October 2012 Southern California Edition

Nirvana in my Tequila

The Hidden Epidemic

Delectable Darjeeling

IndiaCurrents Celebrating 26 Years of Excellence Celebrating 26 Years of Excellence Celebrating 26 Years of Celebrating 26 25 Years of Excellence Excellence

A Clear Choice?

Faced with a sluggish economy and a changing global landscape, are you going to vote?

Featured

A snapshot of Indian Americans standing for elections

october 2012 • vol. 26 , no .7 • wwwindia . currents.com

Under the Guise of Art IC Celebrates 25 years facebook.com/IndiaCurrents twitter.com/IndiaCurrents 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 Marketing Associate: Raj Singh marketing@indiacurrents.com (408) 324-0488 x221 Graphic Designer: Nghia Vuong EDITORIAL BOARD Managing Editor: Jaya Padmanabhan editor@indiacurrents.com (408) 324-0488 x 226 Events Editor: Mona Shah events@indiacurrents.com (408) 324-0488 x 224

With the assault on American interests in the Middle East and North Africa and the murder of American citizens in Libya, provoked, professedly, by a condemnable anti-Muslim video, I feel it is important to differentiate between a creative body of work and one masquerading under the guise of art.

I believe that a great book cannot be written, a reflective movie made, a thoughtprovoking video created, a beautiful picture painted or any other illuminative creative process attempted without taking into account the mind, emotions, feelings and reactions of the people we are expressing for and about. It has to be more than a preoccupation with a personal agenda. Artistic expression is not merely a subjective experience.

Creativity must own the responsibility to advance a truth.

Compelling instances of great creativity occur when the search for the truth forms the body of the composition. The tension and demands of the pursuit often drive such artists into obsession that some would term, “madness” or “eccentricity.” Think Sylvia Plath, Vincent Van Gogh, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Ernest Hemingway and, in recent times, Steve Jobs.

The truth that they expressed had the genius of madness.

But very few artists are creative geniuses.

Most lay claim to a small measure of talent; a great many strive for the discipline of rigor and routine; some are passionate about the pursuit; and a small few minister to their own avaricethe goal being notoriety.

The video, “The Innocence of Muslims,” fails to qualify as artistic expression under any definition of the term. There was little thought, truth or temperance in the work. It was an exercise in dissimulation. The innocuous title was apparently to draw more unsuspecting Muslim viewers.

Sam Bacile’s anti-Islam film perpetrated a great deceit and its objective was to cultivate distress.

So, if it was not art, was he merely exercising his fundamental right to free speech?

In the United States the First Amendment enshrines and protects freedom of thought and expression. Except when it employs falsehoods to harm others, or speeches that incite lawlessness. The video was offensive and did cause numerous deaths.

We must understand that our freedom to express freely is a privilege and comes at a price.

The price of responsibility.

Jaya Padmanabhan

COLUMNISTS Dear Doctor: Alzak Amlani Films: Aniruddh Chawda Forum: Rameysh Ramdas On Inglish: Kalpana Mohan The Last Word: Sarita Sarvate Zeitgeist: Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan Uncubed: Krishna Sadasivam Contributors: Jasbina Ahluwalia, Priya Alagiri, Dilnavaz Bamboat, Kavita Kanan Chandra, Raywat Deonandan, Anita Felicelli, Jeanne Fredriksen, Ophira Ginsburg, Madhumita Gupta, Vijay Gupta, Satya Kalra, Rishi Kumar, Octavio Martinez, Nikesh Murali, Rajesh Oza, Vidya Pradhan, Purba Ray, Teed Rockwell, Shanta Sacharoff, Mani Subramani, V.V. Sundaram 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 © 2012 by India Currents All rights reserved.

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india currents • october 2012 • 1

Southern California Edition

A Clear Choice Despite polls and predictions, is there a candidate who will preserve the values we gave up home and hearth for?

By Vidya Pradhan Also: A snapshot of state level Indian American contenders

By Rishi Kumar

10

FILMS

PERSPECTIVES A Review of Ek Tha Tiger and Cocktail

1

EDITORIAL: Under the Guise of Art. By Jaya Padmanabhan

6

FORUM: Is Romney’s Business Experience a Boon or Bane?

By Rameysh Ramdas and Mani Subramani

7

ZEITGEIST: On the American Story. By Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan

8

OPINION: Embracing Freedom. By Dilnavaz Bamboat

16

DESI VOICE: In Memory of Lakshmi. By V.V. Sundaram

34

COMMENTARY: Parody or Comedy? By Anita Felicelli

44

PERSPECTIVE: The Tyranny of Beauty. By Purba Ray

60

ON INGLISH: Nirvana in my Tequila. By Kalpana Mohan

64

THE LAST WORD BY SARITA SARVATE: Obama Is Our Only Option

By Aniruddh Chawda, Madhumita Gupta

30 FEATURE The Hidden Epidemic—Breast Cancer

By Ophira Ginsburg, Raywat Deonandan

18 TRAVEL

LIFESTYLE 28

RELATIONSHIP DIVA: Finding the Connection.

By Jasbina Ahluwalia

42

YOUTH: I Just Gave You the World. By Octavio Martinez

52

REFLECTIONS: What Does Goddess Durga Symbolize?

By Satya Kalra

54

HEALTHY LIFE: The Case Against Cancer Screening.

By Vijay Gupta

58

RECIPES: The Bounty of Winter Squash.

By Shanta Nimbark Sacharoff

63

DEAR DOCTOR: Renewing, Re-energizing and Re-fueling.

