small village in southern India. Every day, after school, I would run out of the house to play.

There was no concept of play dates nor some older person watching us. We children just got together and played. Many times, all that we needed was a simple rubber ball.

These days, every game is toy dependent.

The idea of inducing free play usually begins at the toy store. When we get to the store, the toy packaging describes the list of skills that the toy can enhance in a child. This list sometimes is even longer than the instruction sheet of the toy or a game. Many times, I wonder if I have all the skills that are listed because I grew up with no toys except for a plastic doll whose nose I had bitten off. But, it is apparent to me today, that most games I played as a child imparted many abilities that I was not cognizant of at the time. Those street games offered lessons in team spirit, motor skills, critical thinking, spatial skills, leadership qualities and not to mention social skills.

Team Spirit

When groups of people play together, team spirit and competitiveness are natural derivatives. Games like Lagori or Ezhu Kallu in Tamil (meaning 7 stones), Kabaddi and Kho-Kho did exactly that.

I have fond memories of Lagori. Played by four people or more divided into two teams, the game involves piling seven flat stones one on top of the other. Then, each member of one team (the Hitters) get three chances to aim and strike at the pile of stones with a soft ball to knock the stones over. The Getters, the opposing team, try to restore the pile of stones while the Hitters throw the ball at them. If the ball touches a Getter, she is out and the game continues on. A team member can always safeguard herself by touching the 28 • india currents • june 2012

The graffiti of hopscotch boxes was so common during my childhood that it almost looked like the welcome sign outside our home.

Photo credit: Creative Commons Image

opposite team member before the ball hits her. The idea is to pile the stones exactly one above the other without the Hitter team being able to hit any Getter team member with the ball. Once the stones are all piled, the team shouts “Lagori” signaling the end of the game.

This is a simple game with lots of dynamics and team spirit played in an open area outside the house. We used a rubber ball so that it caused no injury. This game compelled us to work as a team. We learnt to aim and shoot the ball, run and evade the ball and because we played within a boundary, it added to the excitement of the game.

Today, Lagori is seldom played. Parents worry that their children would get hurt, or the ball would break window panes or cause any other kind of damage. Will future generation know this game? Only time will tell.

Motor Skills

“Human motor skills develop only till the age of 10. What you get by then is what you have for life,” says Sid’s tennis coach often.

Sid takes tennis lessons twice a week. Sid is taught how to move his feet, use the court, swing the racquet, hold the racquet in the right direction and so many other intricate details. These are some skills we learned naturally. Nobody taught us, how to move our feet or swing a bat.

I recall one particular game we girls played when we were young, called Five Stones. In this game, we gathered five round stones tossed them on the floor. Then we picked up one stone and threw it in the air and then rapidly attempted to pick up another stone from the floor while waiting to catch the one hurled above. As we progressed, we had to

gather two, three, and then all four stones before the one stone hurled above landed on the ground. I remember trying to analyze distance and speed ratios. We had to figure out how far to throw and how quickly to pick up another stone and catch the one thrown. It was indeed a lot of fun and we learnt to depend on our reflexes and also what the tennis coach called. “our motor skills.”

One other popular game was Hopscotch.

I cannot recall another game that is as widely played as this one. It has its versions in every part of the world and is also called by different names. We in southern India called it Paandi (in Tamil) or Kunte Bille (in Kannada). A pattern of 8 boxes is scratched out in the dirt or drawn with chalk on the floor.

The first player throws a flat stone starting with the first square, without touching any of the boundary lines. The player then hops from square to square skipping the square that the stone lands in. Who knew that the game of hopscotch, was fine tuning our motor skills. The graffiti of hopscotch boxes was so common during my childhood that it almost looked like the welcome sign outside our home. I do come across one occasionally now and then and the urge remains to hop across the boxes again.

Visual and Spatial Skills

The best childhood memories are etched around games. For my husband, it was marbles. They represented glass trophies to him.

The game of marbles probably gave him the advantage of being skilled at Carom Board or Pool, which employs similar skills. The game of marbles involves the art of striking one object with another. It gives us an immense understanding of the laws of motion and the

science of vector mechanics.

The game of marbles, or Goli or Kanchey, as it is known in India, originated during the Harappan Civilization in Pakistan. Goli is still popular in many parts of rural India. However, I am told by many elders in the family that there are variations to this game. A favorite version that my dad always played is called Ringer. Here, the players place their marbles inside a circle and each one takes a turn to hit the marbles of other players and get them out of the circle.

Leadership

There was a simple impartial rule that we employed when we had to choose teams. The leaders weren’t allowed to pick their friends as part of their teams. This helped us sort out differences amongst us. The leaders would toss a coin and choose their team members.

Another way of choosing team members required the leaders to stand apart with the rest of us spread out in groups of twos. We gave ourselves intriguing names like Wind and Earth. Pairs of members would ask the leader to pick one option: wind or earth. Once the leader called out a name, that person ended up in the leader’s group. Today, it seems like every child wants to be leader, and they don’t subscribe to these simple methods of fair play.

T

hese naturally resourceful games are simple, incorporate team dynamics and team spirit and also help in developing some good leadership skills. Since many of us grew up with practically no toys, we relied on being creative for our entertainment. I am sure, my son doesn’t know that we can just roll up a leaf and blow through it like a whistle.

But then, I wonder, aren’t we as parents to blame? As parents we are often extra cautious, and don’t want our children getting hurt or injuring themselves. We don’t let them pluck leaves/flowers for fun because, we want them to be responsible citizens of the earth and also because some of them could be poisonous.

Perhaps, this is what happens when the human race progresses. But then in our hurry to modernize we must make sure we don’t lose our roots. It cannot be denied that some modern games like golf or billiards have their beginnings in the games we played as children.

I look back at the games I played when I was young, nostalgically, for their simplicity and their embedded connection to my childhood. Perhaps, I still love them because, I want to pass it on as a legacy to future generations, which may not happen unless they are developed as a video game. That would be ironical indeed. n Sudha Subramanian lives in Dubai, U.A.E. with her family. She is the author of the children’s ebook, Sigmalogy. Visit her at www. sudaa.wordpress.com.

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youth

Charu Srivastava

The Bridge that Spans the Globe

30 • india currents • june 2012

By blending two contrasting cultures, I have bridged the gap between my American half and my Indian half. As I travel between two continents, my bridge strengthens my ability to adapt to changes, and I endeavor to adjust to various schools, people, and belief systems.

Photo Credit: A Creative Commons Image

I

am American. I am also Indian. I speak, read and write in English and in Hindi.

I gaze excitedly at fireworks on Fourth of July and light diyas on Diwali. I snuggle on the couch to watch Hollywood rom-coms but dance to the beats of Bollywood songs. I listen to Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez, but my favorite TV show is an Indian soap opera.

My parents call me a pasta monster, but I relish digging my fingers into a bowl of rice and chicken curry. I am American—but I am also Indian—and I love being both.

After living in the United States for all of my elementary school years, I only knew the American way of life, but a fateful trip to India seven years ago began an exhilarating journey of self-discovery. Flying over the Atlantic Ocean, I first crossed the bridge that would later link two very important aspects of my being. On a hot July afternoon in 2005, my father announced that he had been offered a job in India and that we would relocate to New Delhi in four weeks. I was thrilled at the aspect of moving to another country, but more importantly, of escaping middle school girl politics, whatever that was. At the Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, the heat and the smell of sweat nauseated me, as I pushed my way through the massive crowds in a daze. Although barking stray dogs and roaming cows on the streets intimidated me, they were the least of my problems. Was it a good idea to move to India after all?

In stark contrast to the comfortable life I knew back in the United States, nothing came easy in the first few months. I struggled with Hindi—a foreign language, felt lost and lonely in a boisterous classroom, and was bewildered by my grandparents’ conservative routines. I could not speak Hindi fluently, the first language of most of the students at my school, which excluded me from even casual interactions. My eleventh birthday party in December had a grand total of four people— including me. I had a lot to learn. Then one day, I accompanied a friend to buy lunch.

When she realized that I did not have any money, she offered to share her chole kulche with me, which I declined. “Over here, we always share our food with friends,” she said.

“If you do not eat, then I will not either.” So we shared lunch together. That was the first of many cultural lessons I learned about friendship. Gradually, as I began to converse in

Golden Gate Bridge

Hindi, I found the key to making new friends and was quickly surrounded by bright eyed, smiling faces. By 7th grade, I proudly showed off wrists full of colorful friendship bracelets that each of my friends had tied for me. I finally became part of a close group of girls, and savored true friendship.

However, I still had to deal with a strict routine at my grandparents’ home. We ate simple Indian food every day; pizza or pasta were rare treats. My grandparents frowned upon my western attire and preferred to see me clad in conservative Indian school uniform. But, through knitting lessons and Indian folk tales, I grew closer to my grandmother and more accustomed to her curt ways. The once chaotic streets of New Delhi became familiar ground, and I discovered

my true identity amidst the honking cars and stray animals. I bargained for bangles in bustling bazaars and gobbled spicy samosas from street sellers. Life soon blossomed into a palette of bright Holi colors, and I dispersed the colored powder in joy. Despite my enjoyable stay in India, I always longed to come back to the United States, and my family’s annual summer trips to Palo Alto kept that hope alive.

It seemed like I would never be completely happy in either place.

In the spring of 2009, my father made another announcement—we were moving back to California! I was thrilled yet again, as I crossed the bridge over the Atlantic one more time. But only after moving into an empty apartment, did the melancholy of leaving New Delhi, a city I had grown to love, my

education

grandparents, and most of all, my wonderful friends engulf me. At that moment I realized the true value of my journey to India and the importance of friendships I had formed.

When high school started in fall, I found myself quite different from other students around me. Before leaving for India, I wanted to be just like them: in color, in behavior and in style, but not now. Something had changed. I had changed. Just like smearing Dove lotion would never obliterate the scent of sandalwood soap after a bath, I realized, that no matter how hard I tried to become American, I would always have an Indian part hidden underneath. Instead of suppressing that part, I decided to embrace my rich Indian culture and heritage. Since this selfrealization, being both Indian and American has become an integral part of my lifestyle.

By blending two contrasting cultures, I have bridged the gap between my American half and my Indian half. As I travel between two continents, my bridge strengthens my ability to adapt to changes, and I endeavor to adjust to various schools, people, and belief systems. With every passing year, this bridge helps me go back and forth between the more traditional Indian values and the independent and outgoing American way of life. When the frothy waves of Moss Beach tickle my toes, and I begin to miss the balmy shores of the Indian Ocean, I cross the bridge by emailing my middle school friends from India or watching an episode of my favorite Indian television show. My bridge, which spans from San Francisco to New Delhi, connects two countries, two cultures, two lifestyles and two defining parts of my personality.

Now I go to New Delhi every summer and reconnect with family and friends there.

By attending schools in India and in US, I have constructed a strong bridge that spans halfway across the globe and allows me to appreciate two diverse cultures. This bridge connects two extremely important parts of my identity and I can say that I am proud to be an American and an Indian. n

CLOSE TO ORIND A BART

Charu Srivastava is in the 11th Grade at Palo Alto High School in Palo Alto. This essay won 3rd Place in the Growing Up Asian in America Contest.

Growing Up Asian in America is a program of the Asian Pacific Fund, a Bay Area community foundation established to improve the wellbeing of all Asians in the region, that works with donors to provide grants and services to over 90 Asian organizations. You can also view the winning entries online at www.asianpacificfund.org.

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Naresh Rajan

Keep It In Your Pocket!

Weighing the consequences of indecent exposure

O

ver the years, I have represented numerous clients accused of indecent exposure. The essence of the crime is exposing one’s private parts in a public place around people who may be offended by the display. California Penal Code section 314 also contains a prohibition against encouraging and assisting a person to expose himself in public.

While “weenie waving” sounds funny and the circumstances of these cases are often amusing, the consequences are severe. Convictions for indecent exposure require lifetime sex offender registration. (Refer to a previous India Currents article, The Stigma Of The Sex Offender, published in February 2012.) The crime, in certain cases, could also be charged as a felony—convictions for which include a myriad of liberty restrictions.

A conviction for section 314 could also carry immigration consequences. If status is an issue, the attorney should seek a plea bargain for loitering or disturbing the peace.

32 • india currents • june 2012

However, this is not always possible because the facts of each case determine the outcome.

I referred to the crime as “weenie waving” because all the cases of indecent exposure, I have handled have involved male defendants.

The charge is embarrassing. The client typically initially claims that the case is a misunderstanding and proffers innocuous explanations such as public urination or sunbathing.

The police report often tells a different tale. In one case, witnesses reported to police that my client was lying in the grass outside a large window at a gym and was masturbating at about nine o’clock in the morning. When he saw a police officer, he ran through a hedge, but unfortunately, another officer was waiting for him on the other side. He initially told me he had been urinating in public, but subsequently changed his story.

A person charged with this offense needs to take it seriously. It is important to find a good attorney, whether court appointed or private. Building rapport and trust with the

attorney, and being truthful will lead to the best possible outcome for the accused.

The attorney should investigate the witnesses, get statements of good character from the accused’s friends and family, and, if investigation unearths nothing to support the misunderstanding theory, do everything possible to obtain a plea bargain for something other than section 314. District attorneys understand that sex registration is a heavy burden and often are amenable to offering plea bargains that don’t require sex registration.

Finally, if the district attorney will not offer a plea bargain without sex registration or immigration consequences, if the facts are not clear, or if the accused is innocent, a trial will be necessary. As embarrassing as it may be in cases such as these, a public jury trial is the last refuge of the innocent. n Naresh Rajan is an attorney in San Mateo County. Email nrajanlaw@gmail.com.

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Important Note: U.S. travelers seeking visas to India will now need to obtain them through Travisa Outsourcing. Call (415) 644-0149 or visit http://indiavisa.travisaoutsourcing.com/ for more information.

June 2012

T

his column carries priority dates and other transitional information as taken from the U.S. State Depart­ment’s Visa Bulletin. The information below is from the Visa Bulletin for June 2012.

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Congratulations to India Currents on their 25th Anniversary. I have been a fan of India Currents forever - Best Wishes!

36 • india currents • june 2012

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books

Geetika Pathania Jain

Addicted to Grit Lit NARCOPOLIS by Jeet Thayil. Penguin 2012.

288 pages.

C

an we please declare the city of Mumbai as the official muse of South Asian grit-lit?

Jeet Thayil’s book begins and ends with an invocation of this teeming metropolis that has inspired much, so-called, dirty realism.

Notable work on Mumbai’s raw underbelly include Shantaram, and Slumdog Millionaire (based on Q & A: a novel, by Vikas Swarup) as well as Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay! Such creativity is fertile ground for social criticism even as it forces a re-look at that which we would avert our eyes from.

T

he angry, mean voice of a drug-addled Mumbaikar narrates accounts of brutish dark impulses. The skilfulness of the prose seems to be outdone only by the depravity that it describes. There is heartbreak on every page. Human train wrecks are waiting to happen, including substance abusers who will reliably let you down. An intense weariness with the cruelty and meaninglessness of life pervades the pages. Despair spreads like opium smoke in the chandukhana (opium house) as evidenced by these words: “He remembered that the stars were dead, long dead, and the light they shed was not to be trusted, it was false, if not an outright lie, and in any case was inadequate, unequal to its task, which was to illuminate the evil that men did.”

In Narcopolis, Thayil suggests that life in India is just too much to tolerate, and that spending large periods of time insensate appears to be the antidote of choice. In the convincing filthy street-speak patois of dirty realism: “The only non-chooths in the entire country are Maharashtrians… But even here, in the only non-choothiya place in the whole country, I challenge you to live here without turning to grade-A narcotics, said Rumi…”

The commentary frequently lashes out and becomes a searing critique of the injustices in the city. “Tell me why Chemical is freely available when there are no tomatoes in the market,” asks an unlikely philosopher of Shuklaji Street. Some readers will hear faint echoes of the allegation that American inner cities lack fresh produce whereas crack is freely available on street corners.

38 • india currents • june 2012

Even the paanwallah (betel nut seller), has an opinion on the problemwith-India topic: “Indians were too mild,” said the paanwallah, “and it was Gandhi’s fault. The old man had taken a race of bloodthirsty warriors, taught them nonviolence, and made them into saints and grass eaters. Dimple laughed.

She told the paanwallah to take a look around.

Indians are as violent and bloodthirsty as ever, and they would always be looking for an excuse to hack or burn or gouge each other.”

Several calamitous events, including the Mumbai riots and floods, endorse Dimple’s view within a historical context. There are allusions to the history of the drug trade of the city, that went from the merely debilitating opium to the lethal gharad. Readers might remember “Sea of Poppies” by Amitav Ghosh, which chronicles an earlier era in this trade. But while Ghosh writes as a social historian, Thayil brings the perspective of a reformed addict, having allegedly lost twenty years of his life to these destructive substances. Surprising then, that Thayil appears to be inexplicably championing the freedom of individuals to choose to self-destruct.

And self-destruct they do, their rapid decline chronicled in distressingly stark prose.

In grainy, excruciatingly detail. Enough said.

Mira Nair’s film Salaam Bombay! and its cast of drug addicts, pimps and prostitutes had a humanist aesthetic. Narcopolis too, chronicles such lives, but is a far more chilling account of how the human spirit has bypassed grace and sunk to terrifying depths. The sole exception, the unexpectedly tender and bookish hijra randi or eunuch prostitute, Dimple,

In Narcopolis, Thayil suggests that life in India is just too much to tolerate, and that spending large periods of time insensate appears to be the antidote of choice. remains humane in this dystopian landscape.

It is not enough. Ultimately, the darkness that has spread into the souls and lives of sadistic, ugly characters offers no possibility of redemption. n Geetika Pathania Jain is a writer and educator who lives in the SF Bay Area and encourages all readers to just say no to drugs.

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Tara Menon

Fall from Grace MISS TIMMINS’ SCHOOL FOR GIRLS by Nayana Currimbhoy. HarperCollins Publishers, 2011. 512 pages.

I

f truth is stranger than fiction then Nayana Currimbhoy has succeeded in holding up a mirror to life in her mystery, Miss Timmins’ School for Girls. She also knows the right ingredients to include in her debut fiction in order to stir up a good story. Her setting takes one away from the twentieth-first century and your average Indian town. In Miss Timmins’ School for Girls, Currimbhoy creates a boarding school culture, much like Enid Blyton did for children, but unlike the latter, who made girls and boys (including me) desire to be placed in a boarding school, Currimbhoy makes us adults weary and horrified of such an institution, a breeding ground for disaster.

Her heroine, Charu had the kind of 40 • india currents • june 2012

sheltered upbringing that privileged girls receive in India in early childhood, only to be plunged as an adult into the most unsuitable environment.

Ironically, Charu ends up in Miss Timmins’ School for Girls because her father thinks it is the safest place for her to teach. Currimbhoy sets the story in an exotic location, Panchgani, a hill station surrounded by five mountains, a place that is hard to access or leave during the monsoons, but which has eight boarding schools.

Charu is the daughter of a disgraced navy officer and a small-town beauty. After he is court-martialed their lives are never the same.

They have to give up their sea-facing flat in Bombay as the father begins a new life as the regional manager of a trucking company that belongs to his wife’s family. Physically, each member of the family carries the internal wounds from the consequences of his fall from grace and privilege. The father’s face becomes gray and he acquires a stoop; the mother packs twenty pounds and Charu develops eczema that appears as a strawberry mark above her lip. Ayurvedic and homeopathy remedies followed by cow-dung and cow-urine applications fail to remove what she refers to metaphorically as the “blot.”

Ironically, the blemish reacts to the crises in her life, waxing and waning with every turbulence.

Family secrets heighten our interest in the protagonist, Charu. Indeed, mysterious circumstances seem to follow wherever she goes, as if it is part of her destiny.

The first chapter piques our interest, with Charu’s father chaperoning her in a train bound for Panchgani, where she will be a teacher in a boarding school run by British missionaries who try to reproduce their culture to such ridiculous proportions that they have an annual Scottish Dancing Competition. “It was when the girls bobbed in, their toes perfectly pointed and their chests puffed out like Scottish Highlanders, that it struck me just how bizarre the school was.” The year is 1974, when the British influence is well on the decline elsewhere in India.

Many characters are thrown at the reader, including teachers, students, the local inhabitants, and Charu’s relatives. At times, it becomes difficult to prioritize and remember the important ones.

As expected in a boarding school, there are nicknames to contend with. Soon Charu finds

herself as part of a triangle of three: Merch, the Mystery Man; Moira Prince, a British teacher; and herself. “Later, I understood that we were so drawn to each other, Merch, the Prince, and I, because we were the outsiders.” Elsewhere Charu says, “And though Merch and Pin were too eccentric and ungainly to be glamorous, this same sophistication glowed around them, pulling me into their orbit.”

Without those explanations and her own neediness her attraction to Merch would be unfathomable, given his appearance (slightly seedy and stalk-like, his reclusive nature, his tendency to smoke pot and his off-putting dwellings (two shabbily furnished rooms above a dispensary). Under Merch’s influence Charu smokes pot, which makes me wonder if she’d turn out to be an unreliable narrator, but though she hallucinates about her mother, when she misleads us it is due to the plot rather than any literary ploy. Her intense attraction to Moira and their subsequent affair seem an inevitable and credible outcome of Charu being naïve, easily manipulated, and drawn to the mysterious side of the woman. Moira, who is moody and disliked at school, is destined for a predictably bad fate.

During the monsoon season, on a full moon night after a quarrel with her lover, Moira is thrown off a large rock. A group of students play detective to solve the crime. Currimbhoy raises suspect after suspect, as well as the possibility of suicide. The reader feels the excitement of the momentum and later gets impatient as the build-up becomes a little too long-winded.

Another mystery in the novel, linked to the killing, occurs when the Hindi teacher, who largely keeps to herself, disappears. Charu possesses important information that she is afraid to reveal because doing so will reveal her lesbian affair, the knowledge of which would kill her unwell mother. The murder, of course, has serious repercussions on the school.

Currimbhoy’s writing is uneven with wellrendered descriptions and striking similes coexisting with purple passages and tired metaphors. Her forte is her storytelling prowess that manages plot, setting and characters, but what is most memorable is the boarding school background. (A google search revealed there is a Kimmins High School in Panchgani that had been established by Miss Elsie Kimmins, a missionary, leading one to the conclusion that the institution was the inspiration for the fictional counterpart.) The information provided in the book jacket states that the writer attended boarding school in India. Currimbhoy has clearly taken the author’s adage of “write what you know best” and given us a compelling read. n Tara Menon is a freelance writer based in Lexington, Massachusetts. Her fiction, poetry, and book reviews have been published in many magazines.

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elections 2012

Vidya Pradhan

The Truth Behind Campaign Ads E

ven voters only marginally engaged in the political process dread the approach to the presidential elections this November, knowing that their mailbox, television, and favorite internet hangouts will soon be pervaded with in-your-face campaign advertising. Given the ugly rhetoric that pervaded the Republican primary, that concern is valid.

American elections, and indeed, elections around the world, have always been messy affairs that blur the difference between hyperbole and untruth. “I believe that there were demagogues as far back as when the Athenians invented the democratic system,” says Brooks Jackson, Founder and Director of Factcheck.org, a nonpartisan nonprofit that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. He adds, “Politics is about power, and people in power have great incentives to persuade people with whatever means at their disposal. It is made worse in modern times because the dominant form of political ads in the United States is the 30-second TV spot. And there is no room to make a nuanced presentation of facts and issues in that time. We have a system that is skewed in the direction of exaggeration and hyperbole and sometimes outright distortion,” elaborates Jackson. Ever since television and radio have allowed access to voters without the worry of instant pushback, candidates and political spokespersons have boldly made and endorsed messages that creatively stray from factual realities and are programmed to inflame.

“The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal is the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.”—Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson, 1956 One egregious example from recent years is Sarah Palin’s assertion that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 would lead to government “death panels” 42 • india currents • june 2012

that will dictate which types of patients would receive treatment. The meme caught fire during a national debate on the merits of the Act, and ended up almost derailing its passage. Despite its dubious distinction of being crowned “Lie of the Year” by Politifact, the belief in its veracity still persists among a large segment of the population.

Truthiness and Dare

Amazingly enough, no law exists that prohibits the creative distortion of facts for the purposes of campaigning. In an article titled “There ought to be a law” in 2007, Jackson wrote: “Laws protecting consumers from false advertising of products are enforced pretty vigorously. For example, the Federal Trade Commission took action in 2002 to protect the public from the self-proclaimed psychic “Miss Cleo,” who the FTC said promised free readings over the phone and then socked her gullible clients with enormous telephone charges… But there’s no such truth-in-advertising law governing federal candidates.

They can legally lie about almost anything they want. In fact, the Federal Communications Act even requires broadcasters who run candidate ads to show them uncensored, even if the broadcasters believe their content to be offensive or false.”

I spoke with a member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) who agreed to share his opinions on condition of anonymity. “The FCC only regulates equal time and sponsorship identification.” FCC rules state that no candidate can be refused air time. Of course, he or she still has to find a way to pay for it. And the recent creation of super PACS (more on that later) have even taken away the burden of being identified as the purveyor of a false message. Also, it turns out that the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution has quite a few protections for untrue statements made by and against public officials.

In Rickert v Washington, a 2007 decision of the Washington Supreme Court, the court considered whether a political candidate could be punished for telling deliberate lies about her opponent in a political campaign.

Voting 5 to 4, the court held that Marilou Rickert, a Green Party candidate for the State Senate, could not be fined for falsely claiming

in a campaign brochure that one of her opponents “voted to close a facility for the developmentally challenged.” The Court’s majority said the state law “naively assumes that the government is capable of correctly and consistently negotiating the thin line between fact and opinion in political speech.” (Source: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/ conlaw/lying.html). In United States v. Alvarez, where a political candidate falsely claimed to be a war veteran, the court opined that “to permit punishment for lying is to give the government power to make criminals of us all.” Says Jackson, “The Supreme Court’s decisions protecting the First Amendment rights of citizens unfortunately allows people to make false statements without penalty.” He echoes the judge in Alvarez, “Think about it, would you like the government to have that kind of power? It is the voters who are best equipped to decide the truth.”

Citizens United

In a landmark decision in 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the First Amendment prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations and unions. Shortly after this decision, the United States Supreme Court of Appeals ruled in SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission that PACs that did not make contributions to candidates, parties, or other PACs, could accept unlimited contributions from individuals, unions, and corporations (both for profit and not-for-profit) for the purpose of making independent expenditures. According to Wikipedia, “The result of the Citizens United and SpeechNow.org decisions was the rise in 2010 of a new type of political action committee, popularly dubbed the ‘super PAC.’ Officially known as ‘independent-expenditure only committees,’ super PACs may not make contributions to candidate campaigns or parties, but may engage in unlimited political spending independently of the campaigns. Also unlike traditional PACs, they can raise funds from corporations, unions and other groups, and from individuals, without legal limits.”

The Role of the Media

The creation of super PACS and the broad application of First Amendment protections

have left voters confronting a deluge of false advertising this campaign season. The emergence of Twitter as a campaign media tool means that campaign messages need to be limited to 140-character sound bites with no other restrictions. The Internet is no help at all, either—the partisan voter can find ample support for his or her views. That leaves the job of fact-checking to traditional media.

