India Currents December 2011. Southern California

Desi Headliners

Top Ten Hindi Films of 2011

Favorite Books of 2011

IndiaCurrents Celebrating 25 Years of Excellence

WE WILL NO LONGER REMAIN SILENT dec.’11 - jan.’12 • vol. 25, no .9 • www.indiacurrents.com

2011 turned out to be the year of the people.

Protesters from democracies and dictatorships alike took to the streets in a stinging criticism of a world order that concentrates wealth and power in the hands of a very few.

Girding For an Election Year 1885 Lundy Ave, Suite 220, San Jose, CA 95131 Phone: (408) 324-0488 (714) 523-8788 Fax: (408) 324-0477 Email: info@indiacurrents.com www.indiacurrents.com

Publisher & Editor: Vandana Kumar publisher@indiacurrents.com (408) 324-0488 x 225 Advertising Manager: Derek Nunes ads@indiacurrents.com Northern California: (408) 324-0488 x 222 Southern California: (714) 523-8788 x 222 (408) 324-0488 x 221 Graphic Designer: Nghia Vuong EDITORIAL BOARD Managing Editor: Vidya Pradhan editor@indiacurrents.com (408) 324-0488 x 226 Calendar Editor: Nadia Maiwandi events@indiacurrents.com (408) 324-0488 x 224 COLUMNISTS Forum: Rameysh Ramdas Films: Aniruddh Chawda Dear Doctor: Alzak Amlani The Last Word: Sarita Sarvate Uncubed: Krishna Sadasivam Zeitgeist: Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan

If one phrase could be used to summarize 2011 for Americans, it would be “political gridlock.” Between the squeezing out of moderates in last year’s low-turnout midterms, and the approaching presidential elections of 2012, the appetite to govern through compromise has just about disappeared. While average Americans continue to suffer the effects of a terrible and lingering recession, our representatives cocoon themselves in the echo chamber in the nation’s capital, submitting their consciences and outsourcing their intelligence to Beltway operatives more interested in personal fame and fortune than in the well-being of their fellowmen.

It is not surprising that the inchoate rage felt by those left behind in the pursuit of the American dream has manifested itself in protests around the country. If the protestors lack a coherent message, it is because the reversal of the death by a thousand cuts that the working class been subjected to for decades is hard to encapsulate in a pithy slogan or an organized manifesto.

For those of us suffering in private, the actions of the Occupy movement may seem confusing and pointless, even as their emotions and demands resonate with us. The issues of rising income inequality and loss of upward mobility are real enough; it is just that in a democracy there is no single entity to blame, no

dictator to overthrow. If we were to be brutally honest, the victims of this decades-long assault on the have-nots need only look in the mirror to find the perpetrators. Whether it is by picking candidates through purity tests, or by choosing to stay home in protest rather than cast an imperfect vote, we have ceded control of the political process to corporate funding and ideological extremists.

The New Year will usher in a deluge of political advertising, most of it ugly and untruthful. And there’s no doubt that it’s going to be a monumental challenge to sift through the barrage of election year (mis)information to arrive at suitable representatives who can reverse the political impasse. The guiding principle must be to look for candidates who have an interest in and a record of governance, not those who believe government is bad and dismantling it is the way to go. “Compromise” and “incremental change” must become acceptable words again, and politicians’ records of legislative action need to trump flowery promises for the future.

Ultimately the onus of bringing about change rests on our ability to send a message in the way it matters most—though the ballot box. So let’s make a resolution to educate ourselves, get informed, and go forth and vote!

Vidya Pradhan

Contributors: Jasbina Ahluwalia, Khorshed Alam, Priya Das, Shailaja Dixit, Ramki Durai, Jeanne E. Fredriksen, Geetika Pathania Jain, Madhumita Gupta, Shivam Khullar, Tara Menon, Rajesh C. Oza, Jaya Padmanabhan, Niraj Patel, Naresh Rajan, Shanta Sacharoff, Girija Sankar, Mani Subramani Cover Poster: Raina Dayne Cover Design: Nghia Vuong.

INDIA CURRENTS® (ISSN 0896-095X) is published monthly (except Dec/Jan, which is a combined issue) for $19.95 per year by India Currents, 1885 Lundy Ave., Ste 220, San Jose, CA 95131. Periodicals postage paid at San Jose, CA, and at additional mailing offices.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to INDIA CURRENTS, 1885 LUNDY AVE, STE. 220, SAN JOSE, CA 95131 Information provided is accurate as of the date of going to press; India Currents is not responsible for errors or omissions. Opinions expressed are those of individual authors. Advertising copy, logos, and artwork are the sole responsibility of individual advertisers, not of India Currents.

Copyright © 2011 by India Currents All rights reserved.

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india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 1

Southern California Edition

PERSPECTIVES 1 EDITORIAL: Girding for an election year.

By Vidya Pradhan

4 VOICES 6 FORUM: Is the Occupy Wall Street movement a worthy one? By Rameysh Ramdas and Mani Subramani

10 Frustrated by growing inequality and unemployment, protestors in democracies and dictatorships alike took to the streets in 2011

By Jaya Padmanabhan

7

ZEITGEIST: Life with (seven) billion others. By Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan

8

ELECTION 2012: The masks we wear. By Rajesh C. Oza

16

25th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL: From East Indian to South Asian. By Sarita Sarvate.

28

TAX TALK: Year-end tax tips.By Khorshed Alam

42

DESI VOICES: My bittersweet tricolor.

By Shailaja Dixit

52

REFLECTIONS: The three gunas. By Ramki Durai

LIFESTYLE

Krishna Sadasivam takes a look at the desi headliners of the year

THE HEALTHY LIFE: Why ghee gets a bad rap.

By Niraj “Raj” Patel

59 RECIPES: Leafy greens for winter. By Shanta Sacharoff 61 RELATIONSHIP DIVA: Matrimonial prospects for the thirty- something. By Jasbina Ahluwalia

44

63 DEAR DOCTOR: Not in the model minority.

By Alzak Amlani

Shivam Khullar tours the City of Lights

56

DEPARTMENTS

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64 THE LAST WORD BY SARITA SARVATE: Naipaul was right.

54

26 27 62

Ask a Lawyer Visa Dates Uncubed

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT 20

FILMS: Top 10 films of 2011. Review of Rockstar.

By Aniruddh Chawda and Madhumita Gupta

30

MUSIC: The veena as a jazz instrument. By Priya Das

34

BOOKS: Favorite books of the year. By India Currents reviewers.

WHAT’S CURRENT 46 53 60

Cultural Calendar Spiritual Calendar Classifieds

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voices

An Important Tradition

What a wonderful article by Anuradha Malhotra (The Power of Mantras, November 2011)!

In ancient India, the energy of sound was highly researched. That is why our Vedic texts are full of shlokas and mantras that find wide applicability in many different situations. Not only is knowing the meaning of these mantras important, but also the method of their recitation is critical to generate the desired vibrations for maximum effect. The same goes for ragas in Indian classical music. Since mantras and shlokas get transferred through shruti, (that which is heard), it is commendable that parents take the time to sit with their children and practice this age-old tradition.

Anu Niels Sharma, Berkeley, CA

What is Home?

It has become increasingly difficult to define home (Exiled at Home, October 2011).

Is it the fragrances, color, family, or familiarity? Can we settle down anywhere in the globe and still call it home? Do water, electricity and a single family house define a home?

When does the longing to return stop?

Or do we just have to learn to live with it? Is it possible to be Indian in America? I don’t think so... At some point of time we just have choose and make our peace with our choice without finding the need to justify it.

Meera Ramanathan, online

The Emotional Toll of Surrogacy

Being a physician I can very easily understand the medical/ clinical aspects of pregnancy and eventual delivery of the offspring.

However, learning about the emotional and human experiences of surrogate pregnancy is somewhat unique to me, in addition to being good reading material (Our Meeting With the Surrogate, October 2011). Yamuna has an uncanny ability to let the readers read her mind through her writing. I would strongly recommend that people contemplating surrogate pregnancy read these articles first. Good luck and best of health to Yamuna and her family.

Ram C, online

a culture for rewarding failure and action should be taken to not allow for high compensation after making a mess of things. However, I do think we need to keep capitalism alive— honest capitalism. I believe majority of the top 1% would have no problem in paying higher taxes—see the long list that went to Capitol Hill to say that. The Republicans, I believe, have got it all wrong. Moderate America is what we need!

Varun Nanda, online

Elections 2012 Are you a South Asian involved in American politics? India Currents is planning a series of articles leading up to the Presidential elections in 2012. We are looking for varied viewpoints—from the grassroots organizer to the seasoned campaigner. To share your experiences and perspectives, get in touch with

4 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

Follow us at twitter.com/ indiacurrents Or find us at https://www.facebook.com/ India Currents Online Extras: • Easy access to our current content and

decade-old archives of diverse articles • Special web-only articles and videos • Digital issue of the magazine • Interactive event listings • Advertising access to a niche, high- value segment of the community • Comments highlighted on home page • A full-color experience • RSS feeds and newsletter subscriptions

us at editor@indiacurrents.com with the subject line “Elections 2012.”

Most Popular Articles Online: 1) Vegan Kickstart India (November 2011)

Occupy Oakland

Anisha, thanks for showing tremendous courage while covering this incredible story (My Experience with Occupy Oakland, October 2011, Web Only). It is vital that people know exactly what transpired that night because when they hear Oakland they automatically assume that crowd would contributed to this brutal response by the police. I understand it is not their fault to jump into conclusion given Oakland’s crime rate and I hope your experience will help them have a better understanding. Thanks once again for voicing the truth. God bless and stay safe.

Shobana Ramamurti, online

Finding the Happy Middle

This is a great article (A Ray of Hope, November 2011)! It amazes me how we, as a country, dig a hole and then sit in that hole and complain about the efforts of the people who are doing everything to pull us out! The Democrats have indeed accomplished a lot— be it addressing Osama Bin Laden, Libya, or healthcare reform. But more needs to be done.

I also agree that we seem to have developed

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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.

2) My Experience with Occupy Oakland (October 2011) Anisha Gupta 3) Northern California Cultural Events (November 2011) Nadia Maiwandi 4) Khan Academy(January 2011) Jaya Padmanabhan 5) Exiled at Home (October 2011) Sarita Sarvate 6) Telling Kathak Stories (November 2011) Priya Das 7) The Maternity Tourism Industry (November 2011) Priyanka Wolan 8) Kirtans East and West (November 2011) Teed Rockwell 9) Finding Freddie (November 2011) R. Benedito Ferrao 10) Let’s Occupy Wall Street (November 2011) Sarita Sarvate

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forum

Is The Occupy Wall Street Movement a Worthy One? Rameysh Ramdas

“

Mani Subramani

No, Occupy Wall Street is a profoundly un-American movement.

Yes, the increase in income inequality and the loss of upward mobility calls for such a response.

he enemy of my bank is my friend,” “Redistribute wealth,” “Tax the rich,” “Corporations are evil,” —these are the banners that scream across American cities with mobs occupying public areas, inconveniencing the public from getting to their jobs they still have, shutting down commerce at small businesses and major ports.

While I sympathize with the “Occupy” movement and agree with their disappointment in the economy, the need for tighter financial regulation, and for major banks to do their share to help grow the economy, I cannot, in good conscience, agree with their notion that creating wealth should be condemned or that rewards must be equally distributed in society. Imagine the disdain your child would have if his hard-earned A grade has to be downgraded so as to be more equitable with poorer performers!

Many nations, from the USSR to China, that tried such experiments in socialism and communism, failed and have since embraced free market capitalism to achieve economic progress.

The United States has long remained the beacon of freedom for individual enterprise and upward mobility, the only nation on earth where you could land with a mere hundreds of dollars, as most of us Indian Americans did, and achieve the American dream by working hard and playing by the rules. Just with the power of ideas, determination, and hard work one can become an entrepreneur, whether it is by buying a motel to growing it into a chain, or starting a tech company in Silicon Valley garage and turning it into a Fortune 500 corporation. In his book How they Did It, Robert Jordan interviewed 45 founders and found that, in total, those interviewed created roughly $41 billion from scratch. That is possible only in America and that is a good thing for the 99% of us that this movement claims to represent.

Let us take the tactics we saw in the Occupy movement in Oakland, a city that can least afford the dire economic impact of police overtime costs, loss of revenue for downtown businesses, vandalism of public and private property, and the associated cleanup costs. By shutting down the port for a day, tens of millions of dollars of exports were halted and 11,000 workers lost their wages. Many low paid workers in shut down restaurants and stores lost their wages—consequences the 99 % could least afford.

The Occupy movement’s ire is misdirected and should instead be focused on the President and Congress to enact legislative solutions to ensure that we never ever face the risk of financial meltdown, while closing tax loopholes with an equitable tax regime. It is irresponsible and hypocritical for President Obama to stoke the flames of this movement for electoral gains while having $35K per plate fundraising with Wall Street executives.

Punishing private enterprise and demonizing success is neither the answer nor the solution to our country’s economic ills.n

hat is the Occupy movement all about? As suggested by an informative piece in Mother Jones magazine, “It’s the inequality stupid!” Income inequality in the United States has grown steadily in the last few decades. Since 1979, the after-tax annual income share of the top 1% of households grew by a whopping 130%, while the bottom 80% lost their share of the income pie share by 10-30% during the same time.

Free-marketers argue that the bottom 80% were just poor performers and brought their sorry economic state on themselves. Wrong!

Productivity gains during the same period were a whopping 82%.

The fact that we are talking about 80% of Americans should raise people’s hackles. It is this kind of persistent, chronic, and burgeoning inequality that is driving Occupy movement activists. The sobering economic reality is that the net worth of the households of people aged 30 and below is 47 times less than households of those 55 and over!

Not only have the past decades been economically brutal to the most of the population, the future does not seem to hold much promise. It’s not surprising that the movement is largely led by our youth.

Americans would gladly applaud success and wealth creation if corporations created jobs or if stock market gains tricked down. In 1914 Henry Ford doubled the wages of his workers so they could afford a good life and, most importantly, afford his cars! That was an unspoken social contract. No such contract exists today. Multinational corporations have figured out an easy way out to leverage productivity by firing an average of 2 million workers/year in the United States over the past decade.

We should be thankful to the Occupy movement for finally bringing to the front and center these gargantuan inequities. Critics of this movement have been trying to build straw men out of communism, liberalism, and President Obama. By trying to connect the President to the movement they are hoping to redirect the public’s attention away from our systemic problems and towards the political cycle.

Clearly the solution to this conundrum cannot not be found at the ballot box. In 2012 the voters will most likely have to choose between a completely bought-out Mitt Romney and a corporate-leaning incumbent. This malaise has occurred over decades through four presidents and 15 election cycles. Frustration with decades of inequality is now simmering in the form of the Occupy protests.

It must be noted that, with the exception of Occupy Oakland, the protests have been largely peaceful. There is every indication that protestors are, by and large, cooperating with law enforcement. Indeed, police overreach has been the meme of the day. But neither police brutality not extreme tactics by a very small minority of protestors should distract us from the core message—that the American dream is no longer an option for most Americans, including immigrants, some of whom are returning to their homeland for better opportunities.n

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

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

T

The Occupy movement’s ire should be focused on the President and Congress to enact legislative solutions.

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Not only have the past decades been economically brutal, the future does not seem to hold much promise.

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zeitgeist

Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan

Life with (Seven Billion) Others

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Photo Credit: James Cridland

011 is ending, or over, depending on when you read these words.

Already, the Wikipedia entry for the year is lengthy: from the Arab Spring to the capture of Osama bin Laden, from the earthquake and nuclear meltdown in Japan to the Sindh floods in Pakistan, from the wedding of Will and Kate to the death of Elizabeth Taylor. Indeed, we often remember a past year for those who passed with it: Steve Jobs, Shammi Kapoor, Sathya Sai Baba, Amy Winehouse, M.F. Hussain, Muammar Qaddafi.

In decades to come, we will probably not recall that 2011 was the International Year of Forests and Chemistry. We will likely forget that India and Bangladesh ended a decades-long border dispute; like much else that happened in the past 12 months, this was a momentous event that will nevertheless be relegated to a footnote in history.

For many of us, 2011 will be marked by the convergence of two “events,” both ongoing. In late October, the population surged past seven billion, with projections that we will reach nine billion by 2050.

Meanwhile, the question of the “occupation” of our shared world fires the collective imagination.

In 2008, Arjun Appadurai, one of the most distinguished Indianborn academics in the United States, currently professor of media, culture, and communication at NYU, posed a provocative rhetorical question at a conference in Lisbon: “Can there be life without the Other?”

Three years later, Appadurai’s question seems more urgent than ever.

Granted, “the Other” is a capital-O formulation that perhaps only appeals to academics. “The Other” sounds rather abstract, perhaps even a theoretical indulgence. But “otherness” and “the Other” are not simply problems for philosophy and anthropology. Otherness is also the prism through which politicians, policymakers, and pundits think about the terms on which we inhabit and regulate the world. Otherness is a question about the governance of diverse citizen-subjects and communities who live together under one law. Thinking about Others means thinking about international alliances, relations to different cultures and religions, and the difficult issues of social stratification and polarization.

Since Oct. 31, which the United Nations declared “Seven Billion Day,” many have asked whether there can continue to be life with the Other—with seven billion others, to be exact. Appadurai’s question gives the issue of wildly increasing population a different force. Can

there be life without the Other? If we abdicate our responsibility to others, can we live? Can there be life for the one, without the other?