By Alzak Amlani

Delectable Darjeeling

By Kavita Kanan Chandra

56 GOOD READS 22 BOOKS: Review of The Beautiful and the Damned and Aerogrammes and other Stories By Rajesh C. Oza, Jeanne E. Fredriksen 36

FICTION: Commonwealth Games By Nikesh Murali

DEPARTMENTS 4 Voices 5 Popular Articles 2 • india currents • october 2012

WHAT’S CURRENT 26 Ask a Lawyer 27 Visa Dates

62 Uncubed 59 Classifieds

46 Cultural Calendar 53 Spiritual Calendar

india currents • october 2012 • 3

IC

voices

An Emotional Hook

I definitely agree with Sarita Sarvate’s views on NBC’s lack of coverage on the 2012 London Olympics (India Currents, September 2012, Last Word by Sarita Sarvate—NBC, Shut the **** Up). However, I do not agree with her claim that NBC puts the Women’s Beach Volleyball team on only to “titillate the male viewers.” I believe that many people, like me, watched those games to witness the amazing victory of the 3-time winners Kerri Walsh Jennings and Misty May-Treanor. This was a huge acheivement for both these players and the United States, and it simply cannot be demoted to a game with “no emotional hook.”

Shri Kalaichelvan, Diamond Bar, CA

An Awkward Portrait

I refer to Suchi Sargam’s interview with Boman Irani (India Currents, September 2012, The Leading Funny Man). The movie Shirin Farhad ki Toh Nikal Padi is a low budget, light comedy shot entirely in the Parsi areas of Mumbai. The cast is composed mainly of Parsi actors and rests on the premise of portraying the eccentricities of the Parsi community. Other than for a few scenes, one in particular, involving Boman Irani and women’s lingerie and the other where an old Parsi gentleman is unable to fart, there is little to amuse the audience. As the movie has little Hindi and more English and Parsi, I doubt it will be a box office hit in India except in Mumbai. What a waste, despite excellent acting by Boman Irani and other actors.

Des Khurana, Anaheim, CA

Where Have All the Indian Dreamers Gone?

Interesting and eye catching article title on India’s performance at this year’s London Olympics, by Rajesh Oza (India Currents, September 2012, A Long Way Up Mount Olympus).

While I wholeheartedly applaud the achievements of the Indian medalists, I could not help but feel that Oza’s analysis skirted around the key issue; that Indians continue steadfastly to emphasize the “A” in Academics rather than Athletics. That might be understandable given the cut-throat state of academic competition in India, where anything above 98% is only considered a semi-success.

But it’s also noticeable in Indian social circles here in the United States; at parties, functions, gatherings and the like, where the conversation invariably turns to salaries, house prices, interest rates, H1-B conversion rates, 4 • india currents • october 2012

school district GPA averages, and a dozen other “predictable” metrics. Of course these are important metrics as we chase our own “American dream.” But there is more to the “dream” than just practical monetary success.

A big part of dreaming is breaking away from expected and anticipated norms in life. It’s the stuff that our kids think about in secret.

Indian kids are certainly not dissimilar to their Western counterparts; at a young age they all aspire to become train drivers, cricketers, Bollywood actors, and rockstars.

But somewhere down the line they’re pulled into line by parents who have been fed on a diet that considers a Bachelors degree in the Arts a waste of time, let alone the pursuit of a sport that the child shows early interest and promise in. Sporting activities are generally sprinkled like conciliatory salt between an extra-curricular agenda of math, reading and science (the Kumon way).

To become a professional, or Olympic, athlete requires as much dedication and sacrifice as the pursuit of a career in medicine, finance, technology or law. But above all it requires, and demands, that parents allow their kids to pursue their “true” dreams; rather than the blind adherence to stereotypical expectations.

Think! How many Indian parents may have scoffed at the notion of their child pursuing a career as a tennis player? How many first generation Indian parents have actually appreciated the sheer delight and self-satisfaction of Michael Phelps, and other gold, silver or bronze medalists, on the podium in London? I, for one, would be equally, if not more, proud of my daughter’s achievement if she were to stand on the podium in Rio in 2016 as compared to standing on stage with the graduating class at Stanford.

Until we Indian parents change our ingrained mentality, and let our kids pursue, their true dreams—in academics and athletics—the best that we, as a nation of 1.3 billion souls, should expect to achieve at any Olympic games is two silvers and two bronzes.

Madan Sheina, Dublin, CA

Punditry Re-defined

At least, the priests that the author, Kalpana Mohan, alludes to (India Currents, September 2012, Mind it, Pundit) are not sexually repressed beings who have a record of molesting children and adults alike. Let us remember that Hindu priests have families to support at today’s cost of living. Also, in government owned temples in India, the priests salary is very low. The money that is put into the hundi in government temples go to the government.

It means that the hundi is yet another public kitty for politicians to loot from instead of using it for temple maintenance, priests salary, etc. The author may perhaps do research on this before writing such a scathing generaliza-

tion. The trickle down benefit of having such political worthies entrusted with the task of looking after public interests is people in all walks of life including the priestly class start thinking how to make some more money on the side. If Pundits are bandits than what do you call the people who are involved in scams (Coalgate, 2G, Thorium stealing, 2010 Commonwealth Games) through which India’s national wealth has been looted to support the extremely lavish lifestyle of some Indian politicians not to mention the money ferreted away to Swiss banks?

Sumitra, online We must infact marvel at the ingenuity of today’s pundits who have learnt to skillfully dovetail spiritualism with materialism in a practical albeit hypocritical way. After all punditry is a profession like any other. Commercially practised, it is no different from any other profession or business. You will find all the same characteristics in every business or profession. The pundits survive because they too have a large number of customers and the demand is only growing. In Chennai, I know of several people who have quit well paying jobs to start their own punditry practice, which gives them freedom and control over their lives with plenty of compensation and no retirement. Punditry has infact attained the status of Doctors and Consultants in terms of the respect their service attracts, with an ever increasing number of religiousignoramuses in the society. Most commercial transactions, at least in India, are grey areas and are shrouded in hypocrisy. It would not be wrong to say that the pundits will also come within the income-tax radar if they begin to zip around in expensive cars.

Ranga, online

Done with War

In response to the editorial by Jaya Padmanabhan, (India Currents, September 2012, The Hero in Us), I am not against having guns or rifles, but these weapons are used by soldiers for purposes of war, which I hope that the United States is really done with by 2014—done with fighting wars all over the world.