Despite regular accusations thrown by liberal and conservative activists about the partisan leanings of media institutions, Jackson is surprisingly positive about the state of modern media. “I think the media today is doing a better job than it used to, though it is still probably not good enough,” he says. Jackson pioneered the “adwatch” and “factcheck” form of stories debunking false and misleading political statements, starting with the presidential election of 1992. “It was in reaction to the 1988 presidential elections where I believed that George H.W. Bush had presented a number of misleading statements against his opponent Michael Dukakis.” After a brief flare-up of interest in the 1992 elections, the institution of fact-checking appeared to be on life support for a few years, but Jackson contends that the situation is much improved today. Factcheck.org was launched in 2003 with the support of the Annenburg Policy Center. Politifact.org, which won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2009, was launched in 2004 by the Tampa Bay Times to

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“fact-check statements by members of Congress, the White House, lobbyists and interest groups.” Most publications and television stations have a fact checking department though Jackson wishes that at least 2% of the amount the stations receive from campaign ads be spent on fact checking the same ads.

Organizations like the Sunlight Founda-

“Never take any political ad at face value. Listen to what the other side has to say”—Brooks Jackson, Founder and Director of Factcheck.org tion are creating websites where citizens can put up information about the sponsorship of campaign ads. “Sunlight Campaign Ad Monitor is a great tool for anyone who wants to participate in keeping tabs on who’s paying for political ads across the country. With hundreds of millions of dollars already spent

on political advertising and even more expected to be spent in the final weeks leading up to Election Day, voters have the right to know what private interests are behind these ads,” says Ellen Miller, executive director and co-founder of the Sunlight Foundation. “And we’re giving citizens the tools to help create a database that all of us can use.”

Ultimately the onus of discernment rests on the voter. Says Jackson, “A reasonable and open-minded voter has to realize that there is no government protection against false and misleading statements. In the United States, at least, politicians have a legal right to lie as much as they can get away with. And both sides do it.” His site points out errors in both President Obama’s new campaign ad “The Life of Julia” and his opponent Mitt Romney’s “gross” exaggerations on Obamacare.

“Never take any political ad at face value.

Listen to what the other side has to say,” adds Jackson. “Look for independent views of the facts from people you trust and never base your decision on a single source of information.”

The question is, will the busy voter really take the time to research? n Vidya Pradhan is a freelance writer who hosts the weekly radio show Parent Talk on KZDG 1550 AM. She also runs the community blog Water, No Ice and was the editor of India Currents from June 2009 to February 2012.

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opinion

Latika Mangrulkar

Can Death Be Beautiful?

A medical social worker deals with death on the dialysis ward

W

e all know death is inevitable but can it be beautiful too? As a medical social worker it is something that I face with some regularity. My role, at times, is to provide comfort in acute care situations where families confront this ultimate reality. My job is to act as a resource, a support system to assist families through emotional ups and downs of coping with a chronic illness and even death.

When I was working in the cancer ward, death was almost a constant presence. In the dialysis unit, where I have worked over the last fifteen or more years it lurks in the background, making its existence felt periodically.

On occasion it looks right into my eyes.

It was on a routine Monday morning that my Manager informed me that “a patient has coded in the North clinic and you need to go

Yes, in many ways it was a beautiful death. The pain and anguish that the family had been fearful of confronting, with their loved one passing on, had been averted. there.”

Within a couple of minutes I turned off my computer, piled the sheets of papers on my desk and informed the charge nurse as I grabbed my bag and headed to the other clinic. Twenty minutes later I encountered the Sheriff’s deputy talking to Mrs. P. in the parking lot.

Mrs P hugged me tightly as she said, “He went peacefully. Everyone did the best they could—I am so relieved it happened here.”

Her daughter Mila was in the car. She stepped out with tears flowing down her cheeks, one hand holding the cell phone to her ear informing her sister of the recent demise. She embraced me with her free arm, reiterating Mrs. P’s words.

Encountering death is always painful and this happened right on the unit, amongst so many patients, surrounded by a slew of health 44 • india currents • june 2012

e

ve Commons Imag

Photo credit: Creati

care workers, who nevertheless had to keep up the appearance of normalcy as they worked in unison to deal with a loss.

After a quick briefing by the law enforcement officer I stepped into the dialsysis clinic and approached the patients to see how they had been affected by the recent events. The patients expressed praise and admiration for the nurses who had been quick to take action and for the dialysis technicians for their presence of mind.

These patients—men and women, deal with the possibility of death each day. They come for treatment daily, knowing that without dialysis they could not possibly survive.

Yet almost all of them are living as full a life as possible.

Some are still working, many have retired but continue to have a very active social routine. Yes, there are a great number who have slowed down, at times even almost totally incapacitated, by the numerous health problems they are experiencing.

On a day when they closely witness what could well have happened to them they are full of gratitude and appreciation for the staff on duty. The staff are tremendously thankful that the patients recognize the life-saving tasks that are constantly being performed, as they scurry around starting catheters or getting the needle stuck precisely, just so a relatively comfortable treatment can be initiated.

As I reassured each patient and gauged their emotional state I also needed to offer support to all those workers who had to keep the schedule moving, with no interruptions in any treatment.

Amidst all this, the presence of the body,

now moved to a private room, could be tangibly felt by everyone in the clinic. A death in the community, as this incident would be defined, automatically becomes a Coroner’s case. The deputy had filed his report after questioning the staff members involved.

He asked me about the family, whether the patient had a DNR (do not resuscitate) authorization and about the over all health of the patient. All the paper formalities were carefully attended to.

Since there was no indication of any foul play the family was instructed to arrange the pick-up of the body.

As the staff discussed the events of the day several had begun asking if we as caregivers had done all we could and if any process could have been handled differently.

The vote of confidence that we received from the family as well as the law enforcement personnel reassured us that we had risen to the occasion and done the best we could.

That is as good as it gets.

Yes, in many ways it was a beautiful death.

The pain and anguish that the family had been fearful of confronting, with their loved one passing on, had been averted. The patient had expired while being cared for by the staff who had become his health-care family over the last six years.

Imminent death always exists in our clinics, occasionally it happens uneventfully in the home, especially if end-of-life issues have been addressed in a timely manner.

But today the drama had occurred in the midst of a full house. It was theater at its best, with each actor giving a star performance. No I have no intention of romanticizing the last act but events like this make me realize that though each one of us has only a minor role, it is significant enough. Our roles and jobs must be performed to the best of our ability.

People often ask if I get depressed or if the seriousness of the matter drains my spirit.

The answer is yes it does, but it also helps me gain some perspective.

I may not take life lightly but I certainly have learnt how to make light of it. Maybe that is why the inevitable becomes beautiful too. n Latika Mangrulkar is a story teller, social worker, and educator. LM writes and presents in 3 languages. Her stories, poetry and workshops have been featured in diverse cultural and academic settings across borders.

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IC

recipes

Shanta Nimbark Sacharoff

Cooking for the Golden Years

A

senior co-worker recently reminded me that “aging is not for sissies.” Maintaining health and wellbeing during our golden years can be challenging. As we get older our nutritional requirements remain about the same but because our metabolism is slower, we require fewer calories than younger people. This means that there is less room for regular desserts or other emptycalorie junk foods.

I have always enjoyed developing recipes for special diets. These days I am inventing recipes tailored to my own changing needs: healthy dishes that are low in calories, yet tasty and attractive.

Go Vegetarian!

As you reconsider your own diet, keep in mind the benefits of minimizing meat consumption as you age. A large body of research shows the health benefits of vegetarianism.

A properly planned vegetarian diet will naturally contain lots of fiber, phytonutrients and vitamins, and less saturated fat. Protein-rich foods such as dairy and meat often contain too much saturated fat, which is not only hard to digest, but strains the liver and kidneys.

Most Americans eat more protein than they

need, and this can lead to calcium depletion, a common concern among the elderly. A good motto for eating properly is to consume a variety of whole foods in moderation according to Laurel’s Kitchen, A Handbook for Vegetarian Cookery and Nutrition.

Here are some tips for food shopping, cooking and eating as you age.

Shopping

Buy bulk organic foods such as good quality oils and whole grains. Shop regularly, at least once a week, for fresh organic produce and herbs. When a fresh produce item is unavailable, buy it frozen, not canned. Avoid “junk” foods and items that contain transfats and margerine

Cooking

Keep your menus simple, but varied in texture and color. Minimize the use of salt, sweeteners, and hot spices. Include plenty of vegetables, particularly leafy greens, every day.

For the main meal of the day, include at least one dish with lots of liquid.

Eating

Eat slowly and not too much. Stop before

Daal Chowder with Salsa

Chilaquiles

½ cup tomato salsa (use the recipe below, or purchase fresh salsa) 4 cups water 1 cup red lentils, well rinsed and drained 1 tablespoon oil 1 teaspoon grated or minced fresh ginger root 1 cup corn kernels, frozen and thawed or freshly scraped from an ear of corn Juice of ½ lemon Salt to taste

1 dozen corn tortillas (can be dry or stale) A few tablespoons or as needed canola, safflower or olive oil 3 cups of homemade salsa (see recipe) or purchased fresh salsa 3 cups shredded jack cheese or vegan meltable cheese substitute 1 cup firm tofu, crumbled Chopped fresh cilantro for garnish

Boil the water and add the lentils. Cook over medium heat for 15 minutes.

To season 1 tsp oil 1 tsp mustard seeds 1 tsp urad dal (split black gram) Few curry leaves Heat the oil in a frying pan, add the salsa, ginger and corn. Stir-fry for a few minutes to combine the flavors. Add this mixture to the cooking lentils and simmer for 10 minutes.

Add the lemon juice and salt. Serve hot with rice, tortilla or bread.

54 • india currents • june 2012

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Prepare salsa as per the recipe below.

Spread a teaspoon of oil in a frying pan and lightly fry the tortillas one at a time on both sides until they are soft. Add more oil as needed, but just enough to moisten the pan.

Do not allow the tortillas to become too oily or crisp. Cut the tortillas into one inch wide strips.

Lightly oil the bottom of a casserole dish.

Spread a cup of salsa evenly over the bottom of the dish. Spread a layer of tortillas strips, reserving half of them for another layer. Cover the strips with half of the crumbled tofu and a cup of cheese or vegan cheese substitute, spreading it evenly. Repeat a layer of tortilla strips, tofu, cheese and sauce. Sprinkle the

you are full. Avoid adding extra salt and pepper. Sprinkle lemon juice instead. Drink plenty of fluids after each meal, especially water.

Shopping, preparing and eating food with your loved ones can add joy to your meals. If you or your partner haven’t cooked much in the past due to a busy work life, now is the time to learn to cook and share. If you are a senior care-giver, ask the person you are caring for to help you select and prepare the food.

Shopping for food can be interesting and entertaining. Selecting colorful vegetables, putting them in a bountiful basket, bringing them to your kitchen, arranging them attractively on the counter in a delicious visual rainbow can offer immense pleasure.

Plan your menu so that some preparation can be done ahead of time, and the final dish assembled quickly when you are ready to eat.

This will save you time and energy, and keep rest of the cheese on top. Cover and bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes. Uncover and cook for a few minutes longer until the top is golden brown. Allow the casserole to cool for a few minutes before cutting it into squares. Garnish with fresh cilantro and serve.

Salsa

2½ cups finely chopped fresh tomatoes ½ cup finely chopped green onion, including some green tops ¼ cup cilantro, stems removed, leaves finely chopped 1 tablespoon minced jalapeno pepper (seeds and inner veins removed) or 2 tablespoons minced bell pepper (for a non-spicy version) 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice 1 teaspoon cumin powder ½ teaspoon salt or to taste Chop all of the salsa ingredients small, using a sharp knife. You can use a food processor, but be careful not to over-puree.

Combine the ingredients and mix thoroughly.

Shanta Nimbark Sacharoff, author of Flavors of India: Vegetarian Indian Cuisine, lives in San Francisco, where she is a manager and coowner of Other Avenues, a health-food store.

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you from snacking on empty calories while you are waiting for a meal to be ready.

If you live alone, at least once a week share a meal with a friend or family member. If this includes shopping, preparing and eating together, all the better. If you must go solo, treat yourself as you would a guest. Set the table and serve yourself an elegant candle-lit dinner, or spread your lunch out on a cloth like a picnic. Be sure to sit down to eat, and savor your food.

Some of the most common complaints among older folks are gaining weight easily, even while eating lighter meals; trouble digesting food, particularly after dinner; lack of appetite; sensitivity to hot spicy foods; and food intolerance or allergy to foods containing dairy or gluten. All of these concerns can be managed with modification in menu planning and food choices.

Older people tend to be less active. At the same time we need to exercise more as our metabolism is slowing.

Know the calorie content of the foods you eat regularly. Adjust your portions, and modify your cooking methods to reduce fat.

Food that you previously enjoyed may now cause indigestion. This is common as we age because our stomach produces less of the acids necessary for digestion.

Here are some simple tips to improve digestion: Eat your most substantial meal at mid-day, and take a long afternoon walk. Keep the evening meal light. Eat at least one hour before bed time. Take a short walk after dinner. Hydrate your body throughout the day by drinking water.

Some seniors complain that they often do not feel hungry. Regular exercise stimulates the appetite and some herbal teas can help.

We eat with our eyes and other senses too, so food preparation can promote an appetite with the joy of fresh smells and vibrant colors.

Many elders may suddenly discover that they are sensitive or allergic to foods that never gave them trouble before. Dairy, gluten and even certain vegetables such as onions and peppers can suddenly cause severe reactions. And of course, folks with diabetes or other chronic illness need to be very careful about the foods they eat. In addition to a medical practitioner’s advice, knowing your body’s likes and dislikes can be useful in managing food sensitivities. Many local health food stores carry a wide choice of specialty foods that are gluten-free, sugar-free, or dairy free. Certainly the variety of fresh fruits and vegetables in the produce department will offer something any sensitive person can enjoy. n

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india currents • june 2012 • 55

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travel Rishi Kumar

Photo Credit: Rishi Kumar

RVing in Alaska

A view of calm waters on the drive from Seward to Anchorage

Exploring the Last Frontier at a custom-designed pace.

I

t wasn’t Alaska’s close proximity to Russia or my desire for foreign policy experience, or to check up on former Governor Sarah Palin that I chose Alaska as our vacation destination. Perhaps it was Shah Rukh Khan, working on a NASA project in the cool confines of his Recreational Vehicle (RV) in the heart of rural India, and the popularity of Alaska as an RV destination that tipped me towards the idea.

My wife and I weighed an Alaskan RV tour against the package cruise. A cruise could potentially cover a lot more ground, but we really wanted to be on land, soaking in Alaska’s beauty that we had only seen in pictures and documentaries thus far. We were told, rather emphatically, by many sources, that Alaska was custom built for RV vacations.

The RV will definitely slow you down.

You will not hit all the spots, and you will definitely not find a fakir to sing along and entertain you on the way. But what you may likely find is an Alaskan brown bear by the highway, thumbs up, looking to hitch a ride; or tiny white dots of Dall sheep dotting the landscape; or an eagle emerging from the water with a fish in its beak or perhaps a fish doing the Alaskan dance trapped between the jaws of a bear. You will be able to leisurely lose yourself in the spell binding mountain scenery, the Glacier’s stark landscape and the incredible views of glacier capped peaks.

In Denali National Park around the summer solstice, the sun rises around 3:30 a.m. and sets after midnight. We visited Alaska in August and dusk set in a little after 11p.m.

We loved the longer daylight. Anchorage has an average high of 65 ° F and an average low of 52 ° F in July—which is presumably the warmest month. It rains almost three times 56 • india currents • june 2012

more in August compared to June. And if nebago, worked out very well, giving the you are interested to check out the Northern kids room to relax within the confines of the Lights, and willing to brave the freezing temvehicle. There were times when they did not peratures and snow, October and later might want to step out especially when faced with be the time frame to consider. inclement weather conditions. For us Silicon We booked our flight tickets to AnchorValley residents, given to planning vacations age and made RV rental reservations along to the very last detail, it makes sense to take with the Denali Park bus ride reservations. some time to relax. A true test of a vacation is The Teklanika passes for the Denali bus ride when you go back to work and someone comis a critical planning aspect as they do get sold ments “You look so relaxed, what have you out very early. Having taken care of these debeen doing.” That tells you that you got some tails months in advance, we leisurely built the bang for the buck. rest of the agenda. It isn’t too difficult getFor those of us watching the bottom ting reservations for RV camps, which line, the economics of rentmeans you may wait to make ing an RV maybe the Alaskan Black Bear those when your plans are same as that of truly finalized.

Most hotel rooms, but RV camps the intangible have cable/ benefits inwater/elecclude the contric hookup venience of but we always not packing/ checked prior unpacking to making the every (other) day, a built reservation. We in restroom, also got our kids home cooked engaged in the hot meals and process with a bit of transporting a Alaskan history, Blubedroom. The Ray documentaries, Ice shower area is Age, Glaciers and more—to a bit cramped. help set the mood and exWe preferred pectations. We got the latest using the RV park Milepost from the local library, the showers, which were intention being to read the book as clean and well mainwe drove. The Lonely Planet and the tained. Do carry some AAA Alaska Handbook were excelgood water proof gloves lent references in planning our for the dump. Is it easy to dump the agenda. waste? I did it twice and it takes about five Our RV, a Ford Win-

minutes. It isn’t that bad, seriously.

Day 1—San Francisco to Anchorage

Make sure you seat yourself on the right/ starboard side—that way you get some great views of the glaciers in the southern part of Alaska.

Picking up our RV, we cautiously drove to the nearest Fred Meyer grocery store. My wife, with commendable foresight, already had a shopping list prepared that included milk, yoghurt, water, drinks, fruits, cooking oil, paper products, juice, bread, dishwasher liquid a.m.ong other essentials. We had planned our meal before our trip and it just needed execution. Being vegetarian does impose constraints, and planning ahead made sense. The tour saver coupon book saves a bundle, too.

You can get the coupons in most stores in Anchorage and on eBay. We had reservations at the Anchorage RV Park that night. It is an excellent facility, clean, wonderful staff, nice lots that provide privacy along with wireless internet access.

Day 2—Anchorage to Denali National Park

The next day, we began early. It drizzled all through the beautiful scenic drive. The portion of Route 1 from Anchorage to Willow is at least two lanes—and pretty much carefree driving. Beyond that, Willow to Denali is one lane. I found it hard to go beyond 55 mph. Some sections have tire grooves dug into the freeway, and it felt like we were losing control of the RV as the tires rode those grooves, but they are probably very useful during the winter months. We made sure that we were fueled and stocked before we entered Denali. There aren’t any paved roads inside and driving an RV was a slow process. I highly recommend that you refill at the Riley Wilderness Access Center and use the dump before entering Denali.

There are two choices while staying at Denali—The Teklanika (Tek) Campground and the Riley Creek facility. The advantage of staying at Tek was that we could catch the later 7:25 a.m. bus, as against the 6:15 a.m. bus if we had stayed in the Riley Creek facility. We

had reservations at the Tek, a beautiful location in the midst of amazing foliage; you can distinctly hear the flow of the Teklanika river from this camp ground. What’s the catch? It does not have water/electrical hookups/shower facilities. The restrooms have flush toilets and running water (weather dependent). In retrospect, camping at the Tek didn’t work out for us, as we really missed the electrical and water connections and clean showers. Tek has a three night minimum, but we checked-out after the first night and luckily found a spot in Riley.

We got the Tek pass at the Wilderness Access Center. This pass allows the use of the park shuttle buses throughout the stay at the Tek Campground. This helped us avoid a slow RV trip back—which we would have discovered only after getting to the Savage River checkpoint. The pass cannot be used to re-enter Denali National Park. If you go toward the park entrance beyond mile 20, you will need to purchase another shuttle ticket to reenter the park.

crossed our bus’s path and some Caribou. We saw a grizzly bear—it was completely blond and unlike any bear we had seen so far. After spotting it, the driver immediately turned the engine off. A hush descended on the bus as everyone peered into the vegetation to spot the bear, cameras clicking, kids focusing their binoculars, while some folks squinted at the landscape trying to spot it. The bear looked agitated, and kept moving as if in a drunken stupor. Suddenly we saw the bear cross the dirt road right in front of us. The bus crowd gasped, some in delight, some in surprise. But then just as quickly, the grizzly bear, the king of Denali, disappeared into the dense jungle.

Some would say Denali is over-hyped. We were constantly comparing it to the African Safari and Yellowstone. We had allocated three days for our Denali trip, and in retrospect, it may not have been worth that much time. You may want to consider rail tours that are conducted from Anchorage to Denali and back, which might be more time efficient.

Day 3—Inside Denali

The day we drove back to Anchorage, it was drizzling throughout the day. Having an overcast sky was a welcome change, providing a different water drenched perspective. As usual, there were frequent RV stops. It was a two lane highway, and the best we could manage was 50 mph. Suddenly, we see this black bear starting to cross the highway. By the time I hit the brakes, it had crossed over and disappeared into the Chugach State Forest. What immaculate timing!

At Anchorage, we visited the Alaska Zoo to see other Alaskan wildlife. Back in Anchorage, we took the opportunity to refill our pantry and visit the Anchorage museum, which provided a good overview of the Alaska Pipeline and the Great Earthquake of 1964 that measured 9.2 on the Richter scale.

The next morning, we were at the Tek campground bus stop at 7:20 a.m. to catch the Shuttle to Wonder Lake. Ideally, get into the earliest shuttle (starting at 5:15 a.m.) for your wild life viewing pleasure. This was the only vacation day that mandated an early start; a long 86 mile/10-12 hour Tundra tour.

Be prepared to board 15 minutes prior to departure. No food or water is available in the park on the shuttle route, so carry a back pack.

Also, try to sit on the left/port side of the bus for the Mount McKinley viewing. Wild life can pop out from any and every direction.

Sharp eyes are well respected in the bus. Riley Creek Mercantile across from the Wilderness Access Center sells food items.

We were quite keen to check out Mount McKinley, having been to Mount Whitney a couple years back. Statistics indicate that only 14% of the visitors get to peek at the peak. We were lucky. We had been warned that wild life viewing was not as good as at Yellowstone—and it lived up to its reputation.

We saw a few Dall sheep, a grizzly bear that

Day 4—Drive back to Anchorage

Day 5—Drive to Seward

The next morning, we explored the Alaskan Native Heritage Center, right next door to the Anchorage RV park. The tickets were a bit expensive, even with the AAA discount.

We took the 45 minute walking tour around

india currents • june 2012 • 57

Photo Credit: Rishi Kumar Our Ford Winnebago

the lake. Live actors demonstrated how native Alaskans used to live in the bygone eras.

We continued on our drive to Seward.

Seward is named after the Secretary of State, William Seward, who bought Alaska from the Russians for two cents an acre. Alaska, twice the size of Texas, was called “Seward’s folly” until gold and subsequently petroleum was discovered, and then Seward was anointed a genius. Due to time constraints, Seward was our final destination in Alaska. We headed to the Kenai Fjords National Park for the Alaskan glacier experience. The park is capped by the Harding Ice field, a relic from past ice-ages and the largest ice field within United States borders.

On the way to Seward, we stopped to board the cruise to Portage Glacier. The Visitor’s Center there has an informative movie on glaciers, which is mandatory to watch prior to the cruise. Talking to the Ranger at the Visitor’s Center, I got some interesting tidbits on life in Alaska. Apparently, last winter they were so snowed in, they had to send a Ranger through the dome of the rather tall Visitor’s Center to get inside the building. The river next to the Visitor’s Center freezes every winter—five feet deep, hard as a rock, with folks camping out on the ice.

We got the 50% discount deal for the last cruise of the day to Portage Glacier. This was our first glacier sighting. It got very cold in the upper deck and we were glad to have our gloves and jackets on.

At Seward, we stayed at the Stoney Creek RV Park, which had clean restrooms along with water, wi-fi, cable and electric hookups.

It is surrounded by thick forests and in the night we could distinctly hear the sounds of animal life. We looked forward to the Kenjai Ford cruise the next day.

Day 6—Kenjai Ford Cruise

We had booked this cruise a couple of days before our flight from California. The cruise ship is actually a catamaran, but very 58 • india currents • june 2012

comfortable with heated cabins. The lunch and dinner were quite good, prepared and loaded from their restaurant at Fox island, where the catamaran had made a brief stop for the pickup. This island offers excellent cabin accommodations. The cruise covers wildlife and glaciers as advertised. The captain of the ship patiently answered all our questions. The cruise ship took us to the base of the Aialik Glacier. This was like being at the IMAX movies, an unforgettable experience traveling through icy water and listening to the crunching of ice chunks.

Intermittently, the cruise ship would shut off the engine. A hush would descend upon the shivering crowd on the deck, as we heard the rumble of the glacier pieces breaking off and falling into the ocean. It was at the time when whales were heading towards Hawaii to spend the winter there, and we did see a couple of humpback whales. We also saw sea otters, sea lions and lots of different bird species. The boat does rock quite a bit in free float mode after the engines are turned off. If you are prone to sea-sickness, remain seated in the heated cabin.

Day 7—Exit Glacier and Trail

to the Hardinge Ice Field. There are three trails, one leading up close to the glacier, another (center trail path) giving you a top view of the glacier, and the 3rd Hardinge Trail, which is a 7.7 mile strenuous trail that apparently goes above the tree line. There was a bear family that most hikers were “bumping into” on this trail. Due to the prevailing damp and cold conditions we turned back fairly quickly. As we walked towards the Exit Glacier, there were signs showing how the glacier had receded over the years starting from the year 1917. The base of the glacier is starkly barren with no sign of vegetation.

It clearly demonstrated to us the power of the glacier as it eroded and cut through everything in its path, leaving the dark brooding landscape filled with tiny rocks.

We did procure a chunk of the glacier ice (hundreds of year old ice) and it sat in our refrigerator for a few months.

Day 8—Drive to Anchorage Airport via the Wildlife Conservation Center

As we left Seward, the scenery was quite awe inspiring; the calm lake waters and overcast skies making it quite serene and peaceful—and then we see this bald eagle flying by against the dark overcast sky. What an amazing sight! We decided to stop by at the Wild Life Conservation Center which is a few hundred yards away from the Portage Glacier exit. We got up close to the wildlife and also got some great pictures.

Sadly that brought us to the end of our vacation. We parted ways with our faithful RV to board our flight back home. A memorable trip indeed—with gigabytes of pictures and videos as proof. What you may want to additionally consider are: Iditarod National Historic Trail, the cruise to the Glacier Bay National Park, driving the Deathly Dalton Highway, catching Sight of the Northern Lights (after October), taking the helicopter ride to Katmai National Park/Brook falls for the world famous bear viewing, scenic drive from Anchorage to Homer, driving up to Fairbanks, the Arctic circle, Juneau or Valdez. As Hardinge Ice we took the flight back, we could not help but reflect on how Alaska is ideally suited for an RV vacation. We took the plunge, Photo Credit: Rishi Kumar albeit with some trepidations—but RVing across the broad landscape of Alaska became the highlight of our vacation. If we did it, you can too. n

ExitGlacier

We got up to hear the rain beating down hard and reluctantly left the campground to check out the Exit Glacier and to do the trek

Rishi Kumar lives in the Silicon Valley with his wife Seema and two boys. Rishi’s day job is in the Tech industry selling software. In his spare time, Rishi volunteers for charities, is involved in local politics, and produces the community TV show, “Saratoga’s Got Talent.”

Rishi also loves blogging on varied and myriad topics as “The Silicon Valley Rishi.”

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I C relationship diva

Jasbina Ahluwalia

Dating Deal-Breakers Q

I've been told to think through my “dealbreakers” given that I'm interested in dating to find a partner as opposed to just casually dating for the sake of dating. My question is, now that I think I've figured out what my dealbreakers are, how tightly would you recommend I hold on to them in my search? I don’t want to get burned by getting involved with someone who is wrong for me, but at the same time I also don’t want to turn away a potential match for the wrong reasons.

