August 2013 by India Currents

The Man Who Wouldn't Be King by R. Benedito Ferrao

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Farhan Akhtar on Bhaag Milkha Bhaag

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What makes Indian Americans give up the security of salaried jobs for the uncertain future of entrepreneurship?

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Experience august 2013 • vol. 27, no . 5 • www. indiacurrents.com

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One of the material effects of the “race card” is the reluctance and inability to intelligently parse the English letters of nonwestern names. Take mine for example. At a dress shop I was asked to confirm my name so the sales assistant could look up my buying history. J-A-Y-A she spelled out loud, then looked at me and said “Jeva?” The problem with the mispronunciation and distortion of names is that it immediately establishes the “alien” category as a justifiable classification. With the so-called racist prank involving the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the San Francisco television station, KTVU, the blame fell squarely on a hapless intern for having confirmed the validity of the names, “Sum Ting Wong,” “Wi Tu Lo,” “Ho Lee Fuk” and “Bang Ding Ow.” On analysis, there is a deeper more outrageous prevailing trend. It is possible that the intern most likely confirmed the names because he heard them repeated; or he and likely others were clueless enough to believe the names were no joke; or it was a clumsy prank. Which then leads to the conclusion that it’s open season on Asian names within corporate offices. Claire Jean Kim, an associate professor of political science and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine

is quoted in an article on Huffington Post as saying that racial jokes on names “reflect a deeper view of Asian Americans as culturally different and inferior,” and that the jokes distorting the pilots’ names after a fatal air crash “are not benign.” Several anonymous online posts were critical of the lack of humor in the response to the KTVU news report. “Ah yes, the “r” word: racism. And the “o” word: offensive. Get over it. A mildly clever person pulled a reasonably funny (if insensitive—to the victims of the crash) prank,” stated one. The question to ask is why should anyone “get over it?” Names, after all, label us and put identifiers on our race, gender, heritage and culture. A few days ago, the phone rang. I picked it up even though I didn’t recognize the number. “Hello,” I said. “Mrs. Padabaam?” a voice asked. I put the receiver down without responding. We set the bar way too low if we allow ourselves to concede that our multi-syllabic names confound the western reader. If you can say disintegration and pronunciation, surely you can say Padmanabhan?

Jaya Padmanabhan

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August 2013 | www.indiacurrents.com | 1

INDIA CURRENTS august 2013 • vol 27 • no 5

PERSPECTIVES

Southern California Edition

LIFESTYLE

www.indiacurrents.com 1 | EDITORIAL Way Too Low By Jaya Padmanabhan

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38 | BOOKS Reading Pleasures: 8 Books To Read This Fall

6 | FORUM Should America Intervene in Syria? By Rameysh Ramdas, Mani Subramani

44 | FILMS: A Review of Lootera and Ghanchakkar By Aniruddh Chawda, Madhumita Gupta

7 | A THOUSAND WORDS Tummy Time By Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan

52 | HEALTHY LIFE Preventing Cervical Cancer By Joanne Silberner

8 | VIEWPOINT My Secrets: How I Became a Prolific Writer and Learned to Get Beyond School Essays. By Vivek Wadhwa 16 | COMMENTARY Ungadgeted By Rangaprabhu Parthasarathy 28 | OPINION Nourishing the Past By Priyanka Sacheti 30 | ON INGLISH From the Man-Village Into the Jungle By Kalpana Mohan 34 | FICTION The Legacy By Anu Chitrapu 42 | YOUTH The Asian American Renaissance By Divya Prakash, Poem by Advait Patil 50 | REFLECTIONS Memories Are Made of This By Mimm Patterson 64 | THE LASTWORD A Summer Sojourn By Sarita Sarvate 2 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

54 | TRAVEL The Sweet Art of Doing Nothing By Kalpana Sunder

10 | The Risky Road In their search for independence, small business owners often confront uncertainty and risk. By Vidya Pradhan and Jaya Padmanabhan

18 | Analysis

60 | RELATIONSHIP DIVA Making the First Move By Jasbina Ahluwalia 63 | DEAR DOCTOR Figuring Out the Family By Alzak Amlani

The Man Who Wouldn’t Be King By Benedito Ferrão

20 | Q&A Farhan Akhtar on Bhaag Milkha Bhaag

DEPARTMENTS 4 | Voices 5 | Popular Articles 26 | Ask a Lawyer 27 | Visa Dates

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58 | Recipes Hyderabadi Cooking By Shanta Sacharoff

61 | Classifieds 62 | Viewfinder

WHAT’S CURRENT 46 | Cultural Calendar 49 | Spiritual Calendar

August 2013 | www.indiacurrents.com | 3

voices

A Way of Life

Just as I began reading your July 2013 issue, I put on the kettle for “tea” like Sarita Sarvate (Tea, India Currents, July 2013), called out to my husband, “I’ll have three sugars with that, please” like Kalpana Mohan (I’ll Have Three Sugars With That, Please, India Currents, July 2013), then went into the den and managed to find a spot to sit on “the accursed couch” like Lakshmi Palecanda (The Accursed Couch, India Currents, July 2013) to read your always interesting magazine. Congratulations on starting up in Washington, D.C. A. Sharma, West Covina, CA

Supplementing the Story

The article on Rabindranath Tagore by Anita Felicelli (Tea, India Currents, July 2013) was excellent. Here are some interesting nuggets of information to supplement the article: Tagore originally wrote the Indian national anthem, “Jana Gana Mana,” in 1911. The story goes that in 1919, Tagore was invited by his friend, an Irish poet, James H. Cousins to spend some time at the Besant Theosophical College in Andhra Pradesh, at which institution Cousins held the position of Principal. One evening at the behest of his friend, Tagore sang “Jana Gana Mana” in Bengali. Impressed by the inspirational message of the song, the college adopted it as their “prayer song.” Subsequently, with the help of Cousins’ wife, Margaret, Tagore set the song to music and translated it into English. It was through word of mouth, that the song spread beyond the borders of Andhra Pradesh and was first known as “the morning song” before it became India’s national anthem. The second stanza of the song has the philosphical basis of the unity of religions as well as of East and West. Tagore is also well-known for his thoughtful consideration of religious philosophy. In his foreword to Dr. S. Radhakrishnan’s book, The Philosophy of Upanishads, he has beautifully explained in a few pages a great understanding of the human personality and its connection to the Infinite Truth. “We are afraid of death, because we are afraid of the absolute cessation of our personality. Therefore, if we realize the Person as the ultimate reality which we know in everything that we know, we find our own personality in the bosom of the eternal.” It is worth reading and shows Tagore’s greatness for which my words are a very

4 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

feeble tribute. Jayananda Hiranandani, Artesia, CA

A Favorite Beverage

It was so invigorating to read Sarita Sarvate’s article on tea (Tea, India Currents, July 2013). Tea, coffee or even knitting fills a very important gap, which exists between the real world of stress and the imaginative world of good memories and fantasy. I think mothers of yesteryear did have this parallel life of living on their own, working in their house from morning to evening and whenever they had leisure time to read the Ramayana or make pillow covers and pajamas from discarded sheets. All in all Sarvate’s Tea had a distinct aroma. I always read India Currents by reading the last page first. And by the way Red Label is still my favorite. Suresh Mandan, Fremont, CA Sarita Sarvate is at her best as she reminisces and raves about the joys of drinking tea (Tea, India Currents, July 2013). “I need at least one vice,” says she, “and tea is my drug of choice.” My sentiments exactly. Not to mention that tea keeps some other vices (like soda and alcohol) away. Vijay Gupta, Cupertino, CA

A Celluloid Connection

I immensely enjoyed Sandip Roy’s article in the June edition (My Granddad, The Bengali Peddler, India Currents, June 2013). It also solved for me what was a minor (and forgotten) mystery dating back to a favorite film from 1955. The movie was Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!. In it, there was a character called Ali Hakim, a peddler, (played by Eddie Albert), who was the love interest of Ado Annie, played by Gloria Grahame. I saw this movie when I was 14 years old, in rural Washington state, and I mused, “Ali Hakim? What is his background? Sounds Muslim, how did he get into the mix in rural Oklahoma?” Now, with the excellent article in your June issue, it all becomes clear. I wonder if anyone else noticed this? Could there be other books, films, or what-

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.

have-you in which these pioneering Bengali peddlers play any roles? I hope that in the future, you could do a follow-up article about Fatima Shaik and her efforts to connect with her heritage. It makes for fascinating reading. Thank you for your always excellent reporting. Darleen Dhillon, Berkeley, CA

Bottlenecks in the Flow Chain

I respectfully beg to differ from Krishnamachar Srinivasan’s view that corporations cleverly find ways of fending off older employees, especially in the Silicon Valley, CA (Aging Out in Silicon Valley, India Currents, July 2013). Intense competition between players in the Silicon Valley demands the utmost urgency and requires going from concept to validation, production, manufacturing and market release as quickly as possible. Any bottlenecks in the flow chain in this cycle will obviously be eliminated as and when identified, whether young or old. A few years back, an Indian American friend of ours working in the restaurant management business got a plum assignment to run a very large, busy, chain restaurant unit overlooking the ocean, in Los Angeles. One day, during the lunch rush hour, the manager found that the waiting line for tables had lengthened rapidly and orders were returned to the kitchen for repair or remake at a faster rate than normal. He checked the kitchen, found the problem and fired the chef instantly, but asked him to leave the premises at the end of his shift which was still three hours away. The chef, in turn, decided to wreak some vengeance. He took out the best cuts of meat and seafood from the freezer and grilled them to perfect charcoal. Several hundred dollars worth of food was wasted almost instantly. The saga of the afternoon continued with the firing of our friend, the manager, an hour later “for not taking effective action in a timely manner.” P. Mahadevan, Fullerton, CA I thank Mr. Mahadevan for his careful reading of my article. I wrote about my experiences over a long period (1969-2002) in the computer industry. I worked for a think tank, companies at various stages in their lives in the Silicon Valley and a start up where I did not strike oil. By no stretch of imagination am I claiming expertise, nor do I desire to use a broad brush. It is based on many engineers’ lives that intersected with my life and I benefited from them. I respect Mr. Mahadevan’s views, but my battles with deadlines were mostly manager made. Krishnamachar Sreenivasan, Palo Alto, CA

Mortgage Rates are Historically Low India Currents is now available on the Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/IndiaCurrents/dp/B005LRAXNG Follow us at twitter.com/indiacurrents on facebook.com/IndiaCurrents Most Popular Articles Online July 2013 1) I’ll Have Three Sugars With That, Please. Kalpana Mohan 2) The Power of my 929. Rajee Padmanabhan 3) 100 Years After the Nobel Prize. Anita Felicelli 4) Aging Out in Silicon Valley. Krishnamachar Sreenivasan 5) A Staple Nourishment. Vijitha Shyam

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forum

Should America Intervene in Syria? Yes to Syrian intervention

No to Syrian intervention

By Rameysh Ramdas

By Mani Subramani

he United States of America has long been the beacon and champion of individual freedom, human rights and democracy in the world—and our central foreign policy tenet since the end of the Cold War has been an unequivocal support of those seeking freedom across the globe from dictators and for democratizing societies. That moral clarity has helped us remain the world’s superpower. Our nation has never turned away from helping those aspiring for freedom and democracy. Until now, when the Barack Obama administration has had a tepid response at best, and an inept response, at worst, to the rapidly deteriorating situation in Syria. The United Nations estimates that over 93,000 people have died in Syria since 2011 due to the brutality of President Bashar alAssad’s forces, including the use of chemical weapons. Even President Obama’s own red line condition of Assad using chemical weapons against his own people did not evoke a meaningful response from this administration. As the Milwaukee Journal pointed out in their recent editorial, “after two years of hand-wringing and diplomatic posturing,” the Obama administration did a turnaround and said that the United States would provide small arms to the rebels—the announcement coming from a National Security official and not the President. As the Milwaukee Journal further pointed out, the Obama Administration decided “to outsource policy on Syria to the United Nations, where Russia Our nation has never and China exercised their veto power to block efturned away from fective action.” Lack of States leadership helping those aspiring United has since allowed Iran to step in and aid President for freedom and Assad. Our U.S. Ambasdemocracy. sador to Syria, Robert S. Ford, has admitted candidly in recent testimony to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs that such support from Iran, Russia and Hezbollah has emboldened President Assad and that he “thinks he still can win militarily” as opposed to seeking a diplomatic solution which could include his safe departure to another country. As Bill Keller so eloquently pointed out in a recent New York Times op-ed, Syria is not Iraq for many different reasons—chief among them is that “this is a genuine humanitarian crisis” that is also in our national interest to avoid Syria disintegrating and becoming a safe haven for terrorists. Vali Nasr, though a former Obama administration official and now critical of the Obama administration, says in his new book The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat, “Gone is the exuberant American desire to lead in the world. In its place there is the image of a superpower tired of the world and in retreat.” As President Ronald Reagan said wisely, we seek peace from strength—and that is sage advice for our current President who seems to want America in retreat and that is neither good for us or for the world at large. When American retreats, rogue nations rush in to fill that vacuum. n

here is likely to be a fight over the increase of debt ceiling in the U.S. Congress in September this year. We had one in 2011 and again in 2012. These fights have been debilitating to the U.S. economy. Not going to war in Iraq could have averted the two previous and the upcoming third debt ceiling fights. Without the Iraq war and that trillion dollar hole in the exchequer, a case could be made that the ill-conceived and uneccesary war in Iraq has prolonged the recession. But for that misadventure we could have had the economy humming at a good clip and the unemployment rate at more normal levels. Past armed conflicts where America was not directly provoked or where American interests were not directly involved have left the United States poorer and morally bruised. Syria has not directly harmed the United States in any way nor are there any significant American interests involved. In addition it is not clear that the Syrian rebels do not have links to Al-Qaeda. Syria could become an AlQaeda safe haven after Assad is toppled. This is not even considering the human costs of that war. So when the same people who convinced us about Iraq are now persuading us to get involved in Syria, it should be received with nothing but skepticism. If we make a case Past armed conflicts for attacking Syria on humanitarian grounds, where America was not how about other cases directly provoked or of humanitarian abuse? After the Arab Spring where American interthere were protests on ests were not directly the streets of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, which were involved have left the put down by the respective regimes with force. United States poorer Why not attack Bahrain? and morally bruised. What about North Korea, which is the definition of a humanitarian catastrophe? The case for attacking Syria is as muddled as ever. The only way to ensure moral clarity is by a multi-national coalition thru the United Nations. Not a “coalition of the willing,” but a real coalition. So punting on Syria is absolutely the right move Military power signified by unilateral action against regimes that have fallen out of favor cannot be the only way to project American power. After all, several governments were felled in the Arab Spring not by American military might, but by the people of the Middle East using American social media software. Military force is fast becoming a blunt, crude and irrelevant instrument of foreign policy. One cannot forget that America’s military might is merely an offshoot of the economic dominance which has made this a coveted land. Not the other way around. So when potential military escapades threaten the very foundation of the nation we should just say NO. As Bill Clinton’s campaign message famously said “It’s the economy stupid!” n

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

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

6 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

a thousand words

Tummy Time By Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan

eing pregnant is no joke, and I had an easy pregnancy. First there’s morning sickness, which is ghastly even if you don’t have Kate Middleton’s variety. There’s not being able to tell anyone why you aren’t feeling like yourself until you have cleared the initial screenings. There’s outgrowing your favorite clothes. There are changes to your workouts, restrictions on diet, and the imperative of side sleeping. There’s the maddening injunction to “kick-count,” the uncertainty of ultrasounds, and the revelation that it takes 40 weeks to bring a baby to her due date and not what one ordinarily thinks of as “nine months.” There are the blood draws, glucose tests, and the pee-in-the-cup routine. And that’s only if you’re a textbook case, no complications. Then there are the staring strangers and friends full of (unwarranted) advice. Among these are the tummy-patters and belly enthusiasts, who range from sweetly interested to remarkably forward. When I Skyped with my cousin Nihal to tell him our news, he shook his head impatiently at my descriptions of our first ultrasound and baby’s raspberry-sized form. “Just show me the belly!” he thumped his fist, all Jerry Maguire. Who doesn’t love a belly, as long as it’s not their own? When I was a teen, full of complexes and reticent to wear anything stomach revealing, I used to go swimming with my friend Amy. Amy was lovely, bubbly, and chubby, and, like many Americans, completely comfortable in a bikini. I marveled at the ease with which she carried her half-nude self. And because Amy was entirely uncomplexed about her body, the soft swell of tummy hanging over bikini bottom seemed totally normal. It was far from crude or embarrassing or whatever else I imagined my own body would be if exposed to the world in a two-piece. I never wore a bikini and still haven’t. Despite Nora Ephron’s injunction (“Oh, how I regret not having worn a bikini for the entire year I was twenty-six. If anyone young is reading this, go, right this minute, put on a bikini, and don’t take it off until you’re thirty-four.”), I haven’t been able to convince myself that relative youth trumps a genetic paunch. Tummies, I’ve been raised to believe, are to be minimized in every dress except the flattering magic of the belly-baring sari. On the beaches of Copacabana and Waikiki, I glance enviously at the toned and overweight alike, everyone with the self-confidence to let it all hang out. The paparazzi’s obsession with celebrity baby bumps suggests that there is something universally appealing about the belly. Until I was expecting, I couldn’t help gawping at the pregnant women I passed. They seemed otherworldly, alien even, with their distended forms and visible not-so-secrets. They also seemed singularly liberated from the suck-in-your-tummy social convention. I didn’t stop to think about the little faces, hands, and feet inside the belly—or, as another one of my cousins puts it, inside “bellyland.” I just saw women unburdened, at home in their transforming bodies, in a way I had yet to fully appreciate but found fascinating. When I was pregnant, I was finally able to enjoy the privileges of the unapologetically expanding. For the first time, I stood on the

scale hoping for higher numbers. I embraced the generous design of maternity clothes, designed to highlight that which is normally concealed. I waited impatiently to cross from the realm of “possiblygained-weight” to “most-certainly-pregnant.” I taught in fitting, bump-baring tops, wanting to communicate to my impressionable, eighteen-year-old students an air of unabashed ownership of my maternal form. Now, just weeks after having delivered our baby, it is hard not to feel pressure to contain my unruly middle. Vitamin E-oil for stretch marks, an aunt suggests. Ayurvedic medicines, says another. Oil massage. Hot water compress. My well-meaning grandmother has wanted to know my plan for belly reduction ever since we came home from the hospital. She is convinced that the custom of 40 days bed rest plus tummy tying is the key to recovering your prepregnancy form. “You have to tie your stomach,” she eyes my gut distastefully, ignoring my indignant counter that exercise is always preferable to inactivity. “Well, that’s what we do in India,” she responds confidently, as if India is the land of the bikini-ready. Now, the shirts I enjoyed wearing when they accentuated my eight-month-pregnant belly just make me look out of shape. But I have a heightened fondness for my tummy now, my distorted belly button and its acquired folds. It is capable, determined, resilient, miraculous. It is a sign of life, not laziness. I have experienced the counterintuitive liberation of pregnancy, and I am determined not to succumb to the imperatives of rote weight-consciousness. Meanwhile, we are following the doctor’s orders: Every day, we are to maneuver Mrinalini, our not-yet-two-month-old daughter, onto her stomach for “tummy time,” during which she is to practice lifting her head and strengthening her neck, working toward turning over. Tummy time is a corrective for sleeping supine, which has been the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation for infants since 1992. Back sleeping, in its turn, was championed in the early 1990s as a way to reduce SIDS. Mrinalini enjoys tummy time. We put her on her belly, and she wriggles around like a little turtle. Her soft, perfect tummy anchors her body as legs and arms flail, then focus, on the tasks of moving forward and side to side. Slowly, our baby is learning to be at home in her body. She is building up a repertoire of familiar sensations, and her little milkbelly is the center of her world. When it is empty, she cries. When it is full, she smiles. She has yet to discover her hands and feet, but she knows the rumblings of digestion. Soon, she will learn to turn over. I pray she will walk and run and swim. We will teach her to embrace everything her body can do, and we will dress her in a baby bikini. n Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan is a doctoral candidate in Rhetoric at UC Berkeley.