Can there be life for the 1 percent, without the 99?

Living with others, to invoke Rohinton Mistry’s devastating novelistic account of the Emergency in India, requires “a fine balance.”

Other people present both our greatest occasions for happiness and fulfillment and the most significant threats to our security and peace.

We love some, and we fear others. We protect some, and we forsake others. We recognize some, and we refuse to see others.

Of course, there are risks in living among others, as is painfully evident in any consideration of our fraught human history of genocide, oppression, poverty, capitalist exploitation, and terror. In the war zone, in the sweatshop, and even in the brutality of the everyday lay-off, we subject each other to hell. We endanger one another. We build bombs. We profit from the misfortune of others. We waste what others need.

In the United States, the categorization and management of resident and non-resident aliens, illegal immigrants, and so-called enemy combatants reveals not only our systemic xenophobia, but also the limits of our capacity to live with other human beings.

And yet, if we are ever to be moved, loved, changed, transformed, and educated, it will be because of our openness to the other people with whom we share our lives in the world. At the risk of overstatement, we are each related in time and space to every one of the seven billion-plus people who now inhabit the earth. Yes, we are strangers in the eyes of others. We do not “know” all others; they will never “meet” us. It is nearly impossible to conceive of the material conditions of the day-to-day lives of the seven billion others out there. Still, we daily relate to the strangers in our lives.

The American pragmatist John Dewey argued that before we can ever come together with others to form a public, we must perceive that our actions have consequences for these others. Every day, we have the opportunity to make ethical choices that implicate others: not littering the sidewalks or soiling public buses because of consideration for the right of others to shared space and infrastructure; responding with care to the plight of distant others suffering the ravages of war, famine, or natural disaster; not skimming off the top of the economy and the labor of others with parasitic “day trades” and other value depleting activities.

The Occupy movements—which now far exceed the terms of the opposition to “Wall Street,” as well as the limitations of the singular form (the “movement” is clearly manifest in plural “movements”)— provide the occasion for us to think very seriously about the choices we make with respect to the existence of other people. This much we know: We have to live among others. Some of us have to live with more others than others—over one billion others in India, 300 million in the United States. What are the ethical demands of being one subject among one billion? What are the ethical demands of being one subject among seven billion? What are the ethical demands of being in the 1 percent?

In the words of Immanuel Kant, “No one originally has any greater right than anyone else to occupy any particular portion of the earth.”

There are seven billion occupiers now. Can we build lives for us all?

Can there be life without the Other?n Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley. india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 7

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election 2012

Rajesh C. Oza

The Masks We Wear Consensual contact, racial profiling, and political (in)correctness

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day before Halloween, 2008, a few of my Palo Alto neighbors went to City Hall for a discussion about the robberies that had disturbed our residential equanimity. With the community demanding action, the Police Chief responded with tough-talk: “I have told my staff that I want you, when you’re out on the street, and you see African-Americans who, somehow, and these are vague descriptions, we don’t have real finite descriptions, I want you to go and have consensual contacts initially, to see who these people are.”

No sign of weakness from the rambling Chief. The spree of robberies would end, and our happy population could return to shopping sprees. “Consensual contacts” would save the day.

Less then a week before Barack Obama would be elected President (and Commander in Chief) of the United States, Palo Alto’s Chief of Police was suggesting that being stopped and questioned by her officers was consensual. Her carelessly honest comment drew me away from the middle-aged, feelgood excitement of the political campaign that I was involved in, and took me back nearly 30 years to Northwestern University, in Evanston, IL, a long, bumpy elevated train ride from Chicago’s Grant Park, where President-elect Obama would celebrate what many believed to be a history-changing victory of hope over hubris.

Raj Oza, some 30 years after his student days

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t was 1980, and I was a senior in college.

To honor a friend who had died in a hitand-run accident, I had made a pledge to not shave throughout my final undergraduate year. My heavy, dark, and unruly facial hair became a second pair of eyes, allowing me to see, and be seen, in different ways.

Walking to and from classes on the campus stretch of Sheridan Road, I kept my head down, lost in grief. Gradually, I began to make eye contact. In the fall, some of the white kids and all of the Indians nodded a neighborly hello. Except for slightly different shades of skin color, we shared much: hairstyle, walking style, the sidewalk, and perhaps aspirations beyond college.

As the school year progressed, the snow piles grew deep and dirty, and my beard grew thick and curly. After Winter Break, the bitter cold off of Lake Michigan insisted on a knit cap to cover my head. Between the cap and the beard, my eyes continued to make contact with fellow pedestrians. The black students, who had ignored me in the fall (and whose ignorance I had reciprocated), began nodding hello with a quick, upward jerk of the chin. Like a choral group that falls silent when a separate part comes to life, the whites and the Indians no longer saw me; they looked right past me, keeping their chins tucked into their chests.

Away from Sheridan Road, people tried to sell me dope and occasionally young toughs told me to go back to the Ayatollah.

I lacked the patience to explain that as a Hindu Brahmin born in India, drugs and Iran were as foreign to me as death was to a college kid.

But my high-caste birth and my upperclass education didn’t protect me from consensual contact with the Chicago Police Department. As the child of frugal immigrants who worked day jobs and night jobs, I lived in a pre-gentrified part of Chicago and commuted to the university in Evanston. One cold night, walking home with a paper sack of groceries, I heard a car pull up alongside me; a young voice barked, “Hey, Boy!” Having grown up in Chicago, I knew that there was still a sizeable population which hurled that insult at black men, young and old.

Although I wasn’t indifferent to the shame of being diminished, I could not imagine being addressed as a “boy.” I was deaf to the phrase. As the automobile stopped, I recognized it as a patrol car; the officer, who

was perhaps a year or two older than me, demanded, “Where’s the purse?”

Puzzled, I mumbled, “Huh?” The cop glared at me and jumped out of his car. “Don’t ‘huh’ me, Boy. I said, where’s the purse!”

I inferred that he was following up on a call about a robbery and had mistaken me for an “African-American perp:” brown face, black eyes, kinky beard. For a moment I thought I would clarify the mistake and be on my way.

Instead, with an earnest voice that could be mistaken for that of a professor from the Northern suburbs, I said, “Excuse me, officer.

What purse are you talking about?”

Now it was his turn to be puzzled. “Oh. Just some confusion. Do you live around here?”

“You pulled me over because you thought I was black, didn’t you.”

“What? Why don’t you show me an ID.” I thought about the Illinois driver’s license in my wallet but decided to reverse the power play: I displayed my Northwestern student card.

In a moment of respect for the Ivory Tower and its privileged denizens, the police officer said, “Oh, got it. So, what are you doing here?”

Puffed with a false sense of importance, I called the cop out as a racist. “You probably do this all the time, don’t you? Picking up black kids for being black.”

Power politics took one more ride on the teeter-tottering sidewalk. “Look, if you don’t want to come to the station, I suggest you go back to your fancy university.”

I had had enough consensual contact for a lifetime and headed home, not knowing that someday I would move to touchy-feely Palo Alto.

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hile safely ensconced in our candywrapped community, we Palo Altans welcome consensual contact. The weekend before Halloween 2008, hundreds came to the plaza outside of City Hall and to offices across the Silicon Valley to make “Obama for America” calls to strangers in battleground states.

One of my roles in the campaign was to open new phone banking sites. A few weeks before the election, we opened an office in East Palo Alto (or EPA for short), a largely black and Hispanic community that is geographically across Highway 101 from Palo

Alto, but socially, economically, and psychologically 101 years away. Before an IKEA and Home Depot were built in East Palo Alto, we Palo Altans didn’t drive to EPA; we drove through it.

At numerous Camp Obamas at which I was asked to lead newly recruited campaign

East Palo Alto is a largely black and Hispanic community that is geographically right across Highway 101 from Palo Alto, but socially, economically, and psychologically 101 years away. workers, we had standing-room-only attendance. Those camps truly felt like a “rainbow nation” of old, young, and middle-aged, of male, female, and transgender, of poor, rich, and middle-class, of management, union, and entrepreneurial, of citizen, immigrant, and undocumented, of religious, agnostic, and atheistic, and, of course, of black, white, and shades-of-brown. Indeed, we even had Democrats, Independents, and “Disgusted-with-W” Republicans. As such, I imagined that with all the enthusiasm that Senator Obama had generated, I would have little trouble encouraging volunteers to come to our new office in East Palo Alto. As it turned out, people keen on staking their claim on presidential history were willing to sit outside our Palo Alto office in the rain and cold rather than drive a few minutes to our dry, warm, and empty office across the highway.

My lesson learned from the campaign of 2008: unlike our then Police Chief who commanded her officers to make contact with African-Americans, most Palo Altans were uneasy about going to EPA and interacting with our eschewed eastern neighbors somewhere over the highway, somewhere over the rainbow.

Of course, as America’s election for President proceeds in 2012, if our esteemed Eastern neighbors from across the country make their way from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC to Palo Alto, CA, we’ll be more than happy to welcome Barack and Michelle to our leafy neighborhoods. We’ll give them a big hug and happily snap iconic photos of them kissing our babies.

I suppose one can’t be too careful about consensual contact. n Rajesh C. Oza, an Organization Alignment Consultant, reviews books for India Currents and writes the “Satyalogue” column for Khabar. india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 9

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The Year of the People

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By Jaya Padmanabhan

n October 17, 2011, at a Palo Alto residence, a few executives, industrialists and entrepreneurs-turned-volunteers met with Prashanth Bhushan, the lawyer/activist member of Team Anna. Bhushan, a slight figure with an air of intensity, sat in the middle of the room and was quiet for the first half hour of the meeting. When he did speak, it was measured and to the point. It was established that Bhushan was in Palo Alto to gather support for the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement, which has received unprecedented support from the Indian media and janata alike.

I was the only media member present at the session and was told not to quote “anybody on anything.” (And here I thought the India Against Corruption movement was a bare-all bar-none.) Bhushan’s agenda was to mobilize and appoint NRI Ambassadors to support processes in Delhi and, in the long term, to help combat the problem of corruption in India by transitioning from a “representative” to a “participatory” form of democracy. This meeting proved that IAC was keen on expanding its reach beyond India’s shores, capitalizing on the global feeling of dissatisfaction with status quo.

2011 was the year the common man decided he had had enough.

From Aleppo to Yemen, from Delhi to San Francisco, demonstrations and protests showcased the might and spread of people power, a phenomenon worthy of sustained television coverage and superscripted newspaper headlines. Whether imperfect democracies or tyrannical dictatorships, the squeeze of a global recession was felt by the middle class and the poor throughout the world, and the added spectacle of the rich getting richer became too much to bear. So men and women all over the world arose, ready to risk their livelihoods and their lives in the belief that the combined voices of the many would penetrate the gated walls of those in power. india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 11

he engine of these demonstrations was powered by social media and energized by frustration. Armed with little more than sleeping bags and smart phones, men and women organized rallies, marches and sit-ins—statements of dissatisfaction. From Martyrs Square in Cairo and Tripoli to Central Park in New York, these congregations took to heart Gandhi’s powerful message of non-violence and trusted in the power of the collective to change the world.

The Arab Spring

The death of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi is the latest fallout from the mass protests in the Middle East that began with, ironically, the death of a far more insignificant man, street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi, in Tunisia. Bouazizi set himself on fire after harassment by municipal officials, and his sacrifice led to revolutions that toppled three dictators in the region, and prompted populist measures in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia to forestall similar conflagrations. When the dust settled, Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya were taking the first painful steps towards the creation of governments that were for, of, and by the people.

The term Arab Spring is a metaphorical comment on the events that played out in Tunisia, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, Libya, Algeria, Yemen, Iran and others.

The term is neither limited to events that occurred in the spring of 2011, nor to Arab states only. It refers to the rise of youthful energy for a cause; the burgeoning thrust and joist of a rebellion; a popular uprising and the hopeful domino effect of its impact; a wellspring of fury demanding a complete overhaul of authoritarian strongholds. The phrase “Arab Spring” was first used in 2005 referring to the beneficial effect of the Iraq war on U.S.-Middle East relations. It is tacitly named after the Prague Spring, the 1968 socialist-democratic reform movement in Czechoslovakia that muted some of the country’s hardcore communist rule for a short period of time.

Beginning with the ouster of President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, the Arab movement quickly gathered momentum in neighboring Egypt with Hosni Mubrak’s resignation. In Jordan, King Abdullah dismissed the government to appease the protesters, and in Iraq, President Nouri al-Maliki said he would not run for a third term... As I write this,

Photo Credit:David Shankbone

Occupy Wall Street

12 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

power is still in the hands of tyrants in Syria, and Yemen and Saudi Arabia has managed to successfully quash the uprising with the help of neighboring Bahrain and in Libya, NATO had to intervene. The record of success for the Arab Spring is still being written, even though the social media driven protest movement has become its lasting legacy.

India Against Corruption

India’s Fasting Season

Democracies aren’t immune to unrest. Call it corporatocracy, elitism, or power-mongering, but democracies inevitably begin to resemble oligarchies with a defined class prerogative. Inspired by the people’s movements in the Middle East, crusaders in India decided to appeal to the constituents of a largely apathetic nation.

Even in a country largely inured to political and bureaucratic corruption, the breaking point was reached with the exposure of two telecom scandals involving mega-sums (just the 2G Spectrum scandal is believed to have siphoned out 39 billion dollars). In the midst of the monsoon season in India, Anna Hazare rallied tens of thousands of middle class citizens to get off their angled sofas and present themselves for a civil discourse on corruption. Twitter feeds and status updates tested the capacities of Internet servers, and the Anna movement grew with each hash tag post.

“These movements demonstrate the power of public opinion and the power of people in shaping laws and policies,” confirms local SF Bay Area activist, Unmesh Sheth, President of Indians for Collective Action (ICA).

Hazare’s message found resonance with Indians around the world, many of whom surely left to pursue their dreams in countries where opportunities were not stifled, and political connections did not determine success or failure.

Unlike the uprisings in the Middle East, in India the movement was given wing by the educated middle class, who were most aware of the laws subverted and citizens’ right to information. The impoverished and undernourished continued to grind away at their daily jobs with just a brief sideways glance at the television drama unfolding, complete with a hero clad in homespun cotton, a villainous government and an intrepid, iconic, ex-Indian Police Service officer, Kiran Bedi, as the unlikely heroine.

Sheth agrees that it is the middle class in India who take to the streets protesting and demonstrating. “They are the proxy for the poor,” he claims.

The aims of the movement, titled India

Against Corruption, do not necessarily find universal approbation. The biggest criticism against IAC has been that the poor are not part of the conversation.

While the man on the street is heartily sick of corruption and ready for change, IAC has a limited and unusually clear manifesto.

The Anna movement is not intended to overthrow India’s democratically elected leaders with a Gandhian alternative. Rather it is to strengthen an anti-corruption bill and include high ranking ministers and the judiciary in its purview. Asked about IAC’s limited focus ICA

Photo Credit: Uday Pundhir

T

Anna Hazare

volunteer, George Kohli disagrees, “I believe that this is just the beginning.”

Bhushan emphasized that the Jan Lokpal bill was just a means to an end. The larger goal was to move from a system of “representational democracy, open to bribery, to a system where the people, the actual stakeholders, participate.”

Comparing IAC and the Arab Spring

In Wall Street Journal blogger Paul Verghese’s words: “Indians are not fighting to obtain basic democracy. They are fighting for better laws and stricter enforcement of current laws to make their democracy better,

Photo Credit: Ramy Raoof

The revolution in Egypt

stronger and more effective. This is the biggest difference between the Arab spring and the Anna Hazare movement.”

In India, the citizen’s right to protest government policies is a fundamental right as incorporated into the constitution and hence poses no real threat to the individual. Protests in India are not uncommon. It forms the very bulwark of India’s democratic structure and often creates more noise than benefit. In the Middle East, most of the countries that struggled to supplant their autocratic leaders through peaceful protests were subdued brutally and quickly.

The events following Anna Hazare’s protest movement discounted any possible comparison between the Arab turmoil and the Indian struggle. Anna Hazare was a man armed with impressive fortitude and a stubborn insistence on the potential of his Jan Lokpal bill. He presented his bill to India’s leaders and was invited to form part of the Joint Drafting Committee to hash out differences in the government’s version of the same document, as it existed. Failing to arrive at a compromise, Anna Hazare, took to the streets and instrumented an “Indefinite Fast” (not to be confused with a fast unto death). With solid media support, he entered jail as a celebrity and dramatically refused to countenance his release when officially allowed to do so. This scenario could never have played out in Iran, Syria, or Libya where thousands of protesters were murdered, jailed, tortured or had to leave their countries for fear of reprisals.

Corruption in India is deeply entrenched, a social evil that has become synonymous with Indian governance. For the Indian middle class, Anna Hazare’s movement represents the first step in the reformation process. Its success and its future shape is still anybody’s guess.

Anna Hazare’s greatest critics insist that the watchdog organization that he is intent on creating could be difficult to monitor and could end up becoming part of the problem.

Other detractors say that orchestrated comparisons between Anna Hazare and Gandhi are little more than political grandstanding.