Linda Lou Kestin, CA

SPEAK YOUR MIND!

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

India Currents is now available on the Kindle Go to amazon.com and search for India Currents

Follow us at twitter.com/indiacurrents Like us facebook.com/India Currents Most Popular Articles Online September 2012: 1) Mind it, Pundit. Kalpana Mohan 2) We Are Also American. Jessi Kaur, Preeti Sharma 3) The Courtly Pulao. Malar Gandhi 4) The Hero in Us. Jaya Padmanabhan 5) NBC, Shut the **** Up. Sarita Sarvate 6) Paru Mami’s Dignity. V.V. Sundaram 7) Nerve Endings. Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan 8) Who Owns Bhangra. Teed Rockwell 9) What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up? Simran Devidasani 10) A Long Way Up Mount Olympus. Rajesh C. Oza

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india currents • october 2012 • 5

IC

forum

Is Romney’s Business Experience a Boon or Bane?

Rameysh Ramdas

Mani Subramani

Yes, Romney’s resume qualifies him to lead the nation.

No, it won’t help him solve America’s problems.

O

R

omney’s goal as head of Bain Capital was to generate a profit. ur nation’s founders in their infinite wisdom articulated the Government, by definition, is a not for profit entity. This makes job description of a President in Article II, Sections 2 and 3 of Romney’s experience uniquely unsuited to government. the Constitution—simply put, he (and someday, hopefully a The head of this nation should be someone who is able to take she) is the Head of the executive branch of the Government and the risks, make quick decisions and keep this country’s edge, fiscally and Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces. The primary responsibility intellectually. of a President, as the head of the administration, is to lay out a vision When examining Romney’s business experience, it is clear that he and propose policy and budget proposals, market them to the public is risk-averse. Consider that venture capital and private equity firms using the “bully pulpit” and use their earned support as a leverage to both invest in companies. Private equity firms buy mature companies lobby Congress to pass legislation, besides hiring the right talent to and venture firms fund new, early stage and pre-revenue generating run the administration efficiently and effectively within budget, and companies, which is a high risk proposition. According to a report from to report on the “State of the Union” to Congress.

The Wall Street Journal, three out of four startups fail. The potential In short, the President is the CEO of America Inc. with the for failure in private equity investments is virtually next to nothing. It Congress akin to the Board of Directors and the citizens being the is more than likely an assured investment. When offered a shareholders.

The job description makes the Obama campaign’s Check out past Forum choice between private equity and venture capital, Romney chose the lower risk option of private equity. It is this type of argument a disingenuous and specious one, that Mitt columns at indiacurrisk aversion that we do not need in the next CEO of AmerRomney’s corporate business leadership experience does rents.com/articles/ ica. We need a president with a venture capital mentality. not qualify him to be President. In fact, Mitt Romney’s categories/forum Romney had a unique opportunity in 2009 to apply his resume uniquely qualifies him in this election to be the business acumen and elaborate contacts to help the ailing Chief Executive of our nation.

U.S. Auto industry. Instead he wrote in The New York Times about With an MBA from Harvard University, Romney joined Bain and the President’s bailout strategy “With it, the automakers will stay the Company in 1977 and rose through the ranks to become the CEO course—the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable credited with rescuing the company from financial crisis. In 1984, labor and retiree burdens, Romney co-founded Bain technology atrophy, prodCapital, and steered it to uct inferiority and neverbecome one of the largest ending job losses. Detroit private equity investment needs a turnaround, not a firms in the world. check.” These dire RomLater, Romney took a ney predictions thankfully leave of absence to turnhave been proven wrong. around the troubled 2002 These are words of a man Salt Lake City Olympics. who tries to extrapolate According to Wikipedia, his private equity experithe 2002 Olympics had a ence; it is not a venture $379 million shortfall, was capital frame of reference. mired in bribery allegaRomney missed an opportunity then which could have not only helped tions and scandal—and Romney is credited with revamping the orgaDetroit it would have significantly swung the election in his favor. nization, for raising the needed funding and for the successful conduct Interestingly, a political survey by The Slate/SurveyMonkey asked of the Games. Later, Romney was the Governor of Massachusetts from the question “Will Mitt Romney’s business experience make him a 2003 to 2007 credited with eliminating the state’s budget deficit. No better president, a worse president, or neither a better nor a worse dearth of executive leadership experience here! president?” A majority of the people polled, 36.4%, indicated that it Perhaps the need of the hour is for us to have a President with would not make a difference. proven success in business to come into office and address our monuMitt Romney as Governor of Massachusetts took over during mental problems of stubbornly high unemployment, budget woes and a recession and at the end of his term did not have a very good job waste in Government with a clinical focus and ruthless efficiency as the growth record. Understandable, given the recession. This is not unlike private sector runs its business. the current POTUS who took over the worst recession since the Great A President who will simply run America as a business with the goal Depression. Now, near the end of his first term, things appear headed of returning value to its shareholders—us the citizens. And at the end in the right direction. of four years, the voters can decide if we should renew his contract for Governor Romney’s record in Massachusetts therefore is certainly another term. valid experience to evaluate his candidacy. But he rarely mentions it.

There may be many policy reasons to not support Romney in this So we are left with his experience at Bain Capital which America can election but his background and business qualifications is certainly not do without. n one of them. n

In short, the President is the CEO of America, Inc. with the Congress akin to the Board of Directors and the citizens being the shareholders.

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

6 • india currents • october 2012

It is this type of risk aversion that we do not need in the next CEO of America. We need a President with a venture capital mentality.

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

IC

zeitgeist

Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan

On the American Story

W

mouths, the “American story” is an attempt to legitimate the worthiness of the wealthy before the less privileged. In others, it is used as testament to the hard work, abilities, and fortune of the formerly disadvantaged.