A

As a matchmaker and dating coach to highly selective men and women who, like you, are seriously searching for their life partners, I want to reassure you that your concern is one I hear quite often.

Whether deal-breakers become assets or liabilities in your search for a life partner depends on your approach.

Generally speaking, commitment-minded men and women tend to gravitate towards prospective partners with equally selective standards.

The key to achieving the balance of hav-

ing standards while at the same time not missing opportunities is to select your dealbreakers very carefully, armed with a high level of self-awareness.

Self-audit the deal-breakers you’re holding on to by asking yourself the following three questions: 1. Do your deal-breakers reflect those traits which will highly impact your day to day wellbeing for the long term such as insensitivity or unkindness, as opposed to less impactful dealbreakers such as he (or she) being only two, rather than three, inches taller (or shorter) than you? Another example of a highly-impactful deal-breaker would be incompatible life goals such as when one person desires to have kids and the other does not.

2. Ask yourself whether your deal-breakers reflect your own priorities, values and emotional needs, as opposed to external expectations held by others (for example, your friends or family)? Don’t fall into the trap of adopting others’ deal-breakers as your own, without

first considering the relevancy of those dealbreakers to what will truly make you happy and fulfilled in the long-term.

3. It also helps to ask yourself: what will your prospective partner have to put up with if he/ she chooses to share his/her life with you?

None of us is perfect. Keeping our own fallibilities and weaknesses in mind can help you maintain a realistic perspective regarding the imperfections we can deal with in a partner.

A key to having deal-breakers work for rather than against you is in your ability to apply your heart and mind in working through these kinds of questions. n

Jasbina is the founder and president of Intersections Match, the only personalized matchmaking and dating coaching firm serving singles of South Asian descent in the United States.

She is also the host of Intersections Talk Radio, a monthly lifestyle show. www.IntersectionsMatch.com. Jasbina@intersectionsmatch.com.

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india currents • june 2012 • 69

IC

desi voices

P. Mahadevan

Words of Wisdom, Satire, Humor, Muddle and Mis-Speak

R

udimentary languages get embellished by the induction of words, phrases and idioms that help to communicate effectively and trigger various emotions in the human mind. These are the shiny trims that hang on the bare language tree. English language has evolved with this kind of ornamentation over centuries of usage. Some of these trims are good enough to be retained in memory, to be filed under the category of quotable quotes. To express oneself well as a speaker or writer is as much an art form as singing or painting and requires flair for the language, depth of understanding of the literature, and the skill set to keep the reader’s attention span focused on the topic of discussion.

I give here a few examples of some unforgettable quotes.

“This is the moment of our tryst with destiny unfurling the Indian national flag”— Jawaharlal Nehru; “Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country”— John F. Kennedy; “I have a dream”—Reverend Martin Luther King; “If there is a God, I will thank Him”—Nickita Kruschev; “I cannot promise you victory but I do guarantee sweat, blood, toil and tears”—Winston Churchill.

Humor

Humor can be innocent and spontaneous or calculated and satirical. Political satire is one of the best established forms of humor and British politicians are adept at this category. A short, pithy sentence to drive home an obvious truth or doctrine such as “Among the things most often opened by mistake is the mouth.” Most of us can recall a time or two when we made that mistake and paid for it heavily. The humor was at our expense, then. Here is a witticism that falls under this category: “God made very few perfect heads; the rest He covered with hair.”

Satire

Satire, especially political satire, is usually meant to hurt an opponent. The current election season in the United States is a gold mine for comedians and satirists. I opt to stay politically neutral in spite of the irresistible urge to laugh out loud sometimes.

Former Prime minister of England, William Gladstone once remarked about the leader of the opposition, Benjamin Disraeli.

70 • india currents • june 2012

“If the Hon. Leader of the Opposition were to drown in the Thames, it would be a catastrophe, but if some one attempted to rescue him, that would be a disaster.”

Senator Barry Goldwater is reported to have commented about Nixon during the Watergate proceedings, “Every time he opens his mouth, he subtracts from the sum total of human knowledge.”

About a feuding married couple: “The man in love with a dimple on her cheek made the mistake of marrying the whole girl.”

“It is a far cry from selling cabbages to lecturing on agriculture.”

“Inadvertent creation of a new product that continues to sell for centuries or subtle marketing tools for products can also be achieved through word play or games.”

The gluttonous King HenryVIII, after polishing off a large beef steak, is reported to have bestowed the title of knighthood on that cut of meat. Since then, SirLoin is the choice cut of beef.

When Lipton tea was introduced in India in the 1930s the first advertisement declared, “Tea is like a woman; both show their strength when in hot water.”

the public to such violence. “Remember, remember, the fifth of November.” is part of the folk song that is sung on that day. Guy Fawkes lived and died long before America was born.

Yet, our dear little baby boy in the U.S. is also a “guy.” Can’t we all be a little more appreciative of our boys and men? Chaps, blokes, fellows are acceptable alternates.

You Was and I Are—Eliza Still Lives

Muddle is simply a confusion of words. A famous example is President Clinton’s statement during the impeachment hearings. He attempted a disingenuous ploy to establish doubt with this statement, “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”

The famous British economist Lord Keynes wrote about his prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, “Mr. Baldwin has invented the formidable argument that he should not do anything because he would not be able to do anything else.”

The flower girl Eliza Doolittle in Bernard Shaw’s play, “Pygmalion” communicates with her customers thus: “You was standing in my floer shop when I are selling button rose to the men for the girls.” It is not surprising that this format of conversation persists even now in certain areas in England such as East London and Birmingham. The cockney girl era is also reported to be here in some areas of Kentucky!

English is and will most likely continue to be the lingua franca of the world. The “ayatolla” of perfect English, the 20th century Oxford dictionary, has lowered the bar to accommodate several other developing formats for the language, Spanglish, Hinglish, Text and Twitter are examples of such non-rigorous formats. Coach Brown of the Los Angeles Lakers came up with an original of his own recently, “Whoever thunk that the Lakers would play so poorly last month.” Words are born and they die too. Roentgenogram was reborn as X-Ray. Sneaked has evolved into Snuck and Persistency to Persist. Actor also includes actress now. Anecdotally speaking, an unorthodox poet in Malayalam, Kunchan Nambiar did exactly this about 150 years ago.

He silenced his critics by telling them that since they effortlessly understood the meaning of the new word already, the change is here to stay and the purpose is served.

Mis-Speak

My Lament and the Last Word

Muddle

Most of us are probably unaware that we (hundred percent of us) address fifty percent of the population (the male gender) from infants to adults by the word “guy.” This is actually the first name of a notorious British terrorist by the name of Guy Fawkes whose only claim to fame is that he plotted to blow up the House of Commons in an event called the Gun Powder Plot (1605). He was caught in time and executed. But his name remained in Britain’s folklore for a long time before crossing the Atlantic to the United States. Even now, a holiday is observed in England to alert

If only I knew one more major language, I could have enjoyed the humor and satire twice as much. Perhaps, the unsaid part of what you think is a more appropriate and safe last word than the unthought part of what you say. n P. Mahadevan is a retired scientist with a Ph.D degree in Atomic Physics from the Univ. of London, England. His professional work included basic and applied research and program management for the corporate sector and the Dept. of Defence. He taught Physics at the Univ. of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram.

Habib Khan Saraswati Temple & Gurukul Presents

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Shishya: Rishi Dasgupta

All Are Cordially Invited

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Vrindavan Indian Dance Academy Experience The Joy Of Movement

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Arangetram

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Arangetram by Neha Reddy

July 14th, 2012 4.00pm- 6.00pm San Ramon Performing Arts Center, 10550 Albion Road, San Ramon, CA 94582 Contact: 925-875-9521

www.vrindavanacademy.com

india currents • june 2012 • 71

KALANJALI: DANCES of INDIA SUMMER FESTIVAL of ARANGETRAMS With musicians from India

MATHANGI SANKARAN June 23 at 3pm

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R.S.V.P. (925) 348-1141 sowmithra@hotmail.com

Each Arangetram is a full performance of traditional Bharatanatya repertoire, accompanied by a professional music ensemble from India. It is a rite of passage for a dancer moving to a higher level of study and mature focus. It is customary to invite the community.

ALL ARE WELCOME. Please R.S.V.P if you wish to stay for the reception following the performance.

TANVI JAYARAMAN June 24 at 3pm

Rosemont High School Theatre 9594 Kiefer Blvd.

Sacramento, CA 95827

R.S.V.P. jayismyagent@yahoo.com

RADHIKA ROACH June 30 at 3pm

Hayley Horn Auditorium Benicia High School 1101 Military West Benicia, CA 94510

R.S.V.P. (707) 297-6702 mrpsrr@comcast.net

KIRAN LONG-IYER July 1 at 3pm

Rosemont High School Theatre 9594 Kiefer Blvd.

Sacramento, CA 95827

R.S.V.P. Kiransarangetram@gmail.com

Kalanjali offers classes in all levels of Bharatanatyam Berkeley, Lafayette, Sacramento Following the traditional style and syllabus of Kalakshetra, Chennai, India New sessions start in September Katherine Kunhiraman, Director

72 • india currents • june 2012

kalanjaliusa@aol.com -

(510) 526-2183

Sunday, September 9, 2012 - DOUBLE HEADER CONCERT Venue: TBA

Time: 5:00 pm

Smt. Mala Ramadorai - Vocal Sri. Abhay Prabhakar Datar - Tabla Sri. Anant Shrikrishna Joshi - Harmonium

Time: 2:00 pm

Smt. Gayathri Girish - Vocal Sri. Mysore V. Srikanth - Violin Sri. Poonuglam Subramanian - Mridangam Friday, September 21, 2012 - 7:00 pm Sri. Sanjay Subrahmanyan - Vocal Sri. S. Varadarajan - Violin Sri. Neyveli B. Venkatesh - Mridangam Venue: TBA

Sunday, October 7, 2012 - 3:30 pm

Sammilan - Folk Fusion Concert Sri. Sashank Subramanyam & Party Sri. Shashank Subramanyam - Flute/Vocals Sri. Anwar Khan Manganiar - Vocal Sri. Feroz Khan Manganiar - Dholak Sri. Ravindra Chary - Sitar Sri. Sai Giridhar - Mridangam, Khanjira & Konnakol Venue: TBA

Sunday, October 14, 2012 - 3:30 pm Dr. Mysore Manjunath & Sri. Mysore Nagaraj - Violin Duet Sri. Srimushanam Rajarao - Mridangam Venue: TBA

Sunday, November 11, 2012 - 3:30 pm

Kum. Alarmel Valli - Bharathanatyam with Live Orchestra Venue: Mexican Heritage Plaza 1700 Alum Rock Ave., San Jose, CA 95116

For all concert timings and venue please visit http://www.southindiafinearts.org/

For details & updated information please log on to www.southindiafinearts.org

india currents • june 2012 • 73

BY POPULAR DEMAND STARTING IN JUNE

VOCAL, SITAR & TABLA CLASSES IN

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By

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74 • india currents • june 2012

music

Vocal Music Classes

By DR

MOUSOOMI BANERJI

(disciple of late Pandit Gyan Prakash Ghosh and Ustad Munawar Ali Khan)

Habib Khan Sitar, Vocal

&

* Teacher of repute and artiste having numerous stage and TV shows. * Elementary lessons for beginners in Indian Classical Music (Hindusthani style) and Light Classical Music - including bhajan, ghazal, etc.

Tabla Lessons

in San Jose, Fremont, Mountain View, South San Francisco, Danville, & Cupertino & Miliptas (ICC)

* Special lessons in Bangla Gaan - (Bengali) ClassesseIn, San Jo Puraatani, Tappa, Nazrulgeeti, Sunnyvale ra Atulprosad, Raagprodhan, etc. & Santa Cla mousumi_999@yahoo.com Contact: (408) 799-1102 • (408) 823-3918 mousumi.banerji@gmail.com

Sangeetaanjali Inst. of Music PE

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R F New Vocal Teacher, Sri Saugata Banerjee O declared a ‘Pandit’ by his Guru, Pdt. Jasraj-ji R • All Levels: Hindusthani Vocal/Tabla/Sitar/Flute/Guitar M • Totally Dedicated Distinguished Music Faculty A • Visiting Eminent musicians of India N • Performances of Students C • Concerts of Distinguished Artists (Local/Visiting) 510-651-9149 • Email: contact@Sangeetaanjali.org E S www.sangeetaanjali.org

Upcoming Events

Sangeetaanjali Kaksha, 39701 Logan Dr., Fremont, CA Admission Free: You May Reserve Seats by Email

C Friday, June 15, 2012 at 8:30 pm O Vocal Performance: N Smt. Anupama Chandretreya C Harmonium: Sri Anand Karve E Table: TBA R T S Student Performance Vocal Music: Shesha Prasad

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Bansuri Bamboo Flute

Jeff Whittier

• Flutes of the Highest Quality • Lessons in North Indian Music in Palo Alto & Fremont • Video Instructions Available • Light Classical Music for Indian Weddings

(650) 493-2187

E-mail: Bansijeff@aol.com india currents • june 2012 • 75

IC

q&a

Suchi Sargam

A Full House

T

he name Sajid Khan brings to mind a silver screen and award show host who has tickled the funny bone of thousands for the last two decades. The last six years saw him venture into the field of film direction, debuting as a director on Ram Gopal Varma’s Darna Zaroori Hai. Subsequently he made Heyy Babyy (2007), Housefull (2010) and the recently released Housefull 2. The higher the revenues of his three full-length films, the sharper has been the criticisms from film critics. But that, he says, does not bother him in the least. An interaction with the actor-director-presenter about his latest multi-starrer Housefull 2 with a cast of 18 actors shows that he is riding an all-time high.

T

he movie Housefull 2 is a runaway hit in India. Given the criticism your films usually receive, did you ever wonder about the success of the film? How have you celebrated?

No. I have made three films to date, Heyy Babyy in 2007, Housefull in 2010 and Housefull 2 in 2012. Not once, for a second, in these last five years have I worried about my films not doing well. I have always been extremely confident, so much so that I used to speak of my movies as hits even before their release.

A large section of the media used to call me “pompous” and “over-smart” and I have proved my words not once, but thrice over.

As for celebrations, I don’t believe in success parties. For me, the day I start working on the film, that is the success of the film. That’s why I confidently write letters to all my actors on the first day of shooting, saying, “Welcome to your career’s biggest film.” I have done it over the years and have been proven right! Except in the case of Boman Irani, who already has 3 Idiots (among the highest Bollywood grosser till date), so I don’t send him the letter! (laughs) I am extremely happy that my film is one of the few Indian films which has opened in the U.S. Top 10 at No. 9 in the very first three days.

Does this mean the response from off-shore collections has been up to your expectations, with a collection of U.S. $2.64 million in the first three days?

Yes, I was expecting as much. But this alone does not mean audience acceptance.

True success is when the audience leaves the hall with a smile on their faces or with the feeling that their money was well spent. Box office is just an indication, like a thermom76 • india currents • june 2012

Photo Credit: celebmovies.com

eter. You put it in your mouth or under your arm to find out what the temperature is. But the box office is just the means to knowing that the audience liked the film. This is the third time I have proved that critics or reviews do not make any difference to a film.

Do you believe that reviewers do not set out to simply criticize you?

I am 41 years old, and ever since I saw my first film—when I was 2 years old, films have become my life. For most reviewers, it is a job. For me, it is my life. They do not know anything about Hindi cinema.

If you are asked to compare Housefull and Housefull 2, what are the similarities in terms of storyline, sets, actors, etc?

It’s very simple. When Housefull was released, it did extremely well at the box office, and became a huge blockbuster. But I heeded the feedback I received from audiences. I found, the climax did not go down well with the audience—the climax in Housefull involved using laughter gas. So when I commenced working on Housefull 2, I worked in reverse. I needed to put together a superb, out of this world, funny climax. I removed all those bits that the audience did not like in Housefull and made sure I did not repeat the mistakes I’d made.

In terms of sets, there is no similarity.

The scale of the film doubled in terms of storytelling, in terms of my role as a director, and in terms of the reputation and budget of the project. Housefull was made at a cost of

Sajid Khan

around U.S. $10 million. Housefull 2 cost me U.S. $17 million, almost double.

What was the best day out of the 70 days of shooting the film?

I think it was the first day of shooting with Mithun Chakravarty. He joined the set on day 17 or 18. That was the best day as I got to shoot with my childhood icon. I have grown up on his films, I have imitated him, mimicked him, danced like him. He signed my film without even hearing the script!

And what was the most challenging part of this film?

Honest to God, the most challenging part was getting them all (the multi-starrer cast) out of their vanity vans and on to the set. It was a big challenge to get them all—especially the girls, who take a lot of time with their costume, make-up, hair—to the shoot on time.

You have said in interviews that you get inspiration from old Hindi movies. For this sequel, what was your inspiration?

Manmohan Desai’s cinemas inspired me for Housefull 2. Whatever I know about filmmaking is through the thousands of Hindi films I have watched and studied. When I was making Housefull, I imagined Jim Carrey in my head. For Heyy Babyy it was Hrishikesh Mukherjee. For Housefull 2, the moment I heard about the large star cast, I remembered Manmohan Desai. He worked with lots of big actors together and nevered strayed away from the storyline. That’s what I did. I have not favored any particular actor in the film.

They favored the film.

The scene where four actors—John Abraham, Akshay Kumar, Asin and Jacqueline Fernandez—fall into a life boat and get stranded on a deserted island, is it inspired from Kaho Na Pyar Hai (KNPH)?

No. But I was told about this scene from KNPH. When I brought a tiger on to the Housefull set, everybody thought it was straight from Hangover. Few realized that it was inspired from Nishana made in 1980. I don’t copy scenes. But, yes, I like putting into my films what I have enjoyed in other films.

Randhir Kapoor has done two films with you—both Housefulls. Any special reason behind this?

He is my friend. I like spending time with him. I think he has a terrific sense of humor He makes me laugh. I have always told him “You should write a book.” And he is a superb person to work with. Acting is in the blood of Kapoors!

Is it a high point for you to be casting veterans like Mithun Chakraborty, Randhir and Rishi Kapoor so early in your career?

Of course. Why just them? Working with Johnny Lever is a high. I realized I have the knack for extracting comedic performances from actors. With Johnny Lever, we both knew we had to make it funny. I think Johnny Lever gave an outstanding performance.

From being a fan, I’ve become a director. For example, I have Mithun Chakraborty in the film and he is such a consummate actor that within ten minutes into the film, you stop believing it is Mithun the star as he becomes his character. But at the very end of the movie, I made Mithun Da do his famous dance steps.

How can I, his biggest fan, do a film with him and not make him dance?

Do you keep audiences outside India in your mind when you make films?

No. I don’t. I think Hindi films are yet to find a white audience. But it’s happening slowly. It will take another 10-15 years.

But since our films are opening successfully abroad, those audiences cannot be ignored, especially when done at a Hollywood studio.

What should audiences look forward to in your next—Himmatwala, the 1983 film which you are remaking?

It’s a Sajid Khan film. So the audience knows they will not be disappointed in terms of entertainment. There is action, drama, super-hit songs and humor.

Any particular song from the original Himmatwala that you will remix for this film?

I have bought two songs officially: “Taaki O Taaki Re,” and “Naino Mein Sapna,” the penultimate song for matka dancing! They will not be remixed, but re-recorded. Again, I would like to say Ajay Devgn will not be wearing tight pants, white shoes or dancing like Jeetendra, as mine is a different film. Wait and watch for more! n

music The Original

GEETANJALI BAND Entertaining the Bay area for over 30 years • Live “Bollywood” Music • Songs from the 60’s to the present • Available for private and public events CONTACT: Rama Shukla (408) 921-7324 Minnie Shukla (408) 406-5525 Shuklar@aol.com

Sohini Sangeet Academy of Music in Sacramento presents Sohini Concert Series

k Pt. Binay Patha

Siar Haseq

h Danny Birc

Joe Fa jen

Saturday, 16th June, 2012 • 5 pm to 7 pm • Folsom Indian Community Center, Folsom Vocal & Instrumental Classes in Folsom, Sacramento, Rocklin ~ Admission Going On Visit our website for more information www.sohinisangeet.org • Contact Maya (916) 217-3259 See our website for full details of upcoming Events & Concerts ~ Guru Purnima Celebration, 8th July, Rocklin Branch

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India Currents Ad is Correct Needs Changes

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78 • india currents • june 2012

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One time rate $90.

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Vacation Bible School

Time June 18th-22nd. 8:30 am 12:30 pm Theme : SKY, Ages: Music, Bible 5 yrs - 12 yrs. lessons, crafts Accepting and fun filled Registration Now. games.

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510-656-0900

Alluvial Arts

is pleased to present its inaugural exhibition

Soul & Symbols of a Delta Contemporary Art from Bangladesh June 7 - 17, 2012, 11 am - 6 pm

At SOMArts

934 Brannan St, San Francisco, CA 94103 * Admission is free * Don’t miss this rare opportunity to experience firsthand an emerging form of contemporary art that interprets ancient artistic traditions of the bengal in today’s context www.alluvialarts.com

or Email :

gssam2005@gmail.com

india currents • june 2012 • 79

‘...Flashing hands painting poetry in the air....a feast for the eyes and ears' - SJ Mercury News

Natana Arpana

An offering of dance A fundraiser for Shiva Murugan Temple

by Abhinaya Dance Company students

Next Generation Presentation

Exposition of Abhinaya

Sunday, June 17 @ 4 pm

Cubberly Community Center Theater 4000 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto, CA 94303 $12 single ticket/ $10 each for two or more

San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival

Abhinaya and San Jose Taiko perform the award winning piece

“Synergy”

Saturday, June 30 (3 pm & 8 pm) & Sunday, July 1 (3 pm) Novellus Theater at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 701 Mission St. San Francisco, CA 94103 www.sfethnicdancefestiva.org

Solo performance by Rasika Kumar

Maya

Saturday, August 4 @ 4 pm Historic Hoover Theater 1635 Park Ave., San Jose, CA 95126

- The Mystery of Krishna

Music by Guest Artist and Flautist - G.S. Rajan and accompanied by our acclaimed Bay Area Orchestra Asha Ramesh, Shanthi Narayan, N. Narayan and Malavika Kumar Sunday, July 15 @ 4 pm McAfee Theater 20300 Herriman Ave. Saratoga, CA 95070

Arangetram – Sahana Vishwanath Sunday, July 29 @ 4 pm McAfee Theater 20300 Herriman Ave. Saratoga, CA 95070 Arangetram – Usha Raman Saturday, August 11 @ 5 pm De Anza College Visual & Performing Arts Centre 21250 Stevens Creek Blvd.

Cupertino, CA 95014

For further information contact Abhinaya Dance (408) 871-5959 • www.abhinaya.org 80 • india currents • june 2012

dance & music

KALANJALI Dances of India Establshed in 1975

Jayendra Kalakendra

CLASSES IN BHARATANATYAM

India's most ancient classical dance

Artistic Director:

Following traditional Kalakshetra syllabus - all levels

• San Jose

AHALYA PRAKASH

SACRAMENTO, LAFAYETTE, BERKELEY

www.sugandasreenath.com

(408) 270-9295

510-526-2183

Kalanjaliusa@aol.com

Director:

sugandaiyer@comcast.net

Artistic Director:

Jayanthi Sridharan

Classes offered in a combination of styles including Folk, Semi-Classical, and Fusion at various locations in Cupertino and San Jose.

offers Bharathanatyam Classes in North San Jose

Call: (408) 251-3438 e-mail: bkkdanceschool@gmail.com

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Srividya Eashwar

408-246-3005 / 408-838-3079

• Fremont • Santa Clara

New classes are forming at all locations For details contact Suganda Iyer

Registration and Information:

CONTACT INFORMATION

Suganda Sreenath

Bharatanatyam classes (Kalakshetra style, incl. Extensive Theory)

in the Northern California edition of India Currents for

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Bharatanatyam Dance Classes

offered by Danseuse

Jyotsna Vaidee

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One time rate $90.

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Bharata Natyam Folk Dances Classes: Duarte,Cerritos, Riverside,Chino Hills

Paulomi Pandit Recipient of Post Diploma from

Classes are conducted in West San Jose & Cupertino

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626-590-5547Contact: SRIVIDYA (510)EASHWAR 316-5122 Client: XPRESSIONS india currents • june 2012 • 81 Company: PDF vidyasdance@gmail.com Please indicate any changes or corrections

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82 • india currents • june 2012

B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B

SHIVA MURUGAN TEMPLE P U J A S

&

F E S T I V A L S

www.shivamurugantemple.org

NEW SHIVA MURUGAN TEMPLE PUJAS & FESTIVALS

Let us all join together and build a new Shiva Murugan Temple, the dream of all of us. Many of the Bay Artists are generously accepting to do Benefit programs for this auspicious effort.

Sun., June 3 - Visakam Celebration Bharathanatyam Jayanthi Shridharan & Students

June 17 - Mythili Kumar & students.

Aug. 18 - Rohith Jayaraman Sept. 8 - Manasa & Friends Oct. 21 - Rohan & Friends Nov. 24 Suganda Srinath Dec. 1 - Meena Logan Dec. 15 - Preetha Shesadri Jan. 26 - Guru Vishal Ramani & Students PHOTO: VIGGY MOKKARALA

Sun., June 17 - Fathers Day HAPPY FATHER’S DAY Sun., June 24 Anithirumanjanam Suganda Srinath & Students

SHIVA MURUGAN TEMPLE / SAIVA SIDDHANTA ASHRAM

Other Artists have also accepted to do a program for the New temple.

B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B

B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B

1803 Second Street, Concord, CA 94519 • Weekdays: 10am - Noon & 6pm - 9pm • Weekends: 10am - 9pm Voice Mail (925) 827-0127 • Fax (925) 827-0209 • www.temple.org

Feb. 9, 2013 - Nirupama Vaidyanathan.

Indumathi Ganesh, Jeyanthi Sridharan, Anu Suresh, Harini Krishna, Shreelata Suresh, Hema Sista, Srikanth Chari, Aruna Krishna, Manasa Suresh & Lata Sriram

SHIVA MURUGAN TEMPLE P U J A S

&

F E S T I V A L S

www.shivamurugantemple.org BENEFIT PROGRAM FOR THE NEW SHIVA MURUGAN TEMPLE

Natana Arpana Natya Arpana

an offering of dance by students of Abhinaya Dance Company Artistic Director Mythili Kumar

Sunday, June 17, 2012 - 4 pm Cubberly Theater, Palo Alto

Admission: By donation for Shiva Murugan Temple $12 single ticket / $10 each for 2 or more Contact: (408) 871-5959 Kausalya Hart : (510) 525-1793 www.abhinaya.org

B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B

PHOTO: VIGGY MOKKARALA

4000 Middlefield Rd., Palo Alto, CA

india currents • june 2012 • 83

The Vishwa Shanthi Dance Academy has been invited to perform at the 34th San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, June 23 & June 24

Come see our Bharatanatyam dance performance at Yerba Buena’s Novellus Theater June 23 (3 pm, 8 pm) & June 24 (3 pm) Performers include: Shreelata Suresh, Sonali Vepa Aatresh, Savita Pillai, Bindu Nair, Ambika Gopalan, Nisha Balaraman, Sameeha Rau, Chandini Ramesh, Pujitha Anur, Saatchi Bhalla.