But credit needs to be given to the fact that Anna aims to incorporate the country’s frustration into the democratic process. Yes, he

does undermine the workings of the parliament and supersedes elected representatives, but he is backed by an inexorable wave of anti-corruption sentiment and a swell of popularity. Anna is now one of India’s own institutions, hallowed in government hallways as an apt representative of people power.

Support in United States

On October 20, I received an email update from Sheth on the U.S. NRI IAC roadmap meeting of October 17. “Most people who met on Monday displayed tremendous energy and commitment to support IAC movement. I firmly believe that NRIs can make tremendous impact with this coordinated effort,” going on to add, “this coalition is about including everyone united to support goals established in this meeting.”

Those present at the meeting nominated Unmesh Sheth and Prakash Aggarwal as the Ambassadors. Kalyan Raman and Mohan Uttarwar, with mentoring from Raj Mashruwala, were nominated to undertake the support of the referendum on the Lok Pal and the Foundation for Democratic Reforms in India(FDRI) was appointed as the channeling organization.

The Jan Lokpal bill, framed by members of the IAC movement, is likely to be taken up in the December/January session of parliament. One member of the Palo Alto assemblage asked the critical question, “Is there any apprehension that the government may not be sincere?” The answer was quick and blunt, “We are working on that assumption.”

Other organizations that have shown support for the IAC include NRI Indians against Corruption (NRIIAC.org) Indians for Collective Action (ICA), Lok Satta, SEVA, and Foundation for Democratic Reforms in India (FDRI). Sheth points out that “the underlying roots of each organization is pretty much the same. We want to give the marginalized poor a voice,” adding, “IAC is the real thing.”

When questioning a handful of Indians on the street about the IAC and or Occupy Wall Street movements, the majority answered that they support both movements, though I did encounter some fringe responses: “I don’t like protests. Just a waste of time,” and “Protesting on Zuccotti Park is OK, but in Times Square—interfering with tourists and all?”

Wisconsin and Occupy Wall Street

The phrase “Arab Spring” is now part of every vernacular. In the words of Thorbjoern Jagland, the Chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, “We have included the Arab Spring in this prize, but we have put it in a particular context, namely, if one fails to include the women in the revolution and the new democracies, there will be no democracy.” This year the Peace Prize was awarded to Tawakel Karman, a Yemeni human rights activist and founder of the group, Women Journalists Without Chains along with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and peace activist Leymah Gbowee from Liberia.

Let’s create the Facebook page: Anna Hazare for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize. It’s about time!

at the state courts and state legislature, the protests lost momentum by end of May. At the height of its energy, the Wisconsin protests drew close to 100,000 people and by June 16, that number had dwindled to about 1,000. However, energy from the movement was channeled into a recall process for several Republican Senators in Wisconsin (Walker is immune from the recall process till 2012) with limited success. As of now, a petition drive is on to collect enough signatures for the recall of the Governor.

In contrast, the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) did not have a flashpoint that arose of any particular policy disagreement. It began very quietly and organically with a group

Wisconsin

In early February 2011, thousands of state workers filled the square around the Wisconsin Capitol, yelling, “This will not stand.” They had taken umbrage at Republican Governor Scott Walker’s controversial measure that would strip the state’s public employee unions of their bargaining rights and impose greater salary pay cuts to pay for budget shortfalls. The tenacity of the protesters drew instant comparisons to the Arab Spring. But after a series of setbacks india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 13

another volunteer says, “We are against greed. I need to be able to convince my kids that they’ll have a future to look forward to.” But both Storms and Wong cannot give an answer as to what the solution should be.

They both believe that protesting is the solution, because the “government cannot solve the problem.”

Occupy San Jose It is not entirely true that the only comparison that can be drawn of disenfranchised youth camping in front between the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall of the Grecian colonnades and glass-fronted Street is that both involve “frustrated youth skyscrapers of Wall Street. Numbering in the loosely organized using social media.” Yes, hundreds to begin with, these young people the bloggers and social media updaters in represented a generation whose future appears the United States aren’t at risk of being to be in jeopardy in an age of economic uncermowed down by brutal despots. But brutaltainty and income inequality. ity does not necessarily validate the process Despite ostensibly sharing the disaffectof people’s involvement. The goal of most edness of another movement that created a protests is ultimately the same— to ignite fair amount of noise in 2010, the Tea Party, opinion and force participation in a national OWS was largely ignored by the media in the process. beginning. Media personalities quick to broadIn America, the last time anything like cast the Tea Party’s message of dissatisfacthis occurred was in December 1964 when tion with government carefully refrained from 25,000 people marched in protest against comment, with even the home town paper, the Vietnam War and the size of the protest The New York Times, not caring to provide any was the largest that America had ever seen. coverage. Fox News dismissed the protesters It led to Lyndon Johnson’s refusal to run for as “dirty smelly hippies.” Even National Public a second term.

Radio (NPR) only started covering the event a Globally, the movement has spread week after the first protest. through social media updates and websites.

But the movement not only persisted, it On October 15, 2011, a manifesto was pubgrew in strength, as its demands for justice against Wall Street excesses and focus on jobs and education found a chord with other young people around the country. And smart social media use, in an eerie parallel to their brothers and sisters in the Middle East, provided the impetus for growth and allowed non-participants to support the movement with money and pizzas. Today OWS seems to be a movement that is gaining a foothold across America, one city at a time, and across the globe, one country at a time From New York, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia to Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Jose, public squares have filled up with iPhone wielding reformists. OWS protests range from disapproval of corporate greed, disproportional economic distinctions, foreclosed homes, to demands for debt relief, infrastructure investment, campaign finance reform and lower college costs, and even to complaints about security at airports and hormone injected produce. Critics decry the movement as not having a clear objective, but the real point is the presentation of a mass outcry.

Travis Storms, a student at Santa Clara University was camped out in front of the San Jose City Hall, as part of the Occupy San Jose movement. “I’m here because my mom is on disability. Her pay has been cut and the government refuses to help.” Christy Wong, 14 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

lished called United for #GlobalDemocracy.

The document did not hesitate to link the movement to the Arab Spring. “Inspired by our sisters and brothers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain, New York, Palestine-Israel, Spain and Greece, we too call for a regime change: a global regime change. In the words of Vandana Shiva, the Indian activist, today we demand replacing the G8 with the whole of humanity—the G7,000,000,000.”

What Next?

The Arab Spring, the India Against Corruption, and the Occupy Wall Street movements are historical game changers. They stem from political and social dissonance and yet are peaceful attempts to effect change.

All three have resulted in reevaluations of governmental process. Whether these global movements will be successful in their objectives remains to be seen. But their lasting legacy will be the message that meaningful progress and social justice can only happen when the citizens of a country do not abdicate their responsibilities to their representatives, and that the disenfranchised and the weak can be a powerful force if they act collectively.

The revolutions of 2011 are warning shots to repressive regimes the world over and a rallying cry for social equity, much like previous revolutions, except the pitchforks have been replaced by smartphones, and the manifestos are released 140 characters at a time. n With inputs from Vidya Pradhan.

Jaya Padmanabhan is a prize-winning fiction writer.

The Role of Social Media

There is a new player in politics and that is social media. Despite filters, blocks and shutdowns of popular websites, social media has emerged as a reckonable participant.

The inventions of the late Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg have become indispensable currents of discourse be it social, political or intellectual.

Critics have typically decried Facebook and Twitter as platforms of vanity and selfobsession. However, as the Arab Spring has proven, when harnessed, these social media sites can be used as a rallying center, a community hub that is good for a great deal more than organizing like fests. Wael Ghonim, a Google employee, landed on the Time 100, a list of 100 most influential people in 2011, for sparking pro-democracy demonstrations in Egypt with his Facebook status updates and protest events. His We Are All Khaled Saeed Facebook page (named for an Egyptian man tortured and killed in Alexandria) had 400,000 members before Tahrir Square got flooded with protesters. Since then every push for democracy has featured social media, be it blog sites, Facebook, Twitter or online conversation boards.

On August 15, India’s Independence Day, Anna Hazare and his cause had about 500,000 mentions in status updates, and Twitter messages. A couple of days later that number catapulted to 9 million, supporting the viral spread of his popularity and cementing Anna’s status as India’s cause célèbre.

A recent New York Times report stated that about 200 Facebook pages and Twitter accounts have been created in just a few weeks seeking volunteers to spearhead the Occupy Wall Street protests in different cities. Over 900 protest events have been set up on Meetup.com. There are 10,000 to 15,000 posts an hour on Twitter on average about Occupy Wall Street, with most people downloading and sharing links from news sites, Tumblr, YouTube, MoveOn.org, and Trendsmap. Smart devices that act as megaphones to protesters’ thoughts and activities have become partners of the protest movement.

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india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 15

25 years From East Indian to South Asian A journey of identity

By Sarita Sarvate

M

y first day in the United States was so bright, I thought I had flown around the world and returned to India again. I was wearing a blue and white nylon sari, my hair was done in a braid hanging down to my knees, and a wedding necklace of black beads rested against my chest.

The host mother handed me a quarter, and said, “College Avenue bus goes to college,” but I ambled down the road, keeping Campanile Tower in view. Men in long hair and torn jeans just walked past oblivious to me, as if a woman in a sari was the most natural thing in the world.

For the first time in my life I was anonymous, free, and utterly alone.

I loved the sensation.

In that moment I fell in love with Berkeley.

The year was 1976.

A few days later, kicking my suitcase—its handle having broken in transit—down the dark corridors of International House, or IHouse as it has always been known, who did I see but an Indian woman in a kurta!

That neighbor notwithstanding, Indians, particularly Indian women, were a strange sight on campus then. So much so that desi men in I-House had apparently scoured the directory of incoming students, searching for prospective brides. I must have been a disappointment, for I was already married, although I had arrived in Berkeley sans husband.

The group of Indians in the dorm was small enough then to be able to squeeze into a Toyota Celica a Sikh student owned. We would ride thus, first to Fenton’s Creamery on Piedmont Avenue, where we would devour huge banana splits before closing time at midnight, and later, drive madly up winding streets to the Rose Garden, where we would stumble on dark terraces, picking flowers.

Sarita returns to Hawaii in 2010

16 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

Only Indians could undertake such sacrilege, I would muse, as if making up for the poverty, heat, and dust of their native land.

I remember the same Sikh student driving us to Hill Top Mall for shopping. I recall dining at the Lion of India on Telegraph Avenue on Sundays because the cafeteria was closed. I can even remember cooking vats of food for an Indian girl’s engagement party and wondering if I had come all the way to America only to learn how to make ras malai.

W

hat I cannot recall is the exact moment when I decided to break away from the pack.

Perhaps it was the day I joined a group of South Indians at dinnertime, and a handsome man abruptly inquired where I was from, and upon discovering that I was from Maharashtra, quite rudely asked why the Shiv Sena was attacking South Indians in Mumbai. As if I were responsible for the actions of every person in Maharashtra.

Perhaps it was the day I went to the Sikh student’s house and listened to his family ridiculing his American girl friend in Hindi.

Perhaps it was the day I went to a party in South Bay and watched all the desis and their mail order brides vying for status.

Perhaps it was the day I realized that going camping and hiking with my white classmates was more appealing than eating Indian food and watching Indian movies on Saturdays.

Perhaps it was the day I realized that being a married woman alone in Berkeley was hard enough; being an unhappy victim of an arranged marriage, impossible. I had come to Berkeley at my husband’s insistence; he had made me a stepping stone to his material advancement. But I could not find the words to explain my plight to my fellow Indians.

Perhaps I simply knew from that first day in Berkeley that I would have to obtain a green card on my own. I would have to assimilate. I would have to blend in. I would have to become white.

It sounds blasphemous now, but back then, that was the name of the game. There were hardly any Indian women professionals.

Or women professionals, period. Particularly in the field of energy.

There were no role models. I was shaping and reshaping my identity as I went along.

So I decided to break away from the pack.

Only later would I realize how monumental that decision would prove to be; how isolating and heart-breaking, in the long run. And how ironic too, considering that in India, I had always belonged to vernacular schools. My family was far from westernized. I did not even know the music of the Beatles until John Lennon died. I did not wear stretch pants. I did not smoke. I did not possess a collection of Enid Blyton novels. I did not speak with a convent school accent, but in a hodgepodge drawl that always made Americans confuse my “t”s with my “d”s until I learned to say “T as in Tom.” I also learned to say, “I am East-Indian,” to distinguish myself from Native Americans.

How then did a girl like me become more American than Americans?

It was for me a matter of survival.

In my quarter century on this planet, I had already faced the

india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 17

kind of hardship most people do not undergo in a lifetime. I had grown up with a mentally ill mother. I had undergone a disastrous arranged marriage. By the time I arrived on these shores, I knew that life was not cushy.

And still, I had the desire for something better. I suppose in that sense, mine was a quintessential immigrant story.

A

fter graduation, I moved to Sacramento, a white, middleclass bedroom community where people chatted about engines of pickup trucks and ate at restaurants specializing in spareribs. I did not have a choice. No one but the California Energy Commission, a governmental agency, would offer me a job. There I sat day and night, facing green monitors as I simulated residential building energy demand on mainframe computers. I was so lonely that on weekends, I would drive to Davis and walk around campus like a zombie, longing for the slightest human contact. Other weekends, I would drive all the way to Berkeley just to see the bright lights of I-House.

On one such outing, I came across that same Indian woman I had accosted in the corridor on my first day and told her I was thinking of divorcing my husband. Her reaction was horror, disgust, and repudiation.

So I fled, and never saw the Indian crowd again. Already, I was the “other,” a married Indian woman living alone in America; divorce would make me a pariah. Once or twice I would try to tell odd Indian women about my plight, but the questions they would ask would always be the same, “Does he beat you?” And when I said no, the query always would be, “Then what is the problem?”

If that were the standard, I would muse, then most marriages were happy.

So I shut up, telling no one about the inside story of my marriage. I felt ashamed, guilty. I was convinced that somehow I was responsible. Yet, I could not continue in the relationship. It was only very recently, when women in my writing group read drafts of my memoir and commented on the strange and psychologically debilitating ways in which my husband had exploited me, that I realized it was not my fault.

But back in the 1980s, no one in the Indian community got divorced, in India or here. Upon hearing the news, my younger brother felt sorry, not for me, but for my husband. Perhaps he thought I had marred the family name. Perhaps he feared that his own marriage would be hard to arrange because of the blot I had brought upon our reputation.

So he began to shun me. Looking back, I don’t know why I did not tell anyone about what my husband had done to me. All I can say is that the things he had done were so perverse and damaging that I did not possess the language to tell my parents about them.

Perhaps I was afraid of traumatizing them even further. Perhaps I did not tell them because they never asked. No one asked. Even

18 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

Indians here chose to judge me rather than support me.

My life cleaved even further away from the community. I was marginalized, invisible, a fallen woman. I internalized the feeling.

I rejected Indian values, Indian culture, Indian community. I was not in an area and a profession where I came across many Indians anyway.

O

nly years later would I realize that there were others like me, living on the fringes, unaccepted, alienated, alone.

And yet, a part of me longed to connect to my homeland and my people. So I began to take Kathak lessons from the famous dancer Chitresh Das. The classical rhythms reminded me of my childhood. I became passionate about cooking Indian food.

I decided to change the world. I went to work for the East West Center (EWC) in Hawaii on energy and rural development. I traveled to India and Thailand doing research on biogas and biomass energy systems. The report I wrote all those years ago surfaced recently on Google. I was amazed by its clarity; its voice full of love for my land.

At IIT Delhi, where I attended a conference, I met a South Indian young man I could have easily fallen in love with. And he with me too. My divorce was not yet final but there was nothing to prevent me from getting involved with someone else. But something stopped me. Perhaps I possessed an awareness now that I had not had, when, nearly a decade before, at another IIT campus, I had fallen in love with another man. I was all too knowing now of the constraints Indian men put upon themselves when it came to affairs of the heart, parents’ consent being foremost among them. After all, in a country whose mythology idolized King Rama, who had sent his pregnant wife into exile because his citizens had suspected her of being unchaste, what could I expect from a Hindu man? So, on my last night in Mumbai, I told the young man about my marriage.

Perhaps it was a mistake to do so. But I could not betray him. Perhaps deep down I wanted to make sure that this time, when I fell in love, it would be reciprocated to the fullest extent.

He would call me months later, having arrived on the East Coast, but by then, I would have already chosen someone else.

Other men, American and Indian, fell in love with me during that trip as well, but nothing really felt right.

W

hen I returned to Hawaii, I got a culture shock for the first time in my life. I inhabited the schizophrenic persona that many immigrants acquire. Isolated from family, I suppressed memories and longings for my culture. Instead, I began to explore

Receiving the PNS award from Belva Davis

When I returned to California in the late eighties, I found a place transformed.

The ethnic era had arrived.

Women were forming alliances. Indian writers were getting published. Indian music was becoming chic.

Assimilation was out; identity politics was in. new identities. I learned to dance the hula. I began jogging around Diamond Head. I hiked up the ridges of Oahu. I went dancing to the music of Abba with a younger Indian student, wondering if our futures were destined to be linked.

I was in that fragile psychological state when I met an extraordinary British man, worldly, experienced, charming, witty. We spent every moment together until he left four days later for New Zealand, where he lived. Instantly I knew that he was the one.

Only years later would I realize that if the dice would have rolled differently, I would never have experienced the isolated life of an exile. But I was young then; belonging to the Indian community and being able to go to India every year were not high priorities for me.