August 2013 | www.indiacurrents.com | 7

viewpoint

My Secrets: How I Became a Prolific Writer and Learned to Get Beyond School Essays By Vivek Wadhwa

ome people think I am a journalist. My friends ask how I can possibly write as much as I do given all the responsibilities that I have. I write for The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, ASEE Prism Magazine, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Forbes, and a LinkedIn blog. I’ve just co-authored a book, Immigrant Exodus, which The Economist named a book of the year. And I am working on two more books: one about women in tech and another about how the United States can reinvent itself. Writing is just a hobby; my day job is as an academic and researcher. I get so much feedback from my writing that I know it is making an impact and is well worth the effort I put into it. It is the best way of sharing ideas and educating. That is why I do it and why I encourage others to write. And that is why I thought I should share some secrets about how a guy like me got into writing. It may motivate others to find their own path. If you look at my education and background, you’ll see that I started my career as a nerdy computer programmer who happened to build a far-out technology that led to the creation of a software company. This startup, Seer Technologies, achieved extraordinary success and transformed me into an entrepreneur. Much later, I became an academic. I exited my second startup, Relativity Technologies, because of health problems. I decided to do something completely different for a while: help produce a Bollywood film. This caught the attention of BusinessWeek tech editor Alex Salkever, who had followed and written about my tech career. Alex thought that BusinessWeek readers would find my story interesting, and asked me to tell it in my own words. I don’t have any journalism degrees, and have never taken writing classes. Frankly, I barely passed English in grade school, because I hated grammar. I could never figure out what an adverb was, or the difference between a noun and a pronoun. So I had to learn by doing, and all of my writing experience was confined to high-school essays and a few university research reports. Needless to say, I had no clue how to 8 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

In articles, if you don’t capture readers’ attention in the first or second paragraph, they lose interest and move on. And you have to say all you can in the fewest words possible. write a BusinessWeek article. But I didn’t tell Alex that. I readily accepted his offer. Then I frantically wrote to journalist friends to ask for advice: how do you write a business article or op-ed? What they said was that I should just write down my thoughts as though I were telling a story to a friend: forget all I had learned about structuring highschool essays; and be brief, hard-hitting, and to the point. It was really, really hard to do this. The school essays that we are taught to write start with a boring preface, ramble on forever, and save the best part for last. In articles, if you don’t capture readers’ attention in the first or second paragraph, they lose interest and move on. And you have to say all you can in the fewest words possible. School teachers reward you for verbosity and essay length.

They don’t read every word; they just skim to see whether you have understood key concepts. Readers of business articles, however, want to learn something, and to gain the most knowledge by the least reading. It took me more than 40 hours to write my first BusinessWeek piece: “Bollywood, Here I Come.” Then it got progressively easier. It took 30 hours for the next piece, 20 hours on average for the next few, then five to ten hours; and now it takes me two to four hours per piece, depending on how much research it necessitates. When I know my stuff, I can sometimes knock articles over in less than an hour. These really are the keys to writing blog posts, op-ed pieces and columns, and even testimonies to Congress: to speak fearlessly from the heart, get to the point immediately, keep the message simple and focused, and use the fewest words you can. I made a submission to the House Judiciary Committee on immigration reform, recently. I simply told the story as if speaking to a friend. I’ll share another secret. I almost always have a friend look over what I write, checking it for spelling errors, grammar, and sensibility. I am really lucky to have a childhood friend in Australia, John Harvey, who is a perfectionist editor. He drives me crazy with his demands that I add commas and semicolons. Just as the editors I work with at The Washington Post, BusinessWeek, and Wall Street Journal do, he questions everything that I write. Good editors make you fact-check and validate every statement. You can learn a lot from their criticisms. So writing is a skill that you can learn. It gets easier as you go on and soon you will make an impact. If you don’t have a Bollywood story that you can get BusinessWeek to tell, just write a blog on your own website, or comment on discussion sites such as Quora, LinkedIn, or countless others. Your voice is as important as any other. It’s all about selling for survival. n Vivek Wadhwa is an entrepreneur turned academic. You can follow him on Twitter at @ vwadhwa and find his research at www.wadhwa. com. First published on LinkedIn.

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The Risky Road By Vidya Pradhan and Jaya Padmanabhan

Indian American small business owners forge their own success stories despite the hurdles of changing business and regulatory environments, little community support and business inexperience. What makes members of the model minority give up the security of salaried jobs for the uncertain future of entrepreneurship?

elvi Pragasam, founder of the IndoFusion Dance Academy, worked at Lockheed Martin for eight years as a web designer before giving it up to open her dance school. She is the first entrepreneur in her family. When she left the security of a salary to plunge into the world of small business, she was fully aware that the financial rewards might not materialize for several years, but her dream of creating a performing arts hub in the San Francisco Bay Area was too compelling to resist. Harpal Mangat decided to branch off on his own because “there was more room for innovation and if we provided great service to our customers the sky was the limit.” He is a physician who has a private practice in the Washington, D.C. metro area.

10 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

Tanya Momi, who runs the Spoil Me Full Service Salon in Mountain View, California, was forced by a bitter divorce to become financially independent. She gravitated to nail work because of her interest in drawing and painting and is now a well-known artist in addition to managing her salon. “My father is a tax attorney and C.P.A. in Calcutta and has had his own firm for the past 50 years,” recounts southern California lawyer, Amy Ghosh. “My grandfather was a well known lawyer who mainly litigated cases in the Indian Supreme Court and had a very successful solo practice. Hence, my family background motivated me to start my own practice after working briefly for a large law firm.” Rennu Dhillon, founder of Genius Kids,

Fremont, CA, came up with the idea of an enrichment-driven program as a single parent looking for educational opportunities for her daughters. “When I worked as a recruiter, I realized the crying need to develop public speaking and confidence in the next generation.” Her center concentrates almost exclusively on public speaking and science in the early years. In every case, the overriding sentiment is a preference to work for oneself. “We Indians are very hard-working,” argues Dhillon, “so why should the fruits of our labors go to someone else?” Pragasam adds that her strongest incentive is that she can pursue her interests without restrictions and with relative independence. “Dance is my passion and I am lucky

California, Artesia in Southern California and Fairfax in Virginia belie the reality that small businesses have Whites 12.6 16.6 12.8 easy entry points but Blacks 4.8 6.6 5.0 an alarmingly high risk Hispanics/Latinos 7.0 9.4 8.1 of failure. Native Americans 6.1 8.4 8.4 According to analAll Asians 8.4 11.8 11.0 ysis published by the Small Business AdAsian Indians 7.4 11.5 11.0 ministration (SBA), a Chinese 9.8 11.2 10.8 quarter of small busiFilipinos 4.5 5.4 5.2 nesses fail within the Japanese 11.1 14.0 12.1 first year of operation. Koreans 9.0 27.8 24.0 Why is this number so Taiwanese 11.9 16.6 15.4 high and is this any Vietnamese 7.9 11.2 10.7 different for the Asian and Indian American Population: All employed persons 25 or older Data Source: 2000 Census 5% Public Use Microdata Samples (PUMS) enterprises? As per the Census Bureau, there were 1.5 that I have made it my profession.” million Asian owned small businesses in 2007, and out of this number 20% were Risks vs Rewards The Indian American community has owned by Asian Indian entrepreneurs. Inbeen a significant component of Silicon Val- terestingly, of all the ethnic groups, Asian ley’s prosperity, much of which has arisen Americans were most likely to own small from the technology sector. Indeed, one businesses. University of Massachusetts, would be hard pressed to find a technology Amherst, Sociology Professor and Director start-up that does not feature a name like of the Asian and Asian American Studies, C.N. Le states that in his research he Khosla, Rajaraman, or Ranadive. But these tech entrepreneurs form the has found that when second and third attractive tip of an iceberg whose concealed generation Asian Indians are looking at bulk features many other Indian American career tracks, a growing proportion are entrepreneurs and small business owners looking at profesional service industries, who toil in relative obscurity—grocers, res- like doctors, lawyers, tax consultants, etc. taurant owners, dance school teachers—and Le’s analysis supports the fact that Asian who get by without the support system of Indians also had the highest average annual incubators, professional networks, and access revenue among all Asian ethnicities, about $494,304. to community forums. The proliferation of small business entities in cities like Sunnyvale in Northern Funding Unlike the technology sector, where the concept of angel investing at least opens up some opportunities for the budding entrepreneur, funding for the average small business is much harder to come by. Dhillon used her savings from her work as a recruiter to break ground on her first center. Dev Sagar, founder/CEO of Best Graphic Image, a hardware support company in Fremont, CA, continued to work at his job while he started his own company because he wanted to play it safe. His business grew very slowly as a result but he feels happy with his decision. In the case of Mangat, there were loans being offered by banks and marketed to South Asian physicians. “This was before the banking crisis,” clarified Mangat, “and we didn’t really understand how the bankSelvi Pragasam, Owner of ing industry worked. But it seemed the right Indian-Fusion Dance Academy thing to do then.”

Rates of Being Self-Employed

Racial/Ethnic Group U.S.-Raised Foreign-Raised Total

“I did approach the banks,” said Pragasam, “the rates however were very high. I also approached SBA Loans. But my business revenue was not big enough for them to consider my application.” So Pragasam used the savings from her tech job to fund her dance school, with the proviso that expenses from the school not encroach on her family finances. According to Hector Gandhi, Vice President Commercial Loan Officer at Wells Fargo Bank, there are several options available to small business entrepreneurs and “not all financing options are created equal.” Gandhi suggests business credit cards, business lines of credit and business loans as possible funding solutions. Gandhi asserts that at Wells Fargo, the intention is to approve as many business loan applications as possible. “As the economy improves and business owners find opportunities to grow and improve their businesses, our small business lending has been growing. We’re seeing stronger loan applications contributing to an increase in approved loans.”

Dr. Harpal Mangat, M.D.

Inexperience

“50% of small businesses fail in the first five years,” says Sudhir Pai, who runs MyTaxFiler, an accounting firm that moved to California recently from Texas. He points out that most small business owners transition to entrepreneurship from previous roles as either employees or homemakers. “Both these roles don’t involve spending and allocating large amounts of money. And the first challenge in running your own business is knowing how to spend your limited capital.” Most small businesses are service providers, and few entrepreneurs come equipped with the managerial and administrative skills needed. Pragasam found herself overextended when she leased a large studio to fulfill her dream of creating a performing arts hub. Yearly taxation and accounting requirements had become a headache after her first accountant filed papers incorrectly. “Some August 2013 | www.indiacurrents.com | 11

12 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

the exhilaration of launching, Mangat didn’t do the due diligence to vet his partner and found it a costly mistake. He quit his first business and had to re-start four years later. “I’m happy to announce that I’m twice as successful, though,” he says with a note of satisfaction in his voice. “Finding the right business partner can be even more significant than finding a spouse,” says Kalara. When I challenge him on that assertion, he persuasively argues, “In a marriage, there are many areas to find common ground. In a partnership, you are both focused on just one thing—the business. If you cannot agree on that one thing, it all falls apart.” Sunny Kalara, Independent Lawyer

years I probably paid my taxes twice over because the accountant registered the academy as both a partnership and a limited liability entity,” she adds uncertainly. “This is not my area of expertise, and I wish someone had helped.” She adds, “Business issues usually take a backseat to my primary focus of teaching dance. I wake up only when there is a crisis.” “There were days I used to sit in an empty room at my center at the end of the day and wonder if I was going to make it,” reminisces Dhillon, though her business has grown exponentially since those early days. Says Sunny Kalara, who has a firm specializing in business and tech law, “Indian Americans come with some preconceived notions of how much they should spend on things that are not directly associated with the day-to-day running of the business. For instance, Indian American clients of mine don’t understand the emphasis on protecting trademarks, marketing expenses, and long-term investments. They just want to get started on selling their product or service right away.” Kalara’s statement is borne out by Ghosh. “Initially, I did not know how to market myself.” She started putting advertisements in various publications and portals. She found advertisements in places like the Yellow Pages were a waste of money whereas ads in the ethnic media were instant successes. Even small advertisements in magazines such as India Currents proved highly effective.”

Competition and Community

Many Indian American small businesses cater to their own community and find the going tough. Says Pragasam, “I try to provide a quality experience, but Indian parents constantly look for cheaper options. It is hard to reconcile my need to be professional with the demands of the market.” Momi’s competition comes from other ethnic groups like the Vietnamese in the health and beauty service sector, but she too bemoans the difficulty of competing while maintaining high levels of service. “Not every customer appreciates the level of hygiene and meticulousness my salon provides.” That lack of understanding of value among the Indian clientele appears to be a persistent obstacle to success. As to community unity, according to Mangat, there’s little of that. “A lot of doctors who go into business tend to grasp the lower end of the stick. Help is passive and competition is cut-throat. The community tends to be fragmented and getting people

The Right Partner

According to Pai, “businesses often fail because they try to nickel and dime their choice of partners. But finding the right partner for your growth-oriented business is critical.” He advises owners to look for partners who understand that the business will grow slowly initially. In the rush to start his own practice and

Rennu Dhillon, Owner of GeniusKids

Tanya Momi, Owner of Spoil Me Full Service Salon

to work together to support a common ideal is tough.” Kalara notices that “there are many other communities that are more closely knit.” Amy Ghosh gives the example of the Bangladeshi community, “because I speak Bengali, support from the Bangladeshi community was phenomenal.” She added that word of mouth referrals from the community, bring in a majority of her clients.

The Regulatory Environment

Nearly every small business owner I spoke with agrees that there were lower barriers to entry a decade or two ago. Momi talks about the ease of opening a salon in Mountain View in 1994. “I just walked in to city hall, filled out some papers, took out an ad in the Yellow Pages, and I was ready to start.” Recently, when she tried to open a branch in Palo Alto, she was daunted by the need for residential approval and the mountain of paperwork that is involved these days. She has had to move locations recently, because her landlord wanted “bigger businesses” as clients. “The bureaucracy has become more intrusive these days,” says Dhillon, who still claims that all the information is out there for the entrepreneur-to-be and one just needs an internet connection and a brain to sort it all out. But new city codes, fire permits and fees, and stricter regulations that arose because of the city’s unhappy experience with unlicensed daycares would make it much more difficult for new businesses to enter her particular market. According to a survey by Thumbtack and the Kauffman Foundation published in Slate, “local small-business owners give D.C. an F grade in the ease of starting a business.” Other tourist-friendly cities too land poor grades. New York gets an F, Boston and Los Angeles rate Ds and San Francisco gets a D+. “California is a particularly complex state August 2013 | www.indiacurrents.com | 13

to do business in,” says Pai, who is learning that lesson after starting a successful venture in Texas. “Because there are good markets here, because people have the entrepreneurial spirit, the bureaucracy is backlogged and the service sucks.” Pai adds that under the Obama administration, he has seen higher levels of enforcement, even if regulations have stayed mostly the same. He gives the example of foreign bank assets reporting, which had always been on the books but has recently become a bane to the immigrant community. “Loopholes are getting plugged and audits are increasing.”

Sudhir Pai, Owner of MyTaxFiler

Support

Indian American small businesses are unanimous in their opinion that help, attention and support from community organizations is almost exclusively focused on the tech and engineering sector. “I have had no support from the Indian American Chamber of Commerce,” says Dhillon. “And organizations like The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) are not available to us. This was confirmed by a representative at TiE who mentioned that TiE only works with businesses that are scalable and in the technology sector. Small businesses, in most cases, do not meet either of those criteria. The Bahai community provides its members with interest free funding if they wish to start businesses. “Why can’t we have something like that in our community?” asks Pragasam, “I wouldn’t know how to start getting help from the Indian American Chamber of Commerce. I also don’t know any other small business owners, so I don’t know who to ask for help.” Salons, grocery stores, restaurants and private practices are businesses that fly under the radar of the well-established Indian American network. 14 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

Dev Sagar, who is a director of the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce in Northern California, agrees that the organization lacks the resources to provide more than periodic seminars on issues like estate planning and labor laws. “We don’t have any counselors, though we would love to provide that kind of service.”