This year's Festival presents over 30 dance companies representing cultures from all around the world. For tickets and a full line-up of performance schedule, descriptions and details, visit www.sfethnicdancefestival.org

For more information about the Vishwa Shanthi Dance academy, visit www.shreelatasuresh.com

Keerthana School of Indian Music & Fine Arts Presents

Sangeetha Saparya 2012 Student's Annual Recital

Accompanied by professional musicians visiting from India!

th

June 16 at 2.03 pm sharp

Chinmaya Rameswaram 14451 Franklin Avenue, Tustin, CA 92780 Highlight of the event will be a performance by 45 keyboard players presenting classical compositions of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, greatest musician of this century Pandit Ravishankar and India's pride AR Rahman.

For more info

Contact- Babu Parameswaran

949-559-4504 or babusmusic@gmail.com 84 • india currents • june 2012

india currents • june 2012 • 85

presents

Bharatanatyam Arangetram of

Sonya Chalaka

Disciple of Guru Smt. Indumathy Ganesh, Artistic Director

Saturday, June 23, 2012 • 4:00 PM

Jackson Theater, Ohlone College 43600 Mission Blvd., Fremont, CA 94539 Choreography & Nattuvangam: Vocal: Mridangam: Violin:

Indumathy Ganesh Asha Ramesh N. Narayanan Shanthi Narayan

For more details call: Ravi & Chitra

(510) 226-1713

Nrithyollasa: (510) 623-8230 • info@nldance.com 86 • india currents • june 2012

ADMISSION IS FREE — ALL ARE WELCOME

india currents • june 2012 • 87

Edited by: Mona

Shah

List your event for FREE!

JULY issue deadline: Wednesday, June 20 To list your event in the Calendar, go to www.indiacurrents.com/submit-event and fill out the Web form

Check us out on Facebook and Twitter!

special dates Father’s Day

June 17

Ratha Yatra

June 21

Guru Purnima

July 2

U.S. Independence Day

July 4

IC June

cultural calendar

1 Friday

Gujarati Music. A celebration of Gujarati culture with a musical evening of songs written by Rastriya Shayar Zaverchand Meghani.

Organized by Daglo and Bay Area Gujarati Samaj. 7-9 p.m. India Community Center (ICC), 525 Los Coches St., Milpitas. Free.

(408) 410-2372. paragnad@gmail.com.

Amjad Ali Khan in Concert. Sarod

maestro, in residence at the Stanford Department of Music this spring to teach “Indian Classical Music: A Way of Life,” performs.

Organized by Stanford University. 8 p.m.

Dinkelspiel Auditorium, 471 Lagunita Drive., Stanford. General $42-38, $15 for Stanford students. (650) 725-2787. www.stanfordtickets. org/tickets/calendar/view.aspx?id=4465, sarod. com, news.stanford.edu/news/2012/april/sarodmaestro-khan-041812.html.

88 • india currents • june 2012

Sonu Niigaam in concert, June 23

Shakuntala, A Play About Enchantment. Written in the classical Indian

storytelling tradition. Featuring contemporary music by Rudresh Mahanthappa, this production is led by guest director George Drance.

Ends June 9. Organized by SCU Presents. 8 p.m. Louis B. Mayer Theatre, 500 El Camino

Real, Santa Clara. $10-$15. (408) 554-4015.

CPAboxoffice@scu.edu. www.scupresents.org.

June

2 Saturday

20th Anniversary Celebrations at

IC

recommends

Blythe Nora Collier

Growing Up Through the Eyes of The Ramayana

W

ell, it’s that time of year again. By the time you read this, we will have completed auditions, endured allday tech rehearsals and be anticipating the exciting chaos of opening night. As always, emotions will be flying every which way, darting with scattered reactions, and sometimes colliding with startled sparks.

While that’s a core aspect of the experience, that’s not what I want to convey to you today.

I would ask you to close your eyes, but I doubt you would be able to read if you did, so I’m simply going to ask you to focus. Whether you began in preschool or just last year, I’m going to take you through the adventure of performing “Ramayana!” at Mount Madonna School.

You are three years old. Amongst butterflies, bears, frogs, birds and monkeys, you dance in circles. Blinded by the lights, you squint to see your parents in the crowd.

Someone behind you pushes you, a classmate, reminding you it’s time to scurry offstage. As you follow your friends off, you gaze up at the seniors, awestruck by their presence. So it will continue for the next several years.

Nine. The boys and girls separate now. Before the play you wait together. Playing cards, eating pizza, and running away from the mothers who are trying to wipe your greasy fingers with napkins before you damage your costumes. When it comes time to wait backstage, your heart flutters with nerves for the first time when you realize the magnitude of the audience. Whilst listening for your cue, you’re fidgeting. If you’re a boy, you’re playing with your mask: sticking your hands in the eye-holes, making funny faces nobody can see, and squirming in your tight skin. If you’re a girl you’re attempting to slyly readjust your costume so it will look like everyone else. The adults scoff, “You’re not belly dancers!” they say. But you know better. You fix your skirts as a group. There’s nothing they can do about it now!

Ten. Your class gets to use staffs now!

Just like Ram and Lakshman. The gymnasts dance and the guards spar. You know the highschoolers are standing behind you, watching.

This only adds to the exhilaration flooding through your bones. As the song nears its end, you sprint offstage, anxious to change.

Eleven. Your class sits in the assembly room, listening to Sampad talk. All those years before, practice had always been filled with one name: “Let’s make it perfect before we show [Director] Sampad [Kachuck].” Or,

“We’ve got something really wonderful to show Sampad this year!” All those years of preparation, and now he was talking to you before you even began. It’s because it was finally time. Time for you to participate in a scene. To paint your bodies like the big kids.

To practice the Bheel dance and, somehow, pull it off. Time to act!

Twelve. The routine is familiar to that of being a Bheel. Body paint, wraps, scarves, jewelry. Except this time, not only do you get to act, you sing. There are many songs in the “Ramayana!,” and big kids sing them all.

And you and your classmates are amongst them now. You create a river with fabric, just as you’d seen the older students do before, and you participate in a right of passage of singing about feet…and magic dust.

Thirteen. As you become a teenager, your “Ramayana!” experience changes.

Dance auditions. Song Auditions. Scene Auditions. You must face the same set of challenges as the seniors. The years go faster now. You’re tormenting Sita as a demon, you’re slithering around as a lizard, and you might even re-visit the Guha tribe. Maybe you’re a cook, or a spider, or a deer, maybe even a belly dancer or a demonini! You begin to participate in the Invocation. Your voice is one with the high-schoolers, and you watch as the leads join the singing.

Fifteen. High school. Auditions mean more than ever before. And your nerves are at a level you’ve never felt them reach. With these memories in the back of your mind, you leap around as a monkey, you revisit the Bheel Tribe, the Guha tribe again (because traditions are always changing), and Lanka.

You become connected to specific scenes or

songs. Forest. Seashore. Black Sacrifice.

Final Battle. You and your friends speak the lines you’d heard for so long as a child, and the familiar melodies now sound from the lips of you and your close friends.

And that brings us to now.

I’ve tried to articulate our experience to others, to describe our graduation from one character to the next, to explain that the “Ramayana!” is as essential to June, as the Winter Holidays are to December.

While people come and go, the “Ramayana!” continues to live on through the decades. I will be leaving in June, the end of my senior year, but the play will continue just as it has been. That’s strange to me, strange but so right. The “Ramayana!” is a collection of experiences. These exist in one being, yes, painting a student’s years through characters and songs.

But they also reside in one student body, with each individual holding only a portion of the many memories that make up this timeless story. That’s how the “Ramayana!” continues on with the same power each passing year.

Just as Lord Shiva proclaims at the final moment of the performance, so is the experience of participating in this tradition. “Tears of joy well in the eyes to hear once more this song of glory. There is no end to Rama’s story.”n June 8 and 9, 7 p.m.; June 10, 2 p.m. Mexican Heritage Theater, 1700 Alum Rock Ave., San Jose. $35 Adults/$25 Children (18 and under). www.MountMadonnaSchool. org/ramayana india currents • june 2012 • 89

Badarikashrama. A skit by Balasamskara

Kendra, accompained by Anuradha Sridhar (violin), Sriram Brahmanandam (mridangam). Odissi dance, “Suno Bhai Sadho” by the Nataraj School of Dance. Bhajan concert

by Jayanti Sahasrabuddhe, with Vivek Datar (harmonium), Satish Tare (tabla), Prasad Bhandarkar (bansuri), Abhijit Tere (manjira).

Karnatik vocals by Latha Sriram and students.

Lunch and dinner served on both days. Ends June 3. 10:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Badarikashrama, 15602 Maubert Ave., San Leandro. Free. (510) 278-2444. badarik@pacbell.net. www.badarikashrama.org.

Workshop Performance of Burqavaganza.

A love story in the time of jihad, Burqavaganza, is a provocative political satire that uses the burqa as a symbol of a society that thrives on double standards and covering up the truth.

Burqavaganza ruffled a lot of fundamentalist feathers and was banned in Pakistan. It is written by Pakistan’s most prolific and progressive playwright, Shahid Nadeem, cofounder of Ajoka Theatre. Post-show Q & A with playwright, Shahid Nadeem. Organized

by RasaNova Theater and Friends of South Asia. 8 p.m. Shotwell Studios, 3252-A 19th St., San Francisco . $15, $10. (408) 838-0952, (415) 289-2000. info@rasanova.com. www. friendsofsouthasia.org, www.rasanova.com, www. brownpapertickets.com.

June

3 Sunday

Free Mental Math Lesson. This program

is based on simple arithmetic and decimal fundamentals, students will learn math short cuts and tricks. 9 a.m.-12 p.m. MathEdge, 7250 Bark Lane, San Jose. Free. (408) 725-2680. mathedge@gmail.com. www.mathedge.org.

June

5 Tuesday

Death in San Francisco, a dark comedy play (in English), presented to celebrate IC’s 25th Anniversary, June 8, 9, 10

Free Mental Math Lesson. This program is based on simple arithmetic and decimal fundamentals, students will learn math short cuts and tricks. 5-7 p.m. MathEdge, 7250 Bark Lane, San Jose. Free. (408) 7252680. mathedge@gmail.com. www.mathedge. org.

June

7 Thursday

Soul and Symbols of a Delta. Contem-

porary Art from Bangladesh, featuring the work of three acclaimed Bangladeshi artists: Proshanta Karmakar Buddha, Nagarbasi Barman and Kalidas Karmakar. Ends June 17. Organized by Alluvial Arts. 11 a.m.-6 p.m.

SOMArts, 934 Brannan St., San Francisco .

Free. samira@alluvialarts.com. www.alluvialarts.com.

June

8 Friday

India Currents 25th Anniversary. Join us in celebrating India Currents 25th Anniversary with a premiere showing of a dark comedy, “Death in San Francisco.” Complimentary hors d’oeuvres and drinks. Organized by India Currents magazine. 8 p.m. Theater at San Pedro Square, 29 N San Pedro St., San Jose. VIP: $40, general: $30. (408) 324-0488. www.Indiacurrents.com.

June

female trinity, presented by kuchipudi dance teachers Samidha Satyam, Himabindu Challa, Madhuri Kishore and Sunita Pendekanti. Organized by Yuva Bharati.

4-6:30 p.m. Mission Center for Performing Arts, 3250 Monroe St., Santa Clara. General:$10, free for Yuva Bharati members. (650) 565-8859, (408) 248-3301. yuva_bharati@ yahoo.com. www.yuvabharati.org.

India Currents 25th Anniversary. Join us in celebrating India Currents 25th Anniversary with a premiere showing of a dark comedy, “Death in San Francisco.”

Complimentary hors d’oeuvres and drinks.

Organized by India Currents magazine. 8 p.m. Theater at San Pedro Square, 29 N San Pedro St., San Jose. VIP: $40, general: $30.

(408) 324-0488. www.Indiacurrents.com.

My Father Pundit Bhimsen Joshi by Srinivas Joshi. A tribute to his father in

Marathi. Mazya Tumcha Julti Tara, Srinivas will share unique experiences withhis father, clippings and Marathi Abhangs.

Kumar Vishwas, Live in Concert. Koi Deewana Kahita Hai, along with Ramesh Muskaan. Organized by AAA Entertain

9 Saturday

Sangeet Ankur. Promoting Karnatik and Hindustani classical music. Organized by Sangeet Dhwani. 12:30-5 p.m. Divine Science Community Center, 1540 Hicks Ave., San Jose. Free. (408) 733-7442, (408) 394-0554. pradjoshi@gmail.com. ww.sangeetdhwani. wordpress.com.

Kumar Vishwas in concert, June 9 90 • india currents • june 2012

Tridevi. A thematic program celebrating

Workshop performance, Burqavanganza, June 2

Ragamalika Celebrates 20 Years

R

agamalika, an institution established by Asha Ramesh to promote Karnatik music, is gearing up to celebrate its 20th anniversary by staging a production of Alankritham. The daylong event will feature several musical presentations that will help first-timers and seasoned connoisseurs enjoy many facets of Indian classical music at its best.

Alankritham literally means “ornamentation” and the musicians will show aspects of embellishment inherent in the musical

complexity that can be improved upon by succeeding generations of musicians. A musical presentation by senior students celebrating the universality of various musical forms from around the world is next on the agenda. “Music is a form of spontaneous worship in every world religion, and this piece in various genres of world music will bring that truth home to the audience,” says Asha with conviction.

The highlight of the evening will be a presentation by Asha, featuring songs strung together in various ragas, a tribute to the name

Asha Ramesh, Artistic Director, Ragamalika

form. “The whole musical presentation will showcase the school’s 20-year journey, and will feature 45 students of the school. The study of Indian classical music demands rigorous discipline, and the students will present their maturing prowess and musical ability through the various songs. The younger students will show their command of the traditional repertoire while the older students will have an opportunity to show their prowess in kalpana, the highest goal for any aspiring musician,” says Asha Ramesh, Artistic Director, Ragamalika. Asha Ramesh is a stellar musician whose early training under renowned gurus Nanganallur Ramanathan and D K Jayaraman helped her develop a passion and a penchant for excellence that she has endeavored to transmit to her students.

The program is presented in three sections, in the first, young students of the school present the musical format of the varnam, showcasing the musical ornamentation that can be explored here.

They then present their prowess in manodharma or creative exploration by singing krithis composed by the famed trinity of composers-—Thyagaraja, Dikshithar and Syama Sastri. These compositions are about 150 years old, and continue to take center stage in Karnatik music concerts, since they have great lyrical and musical

of her institution, Ragamalika. Every raga in the Karnatik system has a musical scale, with a corresponding melody evoking a range of emotions in listeners, and this finale will help audiences experience a whole range of emotions through melodies sung in a strictly classical tradition.

This 20th year musical celebration celebrates a phenomenon that needs to be applauded—first-generation immigrant artists like Asha have carried on a centuries-old musical tradition with dedication, helping the next generation of students to take pride in their artistic heritage. Asha adds, “Once the student has mastered the technique, then, the challenge is to go deeper into the tradition, using the vertical dimension for artistic exploration.” The 20th year celebration of Ragamalika will indeed showcase the breadth and depth inherent in Indian classical musical compositions.n Saturday, June 16, 1 p.m. McAfee Theatre, Saratoga High School, 20300 Herriman Avenue, Saratoga. $20. (408) 274-3241, (408) 2532816, (408) 255-8526.

india currents • june 2012 • 91

Smita Garg

Bay Area Summer Camps India Currents has compiled a list of summer camps in and around the Bay Area with South Asian themes. They are listed choronologically.

The Banyan Tree Summer Camps

Two weeks of hands-on activity offering a combination of art, music, and gardening in an indoor-outdoor setting. The program is developed with careful research, tailored to each child’s specific needs. Children will learn new techniques to create incredible art projects, all about gardening and composting, and try out various musical instruments. Ages 7-13. July 9-20, 9 am-12 pm.

786 Cascade Dr., San Jose. (408) 372-4059.

Pr_eeti@hotmail.com

Beyond the Box Learning Camps

Taught by creative writers, illustrators, and entrepreneurs, this camp offers a highly interactive program for children and teens. Enroll for the Imagine-Nation Story and Illustration Camp offered for young writers, and Teen Fiction Writing Camp and Teen Entrepreneurs 101 for teenagers. Ages 7-12 (Children’s camp). Aug 6-10, 9 am-3 pm (full day and half day options available). Ages 13-17 (Teen camps). June 18-29 and July 30-Aug 3, 1 pm-4 pm. Several locations in Bay area. (650) 814-7876. www.

BayAreaYoungWriters.com. www.BayAreaTeenWriters.com.

Camp Jano India

Explore and learn about India’s culture, heroes, languages, art, festivals, and cuisine in Camp Jano India. The kids are taken on a theme-based journey of India. Each camp ends with a play in Hindi. Themes for this year are Incredible India, Celebrate India and I Love India. Ages 5-13. June 11- July 27, 9:30 am-4 pm, pre- and post-care available. Several locations in the Bay area. (650) 493-1566. www.janoindia.com.

Chhandam Children’s Summer Camp

An opportunity for children to be immersed in kathak and the holistic teachings of Pandit Chitresh Das, founder of one of the world’s largest Indian classical dance institutions. Students will be immersed in dance technique, storytelling and expression, North Indian classical music, theory, etiquette, history, and rhythmical mathematics, all in a fun and inspiring environ-

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ment. Ages 5-12. June 18- Aug 17, 9am- 3pm.

Week 1 & 2, Mission Dance & Performing Arts, 42068 Osgood Road, Fremont; Week 3, Pacific Ballet Academy, 295B Polaris Ave., Mountain View. (415) 333-9013. chhandam@kathak.org

FUSION Summer Camp 2012

Nine weeks of summer camp centered around themes such as Exploring the Wonders of the World, Engineering, Green Living, through art, craft, culture, music, and food. Camp bonanzas include cricket, dance, theater, cooking, mad science, art, golf, engineering and entrepreneurship.

Also offered are Math, Writing, hands-on Science and language immersion (Spanish, Mandarin and Hindi) classes. Outdoor activities include water play, stretching, and yoga. Ages 5-14. June 18- Aug 13, 9 am- 6 pm (full day) and 9 am-2 pm or 1 pm-6 pm (half day). 940 S. Stelling Rd., Cupertino and 10181 Finch Ave., Cupertino. (408) 5697911. www.fusionafterschool.com.

Imagination Unlimited Science Camp

A camp for preschool and elementary age children that stimulates young minds with hands-on activities linked to the fundamentals of science. Classes tap into the natural interests of children, letting them build, experiment, explore and play in order to learn. Students in elementary grades explore reverse engineering and build contraptions, learn to solder and work with a variety of tools while preschool students perform chemistry experiments in tea cups and explore physics concepts through play.

Ages 4-12. June 18-Aug 13, 9 am-12 pm and 1 pm- 4 pm. Springer Elementary School, 1120 Rose Ave., Mountain View and 801 Hibiscus Lane, San Jose. (408) 482-7316. www. imagination4kids.com.

India Community Center’s Camps

Helping kids grow, learn, and develop, both as individuals and as members of the community. Several camps offered including All About India, Chess, Table Tennis, Bollywood Dance, Seva, Vedic Math, Hindi, Tales of India, Bollyhop, Public Speaking, Folk Dances of India, Science, and Gandhi Camp (an overnight Camp). The camps feature a safe and secure environment as well as intergenerational interaction with seniors and teenage counselors, helping kids

BASS Summer Camp

make new friends and build character. Also available are vegetarian lunches, extended care and after camp enrichment classes. Ages 5-15. June 11-Aug 24, 9 am- 3 pm. ICC Milpitas, 525 Los Coches Street, Milpitas. ICC Table Tennis Center, 1453 N. Milpitas Blvd in Milpitas. ICC Palo Alto, 800 Barron Avenue, Palo Alto. ICC Sunnyvale, 550 East Remington Drive, Sunnyvale. Olema, 9799 State Route 1, Olema, CA. (408) 934-1130, Ext. 225. camps@indiacc.org. www.indiacc.org.

Prajña Samskritam Camp for Youth

Prajña shibiram is a six-day intensive residential youth Samskritam camp. Over the course of six days, participants will practice speaking Samskritam, while gaining an appreciation for the language, ancient Gurukulam tradition, and Indian culture. Activities will include yoga, interactive classes, outdoor games, lectures and presentations, and cultural programs, all through the medium of Samskritam. Ages 12-17. June 17-23. Sunnyvale. (978) 268-8406. prajnaa@samskritabharatiusa.org.

Youth Empowerment Seminar—YES!

This seminar provides teens with a comprehensive toolbox to manage their emotions and stress. The program broadens youth’s vision of the world, provides practical knowledge and skills needed to realize their highest potential and successfully navigate through adolescence. Ages 14-17. June15-18, 6 pm-10 pm (weekdays), 10 am-3 pm (weekends), South San Jose Art of Living Center, 495 Blossom Hill, San Jose, (408) 223-9689; June 22-25, 6.30 pm-10.30 pm (weekdays), 10 am-3 pm (weekends), Art of Living Santa Clara Center, 2368 Walsh Ave, Santa Clara, (408) 3389834. www.artofliving.org/courses.n

Sonya Chalaka Arangetram, June 23

ments. 7 p.m. India Community Center, 525 Los Coches St., Milpitas. $45, $35, $25. (510) 358-6538. www.aaaentertainments.com.

June

10 Sunday

Green Kids Conference. Educating kids and their families on environmental issues, make them aware of available resources and

opportunities, and also to promote, encourage, and reward new innovative ideas. Organized by Green Kids. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Microsoft Silicon Valley Campus, 1065 La Avenida, Bldg.1, Mountain View. info@greenkidsconference.org. greenkidsconference.org.

Jun 15, 8 p.m., Jun 16, 2 p.m., Jun 16, 6 p.m., Jun 17, 2 p.m., Jun 22, 8 p.m., Jun 23, 2 p.m., Jun 23, 6 p.m., Jun 24, 2 p.m. Organized by Naatak. Theater at San Pedro Square, 29 N. San Pedro St., San Jose. $28, $16. (408) 9056831. tickets@naatak.org. www.naatak.org.

Ramayana, A Play. A cast of 200 students perform with traditional costumes. Dancing, live music, and special effects. Organized

by Mount Madonna School. 2 p.m. Mexican Heritage Theater, 1700 Alum Rock Ave., San Jose. $35 adults, $25 (18 and under). (408) 847-2717. school@mountmadonna.org, leighann.clifton@mountmadonna.org. www.

MountMadonnaSchool.org/Ramayana.

Hindustani Vocal Concert. Anupama Chandretreya accompanied by Anand Karva (harmonium).Organized by Sangeetaanjali Institute of Music. 8:30 p.m. Sangeetaanjali Kaksha, 39701 Logan Dr., Fremont. (510) 651-9149. www.sangeetaanjali.org.

India Currents 25th Anniversary. Join us in celebrating India Currents 25th Anniversary with a premiere showing of a dark comedy, “Death in San Francisco.” Complimentary hors d’oeuvres and drinks. Organized by India Currents magazine. 8 p.m. Theater at San Pedro Square, 29 N San Pedro St., San Jose.

VIP: $40, general: $30. (408) 324-0488. www.

Indiacurrents.com.

Alankritham, An Afternnon of Music.

June

16 Saturday

Celebrating a 20-year journey, there are afternoon and evening programs. Organized by Ragamalika School of Music. 1 p.m. Saratoga High School, McAfee Theatre, 20300 Her-

12 Tuesday

Stuffed and Starved: Discrepancies in Global Food Distribution. Activist and

academic Raj Patel will conduct a global investigation to make sense of the world food crisis and describe how “the food system is filled with choices made by a handful of powerful people, in smoke-filled rooms, over the objections of the majority.” Organized

by The Commonwealth Club. 6:30 p.m.

Blue Room, Commonwealth Club Office, 595 Market St., 2nd Floor, San Francisco . $12 members, $20 non-members, $7 students.

(415) 597-6705. www.commonwealthclub.org.

June

14 Thursday

Stuffed and Starved: Discrepancies in Global Food Distribution. Activist and

academic Raj Patel will conduct a global investigation to make sense of the world food crisis and describe how “the food system is filled with choices made by a handful of powerful people, in smoke-filled rooms, over the objections of the majority.” Organized by The Commonwealth Club. 7 p.m. Cubberly Theatre, 4000 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto . $12 members, $20 non-members, $7 students.

(415) 597-6705. www.commonwealthclub.org.

June Tribute to Pundit Bhimsen Joshi, June 9

June

15 Friday

Death in San Francisco, A Play. A quirky comedy in English, written and directed by Sujit Saraf and produced by Asheesh Divetia.

Silver Jubilee, a Gujrati play, June 16

riman Ave., Saratoga. $20. (408) 274-3241, (408) 255-8526, (408) 253-2816.

Spring Recital. Stories of Dasavatharam by Artistic Director Sundara Swaminathan. Accompanied by V. Venugopal (vocal), Sakthivel Muruganandan (mridangam) N.Sigamani (violin), S. Sunil Kumar (flute). Organized

by Kala Vandana Dance Company. 3:30 p.m.

Mexican Heritage Theater, 1700 Alum Rock Ave., San Jose. $25, $20. kalavandana@yahoo. com. kalavandana.smartpick.com.

Hindustani Classical Raga. Binay Pathak (vocal) and Danny Birch (sarod) in a concert.

Accompanied by Mohammed Atiq Rafiqzada (vocal) and Sohini Sangeet Academy students, Maanibha Sengupta, india currents • june 2012 • 93

Indian Films Showcased at LGBT Film Festival

A

s the world’s oldest and largest LGBT Film Festival, Frameline36 shares transformative stories through groundbreaking documentaries, entertaining features, touching short films, and cinematic classics. This year’s festival will showcase films from more than 30 countries including two films from India. Adele Tulli’s film 365 without 377 will be preceded by a short film, The Queen of my Dreams, by Fawzia Mirza and Ryan Logan. For tickets visit www.frameline.org.

365 without 377

Ujjwal Chowdhury and Jay Nair (vocal), Joe Fajen and Ahmad Siar Haseq (tabla).

Organized by Sohini Sangeet Academy.

5-7 p.m. Folsom Indian Community Center, 196 Blue Ravine Road, Suite 120, Folsom.

Free. (916) 217-3259, (916) 995-6499, (916) 920-3259. music@sohinisangeet.org. www. sohinisangeet.org..

Silver Jubilee, A Play. A romantic comedy in Gujarati, with Kajal Oza Vaidya. Organized by AAA Entertainments and Jagruti.

7-10 p.m. Carrington Hall, Sequoia High School, 1201 Brewster Ave, Redwood City. $75-$25. (510) 789-9350, (510) 648-0596. jagruti@gmail.com. www.aaaentertainments. com.

Prabhrti: A Karnatik Music Concert.

Priyasundari Natarajan, Pavithra Nagarajan, Pranav Nagarajan, and Maithreyi ragunathan (vocal), Sundar Srinivasan (violin), Govind Thattai (mrudangam). 6:30 p.m.

Shruthi Swara Laya, 3273, Seldon Court, Fremont. (510) 552-5824. www.sruthiswaralaya.com.

Imposed under the British colonial rule in 1860, Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code criminalized any sexual acts between consenting adults of the same sex, stigmatizing them as “against the order of nature.” On July 2, 2009 the Delhi High Court passed a landmark judgment repealing this clause, thus fulfilling the most basic demand of the Indian LGBTQ community, which had been fighting this law for the past 10 years. The film documents the diverse lives of three members of Mumbai’s LGBT community, Beena, Pallav and Abheena, who travel through the city heading to the celebrations for the first anniversary of the historic verdict.