After many trips back and forth across the Pacific, I went to live in New Zealand for four years. I knew no Indians there. I was alone in a white culture, thousands of miles away from my home land. I would walk along Auckland’s waterfront at lunchtime, gazing at the ocean and wondering when I would see black people again. The diversity, the chaos, the vastness, the cacophony, endemic to both India and America, were totally absent Down Under.

When I returned to California in the late eighties, I found a place transformed. The ethnic era had arrived. Women had formed al liances. Indian writers were getting published.

Indian music was becoming chic. Assimilation was out; identity politics was in. I had missed the boat. I felt alienated, belonging neither to the Indian community which I had shunned for its materialism, nor to my white American classmates whose lives had suddenly transformed once they had kids.

My hippie, liberal, progressive classmates had overnight turned into over-protective, overachieving parents of perfect children. Again, my children, my British husband and I, did not belong.

So I found a voice. In my writing. On a lark, I sent an op-ed piece to the Daily Review, which was then a part of the Alameda group of newspapers, including the Oakland Tribune, the Valley Times, and other publications. I began to get letters and voicemails from Indians saying how thrilled they were to see an Indian presence in American newspapers. I began to air commentaries on KQED radio. I had found a perfect window of time, those fifteen minutes when a first generation Indian with some talent and some pizzazz could find fame.

Soon, the kids would overtake us, but back then, there were no Indian journalists in America. Yet the media longed for immigrant voices, particularly immigrant women’s voices. I had no formal journalistic background but I had the nerve to think I had something important to say. And the audience, Indians and Americans alike, agreed.

O

n a lark I sent a short story to India Currents. Arvind Kumar, the editor then, hand-wrote me a note saying, “Sarita, you have wonderful talent.” He recommended me for the first ever anthology of fiction and poetry by South Asians, titled Living in America.

I had never heard of the term “South Asia” but apparently now I belonged to it. The anthology included Chitra Divakaruni, Minal Hajratwala, and others. At a gathering in celebration of our book, I finally ran into Arvind Kumar. “So you are Sarita,” he exclaimed.

He urged me to send him the columns I was writing for the Tribune. I obliged, but not enthusiastically. My sights were set higher then; I wanted to write for NPR, for Salon, for the New York Times.

Little did I realize that my articles would find me a way into the community I had long lost. Unbeknownst to me, I had nurtured a secret fan base. Housewives, divorcees, young women, began to write me their life stories.

Their letters were full of adoration, love, and solidarity. “We admire your courage to confront the thorny issues in our culture,” they wrote. Even as I received hate mail from some Indian men who felt threatened by my critique of our society, the women urged me to soldier on, for their sakes. They could not

voice their angst, but I could. ineteen ninety-eight was a seminal year. I gave readings from the anthology around the Bay Area. I appeared at the Asian Art Museum’s fiftieth anniversary exhibit and celebration in honor of India’s Independence.

I received an award from the Pacific News Service (PNS) for the best commentary in ethnic media. I did not even know I was in the running.

At the gala, I received my award from Belva Davis. In my speech, when I confessed to having been labeled a phatkal (a derogatory term in Marathi meaning an outspoken woman) since childhood, a female local TV anchor who shared the stage with me said, “Don’t stop speaking your mind.”

Sandy Close invited me to write columns for PNS. Was I really a columnist? I wondered. I had only taken one class in nonfiction, in Auckland New Zealand, and that too on magazine writing. So when, on the morning after India’s nuclear test, Sandy called me to ask me for an op-ed piece, I was stunned.

Could I really deliver? Was I a real journalist?

I wrote the essay from the perspective of a physicist and recipient of an Indian Atomic Energy Commission fellowship, a fact Sandy did not even know about, in two hours. The column made into innumerable mainstream publications, including Salon. I aired an audio version of the piece on NPR’s All Things Considered.

I had become a real writer. What was ironic was that in a way, it had all been possible because of the very Indian community that I had felt so marginalized by. It occurred to me then that there were two Indian communities. One was frozen in time, preserving India in memory even as the real India moved on, ever resilient, diverse, and welcoming of change. The other was made of people who wanted to change the caste, gender, and economic hierarchies of our culture and society.

I had found a nerve in the latter. I was essential to this other India. I could not abandon what I had started. So I kept writing. I felt an obligation to a people, a community, a movement. I saw myself mirrored in this new community. As I changed, the community changed too.

N

H

alf way through the new decade of the new millennium, another big transformation took place. The second generation usurped us. Suddenly, we had Indian American journalists on the News Hour and on CNN. We had an Indian Pulitzer Prize winner. The kids had broken out of their parents’ mold of showing off video cameras and Ivy League educations to volunteer in South America and join social reform movements of their native country they scarcely knew.

Would it have happened without people like me, who paved the way? Perhaps not.

Even as I wistfully hand the baton to the younger generation, I feel both vindicated

It occurred to me then that there were two Indian communities. One was frozen in time, preserving India of its memory even as the real India moved on. The other was made of people who wanted to change the caste, gender, and economic hierarchies of our culture and society. and envious. Vindicated because many of my attitudes and opinions have been adopted by the children of my friends. Envious because I have become the old guard.

If the Indian-American community today is more egalitarian and socially enlightened and less materialistic, it is due in no small measure to people like me who set the stage.

Twenty, thirty years from now, as another generation takes the helm, we will look back and reminisce about that golden era when Americans first stopped asking us about sacred cows, snake charmers, and untouchables, and began to ask us our opinions about American society, culture, and politics.

And I will feel vindicated and proud that I witnessed the hour when, in the words of Nehru, “A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.”

But at this solemn moment, when Indians at home and abroad are doing so very well, we must not forget that, as Nehru said, “our work has just begun. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity… Are we brave enough…..to ….accept the challenge of the future? Freedom and power bring responsibility… The service of India means, the service of the millions who suffer.

It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity.

The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye … as long as there are tears and suffering … our work will not be over.”

I, for one, no longer worry about who welcomes me in their homes, but who will join me in speaking up against the evils that still persist in our society. n Sarita Sarvate writes commentaries for Pacific News Service and KQED. Visit www.saritasarvate.com india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 19

I C films

Runaway Brides, Sidestepped Reunions, and Doggy Tales The Top Ten Hindi Films of 2011

By Anirudhh Chawda In a year that saw Salman Khan rise to stratospheric heights with back-to-back box office blockbusters (Ready, Bodyguard) and become the premiere power player in Hindi filmdom, most of the action was in the lower echelons. Here is a roundup of the better-made Hindi movies of 2011.

1. Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara Zoya Akhtar’s picture-perfect postcard, with a snapshot of three weeks that three desi boys (Hrithik Roshan, Abhay Deol and Farhan Akhtar) spend in Spain, was a delightful, adventurous, and well-made journey of discovery and self-discovery. In an age when electronic gadgets increasingly intrude on even the most private places and spaces in everyday lives if they are allowed to, this cell-phone free vacation proved to be an all-around feel-good trip. Yes, Katrina Kaif, the highest paid Hindi female actor was in on the fun also. The most lasting impression, however, was one heck of a carpe diem Euro-zone trip.

2. That Girl in Yellow Boots

3. Haunted

As a thought-provoking chapter on how far Hindi films have evolved in story-telling and capturing just the right setting, this Anurag KashyapKalki Koechlin vehicle jumped leaps and bounds ahead of, not surprisingly, not only any Salman Khan or Shahrukh Khan (RA.One) megareleases, but also pretty much the rest of the pack. The story of a young British-Indian woman (Koechlin) who fronts at a seedy Mumbai massage parlor as she goes about searching for her lost father offered a superbly chronicled, complex sexand-drugs world replete with uneasy questions and even more disturbing answers.

In the grand scheme of things, Hindi horror entries always get a bum deal for being exploitative, cheaply made, and, well, plain silly. Vikram Bhatt’s scarefest Haunted proved that being exploitative (thanks to many a genre-standard title from over the years), cheaply made (a relatively small budget) and, at times, being just plain silly can add up to the best Hindi scary movie over the last several years. It is also heaps of fun.

Released in both 2-D and headlinegrabbing 3-D versions, Haunted offered in-your-face scares. The most chilling goose bumps can indeed result from the remote houses for sale where things go bump in the night!

4. Dhobi Ghat Aamir Khan’s follow up to the sensational Peepli [Live] from 2010 was this satire of contemporary Mumbai, bringing together a handful of disparate characters whose bittersweet lives eventually, and sometimes horrifyingly, converge.

Directed by Khan’s wife’s Kiran Rao in her filmmaking debut, Aamir Khan offered himself in a minor role and instead promoted Prateik Babbar as a laundry boy delivering more than clean saris to well-coifed Mumbai ladies. The plot also folds in a stifled housewife whose experiences emerge haltingly—and shockingly—from a series of home videos she left behind. Smart filmmaking techniques always win out!

20 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

5. Marathon Boy

8. Tanu Weds Manu

In India, a land of extremes in the patchwork of global human experiences—longest hair anyone? longest finger nails anyone?—the docu-drama Marathon Boy offers a most fascinating story of a seven-year-old boy from West Bengal who, at the astonishingly tender age of four, shows promise as a long-distance runner. Even though made by British filmmaker Gemma Atwal, and therefore technically not an “Indian” movie, Marathon Boy is everything Slumdog Millionaire could not be—a celebration of the Indian spirit without giving up the Indian soul.

Bravo!

In a year that saw Kangana Ranaut scaling new highs (No Problem, Game, Ready) Tanu Weds Manu was her best outing. Kangana and Madhavan are members of opposing wedding parties in the same arranged marriage chess board. Ranaut’s Tanu, as a feisty, chain-smoking, decidedly non-virginal bride, is a groundbreaking new-age heroine that, for a change, is accepted matter-of-factly in the new India. The graph from Hum Aapke Hain Koun to Hum Tum to Mere Brother Ki Dulhan to Tanu Weds Manu has signaled a significant evolution of stronger bridal female characters allowed to demonstrate limited real-world sensibilities. Progress!

6. Dum Maaro Dum A well-made underworld caper is always a welcome entry. This reunion of Abhishek Bachchan with director Rohan Sippy continued the success they shared with Bluffmaster (2005).

Set in Goa, with Bachchan playing a vice cop on the hot trail of a drug smuggling conspiracy—complete with inside informers and scantily-clad beach front pleasure seekers—Prateik Babbar again proved a scene-stealer as a U.S.-bound college student who gets snared in a criminal dragnet. Borrowing a title from the blockbuster R.D. Burman-Asha Bhosle song from 1971’s Hare Rama Hare Krishna, Sippy’s film also tossed up one of the best remakes of that iconic song.

7. Chillar Party Uber-producer Ronnie Screwvala’s small-budget (in comparison to Disney’s Zokkomon) offering was an entertainer aimed squarely at kids. Co-directors Vikas Bahl and Nitesh Tiwari’s comedy zoomed in on an upper-middle class Mumbai subdivision where the focus of attention is a stray dog and its owner—a poor street urchin—who unwittingly cross paths with a local politician who will go to great lengths to force them out from the housing colony. Instead of giving up, a group of shorts-wearing, pint-sized colony residents—who have christened their “gang” Chillar Party—take up the cause to keep the dog and dog keeper on the colony’s premises. Their tale imparts a valuable lesson in tolerance, confronting bullies, and being enterprising in overcoming powerful adversaries.

9. Mere Brother Ki Dulhan A year without at least one Yashraj romantic comedy is practically unheard of. Mere Brother ropes in Imran Khan who is accorded the laughs-heavy responsibility of finding a suitable bride for his brother (Pakistani singeractor Ali Zafar) and zeroes in on a former college pal (Katrina Kaif) with unresolved former BFF issues. Significantly boosted by Sohail Sen’s catchy musical score, light and playful, director Ali Abbas Zafar’s film got decent mileage from comically re-playing an old plotline one more time.

10. Singham The action-hero crown that Sunny Deol and Sanjay Dutt have relinquished has been inherited by Ajay Devgn very nicely, thank you. In this Hindi remake of his own Tamil language hit by the same name, director Rohan Shetty came up with the best action movie of the year. It was a worthy successor to the brawny cop dramas pioneered in the Bachchan mold and similar in feel to last year’s Once Upon A Time in Mumbai in its retro 1970s insignia. While Devgn nailed a ginormous box office with Golmaal 3, over the long run, Singham may serve as a better talent marker.

Minor rant: Because of tight print deadlines, some anticipated year

end noteworthy titles are not included for consideration in this 2011 roundup. They include Imtiaz Ali's Rockstar, Puneet Issar’s post-9/11 drama I am Singh, Yashraj’s romantic comedy Ladies vs. Ricky Bahl and Vidya Balan channeling the 1980s siren Silk Smitha in the Milan Luthria biopic Dirty Picture.

On to 2012. Happy Movie Going! n india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 21

Madhumita Gupta

A Rocking Time!

ROCKSTAR. Director: Imitiaz Ali. Players: Ranbir Kapoor, Nargis Fakhri, Shammi Kapoor, Shernaaz Patel. Music: AR Rahman.

Theatrical Release: Eros International.

F

rom the breezy Socha Na Tha (2005) to the from-the-heart Jab We Met (2007) to the upbeat Love Aaj Kal (2009), director Ali’s romantic vision has steadily evolved. The relationships he chooses to portray get increasingly complex and his latest creation, the angst-ridden Rockstar, is probably his most ambitious project to date.

Here, Ali gives us a glimpse of what goes on beyond the footlights and fan-frenzy of the rock music world. The rags-to-riches plot is quite familiar to moviegoers, but what is less known is the personal price paid by the performer. A familiar trope in Hollywood biopics like Ray and Chaplin, the arc of a successful artist’s life is explored in this fictional

22 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

account of Janardhan Jakhar (JJ), who reinvents himself as the rock star Jordan.

The journey from JJ to Jordan takes the viewer through the convoluted routes of love and loss. Jakhar (Ranbir), is a wannabe rockstar with a lot of talent but no direction or mentor except for the friendly collegecanteen owner, Khatana Uncle (a brilliant Kumud Mishra) who keeps on telling him what Keats discovered centuries ago—“our sweetest songs are with saddest thought fraught...”

Khatana suggests to JJ that his songs don’t have depth as he has never experienced real pain. This sets off a fairly comical series of events as JJ tries to infuse his life with pain to give his songs meaning. In the process his talent gets discovered and the small town boy becomes a global success.

The price he pays for that transformation is the heart of the movie and Ranbir is superb in a role most actors would die for. Convincing as the gauche college boy in coarse hand-knitted woolens, he is brilliant as the confused, notorious “Bad boy” of music, who gets the fame he dreamt of but realizes that the journey has made his life hollow.

As his unattainable beloved, Fakhri looks ethereal and is fairly competent, though her inexperience shows in the intense scenes she shares with Ranbir.

Shammi Kapoor’s final movie role (he plays a shehnai player who unerringly spots JJ’s talent) before his death this year, is one of the highlights of the movie. Ali’s deft touch with ensemble scenes allows the other seasoned actors room to shine.

Ali is in complete control in the first half of the

film, establishing the characters and the story quickly. The comedy flows easily, as do the realistic dialogues. The camaraderie among college-mates is wonderfully natural. In the second half the movie becomes slow and choppy. There’s an overdose of montages and flashbacks which confuse viewers trying to follow the timeline. The chronicling of JJ’s struggle and his sudden rise to stardom feels rushed, and his solo status in an age of rock bands feels unconvincing. Other minor quibbles are JJ’s inexplicable anger at the media, and [Spoiler Alert!] his deportment for a small crime like trespassing. With a crisper script Rockstar might have become another Hindi film classic like Abhimaan.

No review of Rockstar can be complete without the mention of the music. A. R. Rahman soars to new heights, whether it is in the chart-busting “Sada Haq,” the evocative Sufiistic “Faya Kun,” or the peppy “Ding Ling Ling.” Mohit Chauhan’s gorgeous voice does ample justice to the music; indeed, he takes it to new levels.

Despite its flaws, Rockstar is an able effort and deserves at least one viewing for its entertainment values.n EQ: B Madhumita Gupta is a freelance writer and teacher.

LATA

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S Shor in the City Fo rce  Mere Broth er Ki Dulh Cha an tur SIngh

M ausam

A arakshan

B ol. That Gir l in Yellow  Boots Singham

M ummy Pun jabi

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india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 25

I C ask a lawyer

Naresh Rajan

The Mechanics of Prosecution Q A

Help! I've been wrongfully arrested. Can I get my case dismissed?

From time to time I talk to defendants in criminal cases who are adamant that their cases must be dismissed. They, typically, have no clue how the system works and why outright dismissal is a pipe dream. A brief overview of the mechanics of a prosecution might be illuminating.

First, the police investigate an incident and write a report. They then send this report to the district attorney’s (DA) office recommending that the DA file charges. The report is often written in a way to make the arrestee look guilty. Police are often very honest and good reporters, but sometimes they omit key facts or put a bit of spin on the situation.

The DA’s office decides whether or not to file charges. They have sole discretion over whether and what charges to file and their decisions critically affect the outcome of a case. At the time they decide to file charges, especially in misdemeanors, all they are look-

ing at is the accused person’s criminal history and a police report. The report may be well investigated and written in a balanced and fair manner. Or, it could be that the officer has decided that the accused must be lying or guilty and therefore, the report is written with a slant to make the defendant look bad.