Small Business Resources

The irony is that many of these small businesses that are struggling on their own have plenty of resources available at the Small Business Administration (SBA) and their city departments, but few access the institutional resources available to them. Marlow Schindler is a lender relations specialist at the SBA located in the San Francisco Bay Area. “The SBA offers specific resources by region. We can help you with your business plan and provide technical counseling,” she says. Counseling is provided through SCORE, which provides over 11,500 volunteer business counselors throughout the United States and its territories. SCORE members are trained to serve as counselors advisors and mentors to aspiring entrepreneurs and business owners. These services are offered at no fee, as a community service. The SBA also helps businesses through their growth phases. In addition, small business owners of Asian Indian ethnicity who wish to do business with the government, are eligible as “socially disadvantaged” for the SBA 8(a) program (http:// www.sba.gov/content/8a-business-development-0), which helps small, disadvantaged businesses compete in the marketplace. Christina Briggs, Economic Development Manager for Fremont in California, states: “We take our responsibilities very seriously. Our office of economic development is there solely for the purpose of assisting the business community.” Her finding is that the biggest help small businesses need is in the area of marketing. “Access to capital and loans are important, but marketing really rises to the top.” Among her plans to boost the business community in her city is a “How to Start a Business” guide in multiple languages, a restaurant info guide and mobile app, and increased collaboration with the local chamber of commerce. When it comes to small business owners looking to launch their busineses, Gandhi feels that “a long-term relationship with a bank is important—the business has the opportunity to show how it manages its finances, and the bank becomes more familiar with the business owner, the business and its financial needs.” Dealing with loan rejection, according to Gandhi is perhaps very frustrating, but “when a small business is not ready for a loan the best thing

Spoil Me Salon in Mountain View

Wells Fargo can do is to provide guidance to business owners on how they can improve their financial condition to get a “yes” on a credit application at a later date.”

hat is clear is that there is a yawning gap between the help that Indian American small businesses need and what they get. These small businesses are all trying, failing, or succeeding on their own, while attention, time, and money are amply available for their techie cousins in the region. This gap is not impossible to bridge. If the community chambers of commerce can get more inclusive it would be a great first step or if an organization like TiE can be created to mentor and encourage non-tech businesses, it may be less glamorous but completely worth it. Who knows, perhaps that’s the kind of impetus needed to fulfill Pragasam’s vision of an arts mecca or Momi’s chain of beauty salons. Why should these small businesses narrow their dreams and curtail their visions, when we as a community are so well provided with knowledge, expertise, and wealth? But despite all the problems that small businesses face, most entrepreneurs interviewed are unequivocal about their sense of satisfaction. “I would consider myself very successful, because I am pursuing my dream,” says Pragasam. Mangat adds, “I have the opportunity to transform my ideas into practice. That makes it worth the effort.” Momi summarizes it best, “I do enjoy running my own business and being my own boss, mainly because I am working on my dream rather than someone else’s dream.” n Vidya Pradhan is a freelance writer who hosts the weekly radio show Safari Kids Quiz Show 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. Jaya Padmanabhan contributed to this article.

August 2013 | www.indiacurrents.com | 15

commentary

Ungadgeted By Rangaprabhu Parthasarathy

ere we are in the glorious 21st cenincreasingly quiet affairs with most folks up making more friends and learning more tury. Technology enriches every ashunched over the smart phones. At restau- things. Those few minutes while waiting for pect of our life. It helps us connect rants it is uncommon to see kids without the tea cup to fill with warm water was a with family and friends; with co-workers and iPads. Often, parents are finding that giving great moment to start a conversation. Those business contacts; and even with random their kid an iPad allows them to eat in peace. idling seconds in the elevator inspired me to people across the world who share common People walking down the corridor at work come up with quips even if they were cliinterests. It helps us see and talk to people rarely meet each other’s eyes. Most people ched rants about the perfectly good NorCal over thousands of miles. It helps us drive are checking emails all the time. Elevators are weather. At home there was so much time to better and save money on everything from no different. Even restrooms are not immune spend with my family. It was unbelievable! It groceries to big screen TVs. It helps us learn to the curse of the smartphone. Where then was as if a new me was revealed to the world and make conscious and intelligent decisions are we without one or more of our gadgets?. and irrespective of how others felt about it, I that make us eat, read and sleep better. The Where and when and how then do we en- felt great. Almost liberated. list goes on and on. And that is only what gage in person with friends and colleagues? In parallel, I started conducting a separate we know. There is so much more that is A few months ago, I conducted a small exercise. I started using pen and paper extenbeing built as we speak and so sively. No more taking notes on much more that is yet to be. my computer. I wrote and wrote. Why then am I writing and I fell in love with pens and paper, you, reading an article titled all over again. I rediscovered my “Ungadgeted?” handwriting. I realized that I was Technology has two faces able to express my ideas as well to it. The in-your-face gadget on paper as on a keyboard. This face which we all see when article was a set of bullet points we look at our smartphones in a notebook written with my and tablets and the behind the fountain pen before it became an scenes face that powers evemail submission to the editor. erything from airlines to your For most of you like me, smartphones and tablets. The always tethered to an internet latter is making great strides in connection or a gadget give the helping humanity live longer ungadgeted experiment a try. It is and better. The former is ena tad challenging at first because riching our life but also changit makes you engage with people; ing it in a profound way that communicate when there may is all too soon and maybe, just not be something to talk about; maybe, all too much. coming up with topics on the fly. As a case in point I would But in a few weeks, you will see a like to present the following remarkable difference in how you photo (of me) and how I work approach things and people. And at home after my son goes to if you haven’t picked up a pen and bed. This is by no means an paper in a while, give that a try exaggeration, as my wife would too. You will be surprised to disRangaprabhu Parthasarathy working at home with his gadgets affirm and bemoan to everycover how much fun it is to write. one. What you don’t see in the I am not asking you to stop experiment which I termed “ungadgeted.” picture is my fitness tracker that I carry with using your gadgets. I haven’t. I continue to All that I did was to not have my smart deme all the time or the crowd-funded smart use all of them and enjoy them too. But it vices on me unless absolutely necessary. watch that I am eagerly awaiting. The fact For example, when I got to work, I left is worth pausing for a moment to smell the of the matter is that I am not an exception. my phone at my desk when I went to the roses or the coffee in the kitchen. They are as I am increasingly in a crowd of such gadget kitchen for coffee or just walked in the cor- good as they have ever been. It might well be driven people. ridors to meet colleagues. In elevators, I put the best thing you did in a while. n Here is why we may be bordering on my phone away in my pocket. Once I got too much gadget use. We are completely home, I put my phone away until night when hooked on them with rapidly decreasing my son was asleep. The overall experience Rangaprabhu Parthasarathy is a tech enthusiast attention span and social interaction skill was exhilarating. I smiled more, engaged and blogs on various topics from parenting to levels. Lunches and dinners with friends are with people so much more and overall ended shopping: rangaprabhu.com. 16 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

August 2013 | www.indiacurrents.com | 17

analysis

The Man Who Wouldn’t Be King By R. Benedito Ferrão

t was May 1992. Los Angeles was still on fire. Although the tumultuous scene was on our television set in India, it could not have felt any closer to home. The newscaster offered a recap of the story that my family had been following intently since April. Tensions had flared in the aftermath of the verdict in the Rodney King beating trial. Despite videotaped evidence, the jury had exonerated the policemen responsible for violently assaulting the black motorist. The acquitted policemen, as well as the jury, had been all white. In a year, we would be emigrating to the United States. Los Angeles was our destination. And, like King, my first name is Rodney. King was so much a part of my consciousness that I would often introduce myself as “Rodney … You know … like King? Rodney King?” I often needed the added qualification because, as I was told on more than one occasion, it was odd that someone of my racial background would have “a name like that.” As a teenager, newly immigrated to the States, my job at a fast food restaurant was my firsthand introduction to my new city’s racialization. In many ways, my workplace was a representative microcosm of Los Angeles—they were both equally diverse. Yet, what was plain to see was that while the staff at the restaurant were generally first generation immigrants, it was largely upper management and the clientele that were white. During the unrest, when King famously made his televised plea for the people of his city to “get along,” his statement became the stuff of legendary ridicule. Was it that the notion of co-existing amicably was so simplistic, or that the sentiment had come from an ordinary black man with a rap sheet who had been beaten by the police? What the incident 18 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

A Creative Commons Image

had done was to raise questions about police brutality and whose rights the keepers of the peace were protecting. For South Asians, and members of other ethnic communities, similar issues of racial profiling and civil rights violations rose to a crescendo in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks. Racial injustice may not be unique to any one minority group, but it is this very ubiquity of violence that should make us more mindful. Events in the current moment prove the need for us to voice our outrage, especially when it comes to those as defenseless as an ordinary, unarmed, young black boy whose life and rights seem to not matter at all. Itself a legacy of the civil rights era, the Hart-Celler Act of 1965 aimed to disprivilege national origin in changing how immigrants would be allowed entry to the United States. Even in so doing, the express purpose of this change was to draw in highly skilled immigrant labor. The contemporary visibility of an upwardly mobile South Asian, and more specifically Indian, presence in America can be attributed to the 1965 measure. While 9/11 proved that class privilege was no deterrent to racial victimization, clearly, not all South Asians who immigrate to America do so from the technocratic ranks. Provisions made through family re-

unification clauses have diversified the community’s class demographics. In my family’s case, our petition for immigrant entry was made on the basis of my mother’s East African roots. As Goans of Kenyan heritage, despite the lack of quotas, it is evident that our case was helped because we were not only South Asian but also African—we ticked the diversity boxes for two developing regions. It is within these slippages of race and nationality that my personal experiences of being a dark-skinned resident of the United States have

taken shape. The arrest occurred in January 2009. It had been a few short months after I had become an American citizen; short months after I participated in an election that brought to office America’s first black president—a man who, like me, had an East African history. Just off the bus from work, I was on foot, a few blocks away from my apartment in West Hollywood when a siren blared behind me. In broad daylight, I was handcuffed in my own neighborhood and shoved into the back seat of a deputy sheriff ’s car. Citing a violation of the fourth amendment—which protects people from search and seizure without justifiable cause—I took my case to the ACLU, stating that I had been a victim of racial profiling. “What makes you think this was about race?” the lawyer had asked. “What would make me think it wasn’t?” I wanted to say, but was stopped from doing so because the case just was not high profile enough for the organization. Technically, I had not been arrested because I had not been brought to the station; never mind that one never forgets what a pair of cuffs feels like. “Rodney, huh?” The officer was looking at my California ID while the cold steel continued to bite into my wrists. Upon finding

my UCLA identity card, establishing that I was an instructor there, the officer’s tone changed dramatically. “The reason I stopped you,” he said while uncuffing me, “is because you resemble a man who committed a burglary in this area earlier today.” Leaving aside the ludicrousness of why someone would be traipsing about on a brightly lit sunny day just after they had perpetrated a crime, I got straight to the point and said, “You stopped me because you made an assumption about my race.” Inadvertently confirming my suspicion, the officer responded, “It doesn’t matter if you’re a black. All that matters is that you matched the description I have.” Was it because “a black” was in the wrong neighborhood? The irony should be apparent that in an area thought of as being liberal because of a large gay and lesbian presence, my complaint to the West Hollywood Sheriff ’s Department was met with the party line that, after an internal investigation, it was ascertained the officer had acted in accordance with policies and no evidence of racial profiling could be found. I am sure it was also not racial profiling when a San Mateo policeman stopped me for questioning in September 2011 claiming that I resembled a criminal. “I’ll show you what I mean,” the officer said, producing an image. “You have the same eyebrows,” he explained helpfully. It was probably also not racial profiling when I was questioned extensively at airport immigration in September 2001. In spite of my name, my dark skin, and my African history, unlike Rodney King, I have the “privilege” of proving that I am not African American. “Long after your case is closed, you are going to have to be Rodney King for the rest of your life. Do you think you can handle that?” attorney Steven Lerman had asked his client, the Los Angeles Times reported in a story following King’s death last year. “Steve, I just don’t know,” King replied. The same article quotes an earlier interview in which King had mused, “People look at me like I should have been like Malcolm X or Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks. I should have seen life like that and stay out of trouble … But it’s hard to live up to some people’s expectations, which [I] wasn’t cut out to be.” King was an ordinary man upon whom national attention had been thrust without him having asked for it. As I mourn the miscarriage of justice in the Trayvon Martin case, I am reminded of an ordinary King. These are the legacies that remind us that injustice is all the greater because of its ordinariness, and all the more ordinary when one is black. n R. Benedito Ferrão splits his time between California and Goa. Find his blog at thenightchild. blogspot.com. August 2013 | www.indiacurrents.com | 19

q&a

Farhan Akhtar on Bhaag Milkha Bhaag By Geetika Pathania Jain

eetika Pathania Jain: Really delighted that you could make yourself available to India Currents readers for an exclusive interview. We are really excited about your upcoming film and your role in the film as Milkha Singh. Do you want to tell us a little bit about how you prepared for the role? Farhan Akhtar: It was pretty intense as far as any prep for me personally goes. He (Milkha Singh) is someone whose name is used as an example of an athlete who trained harder than anyone else and was extremely dedicated to what he did. Someone who sacrificed a lot, and so everyone looked up to him with a great degree of admiration for what he stood for. So it was important to follow that same philosophy vis-a-vis his approach to his sport. To just try and give everything that I possibly could. That automatically created the spirit of that character within me. Then there was the physical training because I was portraying an athlete. And there was language training, because I was playing somebody who has a Punjabi flavor in the way he speaks. There were many things that went into it, but the important thing was trying to understand the spirit of the man, and to recreate that. How did you first hear about the role? Could you tell us how you were chosen to portray this very charsmatic and iconic figure? Farhan Akhtar: Well, probably in what I consider in retrospect as one of the happier days of my life, Rakeysh (director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra) called me and said there was a story he wanted to discuss and could we meet, and I said, of course, let’s do that, and we had a very quick meeting, where he, within 20 or 25 minutes, told me the story as he saw it. It wasn’t too much in detail, merely the story of the man. Rakeysh was a national level athlete in his earlier years, and he is someone who was constantly motivated by his coaches and his trainers with Milkha Singh’s name. “You should train like him, and you should see what he’s achieved.” So for him (Mehra), he (Singh) was a very enigmatic and a very important figure in his life. And when he was making this film, it was more than a film for him. I think he had connected with it on a much deeper level. And you could sense that in the way he spoke about Milkha Singh. And you could sense

20 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

Farhan Akhtar as Milkha Singh

that emotional connect when he spoke to me about Milkha Singh’s life. And somewhere, it just felt like a very dear project to him. Of course, it was an incredible human story of someone who rose up out of the rubbles of his life, and achieved this amazing success in something that he had dedicated his life to. So, all these things, they really made me feel that this project was special, and it would be something of a learning for me. And that it would be a memorable life experience. And was that the case? Farhan Akhtar: I think so. It has definitely been a tremendous year and a half for me personally, being, living this character. Of course, you get to learn about the possibilities of film-making, and the possibilities of character-creation and all that. But, I think beyond that, I was impressed with his spirit, of someone who really approached his dream very no-holds barred, with no safety net so to speak. That really resonated with me. I feel that if you want to try and do things that seem beyond you, but if you still dream that it’s possible for you to do it, then that’s the only way. You take both your feet off the ground. You don’t keep one hanging somewhere for a bit of safety in case you need to come back. The film is set against the backdrop of the Partition. Is that a big part of the film?

Milkha Singh, 1960 Olympics

Farhan Akhtar: It’s part of his history. He lived in a village called Govindpura, which was in Multan, which is now Pakistan. And he and his family were victims of the Partition. And he moved from there to what is India. And he lost his family, he lost his siblings, with the exception, I think, of one sister. And so it was an extremely traumatic childhood. He was eleven years old when he saw his family being killed. Still, for someone to come from there, being an orphaned child, homeless, having no emotional support whatsoever, no family when he arrived—to go from this completely deprived existence to achieving what he did, it speaks volumes for his character. First, apart from the courage of conviction, the determination and the sacrifices that he made, to make this big decision and to find the strength to move on, and not be a victim of circumstance—I think there is so much learning in that. The importance of forgiveness. The importance of moving forward. Because that is the only way wounds can heal. And that is the only ways things can evolve and change and societies can change. Through forgiveness. And through moving on. And its all there in the film. And it’s all there in his life. And it’s all fact. That’s what’s so amazing. Yes, that is fascinating. In terms of sports stories,

August 2013 | www.indiacurrents.com | 21

so many times it is an example of personal triumph over obstacles. Milkha Singh is an example of a living legend who is in our midst today and exemplifies the qualities you mentioned. Do you feel that this film pulls in other themes, besides being a sports story about an individual’s ability to run faster than other people in the world? Farhan Akhtar: Sports in the film is really a background topic. Instead of an athlete he (Singh) could have become a singer or a doctor, anything that he chose to be, and he would have created a name for himself. It’s just that he had a natural ability to run fast. The sports aspect is important because that’s what he made his name in, but the film is not about Milkha Singh the athlete. The film is about Milkha Singh the human being. And that, I think, reaches out. It’s universally applicable to whoever you are. All of us have fields of failure. Many of us have the ability to give a lot of ourselves. I don’t know how many of us have the ability to go a step further and give all of ourself. And the way he started his life gives us a reference point, that things are possible if you believe in them, despite all odds. And things are possible if you believe in yourself and your abilities, and do not mind making huge sacrifices to try and achieve them. That is the universal message in the story. Eventu-

ally he’s (Singh) a human being who’s been through many things that you will completely identify with and relate to. He emerged a winner, although he is remembered, in the athletic world, for having come fourth in the Olympics. For not having won a medal. For someone who came fourth in the Olympics, why do you remember him so fondly? And why do you remember him with so much admiration? Because he won at something else. He was a winner in a much bigger context that the Olympics cannot be the defining moment of. You have such a wide repertoire in terms of being a director as well as an actor. Your films are known for contemporary urbanity and wit, a Godardian (Jean-Luc Godard) sophistication, but here you are dealing with nostalgia. Do you want to share with our readers some of your experiences working with Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, and how you felt about being an actor? Did you find yourself putting on your Director’s hat and saying, well, I would do it this way? Farhan Akhtar: No, that doesn’t happen. Almost every time I’m asked this question, I feel it’s a bit unfair to the people that I work with. And I don’t feel that’s right. And honestly, film-making is nothing so watertight. It’s not a “You do this job and I do this job

and we shall never ever speak about each other’s contribution to the film.” There are many conversations that happen, and the actor-director work closely together, especially during the making of the film. What you see on film eventually is a result of a dialog between two people. And two people trying to understand what each other would really like for that part, or for that film, or for that scene, or for that moment. That’s what we do. And I don’t know what else to call that. I don’t know what else it can be called apart from collaboration. And working with Rakeysh for me was great. I’ve been really really fortunate to work with directors who help me get close to the material, and have a feel for what it is they want to tell and what they want to make. For me, Rakeysh’s temperament was phenomenal. He was very clear about the film in his head. And at the same time, he was so trusting. Whether it was me, or Sonam, or Pavan Malhotra, or Yograj Singh, all of us, went out there, as the people playing the characters, and did what we felt was instinctively correct for us. So it was a really great experience working with him. Thank you so much for your time. All the best! Farhan Akhtar: Thank You! n