Through the personal stories and struggles of the three protagonists the film explores the reality of living a queer identity in today’s India, between traditions and changes. 365 without 377 is the story of their journey towards freedom.

Queen of my Dreams

60th Anniversary Gala Concert. Pianist Jon Nakamtsu returns to perform. SJYS orchestras, ensembles and alumni will join the Philharmonic Orchestra in a concluding side-by-side performance. Organized by San Jose Youth Symphony. 7:30 p.m. Flint Center, 21250 Stevens Creek Blvd. Cupertino.

General, $30, students/seniors/children $20.

(408) 885-9220. sjys.org.

June

17 Sunday

Natana Arpana, An Offering of Dance.

A fundraiser for Shiva Murugan temple by Abhinaya Dance Company students. Organized by Abhinaya Dance Company. 4 p.m.

Cubberly Community Center Theater, 4000 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. $12, $10 for 2 or more tickets. (408) 871-5959. abdanceco@ gmail.com. abhinaya.org.

Growing up, Fawzia Mirza dreamt of being the epitome of the Bollywood woman, Sharmila Tagore—a long-haired goddess with jet-black hair who can sing like a bird and make men swoon. Inspired by one of her favorite songs as a child, “Mere Sapnon Ki Rani” (The Queen of My Dreams) from the film, Aradhana, she looks back on growing up, struggling to come out as queer, and realizing she no longer has to weigh her dreams against those that were prefabricated for her… she can construct her own. The Queen of My Dreams is a docu-narrative experimental short, an exploration of the intersection of the writer’s worlds: Bollywood, Drag, Queer. This short film plays before 365 without 377.n Friday, June 15, 7:15 p.m. In Hindi and English with English subtitles. Runtime: 53 mins. Roxie Theater, 3117 16th Street, San Francisco.

94 • india currents • june 2012

Namo Gurjari Namostute. A musical ballet performance with 30 artists with live music, singing and dancing. Commemorating 50 years of “Swarnim” Gujarat celebrations touching its rich history of religious, cultural and festivals. Organized by BAYVP. 4:30-7:30 p.m. Chabot College Performing Arts, 25555 Hesperian Blvd., Hayward. $20,$35,$55,$75. (408) 586-0006. mita. bayvp@gmail.com. www.bayvp.org.

June

18 Monday

Digital Media Academy. Classes in game creation, digital film making and graphic art. Ends June 22. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Nirimitee

Shoba Varma

Shefali Venkatramani

Saturday, June 23, 2012 • 4 pm Venue: McAfee

Sunday, Aug. 12, 2012 • 3:30 pm Venue: Cubberly

Sindhu Majeti

Sunday, July 1st, 2012 • 4 pm Venue: McAfee

Priyanka Raghavan

Shruti Sridhar

Sunday, August 19, 2012 • 3:30 pm Venue: McAfee

Akshata Chonnad

Saturday, July 7, 2012 • 4 pm Venue: McAfee

Saturday, August 25th 2012 • 4:00 pm Venue: Cubberly

Pooja Nerkar

Vibha Raju

Sunday, July 8, 2012 • 4 pm Venue: McAfee

Sunday, August 26th, 2012 • 3:30 pm Venue: McAfee

Shruthi Shyam

Saturday, July 14, 2012 • 4 pm Venue: Albert and Janet Schultz Theater, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto, CA 94303

Chaitra Subbarao

Saturday, July 21, 2012 • 4 pm Venue: McAfee

Kaniyaa Francis

Saturday, September 1, 2012 • 4:00 pm Venue: McAfee

Apoorva Paranthaman

Sunday, September 2nd 2012 • 3.30 pm Venue: Cubberly

Usha Srinivasan & Urmila Vudali Saturday September 15, 2012 • 4:00 PM Venue: McAfee

.Alisha Kumar

Saturday, July 28, 2012 • 4 pm Venue: McAfee

Sreya Guha

Sunday, August 5, 2012 • 4 pm Venue: McAfee THEATER ADDRESSES: McAfee: McAfee Performing Arts Center 20300 Herriman Avenue, Saratoga, CA Cubberly: Cubberly Theater 4000 Middlefield Rd., Palo Alto, CA

Sarayu Pai

Saturday Sept 22, 2012 • 4 pm Venue: McAfee

Sankara Eye Foundation Presents

The Radiance - Bharatanatyam Dance Fusion

Varunika Raja, Meghna Chakraborty, Poorvi Satya, Mounika Narayanan and Ishana Narayanan

Sunday, Sept 23, 2012 • 4 pm

Venue: McAfee

india currents • june 2012 • 95

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india currents • june 2012 • 97

Bharatanatyam Arangetrams

Clockwise from left. Radhika Roach, June 30; Tanvi Jayaraman, June 24; Kiran Long-Iyer, July 1; Mathangi Sankaran, June 23.

Tutorials, 4460 Black Ave.,Suite C/D, Pleasanton. (510) 364-1953, (408) 781-2835, (925) 485-3791. manjum@nirmiteetutorials.com, rekhajoshi@nirmiteetutorials.com. nirmiteetutorials.com/dma.html.

Math Edge Summer Camp. A week-

long Problem Solving and Contest Training morning camps and English writing afternoon camps. Each day includes lecture, fun puzzles, exercises, and contest. Awards for contest are presented at the end of each week. Ends July 20. Organized by Math Edge.

Cupertino Site, 7250 Bark Lane, San Jose. mathedge@gmail.com.

June

22 Friday

Saratoga’s Got Talent. Annual talent competition, raising funds for Saratoga senior center. 7-10:30 p.m. Saratoga Communtiy Center, 19655 Allendale Ave., Saratoga. rishi@rishikumar.com. www.saratogatalent. weebly.com.

June

23 Saturday

Students’ Showcase. The students of

NikNat School of Music will present Hindustani classical ragas along with Bollywood music. Organized by Nikita Parikh. 2-5 p.m.

Milpitas Library Auditorium, 160 N. Main St., Milpitas. Free. info@niknatmusic.com. www.niknatmusic.com.

Bharatanatyam Arangetram of Shoba Varma. Student of Vishal Ramani, Artistic Director of Shri Krupa Dance Compnay. 4 p.m. McAfee Center, Saratoga High School, 20300 Herriman Ave., Saratoga. Free. (408) 461-0607. www.shrikrupa.org.

Bharatanatyam Arangetram of Smathangi Sankaran. Student of Kather-

ine Kunhiraman, Artistic Director of Kalanjali: Dances of India. 3 p.m. Miramonte High Namo Gujari Naostute, a musical performance, June 17 School Theater, 750 Moraga Way, Orinda.

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(925) 348-1141. sowmithra@hotmail.com.

Bharatanatyam Arangetram of Sonya Chalaka. Student of Indumathy Ganesh,

Artistic Director of Nrithyollasa Dance Academy, accompanied by Indumathy Ganesh (nattuvangam), Asha Ramesh (vocal), N.Narayan (mridangam), Shanthi Narayan (violin). Organized by Nrithyollasa Dance Academy. 4-7 p.m. Jackson Theater, Ohlone College, 43600 Mission Blvd., Fremont. Free.

(510) 623-8230, (408) 568-1082. info@ nldance.com. www.nldance.com.

Bharatanatyam Arangetram of Sruti Mamidanna. Student of Sundara Swamina-

than, Artistic Director, Kala Vandana Dance Company. Accompanied by V. Venugopal (vocal), Sakthivel Muruganandan (mridangam) N.Sigamani (violin), S. Sunil Kumar (flute).

Organized by Kala Vandana Dance Company.

4 p.m. Mexican Heritage Theater, 1700 Alum Rock Ave., San Jose. Free. kalavandana@ yahoo.com. kalavandana.smartpick.com.

Sonu Niigam, Live in Concert. Organized

by Sankara aEye Foundation. 7:30 p.m. San Jose State University Event Center, 290 South 7th St., San Jose. $99, $79, $69. (408) 6580191. www.giftofvision.org.

June

24 Sunday

Bharatanatyam Arangetrams

Auditorium, 722 South Main St., Milpitas.

Free for Basant Bahar members. $25 for non members. (408) 531-1101, (408) 390-7094. contact@basantbahar.org, jbhargavan@ gmail.com, jbhargavan@gmail.com. www. basantbahar.org.

July

1 Sunday

Bharatanatyam Arangetram of Shreya Chandrashekhar. Student of Sundara

Swaminathan, Artistic Director, Kala Vandana Dance Company. Accompanied by V. Venugopal (vocal), Sakthivel Muruganandan (mridangam) N.Sigamani (violin), S. Sunil Kumar (flute). Organized by Kala Vandana Dance Company. 4 p.m. Louis B. Mayer Theater, Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara. Free. kalavandana@yahoo.com. kalavandana.smartpick. com.

Sindhu Majeti, July 1; Priyanka Raghavan, July 7; Shoba Varma, June 23.

Indian Vocal Music Concert. By Sri

Bharatanatyam Arangetram of Somya Sinha. Student of Bindu Shankar, Artistic

Karunamayee, offered in memory of Haridas and Bina Chaudhuri. 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

Cultural Integration Fellowship, 2650 Fulton St. (at 3rd Ave.) San Francisco. Free. (415) 668-1559. culturalfellowship@sbcglobal.net. www.culturalintegrationfellowship.org.

Director of Vrindavan Indian Dance Academy. 4 p.m. San Ramon Performing Arts Center, 10550 Albion Rd., San Ramon.

(925) 556-9433.

Bharatanatyam Arangetram of Tanvi Jayaraman. Student of Katherine Kunhira-

Bharatanatyam Arangetram of Kiran Long-Iyer. Student of Katherine Kunhira-

man, Artistic Director of Kalanjali: Dances of India. 3 p.m. Rosemont High School Theater.

9594 Kifer Blvd., Sacramento. tanvi1994@ yahoo.com.

June

25 Monday

Samskritam Summer Day Camp. Sam-

skritam learning along with art and crafts, yoga, vedic math, shlokas and stories. Ends June 29. Organized by Samaskrita Bharati.

9 a.m.-5 p.m. Sri Maha Kaleshwar Mandir, 2344-A Walsh Ave., BLDG. F,Santa Clara Commerce Park, Santa Clara. (408) 6852540. sanjose@samskritabharatiusa.org. www. samskritabharatiusa.org.

June

30 Saturday

Bharatanatyam Arangetram of Samyuktha Sridhar. Daughter and student of Artistic Director Vidhya Subramanian, of Lasya Dance Company. Organized by Lasya Dance Company. 4 p.m. McAfee Center, Saratoga High School, 20300 Herriman Ave., Saratoga.

Free. (408) 257-7300. vivekvidhya2001@ yahoo.com. http://www.Lasya.org.

man, Artistic Director of Kalanjali: Dances of India. 3 p.m. Rosemont High School Theater. 9594 Kifer Blvd., Sacramento. kiransarangetram@gmail.com.

Bharatanatyam Arangetram of Sindhu Majeti. Student of Artistic Director Vishal

Ramani, Artistic Director of Shri Krupa Dance Company. 4 p.m. McAfee Center, Saratoga High School, 20300 Herriman Ave., Saratoga. Free. (408) 461-0607. www. shrikrupa.org.

Bharatanatyam Arangetram of Sririsha Prayaga. Student of Usha Narayan, Artistic Director of Sarvaguna. 4 p.m. Cubberley Theater, 4000 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto.

(510) 364-6995. seshi_usha@yahoo.com.

Guru Poornima Celebration. Students of Gurukul celebrate Pandit Habib Khan

Bharatanatyam Arangetram of Radhika Roach. Student of Katherine

Kunhiraman, Artistic Director of Kalanjali: Dances of India. 3 p.m. Benicia High School, Hayley Horn Auditorium. 1101 Military West, Benecia. (707) 297-6702. mrpsrr@comcast.com.

Bharathanatyam Arangetram of Sonya Ragothaman. Student of Sundara

Swaminathan, Artistic Director of Kala Vandana Dance Company. Accompanied

by V. Venugopal (vocal), Sakthivel Muruganandan (mridangam) N.Sigamani (violin), S. Sunil Kumar (flute). Organized by Kala Vandana Dance Company. 4 p.m. Louis B. Mayer Theater, Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara. Free. (408) 930-3369. shobanajb@gmail.com. www. kalavandana.org..

Vocal Recital by Sanhita Nandi. Hin-

dustani classical vocal of Kirana gharana in the khayal and thumri genre. Organized by Basant Bahar. 5:30-8:30 p.m. Jain Temple

Sirisha Prayaga Arangetram, July 1 india currents • june 2012 • 99

Bharatanatyam Arangetrams

Clockwise from bottom left: Sruti Mamidanna, June 23; Sanjana Ramachandran, July 8; Sonya Ragothaman, June 30; Shreya Chandrashekhar, July 1; Shreya Sreekantaswamy, June 23; Arathi Kodiyalam, July 7.

performs. Organized by Habib Khan Saraswati Temple and Gurukul. 2 p.m. Gold Medow Ct., San Jose. (650) 255-9752. habibkhan@ comcast.com.

July

7 Saturday

Bharatanatyam Arangetram of Aarthi Kodiyalam. Student of Sundara Swamina-

than, Artistic Director, Kala Vandana Dance Company. Accompanied by V. Venugopal (vocal), Sakthivel Muruganandan (mridangam) N.Sigamani (violin), S. Sunil Kumar (flute).

Organized by Kala Vandana Dance Company.

4 p.m. Louis B. Mayer Theater, Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara.

Free. kalavandana@yahoo.com. kalavandana. smartpick.com.

Bharatanatyam Arangetram of Priyanka Raghvan. Student of Vishal Ramani, Artistic

Director of Shri Krupa Dance Compnay. 4 p.m. McAfee Center, Saratoga High School, 20300 Herriman Ave., Saratoga. Free. (408) 461-0607. www.shrikrupa.org.

July

8 Sunday

Bharatanatyam Arangetram of Sanjana Ramachandran. Student of Sundara Swaminathan, Artistic Director, Kala Van-

100 • india currents • june 2012

dana Dance Company. Accompanied by V. Venugopal (vocal), Sakthivel Muruganandan (mridangam) N.Sigamani (violin), S. Sunil Kumar (flute). Ends July 8. Organized by Kala Vandana Dance Company. 4 p.m. Louis B. Mayer Theater, Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara. Free. kalavandana@yahoo.com. kalavandana.smartpick. com.

July

9 Monday

Samskritam Summer Camp. Samskritam

learning along with art and crafts, yoga, vedic math, shlokas and stories. Ends July 13. Organized by Samaskrita Bharati. 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

Comfort Inn and Suites, 5977 Mowry Ave., Newark. (408) 685-2540. sanjose@samskritabharatiusa.org. www.samskritabharatiusa.org.

July

14 Monday

Bharatanatyam Arangetram of Neha Reddy. Student of Bindu Shankar, Artis-

tic Director of Vrindavan Indian Dance Academy. 4 p.m. San Ramon Performing Arts Center, 10550 Albion Rd., San Ramon. (925) 875-9521.

July

15 Sunday

Nrityamala, A Garland of Dance. An

odissi recital by Jyoti Rout accompanied by dancers of Jyoti Kala Mandir. 4 p.m. Woodside High School Theatre, 199 Churchill Ave., Woodside. $18, $15 (advance). jrout1@gmail. com, jyotikalamandir@gmail.com. jyotikalamadir.org.

Share your stories on health with India Currents readers!

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Michelle Baird

Disciplined Artistry, Transcendent Choreography

W

hat does it mean to be part of the 2012 Ethnic Dance Festival in San Francisco? “Being chosen for an encore is strong validation and very special” replies Shreelata Suresh, Artistic Director and choreographer for Vishwa Shanthi Dance Academy. Hundreds of companies auditioned for the opportunity to dance in the festival, and only thirty companies were chosen. For Charlotte Moraga, Chhandam Youth Dance Company Director, it’s an exciting challenge, “the most dancers, the youngest dancers, and the most challenging

Dancers from Vishwa Shanthi Dance Academy

with twenty-eight dancers between the age of 8 and 17. The inspiration for this kathak piece was playing with rhythm and taal.

Moraga reveals that the first half of the performance was inspired by a Sunday session between Pandit Chitresh Das and the youth company, “he asked them to play manjira and recite the teental theka while they did this incredibly fast and complicated footwork, he added some choreography that included movement across the stage and voila, we’ve got an incredibly dynamic piece, all a capella.” The second half of the piece features a short tarana in Raag Malkauns.

The Abhinaya Dance Company is presenting a joint piece with San Jose Taiko entitled Synergy. Kumar describes it as “a lively conversation between Abhinaya’s bharatanatyam dancers and San Jose Taiko’s performers. We play with several rhythms, exchanging moves and ideas all the while staying true to our respective genres.” The resulting choreography is not fusion, but a conversation between two art forms. Working closely with Franco Imperial, Artistic Director of San Jose Taiko, Kumar explores rhythmic patters common to both bharatanatyam and taiko. “The inspiration behind this item was a vision of taiko performers awakening dancing spirits with their drums. The drum sounds and the dancers are then linked from the very beginning and there is an element of playfulness and whimsy that pervades the piece.”

The preparation for all three dance companies is intense. As Pandit Chitresh Das says, “freedom comes from refined discipline with responsibility.” Kumar stresses, “it’s very important to me that all the dancers not only perform the movements in synchronization but also that they embody the spirit of the item in their dance… that playfulness and lightness.” Suresh explains, “the audience should look for clean lines formed by the

piece yet to be shown by us at the Ethnic Dance Festival.” This year’s festival highlights companies with the greatest critical acclaim from previous seasons.“We were lucky to be selected for the 2011 festival for this very item, and they are inviting us back,” says Rasika Kumar, Artistic Director for Abhinaya Dance Company.

This year Vishwa Shanthi Dance Academy is presenting a piece entitled Poorthi or Fulfillment. Suresh explains, “we promote the tradition that bharatanatyam is a form of worship of the divine as was the case thousands of years ago.” Poorthi is inspired by the story of 12th century ruler of Karnataka, and the dance tells the story of his wife, Shatala Devi. She offers her dance to Vishnu and Shiva in the king’s incomplete dance hall, awakening nine stone sculptures into dance. At the conclusion of the performance the queen becomes the tenth sculpture, completing the temple. Suresh has created flowing, dynamic formations that unfurl the story on stage before the audience. When “the queen finishes the performance by becoming the tenth sculpture [it] signifies complete surrender and reunification of her soul with the divine.”

The Chhandam Youth Dance Company is performing a world premier at the festival Dancers from Abhinaya Dance Company and San Jose Taiko

Dancer from Chhandam Youth Dance Company

limbs and bodies of the dancers, the symmetry of the dancers matching the mathematical patterns of the drum beats, and the joy with which we will be dancing.”

This disciple and devotion, Suresh believes, results in not only flawless performances but also personal development.

“After years of intense practice, the student discovers the dancer within herself.

The complete surrender of the artist to the art brings immense joy.” Moraga concurs, “it’s a vehicle for self-expression and experiencing ultimate joy. Pandit Chitresh Das has a saying, ‘Kathak is like an eight-course Bengali meal. Bollywood is potato chips.’ The world can appreciate and relate to Bollywood, but kathak can be just as exciting and entertaining, and people should understand what goes into a classical art.” During this Ethnic Dance Festival it’s clearly time to leave the potato chips in the bag and experience the discipline and exhilaration of three Indian dance companies committed to artistic tradition.n Chhandam Youth Dance Company: June 16, 3 p.m. and 8 p.m., June 17, 3 p.m Vishwa Shanthi Dance Academy: June 23, 3 p.m. and 8 p.m., June 24, 3 p.m Abhinaya Dance Company: June 30, 3 p.m. and 8 p.m., July 1, 3 p.m Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission Street, San Francisco. $18. www.worldartswest.org.

india currents • june 2012 • 101

Soul and Symbols of a Delta

I

n the last decade, contemporary art from Bangladesh has grown tremendously in exposure and recognition across Asia and Europe. As the first curated show of contemporary Bangladeshi art to be exhibited in California this is an opportunity to experience firsthand an emerging form of art that interprets and reclaims ancient artistic traditions of the Bengal in today’s context.

The inaugural show will feature the work of three acclaimed Bangladeshi artists: Proshanta Karmakar Buddha, Nagarbasi Barman and Kalidas Karmakar.

The show explores the multifaceted relationship between earth, struggle and hope that is so central to the experience of the Bengal region. Borne out of the waters of the world’s largest delta, the story of the Bengal is the history of a people whose experience of the sensual, subconscious and supernatural domains has long rested on the precarious nature of earthly elements. Since its independence from Pakistan in 1971, tumultuous political change and vast urbanization in Bangladesh have slowly replaced the whims of nature as the most influential forces of change across this historically agrarian landscape.

These new transformations have urged the people to contemplate their spirituality and subconscious in new ways, to reflect on the current state of their lives and their potential for the future, and to achieve a new

Kalidas’ Cover Image 102 • india currents • june 2012

Proshanta’s Modern Medicine

serenity— a new perspective that is fresh and full of hope, on their position and role in a globalized world.

The works of the artists present different faces of the Bengali psyche, reflecting both the subliminal experience of dreams and other layers of the human subconsious (our fears, fantasies, spiritual and moral beliefs), as well as the dynamism of human exchange with the outside world, including government, healthcare, village and family structure, and the environment. For instance, in Nagarbasi’s intricate etchings of the day’s catch, one feels the struggle and bewilderment of fisherman searching for change. It is this very equilibrium that is conveyed in Kalidas’ mixed media creations, as he uses mud and stone to create symbolic representations of the relationship between struggle and hope, and the interdependence of chaos and order in nature, civilization and the human psyche. Proshanta depicts a poetic simplicity in his silk screen prints, recasting familiar images of Bangladesh in a fresh and uncluttered aesthetic, as subtle reference to an emerging place, people and identity. Together, the works of these three artists communicate the complex narratives of a society in flux — of a changing identity that is embracing modernity while staying rooted in the earth that gives it life.

The works on display range from midsized etchings, silk screen prints and mixed media on handmade, Japanese Washi paper, to large-­scale oil and acrylic paintings on

canvas. The diversity of medium, style and inspiration offers a small taste of the rich and multidimensional contemporary art of Bangladesh, and of the soul and imagination of its artists.n Opening reception, June 7, 5:30-7:30 p.m.

June 7-17, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. SOMArts, 934 Brannan Street, San Francisco. www.alluvialarts.com.

Nagarbasi’s Yellow Fish

IC

reflections

Joe Samagond

Morality, Independent of Religion

W

hen asked for his view on morality, Albert Camus, the French philosopher offered a simple answer—“If someone told me to write a book on morality, it would have a hundred pages and ninety-nine of them would be blank.

On the last page I would write, ‘I recognize only one duty and that is to love.’ And as far as everything else is concerned, I say no.”

I thought about the simplicity and clarity of his thinking because one often hears the convoluted observation that without belief in God or a deep dedication to religion there is no basis for morality and that society would disintegrate. From what I have observed and distilled during my life, I respectfully disagree because it is very clear to me that neither plays a driving role in morality. Humans are intrinsically well intentioned and designed to do good with a steady moral compass. Our sense of right and wrong is hardwired into us.

Religion can play a supporting role by reinforcing human nature but it is not the origin of morality. Morality actually has a Darwinian explanation: altruistic genes, selected through the process of evolution, give people natural empathy. If one asks, “Would you commit murder, theft or rape if you knew that no God existed?” Very few people would answer “yes”, undermining the claim that religion or belief in God is needed to ensure moral behavior. And this value is not uniquely human. Scientists have compiled evidence from around the world that suggest that many different species of animals appear to have an innate sense of fairness and display empathy to help other animals that are in distress.

Does that mean every human being is intrinsically good, and will behave with decency and moral rectitude forever? Absolutely not. My point is that we are inclined to be moral and have a good running start but some of us can get misdirected.

While religion has the power to do good and often does, history is replete with outrageous examples of religion-inspired violence and mayhem. Where was morality in the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Thirty Year War and the Indo-Pak partition? Was morality hiding in Ahmedabad and Godhra in 2003 and in New York in September 2011? And what holds back the moral sense amidst the ongoing Middle East violence or made it look the other way

during the pogrom in Bosnia, the ethnic cleansing in Rwanda and the horrors of the Holocaust? I say religion has a lot of ‘splainin to do.

Can one, then, come to the conclusion that religious people are primarily immoral and deceitful? Of course not. Most religious people are also inherently decent. In fact, religion inherits its moral DNA from human nature. Socrates characterized it as his daemon—an inner voice that stopped him when he was trying to take advantage of someone. Each of us has this internal voice or compass. It can be twisted and modified by circumstance but that is not the norm.

I have observed and practiced religion during my life. I have also questioned its goals and values.

After years of being either religious or agnostic, I have come to conclude that that religion is a at its core false platform that is mostly based on fiction, greed, and imagination. It does a very good job of creating a false sense of calm and peace and taking credit for morality, which is actually a very human trait.

Organized religion is a powerful force that can subdue dissent and rational thinking and lull people into a false sense of morality. But what does morality actually mean? Morality means different things to different people.

While it resides within a narrow spectrum of common definition, individuals can emphasize one part of it over another. It can mean honesty, fidelity, rules of conduct, personal values, representation of one’s character or a system of beliefs. Morality can refer to the “rightness, wrongness, goodness, or badness” of our actions. Some people also measure it relative to the context one lives in. What does it mean to be moral in war-ravaged Bosnia or Rwanda versus peaceful Los Angeles or Chennai or Paris? I believe that morality needs to stand on its own and independent of any philosophy or point of view, geography and time and most certainly with no attachment to religion. Can religion advance

human morality? Absolutely. Religions can play such a role by delivering sermons, promoting morality, and engendering a spirit of community.

Physicist Steve Weinberg opined – “With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” That is no basis for morality. Religion does not drive morality and has often given cover to immoral behaviors. Humans are inherently decent and moral and left to themselves and guided by rational thinking, very capable of hewing to a consistent and sensible moral path. It is our own nature, not religious guidance that is the source of our species’ morality.n Jawahar “Joe” Samagond is a technology communications professional based in Northern California. Originally from Bombay, India he has spent time on both coasts (Boston and San Francisco). He is an avid reader and serves on the Fremont Library Advisory Commission. He is interested in global politics, science and social trends. More about his thoughts at http:// joes9.wordpress.com.

india currents • june 2012 • 103

IC June

spirituality and health

1 Friday

Sanskrit Studies. Deepen your under-

standing of ancient Sanskrit texts with Sanskrit scholar and author Ram Karan Sharma.

Presentations of the texts will incorporate translation, grammar and philosophy. Ends July 9. Organized by Yoga Society of San Francisco. Sanskrit Hall, 2872 Folsom St., San Francisco. Tuition:drop in $20 or 6 classes for $108. (415) 285-5537. yssfyoga@ gmail.com. www.yssf.com.

Maha Kumbhabhishekam. Chandi Homa for inauguration of the new temple. 9 a.m.1:30 p.m. Balaji Temple, 5004 N, 1st St., San Jose. Free. (408) 203-1036. balajitemple1@ gmail.com. www.balajitemple.net.

Satsang with Amma, June 6-13

Ramana Darshanam. Passages are read aloud, and their meanings are explained in detail. Dialogues occur when aspirants raise questions from their own practices and receive answers. 8-9:30 p.m. Society of Abidance in Truth (SAT), 1834 Ocean St., Santa Cruz. Free. (831)425-7287. sat@cruzio.com. www.satramana.org.