In most cases, the story works to conceal two things. First, its exceptionalism: “Rags to riches” (or power or fame) is not a universal story, nor a common one. Indeed, the logic of global capital is that most in rags must stay in rags, so that others can get rich. The story also works to conceal its limited focus: Wealth, power, and celebrity— the putative “dream”—are not and should not be our only explicit goals and commitments as a country. Unqualified “growth” and “progress” (which almost always means the economic advancement of the few) have to be re-specified so that the American story is one in which we achieve a whole host of different dreams (plural) that exceed the normative dictates of a technocratic, materialistic society.

The American story works because it conceals these things. In every instance of its invocation, it is crafted. When abused, as by Dinesh D’Souza in his polemical attacks on President Obama, or Nikki Haley in her speech at the RNC, it allows historical distortion and sectarian chauvinism to masquerade as familial anecdote.

D’Souza’s caricature of Obama as an “anti-colonialist” (whom he supposedly recognizes because of their shared “third world” backgrounds) is not only intellectually shallow, but also elides the fact that the United States was founded by anti-colonialists and critics of empire. He doesn’t tell that American story.

Nikki Haley, who frequently cites her parents’ injunction that she be grateful to live in America (and not in India, heaven forbid!), never plumbs the range of contexts that spur immigrant journeys, nor the variety of opportunities that exist all over the world, nor the challenges and discrimination immigrants in the United States have otherwise have been a four-year degree. faced, and continue to. She doesn’t tell that American story.

Still, she had no spending money. So while peers dispersed to their Because “the American story” is not about nuance. Ultimately, it parents’ vacation homes in the Hamptons, she and a few other internais a rhetorical device, heir to misuse. tional students worked in the dorms, cleaning out the vacated rooms, If I were a politician, what would constitute my American story? vacuuming, dusting, and wiping, and shaking their heads in disbelief at Well, the part about my mother coming to this country with $20 and the barely used appliances and furniture orphaned by well-to-do coeds, a used jacket would make the cut. The bit about the college scholarwho would just as lavishly outfit their new rooms come fall. ship would have to go. Janitorial work in the dorm rooms would stay.

When my parents met in graduate school, my father had a hunk-aI would amplify my gratitude to my parents for instilling in me the junk car, probably worth as much as an iPod. He wore green pants and a value of education and the right to pursue my so-called dream. But I blue shirt. When an immigration “reform” bill threatened wouldn’t mention that before coming to the United States, employment opportunities for foreign students in the Check out past my mother was circulating as Miss Calcutta in the cosmoearly 1980s, he abandoned his doctorate for a job and the Zeitgeist columns at politan circles of urban India, and gave up a burgeoning promise of a green card. indiacurrents.com/ media career for small-town snows and textbooks.

My parents didn’t have family or savings in the United articles/categories/ *** States, but they were highly educated and capable. They zeitgeist aybe there are uniquely American stories, but “the” became American citizens during the 1990s, a decade of American story, the singular triumphalist narrative, optimism and prosperity. And they gave my brother and me a privileged is strangling our political discourse. My mother didn’t come to this upbringing. We’ve attended three of this nation’s finest universities, country because it was “the only place in the world” she could be sucone private, two public, and been the recipients of my parents’ love, cessful. And she didn’t stay in this country because she wanted to give commitment, and thoughtfulness—not to mention three decades of her children “opportunities she never had.” She came with a recipe their full-time work. When I took my first job, I was able to move back for chocolate brandy soufflé, and she never in her wildest dreams home to save money. I’ve never wanted for a $20 bill. imagined she would stay. *** We’re not supposed to tell that story. n he American story” is one of the most potent tropes deployed by politicians, matched only by “the American dream,” and we’re Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan is a doctoral candidate in Rhetoric at the hearing a lot of both in the weeks leading up to November 6. In some University of California, Berkeley. hen my mother was 19, she came to the United States on a scholarship to attend a small liberal arts college in upstate New York. The college had pledged to fund her tuition, room, and board, but apart from that, she had only $20 and a jacket purchased from a garage sale by an aunt in England, who was shocked to find the teenager from Calcutta New York-bound with little by way of fall, never mind winter, clothes.

She’d had a privileged upbringing—the privilege of the relatively low-salaried but comparatively high-perked Indian professional class.

Car and driver ensured she never crossed the street on her own. She didn’t do dishes or laundry. Ironing was inconceivable. She’d learned only to make two dishes in a Home Sciences course at her Englishmedium school: scrambled eggs and chocolate brandy soufflé.

The college provided tuition and board, but nothing beyond the essentials of academic life, and no summer stipend. My mother couldn’t afford a plane ticket to go home. So, young and bold, she convinced the dean to fund her summers on the understanding that she would finish college in two years, thus saving the school the costs of what would

Because “the American story” is not about nuance. Ultimately, it is a rhetorical device, heir to misuse.

M

“T

india currents • october 2012 • 7

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opinion

Dilnavaz Bamboat

Embracing Freedom

A Parsee woman chafes at religious constraints

8 • india currents • october 2012

A Creative Commons Image

I

opened my eyes and sat up in bed. It was the darkest, quietest time of night and my spouse lay deep in slumber beside me.

Theoretically speaking, it wasn’t a nightmare that jolted me awake. Not the ones where your face is on a serial killer’s dartboard and your running would make Nike produce a pen from thin air and beg you to sign an endorsement deal.

I dreamt I was in an agyari, a Zoroastrian fire temple, just down the lane from my childhood home in Bombay, wearing a lemon yellow sari, with a scarf on my head, and attending a Zoroastrian prayer ceremony. Then he strode up. My father’s friend. And demanded to know what I, a woman married to a nonZoroastrian, was doing in a place meant only for those of the faith. I don’t recall my exact words, but I know I laid into him as politely as my aggravation would allow me. And made my point. Which, simply put, was this: As a woman brought up in the Zoroastrian faith and one who still practiced it, nobody had the right to deny me entry based on whom I chose to share my life (but not my religion) with. The dream ended there. And I found myself sitting up in bed. I closed my eyes and reflected on how grateful I was for where I now live. On waking up the next morning, I realized it was July 4th, and the significance of the religious freedom I now enjoy wasn’t lost on me.