The Importance of Being Milkha Singh

BHAAG MILKHA BHAAG. Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. Players: Farhan Akhtar, Sonam Kapoor, Divya Dutta, Yograj Singh, Pawan Malhotra, Rebecca Breeds, Art Malik, Meesha Shafi, Dalip Tahil. Produced by: Viacom 18, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. 22 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

his is a story of a man who did not win a medal at the 1960 Rome Olympics. This is a story of a man who did not marry the girl he loved. This is a story of a man who did not give up hope. It is 1950s India. The task of nation-building is ongoing. Sincerity is still cool. Feet-touching is encouraged. Milkha Singh recommends hard work, willpower and dedication. His coach, Gurudev Singh, intones: “Nothing is more Sacred than your Duty to the country.” His leader, Jawaharlal Nehru cajoles: “Your Team Needs You Now.” Little Milkhu has become Milkha, and Milkha has become India, and the Sky is the Limit. Be prepared to shed your ironic distance. It is impossible to remain snarky when so

Sonam Kapoor in Bhaag Milkha Bhaag

much sincerity is in the air, the beloved Indian tricolor is fluttering, and the hopes of a fledgling nation rest on Milkha Singh’s running speed. (No hint of doping scandals for decades to come.) Fueled by milk, pure

ghee and national pride, Milkha Singh’s eyes shine with patriotic zeal, his fate shared by the whole nation. Farhan Akhtar, bubbling with earnestness and rippling with muscles, animates Milkha Singh’s character with all the ahojees of a Punjab da puttar (son of Punjab). His stoic, old-fashioned, salt-of-the-earth simplicity exemplifies that first generation of Indians, for whom the birth of a nation came at an enormous psychic price. The price has been paid, Milkha Singh’s story tells us. Wounds must heal. Don’t look back. The nation cannot dwell on the traumas of the Partition. In an emotional scene, we see a somber Milkha Singh return to the village where his nightmarish past awaits him, and we see him make his own peace. Other characters shine. Pavan Malhotra as coach Gurudev Singh salutes his former student as a superior and a star, but Milkha Singh’s humility takes away any sting. Familiar Bollywood tropes include scenes of the fauji (soldier) returning home on his leave bearing gifts for the family members, and again, the heartfelt decency of the man shines through. Brief courtships remain inconsequential; love sacrificed for the sake of glory. Is sincerity the secret sauce? This Bollywood film on the life of “The Flying Sikh” is inspired and alive, a marked contrast to the jaded sequels Hollywood has been pushing this summer. BMB’s cinematography is commendable, with some exuberant montages of Milkha Singh’s victories—Helsinki, Nairobi, Oslo, among others. There is archival footage on Milkha’s life. There is happy music that gladdens our hearts when he wins, and sad music signaling an impending loss. The film effectively evokes a bygone period. An Eagle flask with tea in a railway compartment might easily transport you to a different era, and beloved historical figures smile benignly in the film. The indignities of the refugee camp, too, are all too realistic, and we see glimmers of the determination and pluck that will characterize Milkha’s adult career. But the best scene is that of Milkha Singh smiling at a younger version of himself, who looks worshipfully back at his hero. Too many of sports heroes in our midst have proven unworthy of our adulation. The Lance Armstrongs and Tiger Woods of contemporary disgrace seem severely lacking in, well, sincerity. Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes on you. n Geetika Pathania Jain is a Bay Area resident. This week, she will say ahojee at least three times when asked for help. August 2013 | www.indiacurrents.com | 23

24 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

August 2013 | www.indiacurrents.com | 25

ask a lawyer

Donor Parenthood By Madan Ahluwalia

Q A

that the recipients will sue for child support. The law comes up to a gray area in cases like Jason Patric’s. Patric donated to Schreiber so that she could conceive a child, but did not do so anonymously. Further, Patric claims he and Schreiber were in a relationship at the time of the donation, and that the child was raised jointly between him and Schreiber. The vagueness of the current law when discussing non-anonymous donors leads Schreiber to contend that under the current interpretation, the donor father has no right to parenthood. She also disputes the nature of the relationship she had with Patric at the time in question, further complicating the issue. The new bill will not confer parenthood on the donor father in anonymous donation cases. Further, even in cases where it is known who the father is, natural parenthood will still not be automatic. The bill provides guidelines in granting

parenthood status for donors. In particular, the bill states that when a donor takes a child into their home and acts in the parental role, only then will it be presumed that this person is the natural parent of the child. Patric lost his suit for custody rights after he and Schreiber separated. “I cared for him, I supported him, I raised him along with his mother. No child should have to endure a painful separation from a parent who loves that child because the other parent is no longer willing to share the child and asserts a legal technicality,” Patric said in an interview. In August the California State Assembly is expected to vote on the bill which would allow parental rights conferred on sperm donors under broader conditions. n

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opinion

Nourishing the Past By Priyanka Sacheti

28 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

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grew up and spent my early adult years in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman, where there was a substantial Indian immigrant population; over there, it was almost akin to India ... though not-quite India, as I like to think of it. Apart from the matter of India physically being a mere two hour flight away, India was always readily available in the abstract: home-made paneer, liquid idli mix, Alphonsos in supermarkets, freshly made dosas and chaat, the smell of sandalwood at temples, the latest movie releases and vernacular magazines and newspapers at bookshops, and sarees displayed in stores. If you hungered to speak or hear your language, you could hear bits of it swirling around in the air, intermingling with the intense heat and scents and becoming part of the atmosphere. In my case, it was Hindi and for many years, I attributed my failure to learn Arabic to Omanis’ legendary friendliness. On learning about one’s lack of Arabic, Omani shopkeepers, taxi-drivers, and acquaintances would immediately begin conversing in Hindi or rather, Hindi purloined from Hindi films that they religiously watched and worshipped. Being part of the Indian diaspora, you are constantly wondering what constitutes home: what exactly does it represent to you? Whenever I returned from India after summer vacations, I would feel terribly homesick: I missed the noise, activity, and energy that I had left behind in India and which was conspicuously absent in tranquil Oman. Sometimes, during those initial days while I navigated the cultural transition from my homeland to my adopted one, a warm twilight or the way the air smelt would trick me into thinking I was back in India. And yet, that moment would pass as swiftly as it had arrived—and I would be back in Oman, a place where India was just almost within my reach. During my university years, I moved to the United Kingdom, where I studied in the Midlands; the gray skies, unrelenting rain, and the biting cold aside, I realized oddly enough that I had not been transplanted in as alien a land as I earlier thought I had been.

When I woke up in the mornings, I could hear Hindi songs on the radio-stations. The cab-drivers spoke Punjabi and I often spotted women in sarees and salwar-kameez walking around town. If craving for India became particularly acute, I could take a twentyminute bus ride to the city’s desi-town: there, I ate over-salted samosas, got my eyebrows threaded (in four minutes flat!), rent out Yash Chopra DVDs, and window-shop the familiar bling-bling of bangles, bindis, battuas and outfits on display. In short, I would happily consume my idea of India before returning to university life. For some reason, I never paid much attention to the grocery stores selling desi products. I walked past them, and occasionally wandered in to purchase frozen paneer. My journey looped me back to Oman once again and it was only a few months ago that I got married and moved to Pittsburgh, arriving in the dead of winter, surrounded by skeletal-limbed trees and acres of snow. There is nothing like the unending inkiness of an artic winter evening to make you indulge in a bit of soul-searching and I once again

started to think more deeply about where I had come from—and this new place that I was going to call home for the next couple of years. Much has been written about the crucial role of food in recreating and indeed, keeping alive the notion of the homeland amongst diasporic communities. It was only then that I discovered—and appreciated the presence of the Indian grocery store. As a newly married woman, turning to food to conjure up home and family when missing them became particularly acute (and not to mention, feeding my husband!). I realised most importantly that I would not have to make do with substitutes. Sure, the land that I had moved to was unfamiliar and still alien to me; however, the food was not. Unlike Ashima Ganguli, who has to create an approximation, an ersatz version of the snack she so loved in the opening pages of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, I could precisely reconstruct a dearly remembered dish because of the readily available ingredients at the store. My experience as an immigrant woman greatly differed from women

and transitions, though, you need something to anchor you down in order to stop and reflect and connect; for me, as I swim through the sea of multiple new experiences, I have found myself that island of India in the Indian grocery store. And so, a few days ago, finding myself hungry at lunch-time, I found myself walking to the Indian grocery store that coincidentally happened to be nearby and treated myself to a couple of samosas. Sitting outside beneath the brilliant, cloudless blue sky and feeling cherry blossom petals drift down upon me, I contentedly munched on my samosa, feeling my two worlds cheerfully and happily intersecting. n

of earlier times, when migrating to different lands was almost tantamount to moving to a different planet, being transplanted in a vastly alternate cultural reality. Speaking of travel, writer Suketu Mehta mentions that for diasporic communities, music is the cheapest airline home; in my case, a perfectly made bowl of kadhi-chawal did the trick! It wasn’t just the process of purchasing and abstracting the food though; it was also the Indian grocery store, which became equally significant for me. Unlike other places where I had previously lived and called home, this was the first place where I found myself most interrogating the Indianness that nestled inside me: what was it like to be an Indian living abroad? Like Hindu and Jain temples in the vicinity, which were both literal and metaphorical shrines, the Indian grocery store too was a shrine to that Indian-ness—and upon entering the store, I found the waves of familiarity it radiated comforting and warm. I heard Hindi film music from different decades playing on shuffle in the background as I sorted through packaged paneer, parathas, naans, and rotis. I leafed through bundles of coriander, radishes, spinach, and green onions. I examined the numerous kinds of dals, rice, and masalas on display. If I so wished, I could buy Jain mithai or Dabur coconut oil or steel kato-

ris. Samosas warmed in the grill behind the counter, the hydra-headed Indian pantheon beatifically looked down upon me in all their divine iridiscence. Back home in Oman or even where I lived in United Kingdom, I had never been aware of a sense of longing for home or feeling so displaced from it. Yet, here, at this critical new juncture in my life, I find myself more sharply questioning my place in the scheme of things: what is the flavor of this new city? What does its people think about? What is this country, United States, that I was living in? As months have passed by, I find myself telling everyone that I am settling down into my new home. Yet, what does “settling down” mean anyway? Isn’t there a ring of stagnancy or even static to that statement? For those of us belonging to disaporic communities, ours is a nomadic existence, leapfrogging from one culture to another. Sometimes it happens when moving from one country to another; other times it occurs within the orbit of our daily existence, moving from our intimate spaces to the public ones outside. For me, each country that I have moved to and lived in, however briefly, encases an embryonic home—following the initial period of acclimatizing to the place, I have set about incubating and nourishing it into existence. In this merry-go round of movement

Priyanka Sacheti is an independent cultural writer based in Pittsburgh. Having earned degrees in English Literature and Creative Writing and Women’s Studies from the Universities of Warwick and Oxford, United Kingdom respectively, Priyanka has published numerous articles in various publications with a special focus on art and gender. She’s the author of 3 poetry volumes, and two of her short stories have been published in international anthologies celebrating Indian immigrant writing. Apart from working on a short story collection, she blogs at http://iamjustavisualperson.blogspot.com/ and http://photokahanis. tumblr.com/

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On Inglish

From the Man-Village Into the Jungle By Kalpana Mohan

jungle—noun Origin: 1770–80; < Hindi jangal < Pali, Prakrit jangala rough, waterless place —an equatorial forest area with luxuriant vegetation, often almost impenetrable —any dense or tangled thicket or growth —a place of intense competition or ruthless struggle for survival: the concrete jungle

n the way that an idea chases and mows you down for reasons you do not initially understand, the word “jungle” has been haunting me this month. And somehow everything that happened in the last few weeks seemed to allude in some way, literal and metaphoric, to the jungle. The word splattered on my forehead when I looked up from right outside my daughter’s apartment on East Ohio Street in Chicago. We had just arrived there for her graduation. I felt I was among a dazzle of zebras when I got out of the car. I was mesmerized by gleaming glass and soaring steel. Suddenly, all those bodies in black and white locked together and bent over my suburban self, smothering and pressing me into the earth that was, at that given moment, smelling strongly of pee. A dog was being dragged away fast by his owner, after the dog, and I do believe it was the dog, did the deed. I was indeed in the middle of a concrete jungle and the word had coincidentally arrived like a bold raindrop in the Amazon. The word “jungle,” which means an area of land overgrown with dense forest and tangled vegetation, originated in the late 18th century, via Hindi, from the Sanskrit word jangala which means “rough and arid (terrain).” But the word has begun to apply metaphorically in many ways. For instance, it often alludes to any “situation or place of bewildering complexity or brutal competitiveness.” It was only natural then that I would use the word to refer to downtown Chicago, the heart of the city that is a humid thicket of buildings, zebra crossings, unending streams of traffic, territorial parking spots and an endless, snarly maze of impenetrable roads even as late as midnight. It seemed no accident that the show that we ended up watching one evening during the graduation trip was The Jungle Book, the story that had entertained our family for many consecutive years in the early nineties. One evening in 1991, when our daughter was fifteen months old, a friend handed us the VHS cassette of a Disney movie that he had just watched with his son. He claimed that the film would hypnotize and hook us, the parents, as much as it would entertain our toddler. And thus, father, mother and baby daughter would watch, over and over, the Disney interpretation of Rudyard Kipling’s enormously entertaining story about a little baby boy, Mowgli, raised by wolves, who grew up knowing that his life in the jungle was threatened by a man-eating tiger, Sher Khan. When the time was right, but only after some fearful skirmishes with many wild animals such as Baloo the bear, Kaa the Snake, the Monkey King Louie and the Vultures, Mowgli finally went back to the Man-Village where he really belonged. That evening at Chicago’s Goodman Theater, I sat in the audience juggling the memories of the past with the emotions of the present. I reminisced about a daughter whose greatest joy every evening was to dance with Baloo and giggle with Mowgli when Baloo shook his booty. Mostly I remember her eyeballs. They grew rounder and whiter as Kaa hypnotized Mowgli and slimily coiled around his torso. And then, of course, I must mention the one expression that came to hold special meaning in our lives, even after 22 years, when she would tell me, in her baby voice, to “Go-Away-Leave-Me-Stop-it” in the way Mowgli told Baloo to please 30 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

“Go away, Leave Me Alone” whenever Baloo reminded him of reality and coerced him to do the right thing. All that magic rolled to a stop one day when our daughter outgrew The Jungle Book. Suddenly, there was homework to do and music to practice. I suppose, like a small old pond in a forest slowly overrun by algae and creepers, the growing anxieties of our daily lives had snuffed out the old wellsprings of fun. On graduation morning I lamented the loss of a beautiful period in the life of our family. It had come and gone in the time it took a crow to eat a fruit and spit its seed. We watched our child walk up to the stage to receive her degree. It seemed that unlike Mowgli, our little woman-cub was leaving the ManVillage for the Jungle. There she would learn that real life was about living with people of different hides and stripes. She was about to enter the world of the eternal chase. Like a cheetah up in the umbrella tree, she too would learn stealth. She too would scan the horizon. She would grow to roar in a place where the survival of the fittest was the name of the game. I realized that there, in New York City where her dreams would be made, the law of the jungle would haunt every job hunt: the principle that “those who are strong and apply ruthless selfinterest will be most successful” would forever hold true. I prayed, and I suspect most parents would agree with me on this, that on my daughter’s wildest, hairiest days, she would also remember to let Baloo’s advice to Mowgli boom in her ears. So just try and relax, yeah cool it Fall apart in my backyard ‘Cause let me tell you somethin’, little britches, If you act like that bee acts, uh uh You’re workin’ too hard And don’t spend your time lookin’ around For somethin’ you want that can’t be found When you find out you can live without it And go along not thinkin’ about it I’ll tell you somethin’ true The bare necessities of life will come to you Against the backdrop of her graduation and her fear that her chosen profession, journalism, would never assure her a life of great material comfort, I figured that both my daughter and I had a lot still left to learn from Baloo, the bear, about the bare necessities of life. n Kalpana Mohan writes from Saratoga. To read more about her, go to http://kalpanamohan.org and http://saritorial.com.