Filing cases is often a hurried and haphazard affair. The district attorneys who decide whether or not to initiate a prosecution typically do not get any input from the accused’s side before making the decision. Since cases must be filed in a timely manner, (within two days of an incident when the accused is in custody, for example) there is pressure to move quickly.

Second, district attorneys tend to believe that everything that they read in a police report is absolute truth. In my experience, they are less concerned about the veracity of the prosecution's witnesses, but tend to disbelieve anything coming from an accused’s mouth. It is an uphill task to convince them otherwise.

Finally, there is the distinct possibility

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that the case does have merit and that the person arrested did in fact break the law. The vast majority of cases end with a defendant entering a guilty or no contest plea to some charge. In my personal experience, over 95 percent of cases end with pleas. With those kinds of numbers, district attorneys can safely believe that the police report accurately recorded the event.

The thing to remember is that there is very little oversight to the exercise of discretion by a district attorney’s office. The district attorney is an elected official, but there is very little that people can do to influence his or her policies until the next election.

If you still think your case should be dismissed, the best thing to do is to get an attorney to take a look at the case, conduct an independent investigation, and approach the district attorney informally or take it up in the court with formal proceedings. n Naresh Rajan is an attorney in San Mateo County. Email nrajanlaw@gmail.com.

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IC

legal

visa dates

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

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December 2011

H1-B PERM LABOR CERTIFICATION FAMILY PETITION ADJUSTMENT IN STATUS CITIZENSHIP E, L, K, & V VISAS

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In the tables below, the listing of a date for any class indicates that the class is oversubscribed. “Current” means that numbers are available for all qualified applicants. “Unavailable” means no numbers are available.

FAMILY PREFERENCE VISA DATES Preference Dates for India 1st 2A 2B 3rd 4th

September 1, 2004 March 22, 2009 August 15, 2003 October 8, 2001 July 15, 2000

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EMPLOYMENT-BASED VISA DATES Preference Dates for India 1st Current 2nd March 15, 2008 3rd August 1, 2002 Other June 22, 2002 Workers 4th Current Certain Current Religious Workers 5th Current Targeted Current Employment Areas The Department of State has a recorded message with visa availability information at (202) 663-1541, which is updated in the middle of each month.

Source:http://travel.state.gov/visa/bulletin/bulletin_5603.html india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 27

IC

tax talk Khorshed Alam

14 Year-End Tax Tips

E

arlier is better when it comes to adopting a strategy to reduce your taxes. But even if time gets away from you, there are some year-end actions you can take to cut your taxes.

Here are some last-minute tax strategies to consider:

Review Income and Deductions

It’s all in the timing. The most fundamental year-end tax move is to adjust the timing of income and deductions. If your income is high, deferring receipt of more income at the end of the year can save taxes. If you're close to the line on itemizing deductions, accelerating payment of deductible expenses might save taxes.

The first step in timing is to know where you stand now. Then try to forecast where you'll be next year at this time. If you think your next year's tax rates will be higher than the current year’s, you might save money by switching tactics and accelerating income.

early, make an extra mortgage payment (the interest portion is deductible), pay your tax preparer for your year-end planning meetings, or opt to have dental work or elective surgery before the end of the year. Keep in mind that the IRS doesn’t allow a deduction for payments made before the services are performed.

If necessary, adjust your income tax withholding before year-end to avoid underpayment penalties. Withheld taxes are considered paid in equal amounts during the year regardless of when the tax is withheld. Therefore, a year-end adjustment to your withholding could help you avoid a penalty.

Be Charitable

If planning a wedding or divorce, be aware that your marital status as of Dec. 31 determines your tax status for the whole year.

Changing the dates of a year-end event may save taxes.

You can make cash contributions or charge them on your credit card and take a current deduction. If you give appreciated property to charity, you’ll get to deduct the full market value. You may need an appraisal to determine the value of some property.

Bunch Your Payments

Some taxpayers find they have almost enough deductions to exceed the standard deduction. If this is your situation, try bunching payments into one year to take advantage of itemizing. The next year use the standard deduction, and then bunch your payments again the following year. This way you’ll itemize every other year.

Other limits to watch are the medical expense limit and the miscellaneous itemized deduction limit. By bunching payments into one year or changing the timing of certain services, you may be able to get a deduction.

Pay Deductible Expenses Before Dec. 31

Paying your state income tax estimate before December 31 accelerates your federal deduction. You can also pay property taxes

28 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

Offset Capital Gains

Review your investment portfolio to determine whether you should sell some losers before year-end in order to offset capital gains you've already realized. Capital losses are first netted with capital gains and then are deductible against ordinary income (limited to $3,000 a year).

Postpone Income

If you’re due a bonus, see if your employer will hold off writing the check until January. If you own a cash-basis business, you can time receipt of income by waiting until close to the end of the year to send your December billings.

You can’t defer taxes by simply not putting a check in the bank. If you have an unrestricted right to the money, it’s income in the year it's available—whether or not you choose to receive the funds.

Consider Your Marital Status

Check Exposure to the AMT

If you have tax preference items, do an alternative minimum tax (AMT) computation when you do your regular tax estimate.

If the AMT will apply to you, you may still be able to shift income or deductions to avoid or reduce the tax.

Contribute to a Deductible IRA if You Qualify

You have until the April tax filing deadline to open an IRA and make a deductible contribution for the prior year.

Contribute to Your Company's 401(k)

If you have a 401(k) plan at work, make as large a contribution as you're allowed to make.

Set Up a Keogh Plan Before Dec. 31

If you’re self-employed and you want to make a contribution to a Keogh plan, the plan must be adopted before year-end, even though you have until the April tax filing deadline (or later if you get a filing extension) to make a deductible contribution for the previous year.

Avoid Underpayment Penalties.

Plan for Losses

Check your basis in any S corporation in which you are a shareholder and where you expect a loss this year. Be sure you have sufficient basis to enable you to take the loss on your tax return.

Look Before You Leap

A word of caution about year-end tax-cutting maneuvers: Don’t rush into transactions which you hope will reduce your tax bill. You might find out you’ve created other problems.

Do not enter into transactions solely for the tax benefits. All investments should be economically sound. There are those who will sell you so-called “tax” solutions. Analyze such options carefully.n The information contained in this article is of a general nature. Please consult your tax attorney or finance professional for details.

Khorshed Alam is a practicing CPA and business valuation analyst. Check out http://alamcpatax.com or call (408) 445-1120.

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india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 29

IC

music

Priya Das

The Wondrous Veena

The classical instrument is now finding a new home in jazz MYSTERIOUS DUALITY—JUST ME (EarthSync). Available at www.amazon.com as mp3 album download for $3.56, single downloads for $0.89.

E

very instrument has a history in a particular genre and evokes an immediate association when you hear it. Thus you have the guitar that instantly conjures an image of rock music, the violin of concert halls, the drums of heavy metal. Jazz has always been associated with wind instruments such as the saxophone, more recently the piano too, but that may change—the Indian veena may emerge as an equal contender to a jazz association.

In June 2011, Charanams, a New Yorkbased band, won the “Ultimate Battle of the Boroughs” contest organized by the radio station WNYC. About 100 contestants, representing bands, ensembles, instrumentalists, vocalists, DJs, and spoken word artists from the five New York City boroughs (Queens, Manhattan, Staten Island, Brooklyn, and The Bronx) participated in various rounds.

Charanams comprises veena player Nivedita ShivRaj, among others. The band performs

30 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

original compositions of ShivRaj based on Indian ragas and traditional Karnatik compositions blended with jazz styles and contemporary rhythms. ShivRaj has worked on several cross-genre projects, and recorded with saxophonist Andrew Sterman of The Ocean Band. She has created music productions combining the Karnatik style with electro acoustic music, literally taking the veena to where it hasn’t been seen before.

“Karnatic-jazz” is also the genre of music of Megha, a band whose members include Dr. Suma Sudhindra, a veena exponent based in Bangalore and guitar player Gerard Machado.

In an online interview, Machado has opined, “The similarities between Karnatik [music] and jazz are remarkable. Both are systematic, and have a lot of scope for improvisation.”

The two musicians have collaborated on two albums—Clean Licks and Touch Another Life. Sudhindra has also collaborated with the Dutch band Spinifex, in Spinifex Indian Spin earlier in 2011. With the proliferation of veena sounds in genres the world over, the instrument is poised to soon attain the same status as the much sought-after tabla in fusion music.

Veena exponent Jayanthi Kumaresh’s album Mysterious Duality—Just Me is among the latest in the Karnatik-Jazz category. The album stays true to the classical rendition, at the same time welcomes non-Indian sensibilities to keep pace.

The first track, “Mysterious Duality,” begins with the octave-tethering ascendingthree-two-descending-three notes. The repetition of these eight notes is refreshing; they provide continuity, while lending an interesting backdrop to the musical exploration. “Mysterious Duality” is over eight minutes long, and opens up the vista of the Karnatik improvisational technique. Kumaresh clearly thinks in a musical language, and one can almost visualize the riveting narrative.

“Strings With No Ends”

has a quieter treatment, and feels introspective for the most part. In the last four minutes of the 12 minute track, Kumaresh makes up her mind and picks up the pace. Finally at peace, the last 2 minutes are joyful. “Wandering in Dimensions” lays out the boundaries of the musical map by hitting extreme notes straight away. The repetitive background pattern of notes resurfaces here, and the composition mirrors itself constantly, each note following the other in octave or sequence.

Every once in a while, Kumaresh teases out the far-reaching sounds of the pattern to create vibrancy. “Waiting at Dusk” comes across as such—the routine rhythms of the day are laid out first, leading up to an expectancy, a quiet looking out for the next verse. Halfway through, the track changes tone, almost as if the person waiting is getting anxious, before again settling down to the old rhythms. It is a relief that each track is over eight minutes; one cannot really expect to unveil a mysterious duality in less. Kumaresh is clearly functioning in an instinctive communion with her instrument and her music.

An online Flipswitch PR article captures a comment that further suggests a multi-genre future for the veena and Kumaresh, “Before this album, I would wonder when I played the bass strings in a particular way if I was sounding too much like an electric guitar. I always felt a bit shy. After making this album, though, I found it was very cool. Now I love it.”

Very cognizant of placing Indian music on the world map, Kumaresh has founded the Indian National Orchestra. In her blog, http://veenaijayanthi.blogspot.com/, she writes, “there is no comprehensive team consisting of performing musicians in their prime, from both North and South India, who can jointly perform Indian music together and represent India in a national or international event.

The music presented by INO will truly reflect India, as it is today—diverse in texture and variety, but united in spirit and purpose.” Its charter includes performances in all the major cities of India and abroad.

More power to this initiative: Presenting the veena as part of a formal orchestra with a multi-genre setting will further expand the reach of this versatile instrument. n Priya Das is an avid follower of world music.

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india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 31

32 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

Celebrating 25 Years of Excellence

2012

INDIA CURRENTS GRAPHICS (408) 324-0488

Season’s Greeting

It has been a privilege to share 2011 with you, our community of readers.

Every month, we take pride in producing a magazing that circulates new ideas, raises critical questions, and shares diverse perspectives on our envolving diaspora.

We are grateful for your contributions and support, and welcome your continued feedback in the coming year.

Enjoy this special combined issue of India Currents for December 2011 and January 2012.

The next India Currents issue will come out on February 1, and the next deadline for placing event listings and advertisements is January 20.

IndiaCurrents

Happy New Year!

india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 33

IC

books

These Are A Few of My Favorite Books

W

hile Indian writers did not win any coveted literary awards in 2011, several award-winning and best-selling authors did come out with new books, such as Aravind Adiga’s Last Man in Tower and Chetan Bhagat’s Revolution 2020. What is remarkable, though, is the many works that referenced either the Indian or the Indian American experience, highlighting the emergence of India as an important player in the global literary landscape. American writer Jonathan Franzen, best known for his 2001 epic The Corrections, introduced Lalitha, an Indian American character in his 2011 work, Freedom. Another award-winning American author, Ann Patchett, decided to make the central character of her most recent novel, State of Wonder, an Indian American doctor. For desis and those intrigued by desi culture, 2011 has been a deliciously gourmand experience.

So how does a bibliophile pick from the many offerings of this productive year? India Currents’ intrepid book reviewers are here to help! Here they each pick their favorite book. Whether literary or plain entertaining, each book struck a chord with our reviewers, and we hope these little samplings will encourage you to dive into the marvelously diverse world of desi literature. Happy reading!

What Price Genius?

SERIOUS MEN by Manu Joseph. W. W. Norton & Company: New York. Paperback. 310 pages. $14.95. www.norton.com.

Looking for something thoughtful and funny for your reading pleasure? I prescribe Manu Joseph’s Serious Men. This novel by “India’s most stylish writer” is both a laugh-out-loud and an I-know-something-you-don’t tale. The seriousness with which the novel’s characters take their lives and petty personal crusades is what ultimately makes this novel so comical.

Serious Men is peopled with scientists whose heads are in the clouds more literally than figuratively, but the principal character is a revenge-hungry Dalit who stands up to his superiors at an agency where space is contemplated like babies contemplating their new-found belly buttons.

Boldly pitting the Dalit assistant against the entire Brahmin scientific community results in a well-rounded satire on Indian social conventions, and how both ends of the collective spectrum pull and tug at each other. Tackling the caste-class-religion issues of the day in a novel that pokes fun, examines, and questions them all is serious stuff and seriously funny.

Serious Men points out that it is our ability to think, plot, connive, plan, demand, coerce, blackmail, and have epiphanies that make humans so tolerably absurd and absurdly tolerable.

Joseph proves that it is only in this world that there can be debates over the speed and velocity at which news travels in the same environment where people argue whether a once-Hindunow-Buddhist is a good Christian. Seriously.

—Jeanne E. Fredriksen

A Treat for Lovers of Historical Fiction TIGER HILLS by Sarita Mandanna. Grand Central Publishing. Paperback. 468 pages. $24.99.

An undercurrent of melancholy threads through this superbly written tale. Tragedy is never very far, and when it strikes, poignant, heart-rending sadness spreads like a slow pain. Pick up this book only if you are prepared for the intensity of doomed love that is too painful, of feelings that are too tender, of hurt that is too deep.

This lyrical, historical romance is set in the hills of Coorg in the age of Empire. The heroic Kambeymada Machaiah, the strong-willed Devi, and the sensitive Devanna represent the archetypal tragic love triangle. Deeply touching and achingly well written, this book will take you back to every doomed romance, every lost love, every aching loss in your life.

The writing of the tiger-killer’s hunt scene is poetic, as is the depiction of his heroism on the barren mountains of Afghanistan.

Subaltern viewpoints are refreshingly represented—that Europeans never washed their bottoms, for instance, is an inversion of scorn that provides a new perspective of the relationship between rulers and subjects.

Rich historical detail, the period atmosphere of the British Raj, and Mandanna’s breathtakingly beautiful writing make this a memorable read.

—Geetika Pathania Jain

34 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

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A Scholarly Approach THE HINDUS, AN ALTERNATIVE HISTORY by Wendy Doniger, Penguin USA. Paperback. 770 pages. $25.

The Hindus, An Alternative History is the latest offering from Wendy Doniger, a world-renowned Sanskritist. As the title suggests, the book is but one interpretation of the evolution of Hindu thought.

This is an interpretation that seeks to read between the lines of ancient Hindu texts and tease out the voice of the subaltern. With the texts as a foundation, Doniger interprets recurring themes including the symbolism of animals such as the horse and the dog (representing power and impurity, respectively), the notion of ahimsa, the voice of women, and lower castes.

Doniger’s thorough scholarship is evidenced throughout, whether in the systematic treatment of the history of the subcontinent or in the sheer depth of the comparative analysis, from the Upanishads to the Vedas to the seemingly arcane Periya Puranas. The Hindus, much like more recent and popular nonfictional works about 21st century India, also touches upon the idea of multiplicity and diversity.

How else can one explain opposing concepts such as extreme asceticism, renunciation, and monism in the Upanishads on the one hand and opulence and the Kama Sutra on the other.

The Hindus is no light summer-time beach read. At 770 pages it demands serious reading. But the crisp language, tongue-in-cheek witticisms, and an engaging writing style compensate for the length and, at times, heavy prose. A must-read for any student of Indian philosophy and thought.

—Girija Sankar

A Rain Forest Mystery STATE OF WONDER by Ann Patchett. Harper Perennial. Paperback. 368 pages. $15.99.

Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder is a literary mystery that will take you deep into the heart of the Amazon, where her Indian American protagonist Marina Singh goes to find out how her colleague, Anders, died and to track down a man named Swenson, the only person who knows what happened. At the core of the plot is an Amazon tribe where the women conceive well past their child-bearing years. A shroud of mystery envelops the whereabouts of Dr. Swenson, who has been charged by the company to research the tribe’s unusual fertility, and whose only communication over two years has been the aerogramme bearing the news of Anders’ death.

Along with tracking down Swenson, Marina also has to deal with personal issues surfacing from the past that led her to give up a career in medicine.

Patchett’s descriptions of the flora and fauna of the Amazon and tribal culture are stunning and make for an tense, atmospheric reading experience. “A ululation of voices exploded the night, the ringing sound of countless tongues hitting the roofs of countless mouths. It filled the entire jungle and poured up the river in a wave.” The end of the novel is wonderfully unpredictable.