Zoroastrianism, named after its prophet Zarathushtra or Zoroaster, is an ancient monotheistic faith that originated in presentday Iran, before the 6th century BC, and grew to be the state religion of the mighty Persian empire. Backed by the political power of preIslamic Iranian dynasties, the religion enjoyed immense prestige and some of its doctrines have been adopted by other major world religions. Already weakened by the invasion of Alexander, it came under serious threat when Islamic invaders pressured the local population to convert. A small band of Zoroastrians who valued the freedom to practice their religion boarded boats and escaped Iran’s shores.

These vessels landed on the west coast of India, with some scholars pinning the date at 936 A.D. Since that day, the Parsees, as these Zoroastrians settled in India are called, have made India their home. Small in numbers and large on public philanthropy, the community (predominantly focused in Mumbai) keeps largely to itself and enjoys respect and

A 19th Century Parsee Wedding

religious freedom in India.

It is ironic, therefore, that the same freedom of religious practice isn’t afforded to its women who choose life partners outside of the religion. Neither they nor their children are permitted access to places of worship or disposal of the dead, and social excommunication is frequent. The choice of partner has little effect on men, as with patriarchal systems the world over. What the Parsee/ Zoroastrian community in India does to its women within the framework of this progressive, gender-equal religion is nothing short of tragedy.

I have, over six discontinuous years of living in America, often chafed at the incessant rhetoric of independence and freedom and rolled my eyes at what I believed was jingoism. It is only after my marriage and subsequent return to this country that I have come to realize that these very values grant me the life I want to live.

In America, as a Parsee Zoroastrian woman married to someone who is not, I am free to worship in largely the same ways as I did through childhood, granted access to places and community systems without being looked upon as a social pariah. My better half is warmly welcomed into the fold instead of being the subject of the suspicion and excommunication that frequently occurs back in a place I call home. In America, I am not called upon to choose between my identities as a Zoroastrian and a non-Zoroastrian man’s life

partner. In America, I can attend a Zoroastrian priest’s discussion about rituals and symbolism, debate about my ethnic identity, and share a non-religious existence with my significant-other, all in a day’s work, without feeling like any part of me is compromised, sacrificed or rejected.

Ironically, I am not a religious person.

Symbolism and ritualistic worship don’t typically cut it for me and I rarely engaged in either while living in India. But here, I partake because I can. Because I have the freedom to.

Because somewhere else, in the land of my birth and heart, I must live my life in neatly exclusive containers, lest one spill over to the other and contaminate the purist xenophobia that coats my community.

It’s the stuff of movies, really, this waking up on Independence Day and realizing you are free. But reel life draws inspiration from our own, and this happened to me. And as I watched fireworks illuminate the sky later that night, a prayer mingled among them, sent by one woman who is deeply grateful for accommodation and acceptance in the Land of the Free. n Dilnavaz Bamboat is a therapist and early educator who manages an inclusive preschool in Silicon Valley, California. She is a core member of India Helps, a volunteer network that works with disaster victims. Her core belief is that there is no such thing as too many books, too many friends or too many shoes.

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A Clear Choice

By Vidya Pradhan

Faced with a sluggish economy and global events that are changing the dynamics at home, it is easy and tempting to be uninvolved in the election process. But contrary to appearances, this is a significant, even vital election, especially for those of us who find America’s freedoms, respect for laws, and an efficient government a welcome change from the political situation in the countries we left behind.

D

espite the best efforts of the mainstream media, the presidential election of 2012 has a sense of apathy that is typically reserved for the midterms. The incumbent, President Obama, is struggling to recapture the charisma that rocked the nation four years ago and his opponent, Willard Mitt Romney, lacks an ideological core. It’s not surprising that we Indian Americans have been particularly uninvolved voters.

At the heart of this election is a simple question—do we want to preserve the America we gave up home and hearth for—a land of opportunity, a level playing field, and a welcome haven for hard-working immigrants?

Even before the Republican primary contest began in late 2011, Romney’s candidacy was both a source of concern and cause for optimism in Democratic circles. Personally and politically, there was very little daylight between the two—both Obama and Romney favored pragmatic approaches to solutions and had reached across the aisle to craft compromise 10 • india currents • october 2012

solutions to pressing issues. The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), one of President Obama’s signature achievements, was almost a replica of the Governor Romney’s health care reform in Massachusetts.

Then, faced with primary opponents who appealed to the more ideological and extremist elements of the Republican Party, Romney began a tack to the right. This change of direction would require him to disavow many of the positions he had held and repudiate his own governing stance.

By the time Romney accepted the Presidential nomination on August 30, 2012, with Republican wunderkind Paul Ryan by his side as his pick for Vice President, it was clear that the platforms of the two political parties were clearly delineated. The election which, for an incumbent, should have been a simple referendum on the economy has now become a clash of ideologies.

In the coming election on November 6, therefore, voters have two distinct visions to

choose from. Here are the two candidates’ positions and records on issues of importance.

The Economy

Obama: A study by Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics and an advisor to John McCain’s presidential campaign, and Alan Blinder, a former Federal Reserve vice chairman and advisor to President Clinton, estimates that the Stimulus Act created about 2.7 million jobs. The President’s approach has been one of injecting government funding into the economy by way of infrastructure spending, alternative energy projects, and broad-based tax cuts. Unemployment, which peaked at 10% soon after the President took office, stands currently at around 8%. GDP growth, which dropped to a negative 6.7% in the early months of 2009, now stands at a poor but positive 1.5%.

For his second term, Obama’s vision is to boost American manufacturing through a combination of tax subsidies and tax deduc-

Mass Layoff Statistics; All Industries; Entire United States

tions for domestic production, investment in alternative energy programs and infrastructure, and additional funding for support services like teachers, police, and firefighters whose jobs were decimated by state budget cuts.