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fiction

The Legacy Katha 2013 • Second Place

imla lit the wood chips inside her mud stove for the third time. The wood chips were damp and were not catching fire easily. The thought of having to buy match sticks was enough to make Bimla try harder. She took a metal pipe and blew the air through it, while she lit her last match. The wood chips responded and soon Bimla had a smoky fire crackling in the stove. She put some water to boil in a pot and sat down to clean one cup of rice for the night meal. As she added the last grain and covered the pot, she heard a loud thud outside the door. Keshav was home from the forest. He had gathered a big bundle of wood that would fetch good money in the town of Gosaba. Nowadays, it was difficult to cut enough wood to make a living—the forest officers were extra vigilant and at the slightest sign that the woodcutters had breached the government-drawn line, they descended on the perpetrators and confiscated the wood and imposed heavy fines for breaking the law. It was a miracle that Keshav had managed to gather this bundle. Bimla’s eyes lit up at the sight of the huge bundle of firewood. She knew the money from the firewood would help pay for a few necessary expenses. Bimla watched as Keshav looked around the hut, picked Putul up, put her up on his shoulders and then picked up Khokon, who was giggling uncontrollably in anticipation of what was to follow. Once the meal was ready the four of them sat down for dinner in the dim light of the kerosene lamp. Khokon was asleep even before the meal was over. Putul lay down beside her brother as the thunder rumbled outside. Thunder never scared the kids growing up in the Sunderbans. They knew it was part of nature’s cycle. Thunder, lightning, rain, flood, famine … these were forces the kids here knew well. They were fast asleep by the 34 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

By Anu Chitrapu time the skies opened up and the rain beat down furiously on the thatched roof. They did not hear the knock on the door. The forest officer rushed in as Keshav opened the door. “You cheat,” he shouted with water streaming down his face. “I thought I saw someone sneak past with a big bundle of wood on his head. I suspected it was you. How dare you cut down government trees? Don’t you know the Sunderbans belong to the Bengal tigers? If the District Commis-

sioner finds out, my job is gone and then who will feed my wife and children? You?” “Please, Sir,” begged Keshav. “I just cut one of the branches that came down in the last storm. We are down to the last few cups of rice … my children will die of hunger if I don’t get some money soon. I promise you, Sir, I will sell the wood in Gosaba without anyone seeing me. You will not get into any trouble. Please Sir. I would offer you dinner but there is no more rice left. My wife will make you some hot tea so you don’t catch a cold in this rain. Please Sir, don’t take away this bundle of wood.” Keshav fell at the forest officer’s feet and Bimla rushed to the stove to make a cup of tea using up the precious milk she was saving for the children. “What are you going to give me to keep my mouth shut? This cup of tea? And there is hardly any milk in it—it is no better than the dirty rainwater out there. Have you not heard how the District Commissioner keeps saying the Sunderbans belong to the

Bengal tiger? Have you not heard that he has vowed to punish anyone who harms the Bengal tiger in any way. Your wife works in his house and you still have the guts to steal from the Bengal tiger’s forest?” barked the forest officer. “Please Sir, I don’t have anything to give you. If I did, why would I risk everything to gather this bundle of wood? I have no money at all Sir. My wife will get paid next Monday, till then we have nothing in the house except two cups of rice. No vegetables, not even a fish in the water tub,” cried Keshav, his hands still on the forest officer’s wet sandals. Once it became clear to the Forest Officer that Keshav really had nothing in the house to give him, he snatched the bundle of wood and walked out of the house without another word. Putul and Khokon watched sleepily from their blankets and went back to sleep even before the door was shut. In the morning the incident of the previous night was forgotten. All Keshav remembered was never to gather wood from that part of the forest again. He cursed himself for not going straight to Gosaba from the forest. It was a lesson learned for the next time. But for now Keshav still had to figure out how to feed the family. “Bimla, ask the lady of the house where you work for some money today. Tell her you need an advance of at least one hundred rupees ($1.68). We need to buy rice and lentils for the kids. I hear the forest officers are extra-vigilant now. The new District Commissioner is very strict. He is determined not to lose a single tiger on this side of the Sunderbans. The forest officers are so scared of him that they are not even accepting bribes to look the other way. I will not be able to get any wood this week. If we are lucky, I might be able to find some honey, but that will not fetch us much money. Our only hope is the lady—tell her about the kids.” Bimla nodded, knowing she had no other choice. The lady would get upset with

her, and ask why they could not figure out how to make the money last a month. She would bring up every single day that Bimla missed work because her kids were sick. She would say Bimla had a bad attitude towards work. But Bimla knew she had no choice. She was worried because Khokon needed to be taken to the hospital for his small pox shot that morning, so after asking for money, she would have to ask for a few hours off to take her son to the hospital. It was a free shot and if she did not do it today, she would have to take him another day to the regular hospital and pay fifty rupees for it. Mustering up all her courage, Bimla walked to the bungalow and entered through the servant’s door. “Is that you Bimla?” asked Mrs. Gupta. “Come in to the library. Today is a big day and I want to make sure we are all prepared. My husband just received word that he has won an award and we are throwing a party this evening. District Commissioners from all the neighboring districts will be attending. We will also have some animal activists here. My head is spinning trying to keep the guest list straight in my head. Come here, we have a lot of work today.” Bimla was in a fix. How could she ask for money and a few hours off if there was a party planned for the evening? Maybe she should just ask for the money and not for time off. That way she could use some of the money towards the vaccine for her son from a private doctor. If she took her son for the free vaccine it would save her the doctor’s fees but Mrs. Gupta would be so angry at her that she would not give her an advance and then her kids would go hungry. Better to pay the doctor. Also, Bimla knew that the rich people who came to these parties would give her a tip so she was better off staying and helping with the party. Bimla helped the other servants unload the large crates of drinks from the van. Then the gardener gave her fresh-cut flowers in a bucket of water to be taken to Mrs. Gupta, who was going to arrange them in fancy vases that would be placed at various points in the house. Then, Bimla started the timeconsuming process of shining the floors, the wooden banister with intricate carvings, the furniture and finally the endless number of large glass windows in the house. Bimla knew there was no way she could leave early today. By the time the cleaning was done it would be time to help with serving the food. These parties usually ended well after midnight and she would be lucky if she got home before 2 a.m. Hopefully, Keshav would cook the last cup of rice they had and feed the children. “Bimla, come here. Take this saree,” said Mrs.Gupta. “Remember, you wear this for the party and then put it back in the closet

before you go home. This is only for you to wear when the guests are here. I want you to look clean. I definitely do not want my guests to think I don’t pay you enough,” she said. Bimla looked at the saree that Mrs. Gupta handed to her. If only she could take this home she could make several dresses for her children with it!

Several of the guests ambled into the dining room to heap food onto their plates. The forest outside awoke to the night as a majestic Bengal tiger walked to the river for a long drink of cool water.

asty pieces of grilled chicken, spicy fried cheese, potato filled pies, delicious peanuts … the appetizers were being served faster than they were being consumed and were being washed down with glasses of fancy cocktails. Mrs. Gupta stood with her friends, dressed in a turquiose blue saree. Her diamond earrings reflected the soft lights in the room and her voice matched the music being played. “I am so proud of my husband. He has dedicated his life to the protection of the Bengal tiger. Seriously, the Bengal tiger is right now our only source of pride,” Mrs. Gupta said. “I mean what else can India boast about? This award he got for his work is not just an award for him but for all who are taking care of the legacy of the Sunderbans. Do you know that not a single tiger has been lost since he took over the management of the forest?” “I will tell you this,” said a lady in high heels, “it is our duty to protect the Bengal tiger. Right now we have only 400 of them left. Can you believe that? My grandfather used to say there were at least 4,000 of them in his youth!” “That’s why I joined the ‘Save Our Tigers’ group,” said Ms. Banerjee. “We collect money for the tigers and make sure the uneducated farmers don’t destroy their precious lives for the sake of a few measly rupees. I will pass around the donation forms, I hope you will donate generously to protect our legacy.” “Of course,” said Mrs. Gupta. “Put me down for 500 rupees. Really, it is the least I can do for the tiger, and for our country.” Many women followed Mrs. Gupta’s cue and agreed to donate generously for the cause of the Bengal tiger, the legacy that needed to

be protected. Alcohol flowed freely as evening matured into night. The pitch darkness outside was in sharp contrast to the lights inside the house. Several of the guests ambled into the dining room to heap food onto their plates. The forest outside awoke to the night as a majestic Bengal tiger walked to the river for a long drink of cool water. It was past 2 a.m. by the time the party started winding down. The food was cleared from the dining table and the leftovers distributed amongst the servants. The party was a roaring success and Mr. Gupta was bursting with pride and happiness. “I will not allow a single tiger to die on my watch,” he announced, over and over again. Bimla walked with the other servants through the forest. By the time they reached the cluster of huts where they lived, it was close to dawn. She walked into her hut and put away the food she brought in a pot and hung the pot from the ceiling to make sure ants did not feast on the precious leftovers she brought back for her children. The next morning Bimla wiped the sleep away from her eyes and splashed cold water on her face. Unfortunately, no one had given her a tip at the party the previous night. The guests had given away everything they had in their purses to save the Bengal tiger. And there was no opportunity to ask Mrs. Gupta for money so she had to go back and try her luck again. Putul and Khokon were already licking the pieces of chicken their father had put in front of them. It was a long time since they had eaten any chicken. “Keshav, can you take care of Putul this

Katha 2013 Results

award $300): FIRST PLACE (cash UBAKER AB A AF Light by MUST ia org Atlanta, Ge sh award $200): SECOND PLACE (ca PU RA IT CH U Legacy by AN ts set chu ssa Ma Boston, award $100): THIRD PLACE (cash KHERJEE, MU I AN BJ Ahalya by DE Auckland, New Zealand ION: HONORABLE MENT HA IT CH Ripples by AR w Jersey SUBRAMANIAN, Ne ION: HONORABLE MENT RALI MU SH KE Burning by NI lia tra Au a, Canberr August 2013 | www.indiacurrents.com | 35

morning? I will take Khokon with me to the lady’s house. There will be a lot of cleaning work to do this morning and you know how she does not like children running in the house. Khokon will sit quietly but you know Putul. She will run into all the rooms make the lady very angry.” “OK, I will take Putul with me and we will have a lot of fun picking twigs in the forest,” said Keshav. “Putul can watch me collecting honey from the hives, if we are lucky enough to find one.” Keshav and Putul sat in the shade of the large berry tree in the forest. Keshav had gone deep into the forest to avoid the officers who kept vigil. He knew he had entered the area that belonged to the Bengal tiger and he was not supposed to take any wood from here but there was no other way he knew to make a living. Bimla had packed some leftover chicken pieces in a piece of newspaper. Keshav opened it and lay it in front of Putul. The aroma of spiced chicken filled the nostrils of Keshav, Putul and the animals around them. Not far from them, the Bengal tiger slept in the long grass becoming one with the grass. He was hungry and tired and had not had any food for a few days now. He opened his eyes and looked around. It was not the smell of chicken but the smell of the human that brought him to his feet. After lunch, Keshav busied himself looking for honey and Putul walked between the trees, picking up wild berries or colored stones that the tide had thrown here in ages past. By the time Keshav realized Putul had wandered too far away, it was too late—the majestic Bengal tiger had already claimed her. Keshav was frantic as he ran deeper into the forest searching for Putul, screaming her name. It took him several minutes before he found her in a small clearing struggling to free herself from the strong grip of the tiger. With her small frame, she was no match for the strength of the hungry, mighty Bengal tiger. When Keshav screamed out, the large yellow and black tiger turned and looked at him through its expressionless eyes. Within minutes, three forest officers appeared on the scene and watched as the tiger dragged Putul deeper into the forest. They threw stones at the tiger, one even threw a big branch on the tiger but apart from causing the tiger to work faster it did not help Putul. “Please Sir, use your gun. Shoot down that tiger and save my Putul,” cried Keshav. He was running back and forth between the tiger and the forest officers, trying to pull his daughter from the tiger’s grasp, willing it to take him instead. The tiger knocked him down effortlessly and picked up a now unconscious Putul in its mouth. The forest officers were jumping up and down to distract 36 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

the tiger. One was crying out loud praying to Goddess Durga to leave the little girl alone. The man with the gun threw his gun on the ground and screamed for someone else to pull the trigger. “I have strict orders never to shoot a tiger. The commissioner will fire me from my job if I am responsible for the loss of a tiger. Please, someone save the little girl. Please God, please save the girl. If I shoot the tiger, I might as well shoot my kids since they will die of hunger very soon when I lose my job. The government will protect this tiger as there are only 400 of them left. But no one will protect our children, there are too many of them!” Keshav, ran to the gun it was too late. The fresh red blood on the ground from Putul’s neck was proof that his little girl was no longer alive. In a government-owned building far from where the tiger was enjoying its meal, the award ceremony was in full swing. The governor pinned the badge of honor on to Mr. Gupta’s expensive suit pocket as the announcement was made over the microphone system. “And the award of excellence for saving the legacy of the Bengal tiger, and making every Indian proud, goes to District Commissioner Gupta.” n Anu Chitrapu likes to write stories that bring out the social injustices that exist today. Anu holds an MBA from MIT Sloan and works in the financial services sector. She lives in Boston with her husband and two children. Judges comments: We thought this story had an interesting approach, not often found in literary fiction: the emphasis on a specific message. It remains open to debate whether nature conservation should ever take precedence over the problem of human hunger. Whether or not the reader agrees with the author’s vehement position on this question, the story contains clearly drawn characters and dramatic scenes. Tania James is the author of a novel, Atlas of Unknowns. Her most recent book is Aerogrammes and Other Stories, which was named a Best Book of the Year by The San Francisco Chronicle, Kirkus Reviews,and Library Journal, as well as a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Amit Majmudar is a novelist, poet, and diagnostic nuclear radiologist and was a Katha Short Story contest winner himself for two years in a row. His first novel, Partitions, and two poetry collections were published to wide acclaim. His most recent novel is The Abundance. Visit www.amitmajmudar.com for details.

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An inviting, light-hearted glimpse into Mindy Kaling the person. In quirky style, Kaling expounds on love, relationships, friendships and the business of Hollywood.

MEMORY PALACE by Hari Kunzru. Published by V&A Publications. June 2013. $13.68. 112 pages. Hardcover and Kindle editions available.

OLEANDER GIRL by Chitra Divakaruni. Published by Simon and Schuster. March 2013. $17.75. 304 pages. Hardcover and Kindle editions available.

A clever three-dimension visual exhibition of a dark future with plenty of word-play for readers intrigued by puzzles. The plot revolves around the consideration of a civilization without memory.

This is the story of a young woman who goes in search of her lost heritage and is confronted with hard choices. With simple and evocative prose Divakaruni portrays a family at the crossroads of change.

JOSEPH ANTON: A MEMOIR by Salman Rushdie. Published by Random House. Sept 2012. $20.79. 636 pages. Hardcover and Kindle editions available. A riveting account, written in third person, of how the writer was forced underground after a fatwa was issued on his life. His incredible willpower to continue writing and his private battles make this a compelling personal narrative. 38 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

ANOTHER COUNTRY by Anjali Joseph. Published by Fourth Estate. May 2012. $19.62. 272 pages. Hardcover and Kindle editions available.

THE ABUNDANCE by Amit Majmudar. Published by Metropolitan Books. March 2013. $17.58. 272 pages. Hardcover and Kindle editions available.

With wry humor, and deft prose, Joseph brings to life the disorientation of a young woman who is searching for acceptance. What is left unsaid is as much part of the narrative as what is said. Another Country was long-listed for the Man-Asian Literary Prize.

An immigrant story where cooking becomes a bridging device, connecting people, places and generations. Learning that their mother is dying, the two second-generation immigrant childrenconfront and cope with their own inadequacies.

dance

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August 2013 | www.indiacurrents.com | 39

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youth

The Asian-American Renaissance

Lessons From Nature

Winner • Growing Up Asian in America

By Advait Patil

By Divya Prakash

he humility and simplicity of Gandhi, the raw moral courage that characterized Martin Luther King Junior, the wisdom and introspection of Confucius, and the integrity that was Abraham Lincoln. All men were brought up in different countries, in different homes and situations but in the same world with its myriad of ideas. They all faced adversity growing up, like wind and storm pushing down the small seedlings which begin to sprout. But they struggle their way up, until the flower of their teachings bloom and their fragrance and beauty spread to those around them. The wisdom that spreads through their ideas knows no bounds, does not discriminate ethnicities and races. Wisdom can reach every corner of this world. The teachings of these philosophical men can intersect to form a prosperous nation. If I were President, I would see myself as an important link in the global village that is our world. As an Asian-American, I often struggle within my mind. My Asian heritage and the American way I grew up are always pushing and pulling at each other. But in my deepest thoughts I realize that these ideas do not really contradict, but complement each other. Though not everyone may know it, the success of a nation does not depend on whether the ideas it is based on originate in the nation itself. The Asian principle of filial piety can enhance Dr. King’s ideal of mutual respect and unconditional love. The Western principle of individual equality can supplement the Asian teaching that all men are equal in Divine eyes. The confluence of east and west can usher in the Asian-American Renaissance ... a period of collective knowledge and enlightenment. The Gandhi and Confucius in me are my silent guides. They tell me I cannot live in a grand mansion while the lady down the street is struggling to make ends meet. I would be the President who does not live in the White House, but the President who helps feed the homeless in her neighbor-

42 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

hood; the President who lives next to the immigrant from Mexico who struggles to make an honest living in this new country. I would be the President who lives like the people, with the people, and for the people. The Lincoln and King in me guide me on my path in leading this country to liberty affirmation and leading the citizens to realize their bold streaks of individuality and the spirit of resistance they possess within them. As a great guru once said, “If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character. If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home. When there is harmony in the home, there is order in the nation. When there is order in the nation, there is peace in the world.” If I had the privilege of being the President of the United States of America, I would promise to bring righteousness to the heart and peace in the world. n Divya Prakash is from Fremont. She attends Challenger School in Ardenwood and is a rising seventh grader. She is a 1st Place essay contest winner in the grade category of 6-8. President Obama has made history as our first African American and mixed-race president. As he embarks on his second term in office this year, Growing Up Asian in America contestants were asked to imagine they have become our very first Asian or Pacific Islander American president. Growing Up Asian in America is a signature program of the Asian Pacific Fund, a Bay Area community foundation established to strengthen the Asian and Pacific Islander community in the Bay Area by increasing philanthropy and supporting the organizations that serve our most vulnerable community members. You can also view the winning entries online at www.asianpacificfund.org.

Water

I was toldJust be like the river, always flow. Accept everything that’s thrown, Find a way to go on. Be so kind and pure, Like a droplet of w a t e r

Earth

Be soft like mud, Yet strong as a boulder. Erode away, Then reform Change and create new things, Be like the e a r t h

Wind

Act as the morning breeze, Light and swift. Act like the evening wind, Soft and cool. Stay calm, don’t be a gale Be like the w i n d

Fire

Smoldering passion, In your flickering heart Focused and driven, With a fiery will Stand out, a spark in the night Be like the f l a m e s n Advait Patil is a rising eighth grader at Miller Middle School in San Jose. He won the first prize in the Children's category in the Cupertino Poetry Contest organized by Cupertino City Council.