June

Ayurveda and Spirituality. Discover your

Maha Kumbhabhishekam. Balaji Temple,

inner source of wisdom and healing as you explore the spiritual nature of Ayurveda with Vasant Lad as your inspired guide.

Ends June 3. Organized by College of Ayurveda. Mount Madonna Center, 445 Summit Road, Watsonville. $260, plus meals-lodging fees. (408) 846-4060. info@mountmadonnainstitute.org. www.mountmadonnainstitute.org.

June

2 Saturday

Maha Kumbhabhishekam. Sri Ekadasi Rudra Homa for opening of the new temple.

9 a.m. Balaji Temple, 5004 N, 1st St., San Jose. Ffree. (408) 203-1036. balajitemple1@ gmail.com. www.balajitemple.net.

Venkateswara Abhishekha. 4 p.m. Sri

Lakshmi Ganapathi Temple. 32B Rancho Drive, San Jose. (408) 226-3600. www.vvgc. org. www.siliconvalleyhindutemple.com.

20th Anniversary Celebrations at Badarikashrama. A skit by Balasamskara

Kendra, accompained by Anuradha Sridhar (violin), Sriram Brahmanandam (mridangam). Odissi Dance, “Suno Bhai Sadho” by the Nataraj School of Dance. Bhajan concert by Jayanti Sahasrabuddhe, with Vivek Datar (harmonium), Satish Tare (tabla), Prasad Bhandarkar (bansuri), Abhijit Tere (manjira). KarnatiK vocals by Latha Sriram

104 • india currents • june 2012

and students. Lunch and dinner served on both days. Ends June 3. 10:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

Badarikashrama, 15602 Maubert Ave., San Leandro. Free. (510) 278-2444. badarik@pacbell.net. www.badarikashrama.org.

3 Sunday

5004 N, 1st St., San Jose. Free. (408) 2031036. balajitemple1@gmail.com. www.balajitemple.net.

Sri Lakshmi Ganapathi Abhishekha.

4 p.m. Sri Lakshmi Ganapathi Temple. 32B Rancho Drive, San Jose. (408) 226-3600. www. vvgc.org. www.siliconvalleyhindutemple.com.

The Universe: God’s Cosmic Dream.

Inspirational Services. Self Realization

Fellowship. SRF Center, 303 E. Main Street, Los Gatos. (408) 252-5299. SRF Center, 4513 North Ave., Sacremento. (916) 483-9644.

Berkeley temple, 3201 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley.

(510) 984-0084. www.yogananda-srf.org.

Visakam Celebration. Shiva Murugan

Temple. 1803 Second St., Concord. (925) 8270127. https://www.shivamurugantemple.org.

June

6 Wednesday

Maha Kumbhabhishekam. Auspicious

occasion of inauguration of the newly built Balaji Temple with MahaKumbhabhishekam.

Balaji Temple, 5004 N 1st St., San Jose. (408) 203-1036. balajitemple1@gmail.com. www.

Balajitemple1.net.

Satsang with Amma. There are two programs each day, during the day, at 10 a.m.

and the evening, at 7:30 p.m. During these programs all are welcome to come and meet Amma and receive her darshan. Ends June 13.

Mata Amritanandamayi Center, 10200 Crow Canyon Road, Castro Valley. Free. (510) 5379417. macenter@ammachi.org. www.amma.org.

Sankasta Hara Chaturthi. Sri Ganesha

abhishekam. 8:30 p.m. Balaji Temple, 5004 N, 1st St., San Jose. Free. (408) 203-1036. balajitemple1@gmail.com. www.balajitemple.net.

June

8 Friday

Self-inquiry Meditation. Instruction by Nome, silent meditation, and dialogues.

8-9:30 p.m. Society of Abidance in Truth (SAT), 1834 Ocean St., Santa Cruz. Free.

(831) 425-7287. sat@cruzio.com. www.satramana.org.

June

9 Saturday

Sri Sundarakaanda Ramayana of Sri Tulasidas Gowswami. Group singing, fol-

lowed by aarati and mahaprasad. Organized

by Badarikashrama. 2:30-5:30 p.m. Badarikashrama, 15602 Maubert Ave.,San Leandro. Free.

(510) 278-2444. badarik@pacbell.net. www. badarikashrama.org.

Sri Venkateswara Abhishekha. 4 p.m.

Sri Lakshmi Ganapathi Temple. 32B Rancho Drive, San Jose. (408) 226-3600. www.vvgc.org. www.siliconvalleyhindutemple.com.

Samskriti Shiksha’s Annual Program.

Daily prayers and bhajans, followed by a cultural program and a mythological play. Consul General of India, N. Parthasarathi is the the

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June

16 Saturday

Success Through the Breath Workshop.

In this workshop, Shri Anandi Ma discusses this ancient science of breath and provide tips for increasing the probability of success.

Organized by Dhyanyoga Centers. 9:30 a.m.1 p.m. Dhyanyoga Center, 3306 Contra Loma Blvd., Antioch. $61. (925) 779-9660. info@ dyc.org. www.dycantioch.org.

Sri Venkateswara Abhishekha. 4 p.m.

Sri Lakshmi Ganapathi Temple. 32B Rancho Drive, San Jose. (408) 226-3600. www.vvgc. org. www.siliconvalleyhindutemple.com.

Bhajans to Divine Mother. Group sing-

ing of bhajans, followed by aarati and mahaprasad. 2:30-5:30 p.m. Badarikashrama, 15602 Maubert Ave., San Leandro. Free.

(510) 278-2444. badarik@pacbell.net. www. badarikashrama.

Maha Pradosham Rudrabhishekam.

Swami Viditatmananda talks on Bhagwad Gita, June 18-21

Chief Guest. Organized by Bala Samskriti Sikha. 4:30 p.m. Sanatan Dharma Kendra, 897 Kifer Road., Sunnyvale.

June

10 Sunday

Lecture on Chandra Sadhana:Moon Practice. Mukt Mukt will discuss the ben-

efits of moon practice with easily learned movements, sounds and prayers combining inspiration and techniques from ancient sufis, yogis, Zen and native American traditions. Organized by Cultural Integration Fellowship. 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Cultural Integration Fellowship, 2650 Fulton St. (at 3rd Ave.) San Francisco, 94118. Free. (415) 668-1559. culturalfellowship@sbcglobal.net. www.culturalintegrationfellowship.org.

5004 N, 1st St., San Jose. (408) 203-1036. balajitemple1@gmail.com. www.balajitemple. net.

June

11 Monday

Mata Amritanandamayi Retreat. Guided meditation, yoga and classes. Ends June 13.

7:30 a.m. Mata Amritanandamayi Center, 10200 Crow Canyon Road, Castro Valley.

Visit our website for pricing. (510) 537-9417. macenter@ammachi.org. www.amma.org.

June

14 Thursday

Meditation Programs with Shri Anandi Ma. Join Shri Anandi Ma for an evening

telling fromthe Ramayana. Followed by aarati and mahaprasad. Organized by Badarikashrama. 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Badarikashrama, 15602 Maubert Ave.,San Leandro. Free. (510) 278-2444. badarik@pacbell.net. www.badarikashrama.org.

of chanting and meditation. Shaktipat, the transmission of spiritual energy from teacher to student, will be offered by appointment only on Sunday, June 17. Ends June 16. Organized by Dhyanyoga Centers. 6:30-9 p.m.

Dhyanyoga Centers, 3306 Contra Loma Blvd., Antioch. Free. (925) 779-9660. sumati@dyc. org, info@dyc.org, antioch-programs@dyc.org. www.dycantioch.org, www.dyc.org.

Attuning your Life to God’s Abundance. Inspirational Services. Self Real-

June

Sri Ramanama Sankirtana and Meditation. Group singing of slokas, and story

ization Fellowship. SRF Center, 303 E. Main Street, Los Gatos. (408) 252-5299. SRF Center, 4513 North Ave., Sacremento. (916) 4839644. Berkeley temple, 3201 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 984-0084. www.yogananda-srf. org.

Vishnu Stotram Prayanam. Balaji Temple, 106 • india currents • june 2012

15 Friday

Ribhu Gita. Readings, with commentary

and dialogue, by Nome from the book, Ribhu Gita. 8-9:30 p.m. Society of Abidance in Truth (SAT), 1834 Ocean St., Santa Cruz. Free.

(831) 425-7287. sat@cruzio.com. www.satramana.org.

5:30 p.m. Balaji Temple, 5004 N, 1st St., San Jose. (408) 203-1036. balajitemple1@gmail. com. www.balajitemple.net.

June

17 Sunday

Sri Lakshmi Ganapathi Abhishekha.

4 p.m. Sri Lakshmi Ganapathi Temple. 32B Rancho Drive, San Jose. (408) 226-3600. www.vvgc.org. www.siliconvalleyhindutemple. com.

Father’s Day Bhajans. Talk on The Fa-

ther’s role in the Hindu tradition by Swami Omkaranandaji. Followed by aarati and mahaprasad. 11-1 p.m. Badarikashrama, 15602 Maubert Ave., San Leandro. Free. (510) 2782444. badarik@pacbell.net. www.badarikashrama.org.

The Father Aspect of God. Inspirational Services. Self Realization Fellowship.

SRF Center, 303 E. Main Street, Los Gatos.

(408) 252-5299. SRF Center, 4513 North Ave., Sacremento. (916) 483-9644. Berkeley temple, 3201 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 984-0084. www.yogananda-srf.org.

Sri Ramanama Sankirtana. Followed by aarti and mahaprasad. Balaji Temple, 5004 N, 1st St., San Jose. (408) 203-1036. balajitemple1@gmail.com. www.balajitemple.net.

June

18 Monday

Talks on Bhagavad Gita. Swami Viditatmananda Saraswati talks from the Gita and teaches us how to relate to Isvara. Ends June 21. Organized by Arsha Vidya Center. 7:30-9 p.m. Jain Bhavan, 722 S. Main St., Milpitas.

Free. vijaykapoor@gmail.com. www.

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All kinds of Hindu traditional Pujas and homas Ganapathi, Navagraha, Vasthu, Ayushya Homas, Marriages, Seemantham, Nama-karnam, Upanayanam, Sathyanarayana Puja, Lakshmi Puja, Durga Sapthasathi Yanthra Puja. Hiranya Sradha and last rites. American born children’s horoscopes.

Pt. Ganesh Sasthry

5639 Kimberly Street, San Jose, CA 95129

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108 • india currents • june 2012

Habib Khan Saraswati Temple and Gurukul celebrates

GURU POORNIMA

On Sunday, July 1st, 2012 at 2:00 pm Sharp 2759 Gold Meadow Ct., San Jose, CA 95135 Please join the students of the Gurukul in celebrating Guru Pandit Habib Khan Sitar Performers Dr. David Gray Rishi Dasgupta Vinita Kumar

Kailash Ranganathan Ojus Deshmukh Mark Gambos

Vocal Performers Dr. Shachi Jesal Sanjana Anand Kavya Chatterjee Ujjwal Kumar Anupriya Tiwari Aditya Sarmalkar

Anuradha Shringapure Sharbari Khanna Megha Chawla Nikita Jain Ankita Uppugunduri Nehal Uppugunduri

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by School Districts in Fremont, Palo Alto, Saratoga, Cupertino, Milpitas and Pleasanton. * Enjoy Bollywood movies and Songs * Learn Hindi and get more out of your next visit to India. * Keep our language and culture alive.

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Fee: FREE Time: 9:30 am - 1:00 pm (M/T/Th/F) Dates: June 25 - July 27th Location: Mission San Jose High School 41717 Palm Ave., Fremont, CA 94539 Through this federally funded program, students will engage in conversations about planning a trip to India, shopping, visiting monuments, food, clothes and more in Hindi language.

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This grant is part of STARTALK initiative to increase the number of Americans learning, speaking and teaching critical need foreign languages.

For details visit: http://startalk.umd.edu/ india currents • june 2012 • 109

June

24 Sunday

Vasavi Mata Pooja. Bhajans and potluck prasadam. Balaji Temple, 5004 N, 1st St., San Jose. Free. (408) 203-1036. balajitemple1@ gmail.com. htp://www.balajitemple.net.

Sri Satyanarayana Swami Puja and Kirtan. Group bhajans followed by aarati

and mahaprasad. Organized by Badarikashrama. 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Badarikashrama, 15602 Maubert Ave., San Leandro. Free, donations accepted. To sponsor puja call ashrama, or email. (510) 278-2444. badarik@pacbell.net. www.badarikashrama.org.

How You Can Talk to God. Inspirational Services. Self Realization Fellowship. SRF Center, 303 E. Main Street, Los Gatos. (408) 252-5299. SRF Center, 4513 North Ave., Sacremento. (916) 483-9644. Berkeley temple, 3201 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 984-0084. www.yogananda-srf.org.

Anithirumanjanam. Performed by Sugan-

da Srinath and her students. Shiva Murugan Temple. 1803 Second St., Concord. (925) 8270127. https://www.shivamurugantemple.org.

July

Ramkaran Sharma’s lecture on Universal Brotherhood, July 8

arshavidyacenter.org.

Vacation Bible School. Bible lessons, music, crafts and fun filled games. Ends June 22. Organized by Good Shepherd South Asian Ministry. Good Shepherd Church, 4211 Carol Ave., Fremont. $30. (510) 656-0900. gssam2005@gmail.com. www.gssam.org.

June

19 Tuesday

Amavasya Rudrabhishekam. Followed by aarti and mahaprasad. Balaji Temple, 5004 N, 1st St., San Jose. (408) 203-1036. balajitemple1@gmail.com. www.balajitemple.net.

June

22 Friday

Meditation. Self-inquiry meditation in-

struction by Nome, silent meditation, and dialogues. 8-9:30 p.m. Society of Abidance in Truth (SAT), 1834 Ocean St., Santa Cruz.

Free. (831) 425-7287. sat@cruzio.com. www. satramana.org.

June

23 Saturday

Harness the Power of Silence. Join au-

thor Raji Lukkoor in this journey of silence and discover how you can harness the power of silence to transform yourself. 10:30 a.m.

Milpitas Library, 160 North Main St., Milpitas. Free. (408) 262-1171. author@rajilukkoor. com. www.rajilukkoor.com.

Share your stories on health with India Currents readers!

We are accepting original submissions that focus on health and wellness. Send your 500-850 word essay on disease prevention, exercise, ayurvedic cooking, or any other health-related topic to Mona Shah at events@indiacurrents.com.

110 • india currents • june 2012

Pradosham Rudrabhishekam. 5:30 p.m.

Balaji Temple, 5004 N, 1st St., San Jose . Free.

(408) 203-1036. balajitemple1@gmail.com. www.balajitemple.net.

July

8 Sunday

Public Lecture. “Universal Brotherhood in Kalidasa” by Ramkaran Sharma, scholar of Sanskrit and Indian religions. 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Cultural Integration Fellowship, 2650 Fulton St. (at 3rd Ave.,) San Francisco, 94118.

Free. (415) 668-1559. culturalfellowship@ sbcglobal.net. www.culturalintegrationfellowship.org.

Sundar Khanda. Followed by potluck

prasadam. Balaji Temple, 5004 N, 1st St., San Jose. (408) 203-1036. balajitemple1@gmail. com. www.balajitemple.net.

1 Sunday

July

15 Sunday

Public Lecture. “This and That: The True Gravity of Indian Genius” given by William Pennell Rock. 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Cultural Integration Fellowship, 2650 Fulton St., San Francisco . Free. (415) 668-1559. culturalfellowship@sbcglobal.net. www.culturalintegrationfellowship.org. © Copyright 2012 India Currents. All rights reserved. Reproduction for commercial use strictly prohibited.

Om Sri Mathre Namaha

Vaidica Vidhya Ganapathi Center

SRI LAKSHMI GANAPATHI TEMPLE 32B Rancho Drive, San Jose, CA 95111 (Capitol Expressway West and Montrey Road Junction, Opposite and 1 Block from Capitol Cal Train Station)

(408) 226-3600

Saturday, June 2, 2012 At 4.00 pm Sri Venkateswara Abhisheka, continued with Sri Vishnu Sahasra Nama Chanting, continued Sani Pradosham Shiva Sri Rudra Abhisheka Aarati and Manthra Pushpa

Sunday, June 3, 2012 No Sathyanaraya Swami Pooja at 2.00 pm At 4.00 pm Vaikasi Visakham Sri Lakshmi Ganapathi Abhisheka, Sri Valli Deva Sena Sametha Sri Subramanya Abhisheka, Sri Shiva Abhisheka At 5.15 pm Sri Skandha Sashti Kavasam Chanting Aarati and Manthra Pushpa Monday, June 4, 2012 At 5.00 pm Shiva Abhisheka Aarati and Manthra Pushpa At 6.00 pm Pournami Vratha Sri Sathyanarayana Swami Pooja/Vratha. All are welcome to participate with family.

• www.vvgc.org or siliconvalleyhindutemple.com At 4.00 pm Sri Venkateswara Abhisheka Continued with Sri Vishnu Sahasra Nama Chanting continued with Sani Pradosham Shiva Sri Rudra Abhisheka Aarati and Manthra Pushpa

Thursday, June 7, 2012 At 5.00 pm Sri Sankata Hara Chathurthi Sri Lakshmi Ganapathi Homa/Sri Lakshmi Ganapathi Abhisheka Aarati and Manthra Pushpa Saturday, June 9, 2012 At 2.00 pm VVGC 9th Year Anniversary Function. Special Homa Sarva Devatha Homa, Sri Navagraha Homa/Sri Saneeswara Graha Homa continued with Sri Navagraha Abhisheka/Sri Saneeswara Graha Abhisheka Aarati and Manthra Pushpa At 4.00 pm Sri Venkateswara Abhisheka continued with Sri Vishnu Sahasra Nama chanting Aarati and Manthra Pushpa At 6.30 pm VVGC 9th Year Anniversary Music Concert - Vignesh Venkataraman and Guhan Venkataraman Saturday, June 16

Sunday, June 17, 2012 At 4. 00 pm Sri Lakshmi Ganapathi Abhisheka Kritika Vratha Sri Valli Deva Sena Sametha Sri Subramanya Abhisheka, Sri Shiva Abhisheka At 5.15 pm Sri Kandha Sashti Kavasam Chanting Aarati and Manthra Pushpa Monday, June 25, 2012 At 8.00 pm Sukla Sashti Sri Valli Deva Sena Sametha Sri Subramanya Sahasra Nama Archana Tuesday, June 26, 2012 At 6.30 pm Aani Thiru Manjanam Sri Nataraja Abhishekam, Sri Shiva Abhisheka Aarati and Manthra Pushpa

Please Make A Note:: Temple Address: 32 Rancho Drive, San Jose CA 95111 Temple Timings: Week Days Morning 10.00 Am To 12 Noon, Evening At 6.00 pm To 8.00 pm - Week Ends And Holidays 10.00 am To 8.00 pm

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india currents • june 2012 • 111

IC

the healthy life

Zain Shauk

A Recipe For Fixing Harmful South Asian Diets

L

urking amid the warm aromas of cumin and cardamom on a plate of South Asian food are hints of a diet gone horribly wrong. They are mixed into the reds and yellows of chicken biryani and surrounded by mustard seed and turmeric on the inside of crepe-like masala dosas.

To anyone paying attention, the warning signs may seem glaring—obvious red flags associated with health problems. But that’s if they’re actually paying attention.

Despite an alarmingly high rate of heart disease and diabetes among people with origins mainly in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, few of them take seriously the threats that kill friends and relatives at higher rates and earlier ages than people of other communities, experts say.

“It has to do with poor diet, plus bad genes,” said Alan Garber, president-elect of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists and a professor of endocrinology at Baylor College of Medicine.

The problem has inspired doctors, researchers and preventive health advocates across the nation to push for minor dietary adjustments to cultural foods that they say will reduce health risks. They say a critical change lies in the grains South Asians consume. So far, however, few have noticed their efforts.

“That’s the sad part,” said Bharat Kantharia, a professor of cardiology at the University of Texas Health Science Center. “I think most of the immigrants, the first generation at least, want to just get on with making their lives here and whatever symptoms they may well have are not necessarily acted upon.”

Diabetes, heart disease

Many South Asians are likely to develop chronic diseases because of genetic risks, diets, and a lack of physical activity, experts say. South Asians are three times more likely to develop diabetes than nonHispanic Caucasians, according to a 2011 study of more than 94,000 patients conducted by the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute. They are also two to three times as likely to develop heart disease as whites, according to that and other studies.

A separate study of thousands of cases showed that the average age for a South Asian who experienced a heart attack was 53, six years younger than people of other 112 • india currents • june 2012

backgrounds, according to the institute.

Vegetarians also at risk

Poor eating habits are key contributing factors, both among those who follow vegetarian diets that are popular with South Asians and among those who eat meat, said Ashish Mathur, executive director of the South Asian Heart Center at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View.

“We have vegetarians who don’t eat vegetables,” said Mathur, whose center has observed an increasing occurrence of heart disease among young patients, many in their 30s.

Changes in food production and consumption over the last century have pushed more white rice, potatoes, refined flours and other starchy carbohydrates into South Asian meals, said Dr. Raj Patel, a Houston doctor and author of The Healthy Indian Diet.

Bad refined carbs

While the “traditional Indian diet” was heavily plant-based, with proteins coming from legumes and with much nutrition derived from whole grains, easy access to refined flours has transformed the diet and contributed to poor health, Patel said.

Items like potato-filled dosas and fried samosas, flat bread made of white flour, and white rice-heavy biryanis are more common on South Asian plates than they should be, he said.

“The key, key, key thing is decreasing refined carbohydrates,” said Latha Palaniappan, who focuses on South Asian health and medicine for the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute.

South Asians tend to crowd vegetables and healthy proteins out of their plates and replace them with refined carbohydrates, which contribute to unhealthy spikes in blood glucose levels that pave the way for cardiovascular problems and diabetes, experts said.

Palaniappan tells her patients “eating white rice is like eating sugar.”

“So don’t eat anything white,” she said.

“No white rice, no white bread, no white pasta.”

True whole grains

Instead, Palaniappan and others recommend what they describe as a reversion to a diet that incorporates more whole grains, such as amaranth, barley, brown rice, millet and sorghum. A study last year by Palaniappan and other researchers showed a diet that replaced starchy carbohydrates with whole grains reduced the risks of cardiovascular disease in more than 20 South Asian women.

“We really need to go back to the ancient grains of the Indian diet,” she said. “Not the diet of the 1980s or the 1970s, but the diet of the 1900s.”

Restaurants stuck

Grains with 3 or 4 grams of dietary fiber per serving, as described on nutritional information labels, are the best substitutes for white rice, which only has 1 gram.

Patel suggested also being selective with oils, incorporating plenty of spices that have been shown to promote good health, and eating more vegetables. While meat is acceptable in moderation, he said, yogurt, nuts and legumes, particularly when combined with whole grains, are good vegetarian sources of protein.

Whether those suggestions will be adopted by South Asians is another question.

Kaiser Lashkari, chef and owner of Himalaya Restaurant in Texas, said customers have not expressed an interest in brown rice or other whole grains. “We cannot force the customer to say ‘OK,’ “ Lashkari said.

Time to get serious

Popular options at the upscale Indian restaurant have included brown rice served on its own, brown rice biryani, whole wheat flat bread, and a quinoa salad, she said.

Still, for health outcomes to change, South Asians will need to get serious about incorporating changes into their diets, Mathur said. For many, that hasn’t happened, said Ghulam Bombaywala, a retired Houston restaurateur.

“When you look at the top 10 priorities, health doesn’t even come up,” Bombaywala said. “It’s so unfortunate.”n Zain Shauk is a reporter with the Houston Chronicle, and can be reached at zain.shauk@ chron.com. This article first appeared in the Houston Chronicle and has been republished with their permission.

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India Curr

ONGOING SPIRITUAL EVENTS Daily Laughter Yoga Club. Simple effective yogic exercises with laughter therapy for perfect health and happiness and to reduce stress.

Serra Park, Hollenbeck Roadd, Sunnyvale. Daily. 7 a.m.-8 a.m. Free. (408) 490-1260. mkm. blr@gmail.com.

Vishnusahasranama. Daily, 12 p.m. Balaji Temple, 678 Cypress Ave., Suunyvale. (408) 203-1036. Balajitemple1@gmail.com. www. balajitemple.net.

Aarti. Daily, 8:30 p.m. Balaji Temple, 678 Cypress Ave., Suunyvale. (408) 203-1036. Balajitemple1@gmail.com. www.balajitemple.net.

Patanjali Yoga Sutras: Satsang. Paramahamsa Nithyananda says, “Don’t add movements to your life, add life to your movements.” That is yoga. Patanjali is a great sage and inner world scientist from ancient India.

He was the first person to systematize the oral yogic tradition and encode it in a concise form called Yoga Sutras, roughly over 2,000 years ago. Through these talks, he enables the flowering of yoga in you, so you can see a visible change in your very postures, ethical discipline and sensory perceptions. Program broadcast live from India, conducted by Paramahamsa Nithyananda. Organized by Life Bliss Foundation. Daily, 8-9:30 p.m. Nithyananda Vedic Temple, 513 Los Coches St., Milpitas. Free. (408) 263-6375. info.vedictemple@gmail.com. www.vedictemplebayarea.org.

Sunday Simplified Kundalini Yoga (SKY), plus

physical exercises. We guide and initiate SKY meditation. We also provide Kayakalpam and Introspection courses. Sundays, 8-10 a.m. Sunnyvale-Sanadan Dharma Kendra,897 Kifer Road, Suite #1, Sunnyvale. Free. (510) 456-8953. sky.bayarea@yahoo.com. www.skybayarea.org.

Guru Gita Chant Siddha Yoga Meditation Ctr, 4115 Jacksol Dr., San Jose. Sundays, 8 a.m. (408) 559-1716.

Purification and Meditation Ananda

Sangha, 2171 El Camino Real, Palo Alto. Sundays, 9 a.m.-9:45 a.m. (650) 323-3363. www. anandapaloalto.org.

faith backgrounds are welcome. The service offers a nonsectarian message of hope, faith, and the essential harmony of the world’s religions, emphasising on self-realization, awakening to the inherent goodness of our spiritual nature and living in harmony with divine will. An inspirational message, silent meditation, sacred music and scripture from many traditions help us to remember what is true—life is good. Center for Spiritual Enlightenment, 1146 University Ave., San Jose.

Sundays, 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. (408) 283-0221, x30. www.CSEcenter.org.

Lecture on different religious traditions. The meditation hall is also open for those who wish to deepen their meditation practice. Organized by Cultural Integration Fellowship.

2650 Fulton St. San Francisco. Sundays, 9-11 a.m. (415) 626-2442.

Yoga and Meditation. Sundays, 9:30-11

a.m. Premarpan Yoga and Wellness Center, Los Gatos. Free. (408) 406-8197. premarpan@ gmail.com. www.premarpan.com.

Abhishekam and Alankaram and Special Pujas to magnificent deities, accompanied by the divine and auspicious chants of Rudram and Chamakam we perform abhishekam (holy bath) to Lord Anandeshwara, Anandeshwari (Shiva and Parvathi), Shiva linga, Devi, Karthikeya and the Nava grahas using divine powder, sandalwood powder and turmeric. It is later followed by grand alankaram (dressing up) of the deities, naivedhyam, and Maha Aaarthi. 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Nithyananda Vedic Temple, 513 Los Coches St., Milpitas.

Free. (408) 263-6375. info.vedictemple@gmail. com. www.vedictemplebayarea.org.