Romney: Mitt Romney’s economic vision calls for reducing taxes, spending, regulation, and government programs. His tax plan calls for reducing marginal tax rates by 20% across the board, reducing corporate taxes to 25%, repealing the Alternative Minimum Tax and eliminating the Estate Tax. He also supports laws that would reduce membership to and funding of labor unions. He commits to reducing non-defense discretionary government spending by 5% across the board. (Note: This includes the Park Service, Education, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Coast Guard, among others.)

Romney’s vision, which calls for lower regulations to spur economic growth would also repeal Obamacare, repeal the DoddFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and remove Sarbanes-Oxley requirements for medium-sized companiesRomney believes these measures would lead to a growth of 12 million jobs in the next four years.

Health Care

Obama: The Affordable Care Act (ACA), which was passed into law on March 23, 2010, is touted by the President’s campaign as his crowning achievement. Despite having several features favored by the Republican platform in the 1990s, the act created enormous controversy while it was being debated, and is often used as a flashpoint by conservatives to rally supporters. In brief, the ACA aims to reduce future health care costs for citizens by a combination of generating efficiencies in the system, adding more people to the insurance pool through the individual mandate, and stricter guidelines on coverage. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the act would reduce spending by about $200 billion in the period 2012-2021. The most important provisions of the law with respect to universal coverage

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

come into effect in 2014.

Romney: In the most ironic twist dealt to the Romney campaign during the Republican primaries, the candidate had to pretzel his way around the fact that as Governor of Massachusetts he presided over reform that served as a blueprint for the national law passed by President Obama. Romney has since justified his position by suggesting that health care should be left to the states and has promised to repeal Obamacare.

As part of his health care plank, Romney proposes to reduce medical malpractice damages, allow insurance to be sold across states, create high-risk pools for patients with preexisting conditions, offer a “premium-support payment,” or government issued vouchers in lieu of Medicare and limit federal standards and requirements on both private insurance and Medicaid coverage.

Energy

Obama: The President has been vocal about his support for alternative energies as well as funding and tax breaks for energy efficiency.

The administration has approved the construction of 16 commercial-scale solar facilities, five wind, and eight geothermal projects on public lands. The President made an agreement with auto manufacturers to improve the overall fuel economy of the nation’s passenger auto fleet to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.

For the next four years, Obama’s vision is to move forward with an all-of-the-above plan for energy production that includes oil, coal, wind, and solar.

Romney: Romney’s vision for energy independence calls for streamlining regulation to fasttrack projects for both the oil and the nuclear power sector, amending the Clean Air Act to remove carbon dioxide from its purview, opening federal lands for oil drilling, and approving the Trans-American Keystone oil pipeline.

The Romney campaign has made quite a bit of hay with the failure of federally funded solar company Solyndra. However, the candidate allotted state funds to solar energy producer Konarka Technologies as Governor of Massachusetts; the company filed for bankruptcy in June 2012.

Immigration

Obama: The Obama Administration’s failure to make significant progress on immigration has been a severe disappointment to Hispanics, who form a strong base of the Democratic Party. Deportations of undocumented immigrants have actually increased under the current administration (a record 396,906 deportations) and funding for border increased by $600 million under Obama’s watch. The President supported legislation to create a pathway for legalization of undocumented immigrants, but the legislation did not make it through Congress.

However, in a move that was both politically astute and compassionate, the President ordered a stop to the deportations of younger illegal immigrants who came to United States as children and have no criminal history. He also supports the DREAM Act, which would provide a path for citizenship to the same group.

Romney: Mitt Romney does not support the DREAM Act and has promised to veto it should Congress make it law. He has recommended “self-deportation” and stricter penalties on employers hiring undocumented workers. He has shown support for parts of the AB 1070, the Artizona immigration bill, and defends state-based immigration action as a right. In his “moderate” persona, Romney had once supported a 2007 bill that provided a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, but he has since criticized the plan and called it “amnesty.”

Foreign Policy

Obama: On foreign policy, Obama has had a strong impact. The killing of Osama Bin Laden, while providing closure to a country shaken by the attacks of 9/11, also demonstrated an expansion of the scope of presidential powers. While the President has made good on his campaign promises to remove troops from Iraq and focus on Afghanistan, civil libertarians have been appalled by the frequency and unilateralism of drone strikes in the troubled areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, the President has shown a commendable reluctance to commit troops to conflicts in the Middle East, and was able to get multi-lateral support for sanctions against Iran and aid to rebels in Libya.

Obama has also worked to improve relations with countries like Japan, Australia, South Korea and the Philippines. He has asked for a level playing field with the United States’ biggest creditor, China, in the form of freer currency movements and fairer inter-country regulations.

Romney: In campaign speeches Romney has suggested that withdrawal from Afghanistan by 2014 is important to his presidency, that Russia is America’s pre-eminent foe, and that the interests of the state of Israel are critical to American interests. india currents • october 2012 • 11

He has also saber-rattled for a possible strike on Iran and, in general, has appealed to the military hawks in the Republican Party.

He has also vowed to preserve/increase defense spending, and “restore” America’s role as the arbiter of the world. A recent trip abroad to bolster his foreign policy credentials received mixed reviews.

Rishi Kumar

THE INDIAN AMERICAN CONTENDERS

I

Contraception and Abortion:

s success in the political realm a prerequisite for us Indian Americans to truly entrench ourselves in America and perhaps get the accolades and recognition for our contributions to American society?

Shefali Razdan Duggal, 39, political activist and fundraiser phenom opines that “for a demographic that has been so successful in so many different areas—business, medicine, law, the arts (to name just a few)—we have been very underrepresented politically in the United States. And this often means our voices aren’t heard when it comes to key policy issues and decisions.”