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August 2013 | www.indiacurrents.com | 43

films

Weaponizing Romance By Aniruddh Chawda

LOOTERA. Director: Vikramaditya Motwane. Players: Ranveer Singh, Sonakshi Sinha, Adil Hussain, Barun Chanda, Arif Zakaria. Music: Amit Trivedi. Theatrical release (Balaji). Hindi with English sub-titles.

he most unusual aspect of Motwane’s carefully-made Lootera may well be that it is that rare Hindi movie that actually discloses the origin of the storyline— in this case fully crediting American writer O. Henry’s bittersweet 1907 short-story The Last Leaf as the screenplay’s basis. Sticking to O. Henry’s theme of stormy relationships lived through accidental encounters and anchored by an unusual romance, Motwane and team juggle the right balance of stagecraft, story-telling and setting to give unexpected flight to Lootera. Set in rural Bengal in early 1950s, the vast holdings of prominent land-owner Zamindar Roychoudhary (Chanda) are under increasing threats from zealous civil servants salivating at the prospect of confiscating Roychoudhary’s property by cashing in on a newly democratic nation’s wealth-redistribution efforts. The arrival of an archeologist Varun Srivastav (Singh), keen on digging up an ancient temple on the premises, provides a distraction for Roychoudhary and also his educated, ambitious and yet tradition-bound daughter Pakhi (Sinha). Just as Pakhi and Varun get drawn together, Varun suddenly disappears, setting in play a monumental journey for everyone involved. In Pakhi’s challenging role, Sinha makes a convincing transition from spoiled, educated doyen of the mansion to a stronger woman who has to fend for herself. Hussain as the determining cop who goes looking for Varun, Zakaria as Varun’s possibly-nefarious benefactor and Chanda as a land baron oblivious to encroaching storms about to engulf his fiefdom provide solid support to the story. Indiana-educated Singh, who, like Sinha, is a relative newcomer, demonstrates maturity and reinforces his up-and-coming creds. Taken on merit, the set designs and costumes beautifully invoke a period piece firmly set in the early 1950s—full-cut pants and pencil thin mustaches on the men and high neck blouses and saris for the women. The time-period sensitive outline extends to the use of rotary phones and news headlines, along with movie scores from that 44 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

era. Trivedi, when he teams up with lyricist Amitabh Bhattacharya, banks on an earthy musical style, which of late they have tapped into to compose some catchy scores (Kai Po Chhe, Udaan, English Vinglish). The singing here is all in the background and not lip-synched. The standout tune is Monali Thakur’s “Sawaar Loon,” an ode to a new awakening in all its senses. As the narrative moves from Bengal’s backwoods to Dalhousie, in Himalayan foot-hills, Mahendra Shetty’s cinematography makes a striking case for snow covered terrain and one recurring tree that figures prominently in the story. Even though some scenes involving the tree appear repetitious— a desi Groundhogs Day—a screenplay cowritten by Motwane and Bhavna Iyer, move the lazy afternoon tete-a-tetes between Varun and Pakhi into an exchange that is both sensual and poetic. Summertime Hindi movies thrive on lively, upbeat stories marketed for coinciding with long awaited summer vacations where movie-goers make a dash for the cool interiors of multiplexes to escape both the stifling heat and a monsoon torrent or two. On that calendar, Lootera would seem way, way out of place. And yet, the movie’s parched, dry lowland vistas and stoic, ominous alpine winterscapes cast a magical spell replete with promises in danger of not being kept, backward glances, of loves and lovers gone by

and a toast with the last of the summer wine. For so carefully plotting the anticipation on when—or even if—the last leaf will fall, Motwane and company virtually and effectively weaponize romance. n EQ: A Globe trekker, aesthete, photographer, ski bum, film buff, and commentator, Aniruddh Chawda writes from Milwaukee.

L ATA’S

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Aashiqu David aan Ek Thi Day Gone Go Goa Inkaar Che! Kai Po andola i Bijlee Ka M Matru K Mai at Wadala Shootout 2 gla Deewana Yamla Pa wani ee D waani Hai Yeh Ja

A Misplaced Adventure By Madhumita Gupta

GHANCHAKKAR. Director: Rajkumar Gupta. Players: Emraan Hashmi, Vidya Balan, Rajesh Jain, Namit Das. Music: Amit Trivedi. Theatrical release UTV Motion Pictures. Hindi with English sub-titles.

xpectations were really high on this one, considering the fact that it had three redoubtable names behind it. The director, Rajkumar Gupta, was behind the critically acclaimed and fairly successful Aamir and No One Killed Jessica before this. Emraan Hashmi is on a roll and post Shanghai is finally being acknowledged for being more than just a serial-kisser. Vidya Balan is, of course, the Midas lady, who just can’t go wrong. Plus, the trailers were wacky enough for the audience to expect a fun-filled rollercoaster ride along with a suspense angle thrown in. Suffice it to say that apart from the first few minutes, the film doesn’t stand up to the promise it made. The film is about a heist and the search for misplaced loot. It begins with the garishly dressed Neetu (Balan) and Sanju (Haashmi) living a humdrum family-life to which they have reconciled to after giving up their old ways. So Sanju watches TV all day long and listens to his mother criticizing his wife on the phone, and Neetu spends her days experimenting with Femina/Vogue inspired

fashion and cooking. They fight tiresomely frequently over dinner—how much more humdrum can it get? However, Sanju gets a call for a last heist which, the caller ensures him, will take care of his needs for all his life. The couple gives in to the cranky baddies, Pandit (Jain) and Idris (Namit) and agree to rob a bank. Together, they clean out a bank vault and make off with a loot of 35 crores (about 5.5 million dollars). While the criminals decide to lie low until the heat dies down, they give Sanju the responsibility of safe-keeping the loot. Post heist, however, the film goes steadily downhill with what seems to be the scenes on a loop. Sanju loses his memory and the audience their patience. What was funny the first time, soon descends to irritating. Apart from Balan’s outfits which get weirder and weirder nothing changes, nothing moves forward. And it takes very, very long for the movie to end. Billed as a tale of thievery and mistrust, the movie seems to be one of slapstick sequences, almost caricaturish. The intrigue falls under the category of absurd and it seems like the director was having the last laugh on the audience. Hashmi, one imagines, must have been living the role of an amnesiac but that dull,

disinterested look is so permanent on his face that you may as well hold him up as a warning against the adverse effects of excessive TV watching. Balan, after a long time, falters in her portrayal of an over-thetop “fashionable Punjaban.” For instance, no Punajban brought up on Femina and having spent her life in Mumbai will speak in that rural-Punjabi accent even at home. The end is thankfully a deliverance. The music by Amit Trivedi, especially the title track “Lazy Lad” is well marketed and proves to be good, but not outstanding. The director seems to have given in to the public-demand to cash in on Balan’s The Dirty Picture image but to no avail. Ghanchakkar’s big reveal ended up like a damp squib and the villains came across as annoying rather than menacing. Much, much more was expected of the film given the big names. What went wrong is anybody’s guess but maybe some more meat in the plot would have helped. An old 70’s film Victoria No. 203 too had a looking-for-something-misplaced theme with veterans Ashok Kumar and Pran as the main leads. Their different adventures made the film rip-roaringly funny. One just wishes Ghanchakkar had half that zaniness. Ghanchakkar has some excellent ingredients put together inexpertly by a novice chef. All in all, the best scene in the film is when the actors hide behind masks. The deft camera manipulation produced angles that transformed the expressions on the robbers’ face masks to that of respected Bollywood actors, Dharmendra, Utpal Dutt and Amitabh Bachchan. Better wait till it is aired on TV, when the commercial breaks might lift your sagging spirits. n Madhumita Gupta is a freelance writer and a teacher. August 2013 | www.indiacurrents.com | 45

events AUGUST 2013

California’s Best Guide to Indian Events Edited by: Mona Shah List your event for FREE! SEPTEMBER issue deadline: Tuesday, August 20 To list your event in the Calendar, go to www.indiacurrents.com and fill out the Web form

Check us out on

special dates Idu’l Fitr

August 8

Indian Independence Day

August 15

Raksha Bandhan

August 21

Krishna Janamashtami

August 28

Labor Day

September 2

Ganesh Chaturthi

September 9

CULTURAL CALENDER August

3 Saturday

Fire and Powder. A modern day dance

theater adaptation of Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story in which the rival houses of Hip-Hop Capulets battle Bollywood Montagues. The tale of star-crossed lovers is told through contemporary Indian dance, hip-hop, bhangra, break dance and tap set to a rousing soundtrack including live drumming by Dhol Nation, modern rock and Bollywood hits, and original music written by composers from around the globe. Organized by Blue 13 Dance Company. 8:30 p.m. John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East, Hollywood. General $30,

46 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

Fire and Powder: A modern day dance theater adaptation of Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story, August 3

student $15 with id, children $12. (323) 4613673. www.blue13dance.com, www.fordtheatres.org/en/events/details/id/568.

August

16 Friday

The Music Room (Jalsaghar). Director Satyajit Ray brilliantly evokes the crumbling opulence of the world of a fallen aristocrat (the beloved actor Chhabi Biswas) desperately clinging to a fading way of life. His greatest joy is the music room in which he has hosted lavish concerts over the years— now a shadow of its former vivid self. An incandescent depiction of the clash between

tradition and modernity, and a showcase for some of India’s most popular musicians of the day. 7-9 p.m. Norton Simon Museum Theater, 411 W. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. $10 adults, $7 seniors 62+, free for students. (626) 844-6906. events@nortonsimon.org. bit. ly/19qGanR.

August

17 Saturday

India Independence Day Celebration. Cultural, regional and Bollywood programs

with dances from various parts of India. Games, jumpers for kids, and food booths. A health fair with physicians consulting on

recommends

Festival of India Celebration By Shyamal Randeria-Leonard

s Indians ready themselves to honor the 66th anniversary of its independence from Britain this August, one of Bollywood’s most coveted actresses, Priyanka Chopra is set to grace the Southern California stage to help Indo Americans celebrate the spirit of India. The annual event is organized by two groups, Federation of Indo-American Association of Southern California (FIA-SC) and United Federation of Indo-Americans of California (UFICA). Chopra, the 31-year old former Miss World is back in the spotlight with her recent release of a new music video “Exotic” Front Row sixth person Vasu Pawar UFICA President, FIA-SC president Baljinder Tahimis and Aparna featuring rap artist Pitbull. The actress also Hande FIA-SC Chair.ehind Vasu Pawar is Niraj Agnihotri, the Chairman of UFICA. recently released her very own “Exotic” not only “inculcate cultural awareness with the United States and Canada but also to milkshake at Millions of Milkshakes in Holour next generation but to also mark the parts of Asia, assisting in the rise of small lywood in late July. importance of India as the world’s largest derevolutionary bases in the same regions. Beyond her ever-expanding repertoire as mocracy which became the ‘pioneer of nonMany Gadarites returned to India to fight an artist, philanthropist and media personalviolence,’ and whose concept was modeled the battle for freedom which was speedity, Chopra was an obvious choice as not by future freedom fighters such as Nelson ily suppressed by the British government. only the “level best celebrity for the event,” Mandela and Martin Luther King. Hundreds of Gadar fighters were either but also because she is a known patriot says This year marks the Gadar movement’s captured and jailed or hanged. Vasu Pawar, UFICA’s president who was centenary and the oft forgotten role of the The celebration will also include a traexcited about the buzz of obtaining Chopra movement’s revolutionary involvement to ditional lamp lighting ceremony with the for the event. win freedom will also be honored. Gadar, Consul General of India, N. Parthasarathi The event is expected to draw roughly was a movement begun in the 1913 in San as the guest of honor. 10,000 people on the outdoor field of ExcelFrancisco by Indians immigrants. Against Audience members can expect an evesior High School and apart from the celebthe backdrop of World War I, activists gathning long cultural program infused with a rity focused excitement, the spirit of national ered at local gurdwaras, recruited migrant bevy of entertainment acts “representative awareness will be mingled with food and feslaborers, mainly Sikhs and disseminated flyof India’s rich cultural heritage” amidst the tivities. The event will also “honor the many ers and their own newspaper advocating numerous booths which will offer an aswho have sacrificed their lives for India’s independence. sortment of sundries says Pawar. struggle for freedom,” adds Chairperson of The call to action to free India from ADAA Dance Company, Nupur Dance FIA-SC Aparna Hande. British rule, soon spread not only through Academy, NDM and Bollywood Step Pawar also noted the event’s intention to Dance are part of roughly twenty-five acts set to perform at the fair. New entrance of multi-national sponsors such as ADP and Citi National will not only give away free gifts, but will be present as a show of support to the large Indian-American community of Southern California. Vendors from local Indian restaurants will be present and offer tasty treats ranging from vegetarian and non vegetarian tandoori items to sweet meats. A special kid’s corner will include train rides and jump houses, according to Hande. FIA-SC and UFICA promote exchange of valuable information, foster mutual cooperation and concern themselves with social welfare and cultural activities for the people of Indian origin while providing an exchange of information with its sister Mela performance organizations across the nation.n August 2013 | www.indiacurrents.com | 47

48 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

events nutrition, preventing and managing cholesterol, diabetes, weight and other medical problems by incorporating healthy Indian foods. Organized by India Association of Los Angeles (IALA). 3-11 p.m. Granada Hills Charter High School, 10535 Zelzah Ave, Granada Hills. Free. (818) 600-1495. ialasfv@gmail.com. indiaassociationla.org.

August

24 Saturday

Sufi Qawwali Concert. Organized

by Fanna-Fi-Allah. 7:30 p.m. Bhakti Yoga Shala, 207 Arizona Ave., Santa Monica. $20. (530) 388-0071. tahirqawwal@gmail. com. www.fanna-fi-allah.com.

Miss India America. Special guest Kunal Kohli. 6 p.m. (310) 994-9500.

August

25 Sunday

Sufi Qawwali Concert by FannaFi-Allah. Organized by Fanna-Fi-Allah. 7:30 p.m. World Beat Centre, 2100 Park Blvd., San Diego . $20. (619) 230-1190. tahirqawwal@gmail.com. www.fanna-fiallah.com.

Pankaj Udhas Live in Concert.

Organized by Shah Foundation and Tisha Entertainment. 6 p.m. Jordan High School Auditorium. 6500 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach. $35-$55. (562) 860-1135. (562) 423-1471. sulekha.com.

September

7 Saturday

Udit Narayan and Alka Yagnik Live in Concert. Organized by Shah

Foundation and Tisha Entertainment. 7:30 p.m. Anaheim Arena. 800 W. katella Ave., Ananheim. $39-$89. (562) 8601135. (562) 423-1471. sulekha.com.

SPIRITUALITY & HEALTH

August

An Interactive Panel Discussion on Eternity—Reality or Myth. Organized

by Desi Youth For Christ. 5-8:30 p.m. Conference Hall, Bawarchi Dosa Indian Restaurant, 9520 Black Mountain Road, San Diego . Free. (805) 328-3932. info@desiyouthforchrist. org. www.dyfc.us, www.desiyouthforchrist.org.

August

India Currents goes to press as much as six weeks in advance of some events listed in it. Even though organizers do their best to stick to the announced schedule, in rare cases events are rescheduled or cancelled. To avoid disappointment, we recommend that you always check the organizer’s website, and

CALL TO CONFIRM!

4 Sunday

Self-Realization Fellowship World Convocation. A week of spiritual renewal,

including group meditations, kirtans and classes on the yoga meditation teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda. The public is invited to attend evening classes on such topics as “Meditation: The Soul-Satisfying Journey to Spiritual Freedom,” “Achieving Your Material and Spiritual Goals,” “Living a Spiritually Balanced Life in Today’s Complex World,” and “Spiritual Happiness: Tapping into the Soul’s Storehouse of Peace, Love, and Joy.”. Ends Aug. 10. Organized by Self-Realization Fellowship. 7:30 p.m. Westin Bonaventure Hotel, 404 S Figueroa St, Los Angeles. $25. (323) 225-2471. www. yogananda-srf.org.

How Devotion Reveals the Invisible God. Sunday Service. Lake Shrine

Temple and Retreat, 17190 Sunset Blvd., Pacific Palisades. (310) 454-4114. Hollywood Temple, 4860 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood. (323) 6618006. Glendale Temple, 2146 East Chevy Chase Drive, Glendale. (818) 543-0800. Fullerton Temple, 142 East Chapman Ave., Fullerton. (714) 525-1291. Encinitas Temple, 939 Second Street, Encinitas. (760) 436-7220. San Diego Temple, 3072 First Avenue, San Diego. (619) 295-0170. Call temples for times. Organized by Self Realization Fellowship. www.yogananda-srf. org.

August A SUGGESTION:

3 Saturday

10 Saturday

Healing and Enlightenment Workshop with Yogiraj Siddhanath. Meet

Yogiraj Siddhanath and learn scientific kriya meditation. Ends Aug. 11. Organized by Hamsa Yoga Sangh. 7-9 p.m. Seaside Center for Spiritual Living, 1613 Lake Drive, Encinita. Free. 866-YOGI-RAJ. events@siddhanath. org. www.siddhanath.org/events/yogiraj-events.

August

11 Sunday

Kundalini Kriya Yoga Workshop and Empowerment with Yogiraj Siddhanath. 5-7 p.m. Seaside Center for Spiritual

Living, 1613 Lake Drive, Encinitas. $130. 866-YOGI-RAJ. events@siddhanath.org.

Enjoying Life’s Challenges. Sunday Ser-

vice. Lake Shrine Temple and Retreat, 17190 Sunset Blvd., Pacific Palisades. (310) 454-4114. Hollywood Temple, 4860 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood. (323) 661-8006. Glendale Temple, 2146 East Chevy Chase Drive, Glendale. (818) 5430800. Fullerton Temple, 142 East Chapman Ave., Fullerton. (714) 525-1291. Encinitas Temple, 939 Second Street, Encinitas. (760) 436-7220. San Diego Temple, 3072 First Avenue, San Diego. (619) 295-0170. Call temples for times. Organized by Self Realization Fellowship. www.yogananda-srf.org.