Sunday Service Sikh Temple, 2301 Evergreen Ave, West Sacramento. Sundays, 10 a.m. (916) 371-9787.

Sri Akhand Path Sahib Sikh Temple, 1930 S Grant St, Stockton. Sundays, 10 a.m. (209) 946-9039.

Jainism Classes for children 4 years and older. Organized by Jain Center of Northern Califorina. Jain Bhavan, 722 South Main St., Milpitas. First and third Sunday of every month. 10-11:30 a.m. $35 annually for members, $50 anually for non-members. (408) 5170975, (408) 262-6042. www.jcnc.org.

Satsang, silent meditation, discourse by

Meditation and chanting. Yogalayam, 1717 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley. Sundays, 9-10:30 a.m.

(510) 655-3664. www.yogalayam.org. info@ yogalayam.org.

Nome on self-dnowledge and self-inquiry, recitation and readings from the Upanishads, recitation of Tamil Ribhu Gita. Organized by Society of Abidance in Truth. First and fourth Sundays of the momth, 10-11:30 a.m. 1834 Ocean St., Santa Cruz. Free. (831) 425-7287. www.satramana.org.

Sunday Worship Services. Seekers from all

Advaita Vedanta and the teachings of Sri

114 • india currents • june 2012

Ramana Maharshi. Society of Abidance in Truth, 1834 Ocean Street, Santa Cruz. Sundays, 10 a.m.-12 noon. (831) 425-7287. www.

SATRamana.org.

Monthly Satsangs of Vaswani Mission of

Bay Area. Includes video discourse tapes of Dada Jashan, reading of the Noori Granth, Gita path, bhajans, and shloka recitation.

Fremont Hindu Temple, 3676 Delaware Dr., Fremont. Third Sundays, 10:30–11:45 a.m.

(510) 796-4472, (408) 218-6364. prmlani3@ yahoo.co.in.

Sunday Services Self Realization Fellowship, Sacramento Center, 4513 North Ave, Sacramento. Sundays, 11 a.m. (916) 483-9614.

Community Gatherings include a short

talk with discussion, kirtan, puja, meditation, and treats. San Francisco Integral Yoga Institute, 770 Dolores St., San Francisco.

Sundays, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. (415) 821-1117. www. integralyogasf.org.

Ramanama meditation and kirtan. Orga-

nized by Badarikashrama. Badarikashrama, 15602 Maubert Ave, San Leandro. Sundays, 11 a.m. (510) 278-2444. www.badarikashrama. org.

Sunday Service Organized by Self Realization Fellowship. SRF, 303 E. Main St, Los Gatos. Sundays, 11 a.m. (408) 252-5299.

Sunday School for children 6-14 years of

age to give them a general knowledge of the universal truths of Vedanta, to acquaint them with the basic teachings of the major living religions, and to inspire reverence for the great religious teachers of the world.

Organized by Vedanta Society of Northern California. Vedanta Society of Northern California, Old Temple, 2963 Webster St., San Francisco. Sundays, 11 a.m.-Noon. (415) 9222323. www.sfvedanta.org.

Zoroastrian Temple Arbab Zoroastrian Temple, 10468 Crothers Rd, San Jose. First Sundays, 12 p.m. (408) 365-0119.

Nithya Dhyaan Meditation Satsang, a powerful meditation technique to achieve physical and mental well-being. Organized by Life Bliss Foundation. Sundays, 3:30 p.m. 451 (Kung-Fu School), Los Coches St., Milpitas.

Sunday Festival, an evening of bhajans, arati, discourses and Krishna prasadam. Organized by ISKCON. ISKCON, 951 S. Bascom Ave., San Jose. Sundays, 4:30-6 p.m. Free.

(408) 559-3197.

Traditional Vedanta and meditation classes. Presented by Swami Dayananda’s Arsha Vidya Center. Jain Bhavan, 722 S. Main, Milpitas. Sundays, 5-6:30 p.m. for beginning students; 8-9:30 a.m. for intermediate students.

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(650) 208-9565. vijaykapoor@gmail.com.

Festival and Feast an evening of bhajans,

Bhagavad Gita classes, aarti, kirtan, and prasad. Radha Krishna Temple, 2990 Union Ave, San Jose. Sundays, 5:30 p.m. (408) 5593197.

Satsang. Kirtan, lecture, prasad distribution, and vegetarian feast. Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Ashram, 2900 N Rodeo Gulch Rd, Soquel.

Sundays, 6 p.m. Free. (408) 462-4712.

Meditation with devotional chanting and talk on yoga philosophy. Sivananda Yoga Center, 1200 Arguello Blvd., San Francisco, Sundays, 6 p.m. (415) 681 2731.

Satsang. Prayer, chanting meditation, lecture

series on devotional topic (Geeta, Bhagwatam, Brahma Sutra, Upnishads etc.), followed by arti and prasad. Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat (JKP) Center-San Jose. Sundays, 6-7:15 p.m.

4940 Avenida de Carmen, Santa Clara. (408) 980-9953. www.JKPSanJose.org.

Women’s Sufi Gathering Discussion of Sufi principles, poetry, literature and meditation. Organized by International Association of Sufism. Berkeley venue to be announced.

Sundays, 7 p.m. Free. (510) 849-5309.

Devotional Meetings Programs including prayer, chanting meditations, video discourse (Bhagvad Gita series), arti and homage. J.K.P. Sunnyvale Center, 955 Ponderosa Avenue #27, Sunyvale. Sundays, 7:30-8:45 p.m. (408) 7381201. dk.taylor@sbcglobal.net

Let us brighten your smile!

Sri Ram Amrith Vani and bhajans. Sun-

days, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. followed by Preeti Bhoj. Sunnyvale Hindu temple, 420-450 Persian Dr., Sunnyvale. (408) 734-4554, (408) 734-0775. www.sunnyvaletemple.org.

• • • • •

Bhajan, Kirtan, Sathsanga or Puja. Sun-

Monday Bhagavad Gita—The Song of God with Kamala Lee, teaching the scriptures of the Bhagavad Gita. Organized by Integral Yoga Institute. Integral Yoga Institute, 770 Dolores St, San Francisco. Mondays, 6 p.m.-7:30 p.m. $48. (415) 821-1117. www.integralyogasf.org.

Sri Rudrabhishekam Mondays, 6:30-8 p.m.

Sunnyvale Hindu temple, 420-450 Persian Dr., Sunnyvale. (408) 734-4554, (408) 734-0775. www.sunnyvaletemple.org.

Shree Maa and Swami Satyananda Saraswati lead Sanskrit chanting, commen

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tary and discussion of scriptures including Lalitha Trishati, Bhagavad Gita, Sundarakand, Chandi Path. Devi Mandir, 6:30 p.m.

Live web broadcasts at www.shreemaa.org/ broadcasts (707) 966-2802.

Rudrabhi Sheka. Mondays, 7-8:30 p.m.

Balaji Temple, 678 Cypress Ave., Suunyvale.

(408) 203-1036. Balajitemple1@gmail.com. www.balajitemple.net.

Tuesday Shri Appaji Meditation. Participate in

unique psychosomatic spiritual meditation techniques Shri Appaji has developed after years of in-depth analysis, research, and experiments. Group meditation, discourse sessions. Shri Appaji Meditation Center, Sunnyvale. Tuesdays, 9:30 a.m. (women only), 7:30 p.m. (men and women). $10/session, first Tuesday free. Registration required. (408) 7359025. shri_appaji@hotmail.com.

Jain Spiritual Lectures on topics such as

syadwad, anekantwad, nonviolence, forgiveness by samanijies from Jain Vishwa Bharati, Ladnun, Rajasthan. Jain Bhavan, 722 S. Main Street, Milpitas. Tuesdays, 8-9:30 p.m. Free.

(408) 262-6242, (650) 207-8196. www.jcnc. org. hirensaraiya@hotmail.com.

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Sri Hanuman Puja. 6:30-8 p.m. Sunnyvale Hindu temple, 420-450 Persian Dr., Sunnyvale. (408) 734-4554, (408) 734-0775. www. sunnyvaletemple.org.

Osho Meditations. Tuesdays, 6:30 p.m. at

Amrithika, 248 Hamilton Ave., Palo Alto. Free.

(650) 462-1980. www.amrithika.com.

Hanuman Chalisa and Durga Pooja and Subramanya Strotam. Tuesdays,

7-8:30 p.m. Balaji Temple, 678 Cypress Ave., Suunyvale. (408) 203-1036. Balajitemple1@ gmail.com. www.balajitemple.net.

Chanting Hanuman Chalisa. Chanting of the powerful Hanuman Chalisa in a group grants the devotee protection from all harm and blesses him/her with health, wealth and prosperity. It is followed by special aarthi to

Wednesday Yoga for Wellness. This class will offer tools to help manage stress, enhance the immune system, promote healthy digestion and sleep, and optimize the body’s own healing mechanisms, by using movement, breath, meditation, and sound in a supportive group setting. Wednesdays, 9-10:15 a.m. Yoga Shala, 330 Melville Ave, Palo Alto. $15. (650) 8570226. dhurgareddy.nd@gmail.com. www.dhurgareddy.com.

Worship Services include a burning bowl

ritual that supports each one in consciously letting go of that which no longer serves our highest good and inviting in that which does.

Center for Spiritual Enlightenment, 1146 University Avenue, San Jose. Wednesdays, 12-1 p.m. (408) 283-0221, x30. www.CSEcenter.org.

Bhagavad Gita Class An in-depth explora-

tion of the Bhagavad Gita, led by Vaisesika Dasa Adhikari. ISKCON, 951 S. Bascom Ave.,

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Shree Maa and Swami Satyananda Saraswati lead Sanskrit chanting, commen-

Ram parivar (Ram, Lakshman, Sita, and Hanuman). Transcripts of the Chalisa provided (in English, Hindi, and Tamil). Tuesdays, 8-9:30 p.m. Nithyananda Vedic Temple, 513 Los Coches St., Milpitas. Free. (408) 2636375. info.vedictemple@gmail.com. www. vedictemplebayarea.org.

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Shree Maa and Swami Satyananda Saraswati lead Sanskrit chanting, commen-

tary and discussion of scriptures including Lalitha Trishati, Bhagavad Gita, Sundarakand, Chandi Path. Devi Mandir, Wednesdays, 6:30 p.m. Live web broadcasts at www. shreemaa.org/broadcasts (707) 966-2802.

Bhagavath Seva - Voluntary Service to God. Wednesdays, 6:30-8 p.m. Sunnyvale Hindu temple, 420-450 Persian Dr., Sunnyvale. (408) 734-4554, (408) 734-0775. www.sunnyvaletemple.org.

Ramayana Katha Aranya Kand with pravachan by Shastriji. Vedic Dharma Samaj, Fremont Hindu Temple, 3676 Delaware Dr., Fremont. Wednesdays, 7:30 p.m. (510) 6590655.

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, a discourse

by Swami Prapannananda. Vedanta Society of Sacramento, 1337 Mission Ave., Carmichael.

Wednesdays, 7:30 p.m. (916) 489-5137. www. vedantasacto.org.

Mandukya Upanishad is a class by Prapannananda on Vedanta scriptures. Vedanta Society of Sacramento, 1337 Mission Ave., Carmichael. Wednesdays, 7:30 p.m. (916) 4895137. www.vedantasacto.org.

Devotional Meetings including prayer, chanting meditations, video discourse (Bhagvad Gita series), arti and homage. J.K.P. Sunnyvale Center, 955 Ponderosa Avenue #27, Sunyvale. Wednesdays, 7:30-8:45 p.m. (408) 738-1201. dk.taylor@sbcglobal.net.

Satsang. Prayer, chanting meditation, lec-

ture series on devotional topic (Geeta, Bhagwatam, Brahma Sutra, Upnishads etc.), followed by arti and prasad. Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat (JKP) Center-San Jose. Wednesdays 7:30-8:45 p.m. 4940 Avenida de Carmen, Santa Clara. (408) 980-9953. www.JKPSanJose.org.

Sri Aurobindo Meditation and Study Group. Wednesdays, 7:30-8:30 p.m. 2134 Carmenere St., Danville. Free. Open to all.

(650) 218-4223. braroo@gmail.com.

Meditation. Wednesdays, 7:30-8:30 p.m.

Balaji Temple, 678 Cypress Ave., Suunyvale.

(408) 203-1036. Balajitemple1@gmail.com. www.balajitemple.net.

Atmotsava. Meditation, readings, devotional chanting and learning of kirtans. Organized

by Society of Abidance in Truth. 7:30-9:30 p.m. 1834 Ocean St., Santa Cruz. Free. (831) 425-7287. www.satramana.org.

Atmotsava (Ramana Nama San-kirta india currents • june 2012 • 117

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Thursday Yoga for Anxiety, an on-going, drop-in

yoga class for people with mild to moderate anxiety as well as for those seeking to reduce anxiety in their lives. Teachers use movement, breath, meditation, and sound in a supportive group atmosphere. Organized by Healing Yoga Foundation of San Francisco.

Thursdays, 4-5:15 p.m. 3620 Buchanan St, San Francisco. Donations. (415) 931-9642. admin@healingyoga.org. www.healingyoga.org/ schedule.html.

The Secret of the Self, introduction to meditation and philosophy in the tradition of Kashmir Shaivism. Organized by Sri Sambha Sathashiva Vidya Peetham. Thursdays, 7-8:30 p.m. Nine Star University of Health Sciences, 441 DeGuigne Drive, Suite 201, Sunnyvale. info@vidyapeetham.org. www.vidyapeetham. org.

Shri Shirdi Sai Baba haarathulu dhoop

Loma Vista Obstetrics & Gynecology

(Adjacent to Good Samaritan Hospital)

nam), meditation, readings, devotional chanting and learning of kirtans. Organized

by Society of Abidance in Truth (SAT). First, third, and fourth Wednesdays of the month, 7:30-9:30 p.m. 1834 Ocean St., Santa Cruz.

Free. (831) 425-7287. www.satramana.org.

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aarti. Sri Lakshmi Ganapathi Temple, 32B Rancho Dr., San Jose. Thursdays, 7:30 p.m.

(408) 226-3600. www.vvgv.org. www.siliconvalleyhindutemple.com.

Satsang Siddha Yoga Meditation Ctr, 4115 Jacksol Dr, San Jose. Thursdays, 7:30 p.m.

(408) 559-1716.

Inspirational Service SRF, 303 E. Main St, Los Gatos. Thursdays, 7:30 p.m. (408) 2525299.

Zen Fitness Designed to reduce stress,

pain, and weight. Thursdays, 10:15-11:15 a.m.

Sunnyvale studio. Contact for location, (415) 203-9231, taoak@yahoo.com.

Ancient Wisdom, Modern Mind, guided Kriya meditation led by Pratibha Gramann, longtime student of Sri Baba Hari Dass.

Thursdays, 7-9 p.m. Shubhamayurveda Center, 3606 Thornton Ave., Fremont. rmg.pratibha@ att.net.

Dada Bhagwan’s Satsang. Thursdays, 8-10 p.m. For location, call (408) 910-6052, (408) 578-5685.

Jain Swadhyay with an illuminating study

of Jain scriptures Series continues on Samyag Tap, Samyag Gyan, Samyag Darshan and Samyag Charitra, with samanijies from Jain Vishwa Bharati, Ladnun, Rajasthan. Jain Bhawan, 722 S. Main Street, Milpitas. Thursdays, 8-9:30 p.m. Free. (408) 262-6242, (650) 207-

118 • india currents • june 2012

health

8196. www.jcnc.org.

Shree Maa and Swami Satyananda Saraswati lead Sanskrit chanting, commen-

tary and discussion of scriptures including Lalitha Trishati, Bhagavad Gita, Sundarakand, Chandi Path. Devi Mandir, Thursdays, 6:30 p.m. Live web broadcasts at www.shreemaa.org/broadcasts (707) 966-2802.

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days, 7:30-8:30 p.m. Balaji Temple, 678 Cypress Ave., Suunyvale. (408) 203-1036. Balajitemple1@gmail.com. www.balajitemple.net.

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Friday Kirtan and chanting. Organized by Ananda Sangha. Ananda Sangha, 2171 El Camino (at College), Palo Alto. Fridays, 7:30-9:15 p.m. Free. Note: Only on the first Friday of the month, these sessions will be held at 240 Monroe Dr., Mountain View. (650) 323-3363. www.anandapaloalto.org.

Shree Maa and Swami Satyananda Saraswati lead Sanskrit chanting, commen-

tary and discussion of scriptures including Lalitha Trishati, Bhagavad Gita, Sundarakand, Chandi Path. Devi Mandir, Fridays, 6:30 p.m. Live web broadcasts at www.shreemaa.org/broadcasts (707) 966-2802.

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Sri Lalitha Sahasranama Parayanam and

Sri Maha Lakshmi Puja. Fridays, 6:30-8 p.m., Sunnyvale Hindu temple, 420-450 Persian Dr., Sunnyvale. (408) 734-4554, (408) 734-0775. www.sunnyvaletemple.org.

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Sri Santhoshi Mata, Durga Devi Pooja and Lord Lakshmi Pooja. Fridays, 6:30-

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Kirtan, an evening of chanting. Words pro-

vided. English as well as some Indian chants accompanied by harmonium and guitar. Every second and third Friday, 7:30 pm, Ananda, 2171 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, free (650) 323-3363, free www.anandapaloalto.org

Group Meditation with mantra chanting and lecture with Swami Pranavananda, a se

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Meditation, self-inquiry meditation in-

struction by Nome, silent meditation, and dialogues. Organized by Society of Abidance in Truth (SAT). Every first and third Friday of the month, 8 p.m. 1834 Ocean St., Santa Cruz. Free. (831) 425-7287. www.satramana. org.

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120 • india currents • june 2012

nior meditation teacher. His kirtan and music is lively and his talks are practical. Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center, 1200 Arguello Blvd, San Francisco. Fridays, 8 p.m. (415) 681 2731, SanFrancisco@sivananda.org.

Bhajan Class for Children, ages 4-18. Fri-

days, 8-9:30 p.m. Nithyananda Vedic Temple, 513 Los Coches St., Milpitas. Free. (408) 2636375. info.vedictemple@gmail.com. www. vedictemplebayarea.org.

Saturday Srivenkateshwara Suprabhata and Vishnu Sahasranama Strotam. Saturdays, 8-9 a.m. Balaji Temple, 678 Cypress Ave., Suunyvale. (408) 203-1036. Balajitemple1@gmail. com. www.balajitemple.net.

Simplified Kundalini Yoga (SKY), plus

physical exercises. We guide and initiate SKY meditation. We also provide Kayakalpam and Introspection courses. Saturdays, 9 a.m. Fremont Temple. Free. (510) 456-8953. sky.bayarea@yahoo.com. www.skybayarea.org.

Sri Venkateswara Suprabhata Seva and

Sri Vishnu Sahasranama Parayanam. Saturdays, 10-11:30 a.m. Sunnyvale Hindu temple, 420-450 Persian Dr., Sunnyvale. (408) 7344554, (408) 734-0775. www.sunnyvaletemple. org.

Video Satsang, bhajan, kirtan, Pranayam

(breathing technique), Mantra jaap and Dhyan program. Organized by Shri Yoga Vedanta Ashram. Saturdays, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.

First and Third Saturdays, 2-5 p.m. Second Saturdays, Sunnyvale Hindu Temple, 420-450 Persian Dr. Sunnyvale. 11 a.m.-1 p.m. First and Third Saturdays, Fremont Hindu temple, 3676 Delaware Dr., Fremont. Free. (831) 2124680, (408) 667-8884. www.ashram.org.

munity. Second Saturday of every month, 6:45 p.m. St. Joseph Parish Church, Mountain View. www.tamilcatholic.org.

Osho Evening Meditation Meeting

based on Osho’s vision and techniques. Meditation class followed by vegetarian potluck dinner. Organized by Ritesh Arora (Amaresh). 989 Lakeshire Ct, San Jose. Saturdays, 7 p.m. (408) 294-6737, (650) 842-9140. www. osho.com, arora_ritesh@yahoo.com.

Balajyothi Classes The classes focus on slokas, bhajans, story telling and activities.

HCCC Library and Learning Center, Livermore Temple, Livermore. Every 2nd and 4th Saturday, 1-2 p.m. ranganathanarchana@ yahoo.com, pmadhusu@yahoo.com.

Devotional Meetings Programs including

9oVideo Gita from Tulsi Ramayana, by

Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Literature, a discourse by Swami Prapannananda. Vedanta Society of Sacramento, 1337 Mission Ave., Carmichael. Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. (916) 4895137. www.veantasacto.org.

Acharya Prabodh Chaitanya. Organized by Chinmaya Mission San Jose. Saturdays, 4:306 p.m. Los Cerros Middle School, 968 Blemer Road, Danville. (408) 998-2793.

prayer, chanting meditations, video discourse (Bhagvad Gita series), arti and homage.

J.K.P. Sunnyvale Center, 955 Ponderosa Avenue #27, Sunyvale. Saturdays, 7:30-8:45 p.m.

(408) 738-1201. dk.taylor@sbcglobal.net.

Bala Vikas Classes Organized by San Jose

Sathya Sai Center Study Circle. Sri Lakshmi Ganapathi Temple, 32B Rancho Dr., San Jose.

Saturdays, 6 p.m. (408) 226-3600. www.vvgv. org, www.siliconvalleyhindutemple.com.

Eucharistic Celebration in Tamil. Or-

ganized by Bay Area Tamil Catholic Com-

© Copyright 2011 India Currents. All rights reserved. Reproduction for commercial use strictly prohibited.

india currents • june 2012 • 121

FREE Meditation Workshop For All Ages & Conditions

By Vasanthi Bhat

Meditation workshop on Pranic Healing Meditation, Chakra Meditation, and Vipasana Meditation.

Welcome to practice sitting in a chair or sitting on the floor.

Date: Saturday, June 16, 2012 • Time: 4 pm - 6 pm Place: SANATHANA DHARMA KENDRA 897 Kifer Road, Sunnyvale, CA The event is FREE but please RSVP as we do provide snacks (good and yummy:):) after the workshop.

Vasanthi’s CDs on Vipasana Meditation, Chakra Meditation & Pranic Healing will be sold at the venue, proceeds of these CDs will be donated to temple.

RSVP to vasanthib@aol.com • Phone: 408-257-8418 122 • india currents • june 2012

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Children's Hospital and Research Institute, Oakland is starting a new research study looking at the effects of breakfast foods on blood sugar in pregnant women.

YOU MAY BE ELIGIBLE FOR THE STUDY IF YOU ARE: 19-40 years old Any Asian Ethnicity, including Southeast and South Asian h Have not yet reached your 30 week of pregnancy WHAT ARE YOU ASKED TO DO? Come to our clinic on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley on 3 different days to have your blood sugar and other health indicators measured after eating breakfast Each visit will last about 6 hours For more information, please contact WHAT DO YOU GET? Lisa Sawrey-Kubicek, MS, RD $300 for your time and participation lsawreykubicek@chori.org or (510) 384-8224 Information about your health and diet

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I C dear doctor

Alzak Amlani

Hiding Behind Spirituality Q

I’d like to discuss social issues such as homelessness, caste system, fundamentalism and domestic violence with my father and relatives. They seem moderately interested but dismiss the subject with, “We can’t really do much about it; it’s the will of God.” They spend a fair amount of time discussing religion and philosophy and also go to the temple quite often to worship. However, I don’t see them wanting to extend themselves to alleviate human suffering or questioning the responsibilities of their privileges. Additionally, I don’t see their personalities evolving much or growing as human beings. I am wondering if people use religion and spirituality and fate to avoid dealing with the problems of the world?

A

When people are used to a certain amount of privilege due to class, gender, caste or financial success it is easy to not have to think about those who are in less privileged situations in life. It is also easier to believe that anyone who wants more out of life can get it by simply working harder. However, there are other familial and social factors involved in a

person’s success besides personal efforts.

Facing life’s unfairness and suffering is very challenging. It’s complex and difficult to understand all the causes and ways of resolving inequities. Nonetheless, that’s no excuse for not engaging in some form of social justice work. We all have different ways of coping with suffering, especially if we don’t think we can do much about it or it feels overwhelming. “Spiritual bypass” is one such avoidance method. It’s where people use religion and spirituality to console themselves, withdraw from life or simply feel pious so as to avoid feeling guilty or take the time to get involved in a project that helps others. It helps them rise above suffering—one’s own and another’s.

From a spiritual perspective, ultimately all of life’s problems arise out of our disconnection with a deeper and more profound reality.

Disorder and suffering are symptoms of not being in touch with the Atman (soul or true nature).

Often that thinking is very short term and oriented around symptom relief, rather than

probing the deeper causes of the suffering in our lives and the world at large. Thus, it makes sense to spend time to become more attuned to that from which wisdom, compassion and true guidance for our lives springs and spend time practising spiritual tenets. This is better for the world and challenges each individual to integrate their inner practices with real-life situations.

Modern psychology offers a lot of models to help people work out challenging relationship dynamics and methods to grow emotionally in ways that religion and spiritual practices don’t. These include communication skills; understanding, naming and sharing our feelings; working at seeing another person’s point of view; being oneself while being close to another. When spiritual awareness and psychological tools are integrated it creates a powerful approach to living a conscious and engaged life in the world. n Alzak Amlani, Ph.D. is a counseling psychologist in the Bay Area. (650)325-8393. Visit www.wholenesstherapy.com.

Is a family member or loved one hurting you?

A domestic violence helpline for South Asian women Our services are free and strictly confidential Call us for information and support from someone who understands your culture.

We speak

Bangla •Farsi •Gujarati • Hindi • Kannada • Malayalam •Marathi • Nepali • Punjabi • Sinhala • Tamil • Telugu •Urdu india currents • june 2012 • 125

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ANNOUNCEMENTS VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL: June 18th22nd. Time: 8:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. Theme: SKY, Music, Bible lessons, crafts and fun filled games. Ages: 5 yrs - 12 yrs. Accepting Registration Now. Call (510)656-0900 or Email: gssam2005@gmail.com

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COUNSELING

CLASSES: DANCE CHHANDAM SCHOOL OF KATHAK DANCE. Classes held in Berkeley, Mountain View, San Francisco, San Bruno, San Rafael, and Union City. Beginning classes available in all locations. Call (415) 759-8060 or visit www.chhandam.org BHARATANATYAM CLASSES at San Jose & Fremont by Sweta Ravisankar. The curriculum will include both theory and practical Sessions. Contact (404) 884-4541 or mail to sweta.natyam@gmail.com. Visit www.swetaravisankar.com.

IS A FAMILY MEMBER HURTING YOU? Contact Narika, a domestic violence hotline for South Asian women. Our services are free and strictly confidential. Call (800) 215-7308.

BHARATANATYAM CLASSES in San Jose, Fremont and Santa Clara by Artistic Director Suganda Sreenath. Kalakshetra style including extensive theory. Call (408) 270-9295 or email sugandaiyer@comcast.net

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EDUCATION

ODISSI DANCE CLASSES with Guru Jyoti Rout. Jyoti Kala Mandir College of Indian Classical Arts. www.JyotiKalaMandir.org

ENTERTAINMENT

ODISSI DANCE CLASSES. Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra style. With Revital Carroll. Now in Mountain View on Tuesdays and Thursday. Open for adults beginners. shaktibhakti.com. (928) 713-7123.