Expectations are high for this upcoming 2012 elections with a record thirteen IndianAmerican candidates that were contesting for Congress, prior to the primaries. Perhaps there is a strong urge to make the next generation build upon their own success in America or perhaps it is a natural inclination of the new generation wanting to supersede their parents.

Did I say 13 Indian Americans running for Congress? There were thirteen Indian American candidates initially running and this list was whittled down to seven after the primaries. The seven candidates still left in the race are Dr. Ami Bera (D), CA-07, Ranjit “Ricky” Gill (R), CA-09, Tulsi Gabbard (D), HI-02, Dr. Syed Taj (D), MI-11, Upendra Chivukula (D), NJ-07, Dr. Manan Trivedi (D), PA-06 and Jack Uppal CA 04. So, lets meet our seven candidates:

A

Tulsi Gabbard

Obama: From signing the Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay Act to making contraceptive coverage mandatory, Obama has taken several steps that make clear his stance on women’s issues. The ACA expands health care services for women by preventing insurance companies from raising premiums based on gender and the administration’s education initiatives support and fund STEM education for girls. Obama is pro-choice and his voting record has earned him a 100% rating from pro-choice groups.

Romney: Early in his gubernatorial campaign Romney showed his support for abortion rights, despite a history of pro-life religious beliefs. He is quoted as having said that his political positions conflicted with religious values because they believed in “a woman’s right to a safe, legal abortion ever since the October 1963 death of his brother-in-law’s sister, Ann Hartman Keenan, from complication following an illegal abortion.”

Romney abandoned his support for abortion rights in 2005. During the Republican presidential primaries of 2012, he toed the party line on abortion and has promised to defund Planned Parenthood if elected. His plan to repeal Obamacare would also have the impact of removing contraception coverage from most insurance plans, and he has said that he supports a constitutional amendment that life begins at conception. His running mate, Paul Ryan, has an even narrower definition of abortion.

Pew Research poll conducted in June 2012 showed that 65% of Indian Americans approve of Obama’s presidency and an astounding 84% voted for Obama in 2008.

The Indian American vote will make a particular difference in key battleground states like Virginia and Nevada. It remains to be seen if Obama still has the same level of support this time around.

Ideologically the choice may be clear, but pragmatically, there is reason to be pessimistic. In the polarized environment the country finds itself, the only hope in the near term is for one party to convincingly hold the reins of power in both executive and legislative branches, so that its vision may be clearly implemented and judged. Pick your side and go all in. n Vidya Pradhan is a freelance writer who hosts the weekly radio show Parent Talk on KZDG 1550 AM. She also runs the community blog Water, No Ice and was the editor of India Currents from June 2009 to February 2012.

12 • india currents • october 2012

Tulsi Gabbard, 31 years old, was born in American Samoa to a Hindu mother and a

Catholic father and follows the spiritual lineage of the Brahma Madhva Gaudiya Sampradaya. At the age of 21, Gabbard was elected to the Hawaii State Legislature where she served on the education, tourism, and economic development committees. She resigned from office to volunteer for the medical operations unit of the U.S. National Guard and served in Iraq and Kuwait—two separate deployments.

As the primaries played out in August 2012, Gabbard overcame an early 45-point deficit, to pull into a dead heat with the former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann, two months before the Democratic primary— eventually winning by 21 points. Given the heavy democratic base of the 2nd Congressional District, a win in November is virtually assured for Gabbard.

Gabbard acknowledged the support from the community in a speech, stating, “I am so grateful for the Indo-American community who supported me in this election. They are very excited and inspired by the fact that there could actually be a Hindu serving in Congress.”

Asked about her Hindu beliefs and practices, Gabbard explains, “I am a practicing Hindu, a Karma Yogi, a core part of who I am is service and serving others. These are principles common to all faiths—of love, compassion, openness—all people are served, irrespective of background and I will seek to continue to do that.”

Gabbard’s key agenda items are the economy and the environment. “I will work hard to ensure that diverse communities in the community are well served, freedom of religion is upheld.” Gabbard has a clear cut view of public service. “I believe our leaders in Congress should work humbly to improve the quality of people’s lives instead of to increase their own wealth, reputation, or power. The primary concern of a public servant who is motivated out of love for the Absolute Whole is finding ways to be of service to the people.

This is the spirit of karma yoga I want to bring to Washington.”

Gabbard’s campaign received support from the Indian community, including U.S. India Political Action Committee (USINPAC), Hindu American Foundation, and many esteemed members of the Indian American community. It will be a historic day for Indian Americans to finally see her elected.

This is what USINPAC chair Sanjay Puri had to say about Gabbard’s incredible win in the primary “… her passion for her constituents, her state and country were infectious and you could feel that I was talking to some

india currents • october 2012 • 13

one who was in this for the right reasons. The other striking thing about her was the candid manner in which she spoke about her beliefs and faith given that so many politicians avoid it for the fear of it being a liability for them.

USINPAC has supported her from that point onwards by connecting her to the Indian American community and also providing her campaign contributions.”

Upendra Chivukula

Upendra Chivukula, 61 years old, started his political career elected to the Township Council of Franklin Township, New Jersey. In 2002 Chivukula was elected to the New Jersey Legislature in the 17th Legislative District.

Chivukula was the first Indian-American elected to the New Jersey Legislature, and only the fourth Indian-American to be elected to a state legislature.

Chivukula believes that Washington is broken and the country is polarized and

Photo Credit: chivukulanj.com

is seeking to make a difference. In early August, Upendra Chivukula’s campaign announced that they outraised the opponent, Leonard Lance significantly. Chivukula does have strong credentials having come up the ranks, and the voters and donors are certainly noticing that.

Chivukula feels that the Indian American community needs empowerment. “When it comes to politics, we are lagging behind.”

Upendra is invested in the task of addressing issues near and dear to the Indian American community like immigration, fiscal responsibility and job creation.

He has resided in the state of New Jersey for over 30 years.