August

17 Saturday

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August

18 Sunday

Kundalini Kriya Yoga Workshop and Empowerment with Yogiraj Siddhanath. Organized by Hamsa Yoga Sangh. 5-7

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Proof of the Existence of God. Sunday Service. Lake Shrine Temple and Retreat, 17190 Sunset Blvd., Pacific Palisades. (310) 454-4114. Hollywood Temple, 4860 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood. (323) 661-8006. Glendale Temple, 2146 East Chevy Chase Drive, Glendale. (818) 543-0800. Fullerton Temple, 142 East Chapman Ave., Fullerton. (714) 5251291. Encinitas Temple, 939 Second Street, Encinitas. (760) 436-7220. San Diego Temple, 3072 First Avenue, San Diego. (619) 2950170. Call temples for times. Organized by Self Realization Fellowship. www.yogananda-srf.org.

reflections

Memories Are Made of This By Mimm Patterson

“S

it back and shut up you stupid fool!” My mother barreled down the rural two-lane black top at 80-miles-perhour in her turquoise finned Comet. She was in dogged pursuit and edging closer to the car not fifty feet in front of us. Behind the wheel of the black Chevy Bel Air was John. In the sultry summer of 1968 John was her second husband. My stepfather. Although I would not know that for two more years. In the summer of 1968 I still believed he was my dad. My biological father. I even told friends I looked like him. An hour earlier my mother had caught John canoodling with a voluptuous redhead near the man made lake at Ontelaunee Park in New Tripoli, Pennsylvania. There was a confrontation, a race to the cars and then the chase. My mother and her husband roared down the road toward the final settlement of their differences and I, from the back seat of the Comet, pretended this was nothing out the ordinary. That was my job, pretending nothing was wrong. I was only ten years old, but it was a job I was good at. The cars pulled tight into our dirt drive in a cloud of dust. My mom pushed and pulled me toward the house. “Get in your room.” This was not the time to protest. I did as I was told. I knew she wanted me in my room so I would not see what was going to happen next. But I did see. Mom used all her weight in the struggle to get the front door shut and locked. John was too fast and too strong. From the other side he threw his own weight against the wood. On the second or third attempt the door flew open. My mom was knocked off her feet and landed hard on the floor. John straddled her, made a fist and began to swing. Ten minutes later, it was over. Mom iced her face and looked for her Max Factor cover up. They were in a band at the time, Johnny and the Texas Tophands, and they had a gig that night. When I was in grade school we played a game called Whisper Down the Alley.

50 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

With our desks all in a row, the first student was handed a message that had to be whispered down a line of children. But as the words tickled ear after ear forgetfulness or a fit of giggles scrambled the meaning until the original intent was lost. Research suggests that our memories are a little bit like that game. Each time we re-remember, the story changes. At first it might be the small details. Was John driving the Bel Air or did he have the Corvair? Was it the summer of 1968 or sixty-nine? Did my mother land on the floor to take the blows to her face or did she fight back? Over time, as more details change, the entire memory changes until we have to ask: is it a memory at all or a story we’ve created. The only proof I have of this event happening is a faded black and white photo of a my mom’s Comet and my mother’s own

dusty re-rememberings. But it’s not the dark memories alone that change. Good memories change, too. This past April I returned to Pennsylvania to visit my mother. While I was there I arranged to meet a girlfriend from high school. On the day we were to meet her mother passed away and instead of sharing dinner with a friend I was left to write a eulogy. My friend’s mother was a wonderful woman who had unshakable belief in her only daughter and in all her daughter’s friends—including me. She believed we were nothing short of remarkable. As I tried to recall events that happened almost forty years earlier I realized that all I had, in truth, were soft, burnished impressions of a well loved

woman and a life well lived. And I realized the impressions that remain of an event are closer to the truth than the stories we like to tell ourselves. While in Pennsylvania I met a man who lives in the same circle of mobile homes as my mom. Over the years he has become like a son to her. He helps with projects around her home. He sweeps her walk in the snowy winters and this past summer installed two ceiling fans to help keep her trailer cool. I invited him to share dinner with us and during the course of our conversation he began to describe a woman. As he revealed more details it became clear that the stranger he was talking about was the same woman who had roared down that blacktop all those years before. It was an epiphany. After all these years I finally learned that my memories—my re-rememberings—no longer serve a purpose. Sitting in front of me at the dinner table was a man describing a woman I did not know. My mother. I know that sometimes, in order to understand our behavior in the present, we need to take time to understand what happened in the past. But it’s too easy to look at wounds through the eyes of my 10 yearold self and use them as an excuse. At some point I need to choose to stop telling myself the stories. To pull on the Big Girl Pants. But when? Both the wounds and the joys of childhood shape us but it’s the wounds to which we cling. Like a scabby knee, if we want those wounds to heal, we need to leave them be. And so I’ll stop picking at the wounds and instead move to a place where the only act of compassion I can offer to the ten-yearold child in the back seat of a car and the woman roaring toward a savage beating is to stop re-remembering. Because it’s time to be present for this relationship.n Mimm has been a yoga teacher, massage therapist, reflexologist and writer. When she’s not balancing in Ardha Chandrasana or wrestling with a sentence, Mimm’s either playing her guitar or doing homework. She is working towards a master’s degree in transpersonal psychology.

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healthy life

Preventing Cervical Cancer with Vinegar By Joanne Silberner

ervical cancer used to kill more women in the United States than any other cancer. Today, deaths in the United States are almost unheard of thanks to a decades-old test called a Pap smear, which allows for early detection and treatment. In India, however, tens of thousands of women still die each year from cervical cancer. “It’s just not possible for us to provide [the Pap test] as frequently as it is done in the West,” says Dr. Surendra Shastri, a cancer specialist at Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai. The Pap test requires trained personnel and well-equipped labs, which many parts of India do not have. “So what do we do?” Shastri asks. “We can’t let the women die.” It turns out there may be a simple answer. It’s a cheap and easy test developed by scientists at Johns Hopkins University and other institutions. And it relies on something you probably have in your kitchen.

Acid Test

I came to the village of Dervan in the Indian state of Maharashtra to see how the test works. Doctors had set up a temporary clinic in the shell of an empty store. A sheet hung from the ceiling to provide some privacy. There was no electricity—not even a light bulb—in the storefront. About a dozen Muslim women in headscarves had come for the test. One was on the exam table, her long brown skirt pushed aside. With her friends sitting nearby, she looked calm and ready. Dr. Archana Saunke took a cotton swab and applied a clear liquid to the woman’s cervix. “We wait for one minute, and we see if there is any patch—yellowish patch,” she explained. If the liquid makes the normally pink cervix turn white or yellow, that means there are precancerous cells—cells that could become cancer. Within a minute or two, the doctor had some good news for her patient. “It’s normal,” Saunke said. The woman smiled broadly. 52 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

When tests yield bad news and show precancerous cells, those can be removed on the spot with a squirt of liquid nitrogen. No return trip is needed. So what is this clear liquid Dr. Saunke applied? “Acetic acid,” A medical team at Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, India, poses with a woman who has just tested negative for cervical cancer, and her son who brought her in for screening. Photo by Joanne Silberner

she says. Common household vinegar.

Overcoming Resistance

The tests being done here are part of a trial program being run by Tata Memorial Hospital and Walawalkar Hospital, where Dr. Suvarna Patil is medical director. Patil says when the vinegar test was first brought to the villages, women were not interested, even though it was free. “Whenever we used to go to their houses, they used to shut the doors. They would say, ‘No, we don’t want [it]. You go away.’” Patil says many women found testing a bother. They were embarrassed to have a vaginal exam, and for what? They didn’t think cancer could be treated. India being a country of high- and lowtech solutions, Patil sent out health workers with computers loaded with PowerPoint presentations. They put up posters around town and performed plays. They talked to students in schools and to village leaders. Still, Patil says, the women wouldn’t come. “Muslim ladies, they will never come because it’s their culture,” she says. “Even Indian ladies, they are very shy. So first what we did is we appointed [an] all-female staff.” The staff got awareness training. They were taught to test not just for cervical cancer, but also for high blood pressure, dental problems, diabetes, and other diseases women were worried about. Men were also invited for those other screenings—and male support for the program was a key factor for

the women. All that got women in the door. Then it was a matter of time for attitudes to change.

Positive Results

Patil says it made a big difference when women saw other women actually beat cancer. “Now they are seeing the results, because if the cancer is picked up in early condition, the patient is doing well,” she says. “People are coming to us and telling us, ‘Please arrange a cancer screening camp for our ladies.’ But it took eight years. It was so difficult.” It is evident that those eight years have paid off. Back at the temporary testing clinic, Sojata Sanjay Kapril said she was happy she underwent the screening. Her test result was negative, but she said if an abnormality had been found, “then we can cure it.” The vinegar technique has been adopted in several countries now, and there’s another more expensive test for cervical cancer that some say may eventually prove to be even better. These tests could save the lives of tens of thousands of women in India each year—as long as women continue to be convinced to use them.n This story was reported with assistance from Mahesh Savale. The series was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. This article was first published in New America Media.

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travel

The Sweet Art of Doing Nothing Discovering the hamlets of Cinque Terra along the Italian Riviera By Kalpana Sunder

’m on a cliff, looking down at an impressionist painting of azure blue against a cerulean sky as delicate as egg shells. There’s only the fragrance of rosemary in the air and bird song, the sound of cicadas and the crunch of boots on gravel to keep me company. Tiny fishing towns, houses with green shutters and faded facades hanging on to precipitous cliffs, laundry hanging from the balconies and the smell of the ocean. This is the “Italy of my dreams.” There’s wine, great views, sun, sea and sand and life in the slow lane. There are no McDonalds, upscale malls, speeding Vespas or camera-crazy tour-groups here. There’s not much going on here—but that’s the point! The Cinque Terra (meaning the five lands and pronounced cheen-quay terrah) a stretch of five villages along the Italian Riviera between Pisa and Genoa is a marvelously scenic region of cobalt sea and silvery olive trees! These villages were linked to each other for centuries, only by boats or mule paths along the dramatic cliffs and were totally out of the tourist circuit. To preserve the Cinque Terra’s natural wonders, this whole region has been declared a National Park and is UNESCO protected territory since 1997. We make a small, unpretentious seaside town Levanto our base for exploring the Cinque Terra. Levanto has a gorgeous

Old couple at Manarola 54 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

Monterosso—the most sophisticated of the Cinque Terra villages

stretch of beach, olive growing on the hillterraces and a public park with a hiker’s statue—because of its popularity with hikers. We pick up the Cinque Terra card which gives us unlimited rides on the local trains to the villages and access to the scenic hiking trails too! Hiking buffs are seen everywhere with their lethal ski spears and mountain boots! We see the iconic Rick Steve’s travel guide with many western tourists—he introduced this area to the western tourists. The Sentiero Azzurro or the Blue Trail connects all the five hamlets, and is a five hour hiking trail. All trails are clearly signposted, and classified, based on how arduous they are. We decide on a mix of trainhopping and hiking between the five villages, and enjoying this region in bite-sized chunks. Monterosso, the first village, is only four minutes away from Levanto by train. It is the most sophisticated of the five villages, with a resort-town vibe and the largest port. We see the yachts of the rich and famous dock here, and hear that it has a thriving late-night scene. The modern part of town is separated by a tunnel from the old town, dating back to 643 C.E. The old town has the caruggi, the typical medieval narrow streets; there used to be 13 medieval towers here, now

only three are left! In the center of the old village is the black and white striped 13th century church of San Giovanni Battista. There is a 14th century convent on the craggy hill and we trek uphill, for a marvelous view of the Ligurian Sea. The beach has soft, white, talcum powder sand and is packed with sun worshippers, umbrellas for hire and deck-chairs matching the color of the ocean. We take the commuter train to Vernazza, the second village, through tunnels with small peep windows showing us tantalizing and flickering, glimpses of our destination—a small boat, the azure seas, a craggy face and a sheer cliff. Vernazza is clearly the pick of the pack— the most picturesque of the villages. It is an ancient Roman village, dating back to the 1st century C.E. Colorful homes line the cobblestone path, from the station to the perfect natural harbor. It’s packed with shops brimming with souvenirs, gelato and restaurants fragrant with the aroma of fresh Pesto sauce—a Ligurian specialty. We walk along Via Visconti, the town’s bustling main street and reach the harbor with its rockstrewn shoreline. Fishing boats dawdle on the shore and outdoor cafes sport brilliant, yellow umbrellas.

Local denizens catch the sunshine, read their newspapers on the benches, and tourists sunbathe on the rocks. We see Santa Margherita D’Antiocha, a small, rustic, church dating back to 1318 C.E. built on the sea rock, which oddly seems to turn its back on the Piazza. The narrow and twisting stairs to Castella Doria, a 11th century lookout tower (built to defend the town from pirates!) is better than any gym workout, but we are rewarded with the most stupendous views of the entire region. The azure sea, the slopes dusted with Fuji color wildflowers and the boats and ferries afar … time seems to stand still here. We find a local shop in the square selling gelatos and choose double scoops of Tiramisu this time (We have 15 days in Italy and about 40 flavors to go through). Beyond the village, we see vineyards on hill terraces that defy gravity. For centuries, the local farmers have carved steep terraces on the slopes, propped up by nearly 7,000 km (4,350 miles) of latticed stone walls! The locals say, that, there are more stones here than the Great Wall of China. The terraces not only produce much-coveted wines, but also luscious lemons and olives. As many of the youth have moved away from the region, the Italian government offers free 20 year cultivation rights to outsiders, who are willing to tend the stone walls and the vines of the Cinque Terra. The pride of the Cinque Terra is the sweet Sciachetra, a sherry-like dessert wine. It is said that the Romans called it the nectar of the gods and that bottles of this drink were found in the ruins of Pompeii. In the distance are miniature cog-wheel monorails rattling along the terraces moving equipment, grapes and workers vertically along the slopes. Our next village is Corniglia, the only village not on the water. From the train station, a footpath, the Lardamia zigzags up nearly 400 steps to the hillside town which is impossibly perched ninety metres above the ocean. We choose to save our soles and take a convenient shuttle bus instead. It is a small village with to-die-for views of the Ligurian Sea, pink and white homes with billowing laundry and the highlight is a Romanesque church, the San Pietro built in 1334 C.E., tucked in to a pocket-sized pastel square. We rest our tired legs at a wayside bench and munch a piece of focaccia bread (stuffed with olives, herbs and cheese) to re-energize ourselves for the next part of our journey. As we get off at Manarola station, our eyes are magnetically drawn to the pastel houses spilling down a steep black cliff overlooking the impossibly turquoise sea and harbor. A pedestrian tunnel from the station leads into the village square lined with shops and al fresco eateries. We love the lazy ambience and decide to linger here for lunch at a

Views of the azure sea from the Cinque Terra

trattoria with the soundtrack of the rumbling trains in the distance. The local specialty seems to be sea-food but our vegetarian meal of Pizza Quattro Formaggio (four cheeses) and Trofie Pesto is marvelous, washed down by a blossomy local wine which leaves us totally blissful and lethargic. A dose of double cappuccino later we roam around the shops (this is the center of wine and oil production) and succumb to packets of seasoning and herbs and some crisp white wine! Connecting Manarola and Riomaggiore, the last of the Cinque Terra villages is the Via Dell’Amore, the Lover’s Path, a relatively flat, paved trail that is carved into the

mountain with inspiring views and romantic nooks. This is a storybook journey replete with rocks, the turquoise waters, the pine and oak groves near the waters, the vineyards on terraced mountain slopes and strategically placed stone benches to take rest. Other than the sound of an occasional hiker, there is only birdsong. We come across a small roadside cafeteria and an artist painting the staggering views oblivious to our presence. The footpath follows the terrain of the land, curves and winds its way through the spectacular scenery. We come to an underpass with windows and colorful graffiti proclaiming love in various

Vernazza with its terraced slopes

August 2013 | www.indiacurrents.com | 55

locks fastened onto the railing by lovers who want to link their amore to this fascinating region! We reach the end of the trail and are now at the last village, picture-perfect

Riomaggiore—a jumble of rose, yellow, coral and orange homes, rising in tiers leaning on each other. This village is built into a river gorge (thus, the name which means river

Another view of Vernazza

56 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

major) and dates back to the 8th century C.E. when Greek refugees came here to escape persecution. Space is a premium here, we can tell, when we see flat rooftops as a playing ground for kids and pets. Near the station is a colorful giant-sized mural by an Argentinean artist featuring the workers who constructed the stone walls, without any cement, running through this entire area. Back in Levanto, we are in time for a bewitching Cinque Terra Sunset. The strip of beach is deserted, except for a few teenagers and a couple on their passegiata (evening stroll). Sitting on a bench, we watch the corals fade to rose and then violet. The hills are bathed in a dusky glow, and the sound of the breakers on the shore is reassuring. It’s easy to be lured into the timeless web of Cinque Terra’s appeal—going back to an era, without mobile phones or television sets—when the high point of a day, was watching the sun go down. Our calves are toned with all the stairs, trails and hills that we have traversed. And our hearts are full, with the myriad charms of this place! n Kalpana Sunder is a travel writer and blogger based in Chennai, India who blogs at http:// kalpanasunder.com/blog

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recipes

Hyderabadi Cooking By Shanta Sacharoff

ggplants are native to India, where they have been cultivated for approximately 4000 years. The culinary use of eggplants was introduced from India to other Asian countries then to the Middle East and later to Southern Europe. In the United States eggplants were popularized by the experimental botanist, Thomas Jefferson, in 1800 CE. The state of Hyderabad was long ruled by Nizam royalty who enjoyed eating and entertaining with well-prepared pungent foods. Their chefs developed a fusion cuisine that blended local South Indian ingredients with aromatic spices and slow-cooking techniques derived from Middle Eastern cooking. The Hyderabadi sauce used in the recipe below is typical of this cooking style, and is made by blending aromatic cardamom and other spices with local ingredients, including coconut and tamarind. The result is an

impressive center-piece for any meal: small eggplants with a colorful gravy, inexpensive local ingredients transformed into royal fare to showcase Hyderabad’s princely legacy. Perhaps because of their unfamiliar color and variety of shapes, eggplants were not readily accepted into many cuisines outside of India, but today they appear in many familiar dishes such as Italian Eggplant Parmesan, French Ratatouille, and Middle Eastern Baba Ghanoush just to name a few. Eggplants have an impressive nutritional profile and provide substantial health benefits. They are low in calories and a great source of dietary fiber, making them one of the best heart-healthy vegetables and helpful to digestive elimination. They have a fair amount of many essential B vitamins which help metabolize protein and carbohydrates. Eggplants also contain good amounts of a variety of minerals including manganese,

copper, iron and potassium, which serves as an antioxidant helping the body’s immune system. In addition, research has shown that eggplant is effective in controlling high blood cholesterol. The peel of the eggplant, which is seldom removed in Indian recipes, offers substantial amounts of phyto-chemicals that help against cancer, inflammation and some age-related brain diseases. Despite their great nutritional merits and their beautiful color, not many people are inclined to find eggplant a favorite vegetable, but this Hyderabadi eggplant dish, Baghara Baingan, will transform anyone into an eggplant lover. I promise! n Shanta Nimbark Sacharoff, author of Flavors of India: Vegetarian Indian Cuisine, lives in San Francisco, where she is manager and coowner of Other Avenues, a health-food store.