—Tara Menon

Still Crazy After All These Years STEVE JOBS by Walter Isaacson. Simon and Schuster. Hardcover. 627 pages. $35.

1968. A 13-year-old boldly asks HP co-founder Bill Hewlett for spare parts, receives the parts, and in the bargain gets an internship for the summer. Crazy.

1972. The bold kid enrolls in a college, only to drop out after a semester. Sitting in on courses he cares about, he learns that hard-earned and deeply felt knowledge lasts a lifetime. Crazy.

1974. Now 19, he leaves his job as a technician at a video game company to find a guru in India. Never finds the guru, but as the hippies used to say, he “finds himself.” Crazy.

1976-2011. The teenager grows up, starts a Silicon Valley company with a buddy, leads its mercurial growth, and is ousted by the clown he brought in as CEO. Only 30, his entrepreneurial spirit burns bright. He invests his money, his passion, his life into two new ventures. One is a financial failure, the other a success. Both become the basis for a phenomenal return to the company he founded. Crazy.

Beyond fleshing out this bare-bones biography, Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs reminds readers of Apple’s commercial mantra: “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” And while it might be a bit crazy to include a bio of a Syrian American tech entrepreneur in India Currents, please consider the following on “experiential wisdom” from Steve Jobs: “The people in the Indian countryside don’t use their intellect like we do, they use their intuition instead…. Coming back after seven months in Indian villages, I saw the craziness of the Western world as well as its capacity for rational thought.”

—Rajesh C. Oza 36 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

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india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 37

More Fodder For the Bibliophile

Here are a few other books that might be of interest to the diaspora CAMUS DOES A DOUBLE TAKE by M.R. Pamidi, K.B. Anand, Meera Pamidi. Kindle e-book. $9.99.

Is the United States going to concede and play second fiddle to China? Will this superpower imitate ancient Rome and other empires and face an irreversible decline?

The authors beg to disagree and believe while America will certainly have short-term hiccups, in the long run the United States will return to its heydays. The book is a refreshing take on mainstream U.S. politics, economy, and entrepreneurship in the age of social networking.

TEN AVATARS by Shahana Dattagupta. Flying Chickadee. 150 pages. $12.99 Ten avatars of women are explored through the telling of little incidents and big turning points in the lives of 10 female protagonists: a little child amidst parental dissonance, a girl at puberty becoming vulnerable to predators, a cynical teenager struggling with her national identity, a young graduate student returning to travel in her native land, and others. This collection of stories weaves together intimate cross-cultural experiences, with variegated vignettes unique to the Indian American expatriate experience in contemporary times, yet reveals the universal essence of being female.

LOVE IN A HEADSCARF by Shelina Zahra Janmohamed. Beacon Press. Paperback. 272 pages. $15.

In this memoir, Janmohamed, one of Britain’s leading female Muslim writers, takes readers on her journey to find “the one.” Navigating through the always complicated world of dating, Janmohamed’s search to find true love takes her from social mixers at her North London mosque to speed-dating sessions in the city and even to snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro.

PERFECTLY UNTRADITIONAL by Sweta Srivastava Vikram. Niyogi Books. Hardcover. 222 pages.

New York City-based writer, Shaili Kapoor, is shocked to find out about her mother’s untimely death in India. By the time she reaches India for the last rites, she discovers a deep secret about the mother she worshipped and the father she grew up to loathe. Perfectly Untraditional unravels unconventional and untold tales of families, friendships, love, loyalty, relationships, and tradition.

FROM SLAVE TO UNTOUCHABLE by Paul Kalra. Antenna Publishing. Paperback. 302 pages. $23.95.

Class-system scholar Paul Kalra challenges the assumption that the Civil War was fought to end black slavery. He asserts that civil war could have been avoided had early Americans adopted the Catholic 38 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

slave code, which recognized slaves’ humanity. He traces slavery in the United States to the Protestant slave code, which created distinct classes of slaveholders and non-slaveholders, and denied black slaves citizenship. Kalra weaves an impressive array of perspectives into his well-crafted story, and concludes by demonstrating that the legacy of the slaveholders’ self-serving Constitution persists today, rendering blacks in America an essentially “untouchable” class.

FOR SEVEN LIFETIMES by Vatsala and Ehud Sperling. Inner Tradtitions. Kindle ebook. $9.99.

For Seven Lifetimes chronicles the yearlong written courtship of a cross-cultural couple as they share their beliefs on sexuality, gender roles, careers, parenthood, and religion, and reveals the secret of a fulfilling relationship based on shared values and spiritual growth.

TO A MOUNTAIN IN TIBET by Colin Thubron. Harper Collins. Paperback. 240 pages. $24.99.

This is the account of a journey to the holiest mountain on earth, the solitary peak of Kailas in Tibet, sacred to one-fifth of humankind. To both Buddhists and Hindus it is the mystic heart of the world and an ancient site of pilgrimage. It has never been climbed.

Even today, under Chinese domination, the people of many religions circle the mountain in devotion to different gods.

Colin Thubron reached it by foot along the Karnali River, the highest source of the Ganges. His journey is an entry into the culture of today’s Tibet, and a pilgrimage in the wake his mother’s death and the loss of his family.

QUARANTINE: STORIES by Rahul Mehta. Harper Perennial. Paperback. 224 pages. $14.99 With incisive, cunning prose, Rahul Mehta sets off into uncharted literary territory. The characters in Quarantine, openly gay Indian American men, struggle to maintain relationships with their families and cultural traditions. Estranged from their cultural in-group and still set apart from larger society, the young men in these lyrical, provocative, emotionally wrenching stories find themselves quarantined.

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40 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 41

IC

desi voices

Shailaja Dixit

My Bittersweet Tricolor

S

eptember 7th 2011, Paramount Theater. 9:15AM. My husband and I sit quietly in the cool, dark auditorium.

A woman brushes past us. Congratulations! she mouths. I give a wry smile and wave back weakly. A man come out onstage and takes his place behind the microphone. The ceremony begins.

It’s time to get our American citizenship.

My heart is sinking.

I glance at my iPhone; a missed call from my mother. I hesitate to call her back.

My family has a long and passionate love affair with India. My grandmother, aunts, grandfather all fought in the freedom struggle under Gandhi. Just a month ago my aunt appeared in the media, supporting Anna Hazaare, denouncing corruption, recalling her memories at the Gandhi Ashram. One uncle was the Foreign Secretary, another uncle served in the Air Force, my mother is a Commissioner in the Information Commission.

To be Indian and serve India has been the constant chant in my ears growing up. And yet—here I am. At the Paramount Theatre, ready to be re-baptized.

My head hangs lower.

The presenter is now making light jokes, eliciting nervous giggles. He introduces another colleague, a lady from the electoral office. She informs us about the importance of voting. A few more pleasantries and then we are asked to stand up and sing the Star Spangled Banner. My eyes are welling up and my voice chokes. The hall is ringing with melody; but I am thinking Sujalaam Suphalaam Malayaja Sheetalam Shasya Shyaamala Maataram….Vande Maataram. I sink back into my chair. I cannot go through this. I feel claustrophobic.

I suddenly, desperately, wish my children were there. I know it’s impossible— they’re in school—but, at their thought, my restlessness disappears. Instead a reel starts spinning. I think back to their birth—the nurses helping me lovingly; their schoolteachers helping them patiently. In my mind’s eye I see the parks we play in, the roads we travel on, the policeman who patrols our neighborhood at night, my colleagues back at the office waiting to hear from me, the restaurants we eat in, the roses in my backyard, my favorite printed 42 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

Photo Credit: Prince Roy

Getting my U.S. citizenship was a conflicted moment

quilt on my Cal King bed—what has this new motherland not given me? For 13 years she has fed me, petted me, nurtured my dreams, my children and yet, today, I hanker after another mother I left behind. I think of Sri Krishna.

Born of one mother, reared by another. True to both. Yet belonging to none. Known for himself, yet known as theirs too!

So the question is, can we be like that?

Can we belong to all and yet to none at all?

Of course I can’t find an answer in the middle of Paramount Theatre, but I am much calmer.

Now a lady is reading out an alphabetized list of countries and applicants from each country are standing up. I like that. I am yearning to hear India’s name, acknowledge one last time I am an Indian. India! I hear it at last and spring up. I think about the people who designed this ceremony—what an incredibly sensitive thing to do. I love standing up for India this one last time, as an Indian!

The presenter beams down at us. She is acknowledging that each of us brings something special from our motherland. Yes! I nod emotionally. I see many people doing the same. But now, she continues, today we will all come together as one.

Is that the true meaning of being American, I wonder? Am I being re-born a global citizen?

The oath dispels my illusions.

We stand up to take the oath. This time my voice is steady. I pledge allegiance to America. I renounce my fidelity to any other sovereign nation. I promise to bear arms for America. It takes all my strength to say the words aloud, but I do it. I know some people fall silent or pacify themselves knowing they “don’t really mean it.” But I repeat each word clearly. There’s no waffling mid-stream.

And so I have embarked on a new journey—from my Janmabhoomi to my Karmabhoomi. Many have crossed this chasm, so I want to believe it can be done. For now I am poised at the precipice. I am patiently weaving a new tri-colored net. Orange, green, white. Red, white, blue. White… the white is comforting… White… Peace to me. Peace to my motherlands. Peace to my bittersweet tri-colors...n Shailaja Dixit has a Masters in Mass Communication and currently lives in San Ramon, CA where she divides her time between writing, singing and home-making.

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44 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 45

IC

cultural calendar

A Year in Pictures

Southern California was the place to be for desi culture and festivities.

Among the many events featured in the IC calendar pages were (clockwise, top left): IndiaFest 2011 celebration (August issue), Arpana Dance Company (March issue), a concert by the famed A.R. Rahman (June issue), a live performance by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan (May issue), a ghazal concert by Pakistani singer Riffat Sultana (November issue).

46 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

India Currents also featured (clockwise): Hariprasad Chaurasia’s perfomance at the World Festival of Sacred Music (September issue), the Bombay Bellywood tour (Dec. ’10-Jan. ’11 issue), a performance by blue13 Dance Company (April issue), Chitres Das Dance & Chhandam School of Kathak (October issue), a concert by Ghulam Ali (July issue), and Jewish Indian comedian Sam Koletkar (February issue). india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 47

first

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48 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

•

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Edited by: Nadia

Maiwandi

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cultural calendar

December

2 Friday

Diamond Jewelry Exhibition. Among

the biggest Indian diamonds shows in the U.S. Ends Dec. 4. Organized by Chennai Diamonds U.S. 11 a.m.-8 p.m.

Sheraton Cerritos, 12725 Centercourt Drive, Cerritos, 90703. (415) 424-8137. www. chennaidiamondsus.com.

December

3 Saturday

A Night of Elegance. Featuring: music by DJ Itesh, three-course international dinner, singing by Sid Philar, Kaavya Collective Dance Company performance, and more.

Hosted by Miss India Galaxy, Diksha Vadan.

list of South Asian

A tribute to Jagit Singh will be held on Sunday, Dec. 4 in Lakewood.

Organized by Network of Indian Professionals (NetIP) LA-OC. 7 p.m. The Kyoto Grand Hotel, Azalea Banquet Room, 120 S. Los Angeles St., Los Angeles, 90012 . $65 general; $55 NetIP LA-OC members. (213) 935-0003. info@netipla.org. www.netipla.org.

December

4 Sunday

Prasad Upasani Classical Musical Concert. Organized by Santosh Pai. 4 p.m.

Salim Hai’s residence, 3426 Viewfield Ave., Hacienda Heights, 91745. $15. (714) 2992494. santoshpai_99@yahoo.com.

Ek Shaam Jagit Ji Ke Naam. A loving tribute to the ghazal maestro Jagit Singh by Charanjeet “C.J.” Organized by L.A. Show

People. 5 p.m. Hoover Middle School, 3501 E. Country Club Drive, Lakewood, 90712. $20, $25. (562) 860-1135, (714) 595-0446, (909) 861-7074.

December

10 Saturday

AIF Annual Gala. Featuring TV host Tony Potts as emcee, and honoring Dinesh C. Paliwal, chair, president and CEO of Harman Int., with the Corporate Leadership Award, and music composer A.R. Rahman, winner of the Academy, Grammy, and Golden Globe awards, with the Spirit of India award.

Organized by American India Foundation (AIF). 6:30 p.m. Fairmont Miramar and Bungalows, 101 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica. india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 49

(408) 916-1976. www.aif.org.

December

December

18 Sunday

31 Saturday

New Year 2012 Bollywood Bash. Bring in

Radha-Madhava Kalyanam. A fundraiser and musical presentation by S.R. Krishnan and his group. Organized by Vedic Cultural and Spiritual Center of San Diego. 1-6 p.m.

Vedic Cultural and Spiritual Center of San Diego, 79300 Arjons Drive, San Diego. (858) 549-3940, (760) 942-8288, (858) 638-0744.

the New Year with great food, music, karaoke, giant arcade, laser tag, ping pong, pool tables, and more. Also featuring movie room for kids, babysitting for nominal charge. 8 p.m.

7227 Edinger Ave., Huntington Beach, 92647. $20. (310) 534-4549.

Sixth Annual Fantasy Ball. New Year’s Eve extravaganza. Organized by Radio5 Events. 8 p.m. Grand Sheraton Gateway Hotel, 6101 W. Century Blvd., Los Angeles, 90045 . (323) 205-5594. fantasyball@

radiophive.com. radio5events.com.

February

5 Sunday

South Asian Wedding Expo. Third annual event, featuring giveaways, makeup and hair evaluation, henna, food tasting, wedding directory, and more. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Pacific Palms, 1 Industry Hills Parkway, Industry Hills, 91744. Free entry and free parking. (714) 4937900. yogi@sheerromance.com. © Copyright 2011 India Currents. All rights reserved. Reproduction for commercial use strictly prohibited.

A SUGGESTION: 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!

New Year’s Day Guru Govind’s B'day Makara Sankranti Pongal M.L. King Jr. Day India’s Republic Day Sarasvati Puja Vasanta Panchami Presidents Day Ash Wednesday Maha Shivaratri Holi Now Roz Gudi Padva Ugadi Ramanavami Baisakhi Mahavir Jayanti Hanuman Jayanti

Jan. 1 Jan. 5 Jan. 14 Jan. 14 Jan. 16 Jan. 26 Jan. 28 Jan. 28 Feb. 20 Feb. 22 Feb. 28 March 9 March 20 March 23 April 1 April 1 April 1 April 5 April 6

50 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

Have you had an inspirational experience?

Share it with the readers of India Currents!

India Currents runs monthly spiritual essays written by members of the community.

We acceptspiritual or religious-themed essays from any religion or denomination, or lack thereof.

Please send your 600-800 word submissions to Nadia Maiwandi at events@indiacurrents.com.

Good Friday

Easter Tamil New Year Buddha Purnima Mother’s Day Memorial Day Father’s Day Ratha Yatra Guru Purnima U.S. Independence Day Raksha Bandhan Ramazan Krishna Janamashtami Indian Independence Idu’l Fitr Labor Day Onam Ganesh Chaturthi Gandhi’s B’day

April 6 April 8 April 13 May 5 May 13 May 28 June 17 June 21 July 2 July 4 Aug. 2 Aug. 2 Aug. 10 Aug. 15 Aug. 19 Sept. 3 Sept. 16 Sept. 19 Oct. 2

Navaratri begins Dashahara Idu’l Zuha Navratri ends Sharad Purnima Maharishi Valmiki’s B'day Karva Chauth Dhan Teras Divali Govardhana Puja Bhai Duj Muharram Thanksgiving Day Guru Teg Bahadur Day Guru Nanak’s B’day Christmas Day

Oct. 16 Oct. 24 Oct. 26 Oct. 28 Oct. 29 Oct. 29 Nov. 2 Nov. 11 Nov. 13 Nov. 14 Nov. 15 Nov. 15 Nov. 22 Nov. 24 Nov. 28 Dec. 25

(408) 324-0488 l (714) 523-8788 www.indiacurrents.com

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IC

reflections

Ramki Durai

Three Gunas I

t is obvious that during the course of our daily life we swing into various moods in response to stimuli from sense objects. We also react to people, places, and situations resulting in a constant change in our behavior pattern. Hindu scriptures attribute these changes to inborn qualities called gunas, which are classified as satva (purity), rajas (passion), and tamas (dullness). Bhagavad Gita and Bhagavatham enlighten us on these gunas.

Our various activities always exhibit these gunas that constantly overlap forcing us to swing into various moods and behavior. When we pray, meditate, or listen to music we are satvik (pure). When we attend to our household or office work, we are rajasik (active). When we are lazy and lie down quietly we are tamasik (dull).

Bhagavad Gita explains: “Satva prevails overlapping rajas and tamas; rajas prevails overlapping satva and tamas; tamas manifests itself overlapping satva and rajas.”

In the Bhagavatam, Krishna tells his friend Uddhava: “There is predominance of one or the other gunas in things, objects and persons. Our deeds and thoughts always express one guna or the other. Indeed, every object in this manifold universe and even celestial beings are influenced by these gunas.”

Bhagavad Gita: Moksha Sanyasa Yoga confirms this: “There is no being, animate or inanimate, on earth or in the middle region or even among gods and devas or anywhere else, which is free from these three gunas born of nature.”

Gunas influence everything in creation.