TEED ROCKWELL PLAYS TOUCHSTYLE VEENA. Classical Ragas and inspired improvisations on A.R. Rahman melodies for weddings and parties. Original music videos at www.bollywoodgharana.com. (510) 548-8779

CLASSES: MUSIC

FOR ALL BEAUTY NEEDS Shiva Beauty Salon in Fremont. Contact Kanak Patel (510) 440-8300.

CLASSES OFFERED BY LAKSHMI C. SAXENA in San Jose. North Indian vocal music: classical, semi classical, light music like bhajans, geet, ghazals, film songs, instrumental music: harmonium, tabla. Also Hindi lessons.

Available for performances. Call (408) 2683651 or email Lsaxena99@yahoo.com

ARE YOU A BEAUTICIAN? Do you do threading, waxing, facials, perms, hair cutting and styling? Place your advertisement here in India Currents Classifieds and reach 32,000 readers. Call (408) 324-0488 and place your ad today!

ALI AKBAR COLLEGE OF MUSIC offers study in North Indian classical music. Four 8-week sessions a year are taught by master musicians. Classes are offered in vocal, instrumental and tabla. All are welcome. For more information please call (415) 454-6264.

126 • india currents • june 2012

FREE PEER COUNSELING and support offered to South Asian women. Maitri has a live person handling phone calls 9am-1pm (Mon-Fri) and a voice message helpline at all other times. Are you having problems with your partner? Are you going through cultural adjustment problems? Call (408)436-8398.

Our South Asian female volunteers speak many South Asian languages. Toll free hotline 1(888) 8-MAITRI or go to maitri@maitri.org

FABRICS KHOOBSURAT SAREE PALACE. Visit our showroom for a vast selection of ladies, gents, children clothes, shoes, accessories, jewelry etc. (408) 774-1284 BORROW IT BINDAAS a fabulous online boutique where you can borrow or buy beautiful sarees and accessories delivered straight to your doorstep. www.borrowitbindaas.com

FOR SALE: MUSIC INSTRUMENTS - Greatest selection of North Indian instrumetns in the U.S. Ali Akbar College store sells the finest quality sitars, sarodes, tanpuras, harmoniums, tablas,

weddings . photos

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FOR ALL OCCASIONS We use high quality HD Cameras to produce:

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flutes, etc. Complete repair service. We ship anywhere in the U.S. 1554 4th San Rafael, CA 94901. Call (415) 454-0581. www.aac. org/shop

www.indiacurrents.com indiacurrents.com may find the right person here in India Currents classifieds! To place your ad call (408) 324-0488 today!

REAL ESTATE HELP WANTED WAITERS, CHEFS, KITCHEN HELP wanted for busy, upscale Indian restaurant expanding staff. Call Kumar at 650-245-9575

INSURANCE AMILA INSURANCE SERVICES - Looking for a better deal on Auto Insurance? Call (408) 723-2100.

SEETA BHANDARI - All Solutions Insurance Agency. More than a provider - a partner.

(408) 225-4300 INSURANCE SPECIALIST Amar Sehgal.

Most Competitive Rates and Friendly Services. (408) 298-2194.

LEGAL FREE LIVING TRUST SEMINARS. Presented by Attorney Robert P. Bergman. Learn about Living Trusts from an expert. Visit www.lawbob.com to register or call (408) 247-0444.

DIVORCE ATTORNEY Madan Ahluwalia.

Divorce, Alimony, Child Support, Child Custody, Property Division in Divorce. (888) 861-8436.

LOANS WELLS FARGO HOME MORTGAGE. Call today for complimentary consultation. Neil Sheth (510)818-9536 nsheth@wellsfargo.com

MATRIMONIAL: FEMALE SEEKING A MATRIMONIAL alliance for your sister, daughter or a loved one? Place your ad here and reach 32,000 households.

You may find the right person here in India Currents classifieds. To place your ad call (408) 324-0488.

MATRIMONIAL: MALE SEEKING A MATRIMONIAL alliance for your brother, son or a loved one? Place your ad here and reach 32,000 households. You 128 • india currents • june 2012

GORGEOUS HOME IN FREMONT. 4BR 2.5BA 2115 sft, cul-de-sac, walk to Mission Schools, shopping, close to BART, park, library, great location 949K. Call (408) 6606366 BRAND NEW FLAT AVAILABLE! 3BHK flat, 1935 sq. ft., newly constructed ready for possession at Rajarhat, Kolkata. Includes extra servant qtr. and one covered parking. Complex with gym, swimming pool, community hall, club, 24/7 security, water and electricity.

Contact Tilak at (+91)9830035544 or tismis@yahoo.com IF YOU ARE PLANNING to own a house in India, why not own a Spanish Home in the Queen of Hill Stations—Kodaikanal? www.i-sps.com/villa RAMA REALTOR WITH REALTY WORLD :Friends, Heroes and Dads wishing you a Happy Father’s Day. Best wishes from Rama (408)-921-1987.

SHORT SALE IN CAMBRIAN, this 4 bedroom home won’t last at this price $ 625,000.

Run, call Rama or Realty World at (408)-9211987.

AD OF THE MONTH

Betti Ono Gallery X Kalakari X Slumgods presents: WORD TO YOUR MOTHERLAND An exhibit showcasing hip-hop in India. Art by Nisha K. Sembi, photos/ video by SETI X, murals by HERO and LADY KARMA. Live performances

by Mandeep Sethi, Hoodini, Baagi, Ustad Lal Singh Bhatti plus Bhangra and bboys. July 6,2012. 6-9 PM 1804 Telegraph Ave. Oakland, CA.

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SPIRITUAL GROWTH EAST COAST SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE CENTER: All spiritual needs - books, learning help, practices, counseling. Contact: Ma Yoga Shakti International Yoga Center of New York (718) 641-0402.

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BUYING OR SELLING PROPERTY? Call an expert with over 22 years of experience, Harshad Shah (408) 238-1200.

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on Inglish

Kalpana Mohan

Cotton Bales and Calico Tales calico—noun\ka-li-ko\ a: cotton cloth imported from India b: British : a plain white cotton fabric that is heavier than muslin: any of various cheap cotton fabrics with figured patterns calico—adjective a: a blotched or spotted animal; especially one that is predominantly white with red and black patches

L

ook here, young man, don’t show me anything like calico. You think I want to make a blouse out of curtain material?” my mother asked, looking over the rim of her glasses at the clerk. “Show me your best two-by-two. It must be very soft and nice. And don’t show me two-by-one. I know the difference, you know.”

My mother, the indefatigable lover of fabric, spent countless days inside Nalli’s Silk House, Chennai’s famous sari and fabric retailer, and I sat there amid the smell of cotton and silk listening to her usage of English words that made little sense to me.

My mother didn’t speak any English but she used English words as if they were part of the Tamil lexicon. “Lipstick” was converted to “liftick.”

“Briefcase” got clobbered too and I could not, even briefly, make a case of it because, for all she cared, I could take the “briescafe” and stuff it. When she repeated a word after I corrected her, she went on to pronounce it exactly how she wanted to say it and insisted that she was right.

Fortunately, she was good with most of the words related to textiles. The word “calico” cropped up often, I know, and so did long cloth, handloom, silk, cambric, polyester and terylene. I distinctly remember the discussions about “two-by-one” cotton versus “two-by-two” cotton and I believed that my mother could detect any and all thread-count information from as far away as Mars. My mother knew only two categories of women; those whose sari blouses were tailored from two-by-two cotton, the more expensive per meter, and those from the lesser two-by-one. I gleaned yet another fact of life from her love affair with textiles: no self-respecting woman would wear calico–the rough, cheap plain-woven textile made from unbleached, and often not fully processed, cotton–on her body.

I never gave it any more thought at the time but when I arrived in America and saw the word again on the name of a store called Calico Corners in the Bay Area, it took me back to my days by the glass counters of Nalli and the aroma of vetiver infused cold water from Nalli’s coolers.

I

didn’t realize, until recently, however, that over 2000 years of Indian and world history had been woven by the heft of fabric, specifically, by calico cotton. The word “calico” has its origins in the name of the city of Kozhikode in India’s Kerala. The port was known as Calicut by the seafarers of the Indian Ocean. The early cotton weaving industry was concentrated in the Coromandel region, the hot regions of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, and Calicut was one of the flourishing trading ports along the Malabar coast. In those days, long before the Europeans arrived on Indian shores, Armenian, Arab and Indian traders, took advantage of the monsoons to transport the cotton bales from Calicut to all the ports on the Red Sea from where the cloth was shipped to European and Mediterranean shores.

Over the centuries, weavers and textile workers received patronage from the courts and India became known around the world for its rich fabrics

130 • india currents • june 2012

Photo Credit: Cookdookoo.blogspot.com image

Nalli Silk House Cut Pieces

and varied weaving techniques. Literature of the different ages celebrated Indian textiles. In his encyclopedic work, Manasollasa, the Western Chalukya king, Somesvara, who ruled from 1124-1138, described the fabrics and costumes commonly worn in India. He wrote evocative descriptions about silk (pattasutra), cotton (karpasa), linen (kshauma) yarn and goat-wool, about male and female accessories popular at the time and about the famous weaving centers across India.

Travelers to India–Chau Ju-kua from the Fu-kien province of China in the 12th century and Marco Polo from Italy in the 13th century–wrote extensive reports about cottons from India. During the English textile trade with India, Indian calicoes began to be admired for the brightness of their hues and the colorfast nature of their dyes. In the 17th century, calicoes became cheap clothing for the slaves of plantation owners in the West Indies.

By the early eighteenth century, worried by the popularity of all Indian textiles, manufacturers of silk and wool in England began protesting against the import of Indian cotton textiles.

The English East India Company had embraced the demand for calico by importing exotic textiles from around the globe into England and created competition for domestic textile factories.

In 1720, the British government instituted “The Calico Act” banning the import and the use of printed cotton textiles in England and restricting their sale.

Y

ou could say that calico continued to haunt me long after I made my home in the San Francisco Bay Area. For our first home in San Jose, I shopped at Calico Corners for drapery material and sewed drapes for one bedroom. I knew then that I would never again put myself through the stress of being a seamstress.

Five years later I shopped at Calico Corners again in the late 80s—when everyone swore by the elegance of loud prints, drapes, swags, valances, cornices, ties and tassels—vending out the job of our home’s window treatments to the store.

Recently, I came across the word yet again when I ran into a cat. If you’ve never heard of the Calico cat, the term is used to refer to a domestic cat with a spotted or parti-colored coat that is predominantly white, with patches of two other colors. It struck me then that the word calico had given me a lot of grief—as dust in drapes and dander in cat. As you can see, for me, calico has another connotation: allergy. n Kalpana Mohan writes from Saratoga. To read more about her, go to http://kalpanamohan.org and http://saritorial.com.

india currents • june 2012 • 131

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IC

films

Aniruddh Chawda

My Fair Gentleman VICKY DONOR. Director: Soojit Sircar.

Players: Ayushmann Khurrana, Yami Gautam, Annu Kapoor, Dolly Ahluwalia. Music: Ketan Sodha. Theatrical release (Eros)

S

perm donation—there, we said it—and the social baggage sometimes associated with it is a perennial favorite topic for everyone from late night comedians to philosophers and doctors—not to mention self-convinced religion purists—who continue to debate the ethics of this practice. To take this highly topical modern social reality onto the big screen and making it somewhat relevant, approachable and, er, fertile is no small achievement. Vicky Donor waves a light wand over the topic to come up with a social comedy that is winsome, funny, poignant and, ultimately, relevant.

Set in the crowded Delhi neighborhood of Lajpat Nagar, Juhi Chaturvedi’s story traces the under-achieving Vicky Arora (Khurrana), who dawdles away his time instead of assisting his mother Dolly (Ahluwalia) in her beauty parlor. Across town, the sperm bank operated by the professorial Baldev Chadda has an uncomfortably long list of prospective parents looking to directly or indirectly sire the next supermodel, industry tycoon or— this being India—cricket superstar.

Faced with acute shortage of “Aryan”

sperm—a lineage Chaddha proudly claims to have traced back to progeny descended from Alexander the Great’s campaign in 4th century B.C. India—and overhearing that the dashing, non-smoking and nubile Vicky’s grandfather sired an unusually big brood, Chaddha triangulates his eyes on recruiting Vicky to enlist at the sperm facility. Vicky, who only has eyes for the hard-to-get bank teller Ashima (Gautam), finds himself caught in an interesting modern dilemma.

What works like a charm is fresh-faced cast of newcomers engaging in tongue in cheek urban fanfare—an always-crowded beauty parlor, a not so crowded sperm bank —while reveling in the quieter moments spent on Delhi roof tops, side-walk cafes and full-menu home cooked meals. Another well-injected element is the not-so-subtle interplay between regional Indian ethnicities converging in Vicky’s life. Vicky is Punjabi and Ashima is Bengali and some members of their respective clans don’t quite see eye to eye and hence continuously trade humorous chauvinistic darts at each other.

Khurrana aces the role of an innocent urban hunter-gatherer who must dip his toes into a complex phenomenon. Gautam, meanwhile, finesses her role as the shy working gal struggling with her own tryst with destiny.

Vicky lavishes on the sizable income Chaddha pays Vicky for the nearly-daily visits to the clinic with nary a care for the consequences that await him if his new profession comes to light in his social circle. As Vicky’s windowed mother, Ahluwalia impresses with channeling the hardships of single parenthood and Kapoor is clinical stoicism personified.

In an off-kilter sense, Chaddha chasing after Vicky in hopes of convincing Vicky to take on this lucrative assignment could easily be the modern counterpart to Henry Higgins from George Cukor’s My Fair Lady who must convince his Eliza Doolittle/Vicky to get with the program. The fact that a Hindi movie can show a donor walking out of a private room at a sperm storing facility holding in his hand a vial filled with non-specified whitish liquid without a doubt takes cojones!

In another trendy scene, several dozen children conceived from sperm donated by one man are brought together. While anthropologists and medicals ethicists may gasp at the prospect of this same brood even living in the same city (let alone the same state) on the elevated chances of inter-breeding in future generations, in this mod Hindi feature the scene simply and delicately captures the fragile parent-child bond—regardless of where the sperm came from. While Vicky Donor does not contemplate any heavy handed preaching—it’s most serious threat could well be the publicity poster that cleverly conjures up imagery of scattering spermatozoa - it firmly and enjoyably lands on its own squiggly tail, er, two feet. n EQ: A-

138 • india currents • june 2012

Winged Ancestors PATANG. Director: Prashant Bhargav. Players: Seema Biswas, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Mukkund Shukla, Sugandha Garg, Aakash Maheriya, Hamid Shaikh. Hindi & Gujarati, w/ Eng sub-tit. Theatrical release (Khushi Films) June 15, 2012

O

n the Hindu astronomical calendar, the kite-flying festival of Uttarayan marks the onset of winter, when the Sun begins its northward (uttar) trek towards a peak-Summer zenith in the celestial sphere.

Because the Aryans first arrived in India during Uttarayan, it is also associated with paying respect to one’s ancestors. Taking cues from both its ancient roots and modern spin, Bhargav’s feature filmmaking debut Patang weaves together a satisfying take on family bonds that, once loosened, dangerously drift towards chaos, much like a kite in flight.

Hindi movies filmed in Gujarat (Lagaan, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam) usually zero in on the starkly dry vistas of the great Kuttch

Desert. Counterpoint to that, Patang is set in the slums of Ahmedabad—a city of 5 million that is the economic heart of the Gujarat’s booming economy, which by some counts is the single fastest growing region in all of Asia.

A family visit by Jayesh (Shukla), a successful Delhi-based businessman, to his relatives in Ahmedabad (or Amdavad, in colloquial Gujarati) sparks restrained commotion in the household of Sudha (Biswas), Jayesh’s widowed sister in law. Sudha makes a meager living by providing home schooling in the neighborhood and supports both an elderly mother in law and Chakku, Sudha’s struggling son. Jayesh’s visit, with his pampered daughter Priya (Garg) in tow, also reignites a quiet intra-family property feud.

Kites hold universal appeal for the freein-flight symbolism they embody. And Patang would hardly be the one Indian movie to use

this allegory—it has been used oft-time in both a serious (Kites) and playful juxtaposes (Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam). And yet this is exactly where Bhargav get a chance to shine.

The kite-flying is ever-present and nicely connects all the characters together, including Hamid (Shaikh), an orphaned street urchin befriended by Chakku. While kites may seem harmless, they can also belong to a class of “fighter kites”—competition level masterpieces with strings dipped in ground glass to literally cut rival fliers out of the skies.

Siddique did a brilliant bad-cop turn in Kahaani, matching Vidya Balan step for step, and here underplays a rootless angst of the chronically underemployed with an uneven and unshakable sense of self defined by not having a father in his life. The other noteworthy performance is Shaikh as the street orphan, who all purposes could have wandered off from the set of Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay—a life defined by grinding poverty, daily beatings and few pleasures. Then there is Biswas, who can draws attention in every frame she is a part of. Like the widow she played in Water, her Sudha here is reticent, abiding and yet never meek.

The fact that Jayesh is well off and Sudha’s not so much also presents India’s progress conundrum. Patang lays bare a collision between the alarming nature of the uneven tradeoff India has had to make with it’s own progress.

Jayesh’s capital city affluence represents the new wealth that a small minority in India is taking to fabulous heights. Sudha’s family in Ahmedabad, by contrast, stands in for that other India, struggling and yet somehow grounded. Slow in parts, Bhargav deserves kudos for poignantly showcasing the clash of India-vs-India. n EQ: B

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Salvation Alley

Hashmi here and Sadak’s "Rahene Ko Ghar Nahin," filmed on Sanjay Dutt.

JANNAT 2. Director: Kunal Deshmukh. Players: Emraan Hashmi, Esha Gupta, Randeep Hooda, Manish Chaudhary. Music: Pritam Chakraborty. Hindi w/ Eng sub-titles. Theatrical release (Fox)

I

n the four year span since the first Jannat was unleashed by Mahesh Bhatt, very few things have changed. The criminal underworld is still the gift that keeps on giving fodder to screenwriters. The underworld is still a nasty place to get trapped in. Emraan Hashmi is still Mahesh Bhatt’s favorite lead and yes, Hashmi has the rep as the onscreen kissing Romeo and yes, he just as easily gets tangled in a lip locks at a moment’s notice. Even while regurgitating an oft-told tale, Jannat 2 smartly up-ticks a gritty, modern inner city odyssey that holds some genuine surprises.

In the life of Sonu Dilli (Hashmi), a small-time illicit gun runner in the slums of Delhi, there are only two constants. One is that the only trade Sonu knows for eking out a living is by hawking small arms to anonymous customers is dark alleys. The other is that Sonu is fixated on Jhanvi Tomar (Gupta), the winsome doctor who tends to Sonu at the free clinic where he ends up after every street brawl. Sony’s two divergent horizons— extremes comprised of violent strong-arming on the one hand and domestic bliss on the other—are destined for a clash as soon as Sonu comes under the radar of local vice cop ACP Pratap Raghuvanshi (Hooda).

Even though the plotline from Jannat 2 is not all that different from the first Jannat —with the new installment, Hashmi’s lead character trades down from fixing cricket matches to small time arms dealing—director Deshmush succeeds at creating a criminal maze for Sonu to repeatedly trespass in.

The interactions between Sonu and ACP Pratap are charged with an undercurrent of mutual suspicion and insecurities bursting at the seams. Sonu sees in Pratap the authority and discipline that is missing in his own life.

Pratap, on the other hand, envisions in Sonu a carefree street hustler through whom he can possibly, just possibly, salvage his dented psyche from the inner demons that haunt his most reserved moments.

Pritam’s score is a refreshing song-pack and a keeper.

Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s sumptuous up tempo qawwali "Tera Deedar Hua" is a must have prop for all CD decks and MP3 players for Summer 2012. Of all Bhatt movies, Jannat 2 stylishly most closely resembles Sadak, even though Bhatt’s 1991 entry Sadak thematically borrowed from Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver.

There are striking similarities in the musical staging of "Tera Deedar Hua" filmed on

Hollywood cinematographers swear by the unique natural light offered by the sun drenched vistas of Big Sur coastal area of California. An unusual number of Hollywood entries have filler scenes shot there. In India, this sweet spot could easily be the light mists of a Delhi winter morning. The misty veneer permeating so much of Bobby Singh’s cinematography in Jannat 2 adds a mysteriously inviting aura of subtle suspense and acts as a metaphor for the strange goings on in Sonu’s life. As the camera pulls away from the shores of a wide, ice-covered lake in the Himalayan foothills—a lake into which a body has just been carelessly tossed—the stark contrast between the serene, icy waters of the lake and the violence just witnessed sharply come into focus.

Newcomer Gupta mostly maintains her composure although at some point she will have to rely less on flickering her big hair.

Hooda adds yet another fine cop role to his vitae while Chaudhary is excellent as Jhanvi’s father with underworld connections. Hashmi remains the go-to guy for filmmakers who can’t afford Aamir Khan. And that suits Hashmi just fine, thank you. Hashmi has created a franchise of sorts in partnership with Mahesh and Mukesh Bhatt. In addition to Murder 2, Gangster, Jannat and Jannat 2, Hashmi will also co-anchor the upcoming Raaz 3, opposite Bipasha Basu, which will also mark Mahesh Bhatt’s highly anticipated return to directing.

As long as the Bhatt’s enlist able filmmakers like Deshmukh to make smart movies like Jannat 2, we’ll keep coming back. n EQ: B+

Globe trekker, aesthete, photographer, ski bum, film buff, and commentator Aniruddh Chawda writes from Milwaukee. india currents • june 2012 • 139

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IC

the last word

Sarita Sarvate

In Transit

A

irports, for me, have always had an odd appeal. They are worlds between worlds, places between arrivals and departures, reality and fantasy. They are sites for indulgence; for dreaming. They are locations where one can be totally anonymous and therefore totally free.

Perhaps airports are mystical because, for a long time, I had not noticed one. I had only seen its flash beckoning from across fallow fields as I lay on my cot in our courtyard, staring at the Milky Way on a summer’s night. The airport symbolized for me, then, dreams of a far away, unreachable world.

My father had promised to take us to the Nagpur airport but alas, that visit never materialized. Years later, as an adult, I accompanied a relative to Mumbai’s Santa Cruz airport. When the security guard stopped us because we were not passengers, my relative said, “Don’t worry. One day you will fly abroad from here.”

And fly abroad I did one day.

American airports in those days were spaces one could lounge and relax in.

Security restrictions were perfunctory; people came all the way to the gate to receive you. You could slip into the airport, stroll into a Pacific Southwest Airlines flight, and arrive in Los Angeles as if you had just stepped off a bus.

Certain airports remind me of certain eras of my life.

I arrived at the Papeete airport in Tahiti on the way to New Zealand one Christmas Eve in the early 1980s, hoping for a two-day stopover. I still had an Indian passport but the travel agent had never mentioned a visa so I had failed to procure one. At the immigration desk, an official looked me up and down, as if incredulous of my stupidity. There were no flights for two days, he reminded me, and brusquely asked me to step aside.

American couples in flowery outfits streamed past. Suddenly, a middle aged woman in a sundress collapsed on to the floor, rivers of blood oozing out of her mouth as her husband helplessly bent over her.

I was so shaken, my worries evaporated. I was alive. I was young. I had my whole life ahead of me. I persuaded the official to stamp my visa and stepped into street markets bursting with tropical fruit. Sauntering into the sunshine, I felt deliriously happy.

Airports in Hawaii had a different feel then. When you arrived in the Big Island, you had the sensation of entering an outdoor restaurant. People hopped off their planes, ran into bathrooms, emerged wearing sarongs and leis, and burst into hula dances.

Hawaiian music, which sounded schlocky elsewhere, streamed on the Musaac and melted away your stresses and worries.

Often your descent into an airport tells you the story of the place. And your resonance or dissonance with it. When I flew to New Zealand to live there, I looked upon a never-ending Pacific until the plane came upon a green dot in the middle of the water.

Losing altitude, I saw tin roofs dotting the hills, and wondered, “Do Kiwis live in zopadpattis?”

Once we were outside the airport, I noticed green highway signs and exclaimed, “So New Zealand is not such a backward place.” Just then, the smooth pavement gave way to a narrow one lane road passing for a major highway. Those tin roofs, I realized, were actual houses. Who would have thought?

Heathrow, which I only visited in the 1980s for the first time,

Airports to me have the sensation of a human embrace

144 • india currents • june 2012

told me all I needed to know about the state of the former empire. The multicolored miniature airline booths were straight out of Disneyland; the bathrooms and facilities run down and scruffy.

People were rude, and the service lousy. A glass of orange juice cost three pounds.

Flying into La Paz, Bolivia, recently, was like flying into heaven. At over 13,000 feet, the airport was named El Alto and offered me te de mate—coca tea—for altitude sickness. To drive into town from there was like diving into a bowl of soup. La Paz looked just like San Francisco, only upside down. In San Francisco, the hills rose up, in La Paz, they sank down into a gigantic crater.

Airports are fascinating because they have the quality of dead time. Time, in an airport, is a time of anticipation, particularly if you are going on an exciting journey. The reality of the voyage may not turn out as good as your imagination, but sitting in an airport, you are free to dream.

Airports have the sensation of a human embrace. Because everyone is welcome; everyone belongs. You do not feel you are trespassing; you are in the never-never land between countries and cities and states, where you are as likely to run into someone from Timbuktu or Tokori as from Tacoma or Teaneck.

In the late summer of 2007, I arrived at the Seattle airport after spending six weeks in isolation at the Hedgebrook Farm, a writers’ retreat. Although I loved the natural environment of Hedgebrook, my little cottage, and the organic garden, the group of women in residence, I had discovered, were a bit cliquish and sophomoric. Retreating from life was not conducive to my writing; it was the very hustle and bustle of normal life that stimulated me, gave me inspiration. Being cut off from the world and put into a paradise was relaxing for my soul, but not a trigger for the writer in me.

So on my way back to the airport, I felt liberated. I was so happy to be joining humanity again that uncharacteristically, I began to chat with other passengers in the shuttle bus.

“Yeah, I have had that sort of experience at a retreat,” a middle-aged woman said in sympathy, “where I just felt I didn’t belong.”

Entering the cavernous building of Seattle airport, an incredible euphoria rose within me. I was free. I was anonymous. I was among humanity. I was no longer isolated. I was not in danger of being judged. I went to a book stall and bought a trashy novel.

I did a crossword puzzle. I purchased trinkets. I watched CNN news on the overhead monitor. I went into the Body Shop and indulged in lotions and creams for myself and my kids. I called a friend and laughed and laughed.

I was in that dead zone where people are free of their daily obligations; allowed to waste away time without any feeling of guilt.

Even in the post-911 era, I realized, it was possible to have a good time in an airport. That feeling of being surrounded by masses of people, of diversity, of being a part of something big and chaotic and happy, was what I loved about the airport.

That day, airports took on a different, magical meaning for me. It became a symbol of hope, a sanctuary. A wayfarer’s stop in Gulliver’s Travels, a Buddhist inn on Xuanzang’s Silk Road, a caravanserai in Alexander’s journey to Persia. In another era, railway stations, with their steaming engines, noisy vendors, and miles of sidings, used to hold a mystical allure. One day, airports too will evoke legendary narratives. n Sarita Sarvate writes commentaries for Pacific News Service and KQED. Visit www.saritasarvate.com

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360 Kiely Blvd., Suite 235, San Jose, CA 95129 Bus. (408) 243-3155 ext. 201

1 (800) 4 BHAMBHRA • 1 (800) 424-2624 Approved Broker Dept. of Real Estate, CA. Lic. #896358