Baghara Baingan The eggplants used in this recipe need to be small, not the globe variety commonly found in supermarkets. Smaller eggplants are available year round in many ethnic markets, where they are known by various names. The long, light purple varieties are often called Japanese eggplant, the small dark purple ones are known as Italian eggplant, and tiny, round, white or green eggplants are often labeled as Chinese. In summer time, many local varieties of these small eggplants appear in farmers markets, some grocery stores and produce stores. Ingredients 4 long Japanese eggplants, or 5 mediumsized Italian eggplants or 10 small Chi nese eggplants 3 to 4 fresh, ripe, brown tamarind pods, available in Indian, Chinese or Mexican market or 1 tablespoon-size chunk, separated from a brick-like dehydrated tamarind or readily available tamarind paste from Indian grocery stores ¼ cup sesame seeds ½ cup unsweetened dried coconut flakes 3-4 tablespoons safflower or olive oil 1 cup chopped onion 4 cloves of garlic, chopped fine 1 tbsp grated fresh ginger root 1 tsp coriander powder, 58 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

Illustration: Serena Sacharoff

1 tsp cumin powder 1 tsp turmeric powder ½ tsp cardamom powder, prefer ably freshly ground ¼ tsp cayenne powder, or more to taste 1 tsp salt, or to taste ½ tsp whole cumin seeds 1 cup water chopped fresh cilantro leaves for garnish Procedure Rinse the eggplants and cut off the stems. If using the long Japanese eggplants, cut them into 3-4 pieces. Medium-sized Italian eggplants can be cut into two pieces, and smaller ones can be left whole. Then cut each of these pieces of eggplant partly in half, so that each has a slit where the stuffing will go. Set the eggplant pieces aside. The tamarind sauce and stuffing will create the sweet and sour sauce for this curry.

Tamarind Sauce: If using fresh tamarind, remove and discard the crackly skin and inner strings. Soak the peeled pods in ½ cup of hot water for 15 minutes. Then rub the soaked tamarind with your fingers for several minutes to extract the mealy portion into the water. Using a sieve with large holes or a vegetable steamer basket, strain and discard the seeds and membranes, leaving a tamarind sauce behind. Set this sauce aside. If using dehydrated tamarind, cut off a tablespoon-sized piece and separate it into small pieces, making sure to discard any strings or seeds. Packages labeled “seedless” often contain seeds. Soak the tamarind pieces in ½ cup of hot water for 10 minutes. Transfer into the a jar of an electric blender or food processor and blend this mixture into a fine sauce. Set aside. Stuffing: Place the sesame seeds in a heavy skillet and dry roast them until they become fragrant and turn color slightly. The seeds will toast very quickly as the skillet becomes hot, so be prepared to transfer them swiftly from the pan onto a platter. Next, using the same hot skillet, dry roast the coconut flakes. These will turn color even faster, in 30 seconds or less, so be ready to transfer

Illustration: Serena Sacharoff

contents can be transferred to an oven-proof casserole with a lid and baked in the oven for 40 minutes at 350 degrees. If you choose to bake, check twice at 15 minute intervals to move the eggplants around so that they will not stick to the pot, and be cooked evenly on all sides.

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Hyderabadi Biryani

them almost immediately onto the platter with the seeds. Next, heat 2 tablespoons of oil in the skillet and sauté onion until it is soft and light brown. Add garlic and cook for a few minutes. Transfer the onion and garlic to a bowl and set aside. Place the sesame seeds and coconut flakes into the jar of a food processor and blend them for a minute. Add half of the fried onion and garlic mixture to the jar, and set the rest aside. Then add the grated ginger, spices, salt and sugar to the jar. Blend these ingredients to form a somewhat dry stuffing, with the consistency of wet corn meal. Do not over blend. Assembling and Cooking Hold each eggplant piece in one hand, using your thumb to keep the slit open. With the other hand fill the slit with 1 to 2 teaspoons of the stuffing. Be careful not to overstuff, or else eggplant will break into two pieces. Save any leftover stuffing to add to the sauce later. Select a large, heavy bottomed sauce pot with a well-fitting lid. Heat the remaining oil in the pot and add the cumin seeds. Roast the seeds for 30 seconds, then add the remainder of the fried onion and garlic mixture. Place the stuffed eggplants carefully in the pot and stir them for a few minutes to cover them with the oil, onion and garlic. Cover the pot and cook the eggplants for 5 to 7 minutes over a low heat, shaking the pot carefully without removing the lid so that all sides of the eggplants are well glazed with oil. Uncover, add the tamarind sauce, cover the pot again and cook the eggplant covered for a minute or two. Then add the cup of water and the leftover stuffing and cook covered over a low heat for about 40 minutes, Check every 10 minutes, lifting the eggplants gently so the eggplants or the stuffing do not stick to the side or bottom of the pot. Hyderabadi cuisine is traditionally cooked slowly on a low fire, so be patient to obtain perfection. Alternatively, after adding the water and left-over stuffing, the entire

Most Hyderabadi Biryani recipes contain rice cooked with small pieces of meat, but it is the aroma of whole spices that makes this rice dish a delicacy. 2 cups water 1 cup basmati rice, rinsed, and drained thoroughly and completely 1 tbsp olive oil ½ cup green onions (scallions) chopped finely with some greens included ½ cup slivered almonds 1/8 tsp whole cumin seeds 1 tsp shredded or minced fresh ginger root 5 to 6 whole cardamom pods 1 stick of cinnamon cut into several small pieces 4 whole cloves ½ to ¾ cups fresh carrot, cut into 1/2” cubes ½ to ¾ cups fresh, or frozen and thawed, shelled peas or green beans cut into ¼ inch small pieces A few strands of saffron, soaked in 2 tbsps of hot milk or water for a few minutes ½ tsp salt or to taste Juice of ½ lime or lemon A few sprigs of cilantro or parsley for garnish Boil the water and set it aside. In a heavy saucepan with a lid, heat the oil over moderate heat and sauté the green onions for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the almonds and stir fry for a few minutes until fragrant. Add the cumin seeds and roast for a minute. Add the grated ginger, cardamom pods, cinnamon pieces and whole cloves and stir fry for a minute. Add the carrots and peas or green beans, and sauté for a few minutes more. Add the welldrained rice and continue to stir fry gently for a few minutes so that all ingredients are well mixed. Pour the boiled water in and gently stir the mixture with a wooden spoon. Add the salt and the saffron with its liquid. Cover and cook for 12 minutes. Uncover to check if the rice is done. Pinch a grain of rice with two fingers to see if it feels soft. If the rice is too dry, and not done, add a few teaspoons of water and cook for a few minutes longer. Sprinkle the lemon juice on top and cover for a few minutes before serving. Then uncover, top with fresh cilantro, and serve with Baghara Baingan or any dish with a sauce. n

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relationship diva

Making the First Move By Jasbina Ahluwalia

I’ve been reading your column for a while, as well as a number of different relationship books recommended by girlfriends over the years. On the one hand I hear that women should be proactive and, on the other hand, many experts suggest women should not initiate or make the first move when it comes to dating—will you clarify?

You are not alone in your confusion—just as in many other fields of human endeavor, not every relationship expert/author has the same perspective. First, I have yet to come across a relationship expert who does not advocate being proactive in one’s love life. By “being proactive,” I mean that instead of leaving your love life up to random chance, it’s wise to get clarity about what you seek, and take active steps to increase your chances of attaining that which you seek. This is no different than any other high-stakes area of life. For instance, if you were interested in having a career, it would be wise to get clarity about

the kind of professional work you seek, and then take active steps (schooling, training, informational interviews, job searching, networking) to attain that professional work. In your love life, action steps you can take to gain clarity include: consciously thinking through your core values, life goals, and the kind of relationship you seek, either by yourself and/or with family and friends; seeking guidance from books, dating coaches, and matchmakers; and gaining experience interacting with guys (via attending events of interest to you, online dating, matchmaking services, family and friend-set ups, etc). Now let’s talk about initiating and making the first move with guys—an area in which there tends to be more difference of opinion among experts. I’m of the camp that a woman should approach dating in an empowered way and should not limit herself exclusively to “who picks her.” In other words, when dating online, I recommend women reach out to guys who they find appealing, instead of limiting

themselves to the guys who reach out to them. At events, I recommend that women “green-light” guys who appear interesting via smiling and eye contact; as well as initiating conversations. In terms of pursuing, I believe that guys generally make efforts when interested. In other words, after a woman “green-lights” a guy, an interested guy generally makes efforts to pursue. When a woman pursues as a reaction to a guy’s unwillingness to make any efforts to pursue, she risks not knowing whether he is truly interested, or in some cases engaging with someone who is playing along until someone he’s truly interested in comes along. Hope this helps clarify. 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. Jasbina@intersectionsmatch.com.

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viewfinder

The Barefoot Cobbler By Nirmal Chand

winne r

The barefoot cobblerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s picture was taken in Mussoorie, a hill station in northern India where Nirmal Chand spent twelve years of his life. The cobbler, like most merchants and tradespeople, was friendly and well-known to many people in Mussoorie. People would socialize with him and other merchants during the day. n

Nirmal Chand is a long-time resident of San Jose and enjoys traveling and photography. A member of the Los Gatos-Saratoga Camera Club, he keeps his camera close at hand and is gratified when he is able to capture the spirit of people he encounters.

India Currents invites readers to submit to this column. Send us a picture with caption and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll pick the best entry every month. There will be a cash prize awarded to the lucky entrant. Entries will be judged on the originality and creativity of the visual and the clarity and storytelling of the caption. So pick up that camera and click away. Send the picture as a jpeg image to editor@indiacurrents.com with Subject: A Picture That Tells a Story. Deadline for entries: 10th of every month. 62 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

dear doctor

Figuring out the Family By Alzak Amlani

I am a lesbian and I’ve been dating a woman for four months. We’ve both been through our share of family challenges around our sexual orientation. My parents have really shifted their perspective over the years and are now accepting of my sexuality and lifestyle. My girlfriend’s parents, however, are still hoping that she will “outgrow” her feelings for her “girlfriend” and will marry a “nice boy.” Although she feels strongly that she is a lesbian, the pressure and lack of support from family members are making her ambivalent and scared of committing. I have met my girlfriend’s parents a couple of times and I understand this is really hard for them, given the cultural background and all the expectations they had of their daughter marrying and giving them grandchildren. They also seem to be very concerned about what their relatives, friends and community will think. I am just not sure if my girlfriend will be able to make her own decision and live the life that makes her happy. I am afraid of really confronting her on this because I don’t want to put more pressure on her and also don’t want to lose

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her. It’s really hard to meet someone of my own or very similar culture. She is 26 and moved to the United States 15 years ago from Bangladesh. I am 24, of Indian descent, and have lived here most of my life. We think alike, like similar food, music and have values that we share. I am not sure quite how to proceed.

Thank you for sharing so much of your struggle. It’s clear that you have accepted your own feelings and sexual orientation. You also seem to be quite aware of the challenges ahead. Four months is a short time to be making major decisions about the possibility of your relationship. You are really still getting to know each other. Much will unfold in the next few months. If your girlfriend didn’t have parental constraints would she be able to commit more fully to dating women? You are both at pivotal ages, when another level of separation from family happens and making your own decisions becomes more natural. I am curious what your girlfriend thinks about her relationship with you and her process with

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her family? Is she afraid of losing you? Can she actually see herself being with you even if her parents don’t approve? Would some conversations over several months with her parents be possible and yield some space for her to explore the relationship more freely with you? Could slowing down benefit you or the relationship? Often when couples feel they are a good match, they jump in and move too quickly and the difficult aspects of personality and background arise without enough trust and experience in working things through. Living in the moment and not knowing the future of your relationship is not easy. However, it might be good idea to let go a bit and give your girlfriend a chance to assess what’s right for her at this stage in her life. n

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the last word

A Summer Sojourn By Sarita Sarvate

he summers of my childhood were long, hot and boring. The main distractions were playing cards, gazing at the stars at night, and occasionally, eating Blue Bell ice cream. When relatives visited, therefore, I was overjoyed. But my mother, Aai, was irritated because of the extra mouths she would have to feed. The relatives she liked the least were from a branch of my father’s family. Whenever my cousin, Ratan, a tall, muscular teenage girl, and her brother, Jayanta, a lanky, diffident boy, visited, Aai suspected them of helping themselves to loose change. Just to refute her, I became extra-chummy with the visitors, and in turn, Ratan styled my hair with French braids and Jayanta showed me shadow puppets. He was thought to be retarded, probably because he was partially deaf, but to me he was the most amusing of my cousins. I was eight that summer, when, as their visit came to an end, Ratan asked me to come and stay with them. I got terribly excited. Aai begged me not to go, but I paid her no attention. My cousins’ house was a two story wada in the old city, with a center courtyard When and a well, surrounded by cowwe got home, dung-plastered rooms. Numerous I felt I was entering uncles and aunts inhabited the residence, and as I played hide a place I had never vis- and seek with a dozen children, felt elated. Ratan and Jayited before. Everything Ianta’s mother, Aunt Gangu, was seemed alien; my par- a slight woman with a pale face and a wan smile. It was hard to ents and their manner- associate her with the picture in our family album, in which, isms were forced and nine months pregnant, she sat in a swing wearing flower necklaces, false ... flower bracelets, flower tiaras, and a flower waistband, for the baby shower ritual. Now she was a widow whose beauty had long faded. Ratan pointed out a garlanded picture in the main veranda, whispering, “That was our Baba,” and I gazed into the sad eyes of a handsome young man with a flock of dark hair, recalling stories I had heard of GanguAtya’s beauty, which had earned her a husband from a joint family with property and assets. I sat on the floor in a row of children to eat dinner that night, and when GanguAtya asked if I was allowed to eat Dalda—the Indian version of margarine, I did not tell her that Aai had long banned such substances from our house, boasting instead of my hardy digestion. The next morning, the mood in the wada changed. I do no not know how it all started, but Gangu’s brother-in-law, my cousins’ uncle, seemed very angry with Jayanta. All I could gather was that the man did not want the three of them in his house. I watched from behind a pillar as the man shouted at my cousins. Red-faced, his uncle grabbed Jayanta by the neck and began to beat him fiercely. Ratan intervened and was soon being mauled like prey in the jungle. GanguAtya tried to protect her children even though her frail physique was no match for the man’s strength, and was viciously beaten and dragged across the floor. When the man’s rage had subsided, GanguAtya rose, and clutching her bloody ear, exclaimed, “My earring!” It turned out her pearl stud had torn through her earlobe. Then the three of them sat on the floor entwined, sheltering one another from further assault. I ran out the veranda and into the courtyard. I had to get out of here, I knew, but I had no idea how to do this. The image of my aunt’s torn earlobe was fixed 64 | INDIA CURRENTS | August 2013

in front of my eyes and would remain there for the rest of my childhood. It was my fault, I knew; I had disobeyed Aai, the one person who loved me, and now I had brought calamity on everyone. Then a miracle happened. Who did I see but DinooKaka, Dada’s younger brother, entering the gate at that very moment? He talked with GanguAtya; then he put me on the handlebar of his bicycle and rode away, my long hair fluttering in the wind. If my uncle had noticed the bloody ear, the bruised bodies, the teary eyes, he gave no hint of it. When we got home, I felt I was entering a place I had never visited before. Everything seemed alien; my parents and their mannerisms were forced and false; I could not meet their eyes. The house seemed devoid of any charm. The thought of recounting the events of that morning never even occurred to me; in our family, we possessed no vocabulary to talk of such things. For years afterwards, I remembered Aai’s words, spoken in a moment of idle candor, “That boy got deaf because of the beatings he received on his ears!” For years afterwards, I wondered if Dada knew all along what was happening in that house. I wondered if Aai had suspected, which was why she had sent DinooKaka to fetch me first thing in the morning. I wondered why DinooKaka had not told Dada what he had seen. Decades later, during one of my visits to India, I alluded to what I had witnessed in that wada all those years ago. But Dada dismissed my allegations, changing the subject. I wondered if he was the same father who had espoused women’s emancipation all my life, telling me stories of the maltreatment of widows. GanguAtya died of cancer at a young age; I was convinced she died of slow torture. She had entrusted all of her savings to her brother, who, it turned out, spent it on his own family. When time came to marry Ratan off, there was no money left for her dowry or wedding expenses. So Dada organized a family council and urged each cousin to contribute, saying, “We owe at least that much to Gangu.” Years later Ratan, too, died of cancer. Did she die of a broken heart, I wondered. One day in 2008, during one of my India visits, I ran into Jayanta in the Burdi market. “When did you come?” he asked, as relatives always did. He had a wife, a family, and a job, he said. He dutifully showed up at my door a few days later, sitting in the front room and drinking tea. There was so much I wanted to say to him. I wanted to tell him I was sorry that I had never told anyone about what I had witnessed in that wada all those years ago. I wanted to say that I was outraged at the men in our family who had stood by as Gangu had slowly decayed. I wanted to tell him of my helplessness in not helping any of them. I wanted to say that if Gangu had lived today, she would have had a job and financial independence and their lives would have been so very different. But most of all, I wanted to hold his hand. I wanted to embrace him. I wanted to say that I loved him. I wanted to ask for his forgiveness. But we Maharashtrians do not express our emotions; nor do we speak of the things that matter to us the most. So I stayed quiet and did not utter a word. n Sarita Sarvate (www.saritasarvate.com) has published commentaries for New America Media, KQED FM, San Jose Mercury News, the Oakland Tribune, and many nationwide publications.

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