Let us see a few examples: Sky: Puffy clouds are satvik; thunder and lightning are rajasik; and a clear sky is tamasik.

Wind: A mild breeze is satvik, a cyclone is rajasik, and still weather is tamasik.

Water: A fountain in the park is satvik; waterfall is rajasik; and a lake is tamasik.

Fire: Candlelight is satvik; a raging fire is rajasik, and smouldering fire is tamasik.

Animal: A lion playing with cubs is satvik; chasing its prey is rajasik; and resting under the shade is tamasik.

Bird: A nesting bird is satvik; flying around to pick worms is rajasik; and resting on a branch is tamasik.

Insect: A busy caterpillar is rajasik; the cocoon is tamasik; and the butterfly is satvik.

The BhagavadGita explains how these 52 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

gunas manifest in us: Satva: Being immaculate is illuminating and flawless and leads to joy and wisdom.

Rajas: Passion results in longing and attachment, motivating the individual to action and to face the consequences.

Tamas: Ignorance deludes through negligence, inactivity, laziness, and sleep.

In the Bhagavatam, Krishna tells Uddhava, “When satva, which is pure and tranquil and has the power to illumine overcomes rajas and tamas the person is endowed with happiness, virtue and knowledge.

“When rajas, which leads the person to action and results in attachment ensuing the vision of multiplicity, overcomes satva and tamas, the person is active, finds wealth, fame, and suffers misery.

“When tamas, which is characterized by inertia and casts a veil of ignorance on one’s mind and makes the person lose the power of discrimination, overcomes satva and rajas the person is stricken with grief and delusion. He lives in a dream of hope and, to fulfill the same, he even becomes cruel. Laziness and inertia sets in.”

The Bhagavad Gita confirms this: “Those who are settled in satva go upward, rajasiks dwell in the middle, and tamasiks remaining under the influence of the lowest qualities go downward.”

Krishna tells Uddhava: “These three gunas belong to the mind and not to yourself.

Rise above the gunas and realize the self.

First overcome rajas and tamas by developing satva and then rise above satva by satva itself.”

Become a satvik to realize you are the higher self caged in the lower self comprising of the body-mind-intellect complex. To be a satvik you need not be docile, obedient, lose interest in life or give up your choice food, recreation, and hobbies and sit in meditation for long hours! What you have to do is to spend some time every day in solitude, silence and contemplation. The best time to do this is just before retiring at night. Sit in contemplation for 15 minutes identifying yourself one with your ishta deivam (personal god) ever present in your heart.

As these gunas constantly overlap your daily life, get into a satvik mood as often as possible. The mind manifests these gunas based on the stimuli received from sense objects, situations and circumstances. Be a satvik by controlling your mind and relinquish all actions to your lower self.

Look within yourself to be a satvik and you will radiate peace, tranquility, joy and happiness for ever. n

Ramki Durai has pursued Vedanta topics since 2001 and shares his knowledge through talks he gives at Sunnyvale Hindu Temple and also at Sri Lakshmi Ganapathy Temple in San Jose.

I C spirituality and health December

4 Sunday

eN-Vidyalaya. Vedic knowledge and tools for children. Designed by Paramahamsa Nithyananda, this learning system is designed to awaken and express the extraordinary and untapped dimensions in your child. Includes lunch. Sundays, Dec. 4, 11, 18, and 25. 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Nithyananda Vedic Temple, 9720 Central Ave., Montclair, 91763. (909) 6251400, (626) 688-3584.

How to Create Dynamic Will Power. SRF Lake Shrine, 17190 Sunset, Pacific Palisades.

(310) 454-4114. Hollywood Temple, 4860 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood. (323) 661-8006.

Glendale Temple, 2146 E. Chevy Chase Drive, Glendale. (818) 543-0800. Fullerton Temple, 142 E. Chapman Ave., Fullerton. (714) 5251291. Encinitas Temple, 939 Second St., Encinitas. (760) 436-7220. San Diego Temple.

3072 First Ave., San Diego. (619) 295-0170.

Call temples for times. Organized by SelfRealization Fellowship. yogananda-srf.org.

December

10 Saturday

Sadhana Saturday, a Holiday Stress Buster. Join for a morning of yoga, pranaya-

ma, guided meditation, and knowledge.

Open to everyone age 17 and over. John Osborne will guide participants through a series of practices that will quiet the mind and bring deep rest and relaxation. Organized by Art of Living Center. 9 a.m. Art of Living Los Angeles Center, 948 W. Adams Blvd, Los Angeles, 90007. (310) 820-9429. us.artofliving. org.

A SUGGESTION: 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!

Happy Holidays from all of us at India Currents!

December

11 Sunday

Awakening from the Dream of Human Limitations. SRF Lake Shrine, 17190 Sunset, Pacific Palisades. (310) 454-4114. Hollywood Temple, 4860 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood. (323) 661-8006. Glendale Temple, 2146 E. Chevy Chase Drive, Glendale. (818) 543-0800. Fullerton Temple, 142 E. Chapman Ave., Fullerton.

(714) 525-1291. Encinitas Temple, 939 Second St., Encinitas. (760) 436-7220. San Diego Temple. 3072 First Ave., San Diego. (619) 2950170. Call temples for times. Organized by Self-Realization Fellowship. yogananda-srf.org.

December

18 Sunday

Radha-Madhava Kalyanam. A fundraiser and musical presentation by S.R. Krishnan and his group. Organized by Vedic Cultural and Spiritual Center of San Diego. 1-6 p.m.

Vedic Cultural and Spiritual Center of San Diego, 79300 Arjons Drive, San Diego. (858) 549-3940, (760) 942-8288, (858) 638-0744.

Attunement with the Christ Consciousness. SRF Lake Shrine, 17190 Sunset, Pacific

Palisades. (310) 454-4114. Hollywood Temple, 4860 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood. (323) 661-8006.

Glendale Temple, 2146 E. Chevy Chase Drive, Glendale. (818) 543-0800. Fullerton Temple, 142 E. Chapman Ave., Fullerton. (714) 5251291. Encinitas Temple, 939 Second St., Encinitas. (760) 436-7220. San Diego Temple.

3072 First Ave., San Diego. (619) 295-0170.

Call temples for times. Organized by SelfRealization Fellowship. yogananda-srf.org.

December

25 Sunday

The Divine Nature of Christ. SRF Lake

Shrine, 17190 Sunset, Pacific Palisades. (310) 454-4114. Hollywood Temple, 4860 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood. (323) 661-8006. Glendale Temple, 2146 E. Chevy Chase Drive, Glendale. (818) 543-0800. Fullerton Temple, 142 E. Chapman Ave., Fullerton. (714) 525-1291.

Encinitas Temple, 939 Second St., Encinitas.

(760) 436-7220. San Diego Temple. 3072 First Ave., San Diego. (619) 295-0170. www. yogananda-srf.org. Call temples for times.

Organized by Self-Realization Fellowship. yogananda-srf.org.

© Copyright 2011 India Currents. All rights reserved. Reproduction for commercial use strictly prohibited.

Share your health stories with India Currents readers!

We are accepting original submissions that focus on health and wellness.

Send your 600-800-word essay on disease prevention, exercise, ayurvedic cooking, or any other health-related topic to Nadia Maiwandi at events@indiacurrents.com.

We accept submissions year-round.

P l a c e y o u r e v e n t f o r f r e e : w w w. i n d i a c u r r e n t s . c o m / s u b m i t - e v e n t india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 53

IC

the healthy life

Why Ghee Gets a Bad Rap Niraj “Raj” Patel

G

rowing up, I thought ghee was dangerous.

Aunties would say, “We don’t use ghee anymore, it’s bad for you.” Soon I learned doctors had been urging everybody to drop ghee because something in it, called saturated fats, was causing heart attacks. And desis were vulnerable to heart attacks. It seemed somebody in our community had a heart attack every month. So knowing what caused the heart attacks was a big deal, and all fingers were pointing at ghee.

But what if this is wrong? What if ghee doesn’t cause heart attacks, but is actually a good food?

Research this past decade suggests we were wrong to think badly of ghee. And we weren’t alone.

While we were abandoning ghee, Americans were skipping butter, a natural food product, and eating margarine, which was processed from butter but with added oils.

This switch from a traditional source of fat to an artificial one was part of a bigger trend: the widespread adoption of a “low-fat diet.”

Blame the “lipid hypothesis.” Starting in the 1950s, experts began to believe diets high in fats (cholesterol and saturated fats) caused coronary heart disease. The research wasn’t entirely convincing, but this idea—that fats cause heart attacks—became accepted as fact.

By the 1970s, the U.S. government, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society and others, hoping to slow the rise in chronic diseases, began a massive campaign to convince the public to stop eating fatty foods. This is why doctors told us to stop eating ghee.

And we listened to them. Americans at large were dropping high-fat foods and buying anything that had a “low fat” label. According to the U.S.D.A., the average American now eats less dietary fat than he did in 1965. During the same period, the average American ate more refined grains, a source of easily digestible carbs (“bad” carbs). Guess what also went up during that time? The percentage of Americans (including Indian Americans) with obesity and diabetes. Also, the percentage of people with coronary disease and heart attacks stayed the same, even though experts predicted they would fall as people were eating more low-fat foods.

The experts were wrong. But it wasn’t until the early 2000s that they began to change their tune. Prominent researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health wrote in a widely read 2001 review published in the Journal of

54 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

the American College of Nutrition: “It is now increasingly recognized that the low-fat campaign has been based on little scientific evidence and may have caused unintended health consequences.” And in 2010, researchers from Boston and Oakland concluded that “there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of (coronary heart disease or cardiovascular disease like strokes).” In other words, the previous experts were wrong to say low-fat foods were better for our hearts, and saying so may have caused more harm than good.

Newer evidence shows that eating bad carbs (which is what people did as they began eating low-fat foods) have been behind the increasing numbers of people with obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. A 2008 New England Journal of Medicine study showed people on low-carb diets (which have the most fat, including saturated fat) actually had the best blood cholesterol levels. In contrast, people with the worst blood cholesterol levels were those on a low-fat (and high, bad carb) diet. This is the opposite of what earlier experts would have predicted.

Yet, despite the new evidence linking bad carbs (not fats) to bad health, scientists at food companies continue to take out dietary fats and add processed carbs such as high

fructose corn syrup and plain white sugar.

The companies then slap the label “low fat” on and sell them in droves.

Companies catering to Indian Americans are doing the same, using oils that are sometimes harmful, namely hydrogenated vegetable oils that contain trans fats (which are banned in New York and San Francisco because studies show they promotes heart disease), instead of ghee or butter.

It is important that the South Asian community understands how the things we eat influence our health because those of us in the West have among the highest rates of heart disease and diabetes.n Patel’s second part to this article, which will run in the February issue, will discuss ghee’s potential benefits when we eat it in moderation.

Niraj “Raj” Patel, M.D. is the author of The Healthy Indian Diet, which explains why modern diets are bad, and how traditional Indian diets are good. It contains recipes by Anuja Balasubramanian and Hetal Jannu of ShowMeTheCurry.com. The book is available on Amazon in paperback and all major e-readers including the Apple iPad. Read Patel’s blog: www.HealthyIndianDiet.com.

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travel

Shivam Khullar

Tour De Paris I

New York—Cartier, Louis Vuitton, Swarovski, Gucci, and Chanel, all lined up in a row. The only difference is that this historic street is capped at one end by the Arc de Triomphe and at the other by the Place de la Concorde—which leads on into the Jardin des Tuileries and then goes further on to the Louvre. The view from the center of the street is grand (beware of the traffic though!).

Unlike New York, Paris is not at all intimidating. After exploring the Arc de Triomphe from every possible angle, we wandered along one of the streets around the Arc called Avenue de Victor Hugo, a y husband and I visited charming street with a fine canStreets of Paris Paris in June last sumopy of trees, fancy cars, mer. Summers in France are mostly sunny designer and pleasant, with occasional rain. Carry a boutiques, waterproof jacket no matter when you are and upgoing to Paris. Although we did not do a lot scale dinof planning in advance for this trip, the Froming opmer’s Guide to Paris was quite helpful. We tions.

Far exhausted the list of the top attractions in the away from guidebook during our visit, yet there was still the crowds a lot to be discovered and experienced. of Champs We stayed at the Marriott in Champs Elysees, we Elysees simply because that was one of the were now hotels I could book using reward points. The among the experience was similar to that of the Marriott Arc de Triomphe locals. Pangs at Times Square in New York—always crowdof hunger made us retrace our steps ed and buzzing with energy. Even at 2 a.m. and we started our hunt for food. We walked you can hear live bands playing on the streets, by a couple of restaurants, trying to look for young Parisians partying in the open, and ressomething light on the stomach and the pocktaurants packed with tourists. If I hadn’t had et and finally came across a little café that the reward points, had just what we were looking for—French though, I’d rather onion soup and light sandwich on a baguette. stay somewhere in Napoleon’s tomb Service is poor in Paris. So be prepared for the Latin Quarters extended dinners and rude waiters. or Montmartre to It was time to wrap up our first day in the get a better sense and merge into the sea city of lights. Paris had already impressed me of real French culof tourists. We were surwith its energy. ture. prised to find out that in the summers the sun he next morning we decided to walk to erhaps it is sets at 11 p.m. in Paris. the Louvre. On the way, we admired the the child in series of historical monuments—the Grand me that is never he first evening in and Petit Palais (grand and small palaces), jet lagged when I Paris was spent walkPlace de la Concorde, and the beautiful Jardin am vacationing. ing up and down one of The Louvre pyramid at night des Tuileries (Tuileries Garden). This is one We checked in the most famous street of Paris’ most visited gardens thanks to its at the hotel and relaxed for a in the world—the Avenue central location between the Louvre and Place couple of hours, but the energy on the street des Champs-Élysées. To be honest, it was no de la Concorde. There are several ice cream was too tempting and we decided to step out different than walking down Fifth Avenue in

fell in love with Paris at first sight. While walking on the cobbled streets of Paris, I came across high end fashion stores, quaint old bookshops, charming cathedrals, architectural splendors, lush green gardens, cafes full of patrons, and brasseries oozing with class and style. The French spend their weekends lounging in the gardens by the fountains, or partying in the open on the quays of the Seine. The Parisian free spirit is something to envy.

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56 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

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parlors and cafés on the way to keep you entertained. Paris also has a well-connected metro system.

The Louvre has been around since the 12th century and has served as a residence for François I and, later, the magnificent palace of the Sun King, Louis XIV. It was transformed into a museum in 1793. Today, the Louvre houses one of the greatest art collections ever. Some of its notable attractions are, of course, the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. There is a wall right outside the hall that houses the Mona Lisa which carries all of Leonardo Da Vinci’s oeuvre in a row. It was tough to move away. We spent over six hours at the Louvre and felt that was not enough.

There were certain sections that we simply scanned because there was too much to see and too little time. If you are an artist or a connoisseur of art, make sure you keep a day aside just for the Louvre.

As we came out of the Louvre, we were now walking alongside the Seine. The quays of the Seine are like the ghats of the Ganges.

You can see a lot of Paris by simply walking along the river.

Our next destination was a bridge that has captured the interest of photographers through the ages—Pont Neuf. From the bridge, the view down the river is perhaps the most memorable in Paris. The bridge looked even better at night, when its detailed architecture was illuminated. Paris is divided into two by the river Seine. Perhaps the difference is more subtle now but, once, it must have been easy to distinguish between the Paris of

the rich and the Paris of the common people.

We crossed the bridge and started walking toward our next destination—the Cathédrale de Notre-Dame.

The intricate sculptures on the doors of Notre Dame are splendid. I stood at the door of the church where Napoleon was crowned king and looked at the stories depicted in the carvings. Notre Dame is a masterpiece of Gothic architecture.

Right across the river from the Notre Dame is a small bookshop, “Shakespeare and Company,” that featured in the movie Before Sunset. It is a quaint store with a collection of books from around the world that attracts tourists and locals alike. As I walked outside the shop, the night slowly unfolded, and Notre Dame appeared even more appealing under the full moon.

Before we called it a night, we decided to go back and capture the glass pyramid of the Louvre. It was a wise call. The palace that attracts millions of visitors during the day stood there alone and quiet. There were other amateur photographers like us, who were busy adjusting their lenses and camera settings to capture the reflections of the pyramid in the pool that surrounds it.

T

he next day we decided to head to Versailles for a day trip to explore the famous Palace of Versailles. Although the palace was quite magnificent, I was left unimpressed by the experience. It might be because it was a rainy day and the lines for tickets were four hours long.

Jardin De Tuileries

A

City of lights

fter returning to Paris we visited the Musée MarmottanMonet and enjoyed the relaxed surroundings of a private residential museum.

The next morning was reserved for exploring the Montmartre district. Frommers has a very nice walking tour for this neighborhood that I highly recommend. The tour captures the Basilique du Sacré-Coeur, Moulin Rouge, and the cemeteries of Montmartre where Ogden Nash

Notre Dame at night

and many other eminent figures are buried.

The 180 euro ticket to the Moulin Rouge seemed a bit extravagant, so we decided to explore the neighborhood and enjoy some fish and chips and chilled beer as we inhaled the culture and spirit of the area. The second half of the day we spent at the Eiffel Tower.

As clichéd as it sounds, it was an amazing experience. The best part of our evening was the wait for the flashing lights to turn on.

Every night, 20,000 flash bulbs give the tower a jewel-like appearance.

Left on our list of “must visit” museums was the Musée d’Orsay. This museum is much smaller than the Louvre, but it is packed with art. Do take out time for a cup of coffee at the Café D’Orsay and take in the splendor of this old railway station, now made into a world class museum. We also visited Napoleon’s Tomb at the Hôtel des Invalides. The grandeur and ornate art work here is marvelous. There was a food cart right outside the Tomb on our way to the metro station. The vendor spoke fluent Hindi and was a fan of Raj Kapoor!

Some of the other lesser known attractions we covered were Saint-Sulpice, the second largest church in Paris (featured in the movie Da Vinci Code), Le Pure Café (also from the movie Before Sunset), Jardin du Luxembourg—a beautiful park near the Sorbonne University, La Défense—the new and modern side of Paris, the Pantheon, Pont Alexandre III—a beautiful ornate bridge that india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 57

connects the left bank and the right bank, and Saint-Germain-des-Prés—a church that dates back to the 6th century.

On our final day in Paris, I opted for a massage while my husband visited the catacombs, an underground ossuary that is believed to hold the remains of 6 million people. We shopped in the evening and packed our bags for another vacation—we were off to India next. Delhi did a fair enough job. But the heart still yearns for Paris. n Shivam Khullar is a management consultant who frequently writes about the world around her. She is passionate about travel, photography, and cooking.

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recipes

Illustration: Serena Sacharoff

IC

Shanta Nimbark Sacharoff

Leafy Greens For Winter

W

inter months can be very chilly in the San Francisco Bay Area, despite the promise of balmy Californian weather.

It’s time to prepare substantial meals that contain protein and complex carbohydrates to keep our bodies warm, and plenty of leafy greens to provide nutrition and prevent viral diseases.

Dark leafy greens are among the most nutritionally concentrated plants; they are even more nutritious than so-called “mega vegetables” such as broccoli. Leafy greens are rich in protein, calcium, potassium, iron, and vitamins A, B, C and K that protect the body against disorders such as diabetes, vision impairment, calcium loss, and cardiovascular disease.

Concentrated greens such as wheat grass juice and green algae can be added to our diet as supplements to defend the body against cell damage, and to reduce the risk of cancer.

Indian restaurants in the United States usually serve only spinach and, occasionally, mustard greens. However, back home, many kinds

Quick and Easy Stir-Fried Leafy Greens (Makes 6 servings)

3 cups each collard greens, spinach leaves, and Swiss chard leaves (or a simi- lar combination) 2 to 3 tablespoons peanut, corn, or olive oil 4 to 6 cloves of garlic, minced ½ teaspoon cumin seeds Juice of 1 lemon or lime Salt and cayenne pepper to taste Remove all thick stems and any roots.

Keeping the various kinds of greens separate, soak them separately in large bowls of water to remove dirt. Soaking before chopping allows the dirt to settle to the bottom of the bowl, and keeps the nutritional value intact.

Drain the leaves thoroughly and, using a knife with a wide blade, chop them coarsely and set them aside. Heat oil in a frying pan over a moderate flame. Add garlic and cumin seeds. Saute for two minutes, then add the collard greens. Cover and cook for a few minutes until the greens begin to soften. Then add the spinach and chard together. Stir-fry the mixture for a few more minutes. When the greens are tender, add the lemon or lime juice, salt, and pepper.

The whole process should take no more than 10 minutes. Leafy greens cook very fast, and over-cooking can reduce their flavor and nutritional value. Serve with rice or bread.

Muthia with Three Greens

(Makes 6 to 8 servings) Like falafel or meatballs, muthias can be made of a variety of ingredients, including leftover rice and/or vegetables. In fact, Gujaratis may have invented muthia to use up leftovers. The word “muthia” literally means

of leafy greens are found fresh daily in the markets and cooked the same day for maximum nutrition. In addition to green spinach one might easily find spinach with a purple tint (amaranth greens), spicy mooli (radish) greens, bitter methi (fenugreek) leaves, thick bhindi (okra) leaves and large patra (taro root) leaves, to list but a few. Many of these vegetables are not easy to find in California, but locally grown dark leafy greens such as kale, chard, mustard, collards, and watercress can easily replace them in familiar recipes.

Leafy greens can be stir-fried, steamed, or incorporated into soups, breads, and fritters. All kinds of young greens can be consumed raw in salads or added to health-promoting smoothies. Here are two recipes using easy-to-find greens that will provide a nutritional boost for your family. n Shanta Nimbark Sacharoff, author of Flavors of India: Vegetarian Indian Cuisine, lives in San Francisco, where she is a manager and co-owner of Other Avenues, a health-food store.

“fistful;” they can be shaped into patties or logs before frying or steaming. In this recipe they are shaped into logs and fried until crispy golden. Fried muthias can be served as appetizers or cooked in a spicy tomato sauce for a colorful entrée.

For Muthias: 1 cup garbanzo flour (besan) 1 teaspoon baking powder cup corn meal ½ teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon cumin seeds 1 teaspoon powdered coriander 1 jalapeno pepper, minced after

removing seeds and core, or teaspoon cayenne pepper 3 to 4 cloves garlic, minced ¼ cup chopped cilantro Juice of 1 lime or lemon 1½ cups to 2 cups cooked brown or white rice (leftover brown rice works the best) 1 cup each washed, drained and finely chopped spinach, curly kale, and water- cress 1 cup or less safflower, peanut, or corn oil for deep frying For the sauce: 1 cup finely chopped onion 4 cups fresh or canned chopped

tomatoes with juice 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon garam masala Cayenne pepper to taste If you do not have leftover rice, first make the rice. Be sure the cooked rice is completely cooled by spreading it in a thali or on a platter.

Rinse and drain the greens thoroughly before chopping.

Sift the garbanzo flour with the baking

soda into a mixing bowl. Add the cornmeal, salt and the spices and mix well. Mix in the cilantro and lemon juice. Then add the rice and the chopped greens using as much as needed to make a mixture that can easily be pressed into patties or logs using the palms of your hands.

Sprinkle some garbanzo flour on the surface of a cutting board. Take a handful of the muthia mixture and roll it in the flour to form a log that is about 4” long and 1” in diameter. Finish making all the logs and set them aside. You will have about a dozen rolls.

Heat a cup of oil in a sauce pan and fry the muthias three at a time, turning until they turn crisp and golden on all sides. Remove them with a slotted spoon and set them on paper towels. The fried muthias can be served hot with chutney as appetizers. Or turn them into a main dish with the tomato sauce as described below.

Prepare the sauce as follows: Fry the onion in a saucepan until soft. Add the tomatoes, salt, and spices. Cook the sauce for 20 minutes, stirring to break up any lumps.

Cut the muthias into halves to make two rolls out of each log. The muthias can then be cooked in the tomato sauce either on the stove top, or in an oven preheated at 350° F. To cook them on stove top, pour half the tomato sauce in a pot with a lid. Arrange the muthias in the pot and pour the rest of the sauce on top. Cook covered for about 15 minutes over a low to medium heat. Check to see that they do not stick to the bottom.

To bake, pour half of the sauce in a casserole dish or a pan with a cover. Arrange the muthia pieces on top of the sauce in a single layer.

Pour the other half of the sauce over them, cover the pan, and bake for 20 minutes.

Serve the muthias hot with rice and/or flat bread. india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 59

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I C relationship diva

Jasbina Ahluwalia

Matrimonial Prospects for the Thirty-Something Q

I am a 37-year-old Indian woman who's still single (needless to say, my parents are not happy with this situation). I would very much like to find a partner. I'm wondering why it seems so incredibly hard to find someone these days. While many of my friends are now married, I do have several friends in the same boat. Any suggestions?

A

Let me reassure you—you and your unmarried friends are, most definitely, not the only ones finding yourselves in this situation.

Unfortunately, there is, in fact, a disparity in the numbers of single men and women in your age group in the country at this time. According to the 2010 census, there are around 32 million single women in the United States who are 35 and over; whereas, there are only around 22 million single men in the same age category. This disparity in men’s favor is further compounded by the tendency of some men to prefer marrying younger women.

While this disparity is not within your control, it's empowering to realize that both your mindset and level of flexibility are.

I'd like to share three common pitfalls, regarding mindset and flexibility, to avoid.

Ask yourself: • Do you happen to have a mile-long checklist of expectations with respect to your prospective partner?

• Do you have a tendency to rule guys out rather than in?

• Are you beginning to believe that there are just no good men left?

We experience life through our beliefs.

What we believe affects what we experience.

Our subconscious mind doesn’t like inconsistencies between our beliefs and our reality, so it will actively seek out confirmatory evidence to affirm the beliefs we hold.

So, for example, if one of your beliefs is that there are just no good men left, your

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“Travel Specialists to the Indian Subcontinent”

subconscious will get to work finding flaws in the men you meet to prove you right.

This belief then ends up limiting your chances of finding a good man.

That is why it can be so incredibly empowering to get out of your own way. How? One of the best ways to do so is to invest concerted efforts into first identifying and then eliminating any limiting beliefs.

Empowered women are attractive to men, regardless of age, and it's never too late to find love.

Best wishes!n Jasbina is the founder and president of Intersections Match, the only personalized matchmaking and dating coaching firm serving singles of South Asian descent in the United States. She is also the host of Intersections Talk Radio, a monthly lifestyle show featuring conversations with published authors/experts on relationships, health and wellness. www.IntersectionsMatch.com.Jasbina@intersectionsmatch.com.

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india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 61

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uncubed

Krishna M. Sadasivam is the cartoonist behind UNcubed, a weekly online auto-bio comic, focusing on life as an Indian guy in the United States.

When he’s not creating comics or working as a freelance illustrator, Krishna teaches full-time in the Media Arts and Animation department of the Art Institute of Tampa in Florida. See more of his work at http://www.uncubedthecomic.com/

62 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

I C dear doctor

Alzak Amlani

Not in the Model Minority Q

I am a low-income, working-class Indian now living in California. I do not fit the model-minority picture of the upwardly mobile, educated, or business-savvy South Asian immigrant. Unfortunately, I have discovered that Indians can be pretty class-oriented and quick to categorize and judge based on income and education. In fact, their lifestyle starts looking quite shallow and materialistic. I find it hard to be a part of the community with these attitudes and values.

A

In the last few years I have received a few emails from the South Asian community sharing similar perceptions and viewpoints.

It’s important for those who don’t fit the stereotype to speak up, although, when you are not part of the dominant group with some of the privileges of higher education and income, it is harder to voice your opinion. You simply don’t feel as entitled and can be more afraid of ridicule and being discounted. I am sure this makes you angry. Caste and class have been a part of most cultures for centu-

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ries and do not dissolve from our psyches and societies so quickly. They have only recently been challenged as we try to move into more egalitarian values and social structures.

I wonder if the immigrants who come to the United States to seek more opportunity have a particular drive for material success.

Is this narrow group of Indian Americans defined by these values that keep them comparing and judging by the standards of outer success?

I find that those who have been materially successful are finding their lives devoid of deep meaning, and find little time to enjoy things. The shell of outer success doesn’t satisfy deeper needs and fulfillment. More families are recognizing this, often through painful ways. Some Indians who have lived in the States for many years are returning to India because they want to be close to family, their traditions, and have their children learn about their heritage by living in it more fully.

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they have been here awhile, or were born in the States, are more oriented toward deeper values and interests. They are seeking a connection to their roots and are looking at what is it to be an Indian in the West. Obviously there is no one definition; however, the fact that this question is being consciously asked, in and of itself reveals an interest in claiming their Indian heritage while being American.

Look for that connection in Indian philosophy, arts, and music, that carry much richness. There are venues in the SF Bay Area that are often affordable and quite accessible.

Americans are also sponsoring events and speakers who represent the more authentic and deeper aspects of the Indian culture and are speaking about the social challenges present. Seek out those who share your cultural leanings, regardless of where they are from.n Alzak Amlani, Ph.D., is a counseling psychologist in the Bay Area. 650-325-8393. Visit www. wholenesstherapy.com.

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india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12 • 63

IC

the last word

Sarita Sarvate

Naipaul Was Right E very time I come to India, I cannot help but think of V.S. Naipaul. Particularly when I tour the country, as I am doing now.

I am always prepared for the traffic, the noise, the pollution, and the airborne viruses in my native country. I can even tolerate the mosquitoes, the hard beds, the lack of privacy, and the religious fanaticism. But I am never ready for the filthy toilets. I cannot fathom why one of the most fundamental human needs is so very difficult to fulfill in India. Why a country that is obsessed with food cannot deal with its end products.

Mahatma Gandhi observed that Indians thought it was unclean to clean.

I think that was an understatement. Gandhi made a point of cleaning his own toilet but few Indians do that. In fact, Indians abhor going to the toilet. Therefore, they pay no attention to where they go or how they go. If, when desperate, they are forced to approach the facilities, they get into a trance that enables them not to notice the piles of human excrement in the stalls, or the lack of water or soap or cleanliness. They never see the rivers of urine flowing around them. Women draped in expensive saris and laden with kilos of gold screw up their faces, put their chiffons or silks to their noses, and after floating over urine and feces like swans floating on the surface of a pond, emerge out of the facilities smelling like roses.

How do they do it?

I, on the other hand, begin to fear that I have returned to my childhood. I am stuck in a nightmare in which I am running down a cobblestone alley covered in raw sewage, my sandaled toes barely missing the excrement, my feet crawling through the sludge.

As a child, I saw this daily. Even as a youngster of 5 or 6, I was conscious of the deprived lives of the children around me. Walking down the street, I used to see toddlers defecating by the roadside as they squabbled, and giggled, and threw rocks at one another, and I used to wonder, how did they do it? I, for one, could not.

I was hoping that things had changed. That now that India was such an economic powerhouse, it had figured out the most basic process of getting rid of human waste.

I was wrong.

Delhi was admittedly an improvement but, once I arrived in Pune, the situation seemed to deteriorate rapidly. Watching a play in the famous Balgandharva Ranga Mandir, it turned out, was hazardous to my health, for while the production was exquisite, the auditorium was barely inhabitable, and the bathrooms were designed to be used as a set for narak, the Hindu hell.

Alas, during a three-hour production, it was impossible to survive without using the ladies’ bathroom. One stall had piles of excrement, I discovered, another was flooded with urine and human waste. Of the other two barely usable stalls, one was a Western-style commode without a seat, the other was Indian style. Since Indian toilets NEVER have any toilet paper, and because it is impossible to use toilet paper with Indian toilets in any case—because of their inability to flush it—one had to

I am prepared for the traffic, the noise, the pollution, and the airborne viruses in my native country. But I am never ready for the filthy toilets.

64 • india currents • dec. ’11 – jan. ’12

wash oneself with one’s hand—only if the water was running of course. The problem was that the sinks outside were piled with God only knew what. And needless to say, there was no water in the taps or soap by the sink. Not even a bottle of hand sanitizer was available.

If this was the situation in a location that is supposedly the pinnacle of Pune’s intellectual snobbery, you can just envision the conditions in its bus depot or its railway station. I had the misfortune of witnessing them 25 years ago while traveling with my British husband. Nothing has changed in the intervening quarter century, I am told.

If this is the situation in one of India’s high-tech, educational and cultural centers, what are other towns and cities like, I wonder.

To say that I am disgusted with Indians’ disregard for hygiene would be an understatement. I am outraged. I am hysterical with disbelief. I am appalled. I want to puke. I want to go to the mayor of Pune and tell him that he should be fired.

When I complained to my friend about the conditions at the theater, she informed me that it is run by the Pune Corporation and therefore impossible to change. Being an activist, she has already tried. She has given interviews to newspapers. She is a BJP official, and she has talked to politicians. But the country’s apathy is so monumental, it is impossible to effect change.

So once again, I am left musing, why is it that even countries such as Guatemala, Bolivia, Thailand, and Indonesia have spotless toilets? Why is it that as a society, they can work together, but we cannot? Why is it that they can organize things but we prefer to live in chaos?

While traveling to Ajanta and Ellora, my cousin mentioned that many Hindus prefer not to visit a temple after going to the toilet. Indian toilets are so pathetic, I wanted to respond, that after visiting them, one is unable to contemplate a temple, or a meal, or, for that matter, life itself.

No wonder diseases such as amoebic dysentery and hepatitis are so common in India.

V.S. Naipaul was right when he labeled India an area of darkness. And the situation is only getting worse.

Of course Indians find easy excuses for their filth. Population is a popular culprit these days. Corruption is another excuse.

Lack of money is also given as a reason.

But the real causes of India’s filth are much more endemic to its religion and culture. Brahmins traditionally used bhangis—the untouchable toilet cleaners—to do their dirty work. They never once touched a toilet themselves. And they still don’t.

Predictably, the people who traditionally performed such manual tasks felt so resentful that they purposefully left the waste behind. They still do.

Can you blame them?

How can we change things? Perhaps by starting a movement called “Let’s Hug the Toilets,” or something along those lines?

A movement in which every day, battalions of citizens approach public toilets and perform seva, or service, until they are so clean, you can eat out of them.

Only then can India be called a civilized society. Or even a civilization. Until then India is a desert filled with human waste, a land of cancer, a blight on the human race. n Sarita Sarvate writes commentaries for Pacific News Service and KQED. Visit www.saritasarvate.com

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