Ami Bera

Dr. Ami Bera, 47 years old, is a second generation Indian American, running for Congress. Bera has served the Sacramento, California region as a physician and an educator. He has been the Assistant Dean for Admissions at the U.C. Davis School of Medicine. His opponent, a Republican incumbent, Dan Lungren was elected with a 50.1% majority in the last election while facing off against Bera and is now again running against his 14 • india currents • october 2012

Photo Credit: beraforcongress.com

familiar foe.

Back in 2010, Bera got a lot of visibility as he outraised this same incumbent six quarters in a row. Karl Rove had to jump in to help secure Lungren’s win—but it was widely regarded as poor performance by the incumbent. The new district that Bera is running from had Jerry Brown winning by a 5% margin—the tilt is definitely bluer, and Bera feels that this will play in his favor. He is currently on a fund-raising streak, yet again, outraising his opponent. According to Bera, “corporate money is a challenge. We should have a system to have campaign finance reform.” Bera’s focus areas if elected would be unemployment and diversifying the economy.

Bera’s key to this win is a very active volunteer and donor base.

This rematch in East Sacramento County’s 7th Congressional District is going to be a race to watch.

Manan Trivedi was a Battalion Surgeon for the 1st Battalion 5th Regiment Marine Corps Infantry Battalion, and his unit was one of the first ground forces to walk into Iraq in March 2003. For his service, Trivedi earned the Combat Action Ribbon, the Navy Commendation Medal, and his unit was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation. Battle hardened, he came to a very important realization.

“I never supported the invasion of Iraq. We did not find any WMD and this is an example of failed leadership. I followed orders. History now looks back and it is quite clear that that our decision was faulty.”

Trivedi went on to serve as Health Policy Advisor to the Navy Surgeon General. He is a primary care physician today. Practicing in economically ravaged Redding, PA, where he grew up. Trivedi’s race is being focused on in democratic circles, as an opportunity to defeat a Republican incumbent. The new district was won by President Obama, and tends to lean towards Democrats. Trivedi may have a pretty good chance.

Photo Credit: jackuppal.com

Manan Trivedi

Manan Trivedi, 38, is also a second generation Indian-American physician and Iraq war veteran. He is running as a Democrat in Pennsylvania’s 6th district and is challenging incumbent Rep. Jim Gerlach.

Jack Uppal

Uppal is running as a Democrat against a veteran incumbent, Elk Grove Republican Tom McClintock, from the 4th Congressional district in California and looking to overcome a 28 point deficit by targeting independents and undecided voters.

Uppal, a Ph.D. in Chemistry from M.I.T., is no career politician like his GOP opponent and incumbent. But his background in hightech, semi-conductor industry and managing a large sized budget at Intel, may be what the voters need to give Uppal a chance.

A second generation Indian American, Uppal became a naturalized citizen when he turned 18. He is running for the U.S. Congress because, in his words, “I want the promise of the American Dream to be a reality for others as it has been for my family and me.”

Uppal is running in a predominant Repu-

blican district, but his strategy to run as a moderate Democrat, should give him a strong chance. “I have a message that will resonate with voters. That is how I will win.”

Ranjit Ricky Gill

Ranjit “Ricky” Gill, at 25 is a rising Republican star. Born and raised in Lodi, California, Gill was appointed to the California State Board of Education as a student representative in 2004. He was the youngest

search of a postgraduate degree in medicine.

In 1982, Taj moved to the United States and began his career as a medical resident. He worked his way up, finally becoming the Chief of Medicine at Oakwood Hospital and Medical Center in Dearborn.

Taj serves on the Canton Township Board of Trustees as well as the Canton Community Foundation and the Wayne County Senior Alliance.

Taj is convinced of his “crossover appeal” as he is getting ready to compete against Tea Party Republican, Kerry Bentivolio, a teacher and a reindeer farmer.

Taj’s campaign is expectedly centering on health care, but also education, jobs and social security. Taj is strangely the underdog in a Republican leaning district of Michigan, that has typically been going blue the last few presidential elections, but Taj believes that moderates from both parties are likely to support him.

W

Photo Credit: rickygill.com

member of the administration.

The Republican party, enthused by his candidacy, identified Gill as a “Young Gun” candidate and he was even given a speaking opportunity at the Republican National Convention.

His youth, while inspiring the Gen-X and Yers, is also held against him. He has never held a full time job, having graduated from law school recently. His website indicates that he is a small business owner and a family farmer. Gill’s parents who immigrated from India and Uganda are both obstetricians who run a vineyard and an RV park. Gill has been remarkably successful with tapping into the support from the Lodi Sikh community.

Gill has his hands full running against a Democrat incumbent Jerry McNerney who is seeking his fourth term in office from California’s 9th congressional district. According to The Washington Post correspondent, Rachel Weiner, Gill’s campaign focuses on education, immigration and agriculture and he declined to endorse Paul Ryan’s budget proposal.

Syed Taj

Syed Taj, another physician by profession, won the democratic primaries for the 11th congressional district in Michigan.

Taj came to America via the United Kingdom where he had first immigrated to in

hat do these Indian American political contenders and political figures feel about the community’s support for them?

According to Anu Natarajan,Vice Mayor of Fremont, “Chinese Americans have been good with pipeline, mentorship programs. Indian American candidates are not there yet.”

Chivukula calls it a question of attitude: “The Indian community has a ‘aaya ram, gaya ram’ attitude. Running and losing once or twice—they disappear. It’s like a relay race, help the next guy and pass it on. We don’t do that well.”

San Jose Councilman Ash Kalra states, “We show up for fund raisers, we like to take pictures with elected officials. We need to register to vote, talk about the issues and make informed decisions. We don’t want to be ATM machines for folks looking to run.”

Shefali Razdan Duggal is interested in stimulating the South Asian community to becoming more involved in the political proPhoto Credit: tajforcongress.com

cess. “I think our community has focused so intently on success within these other areas that we have underestimated the impact we can have within the political system.”

According to Manan Trivedi, “We need to continue to unify. To gain influence, we need to show our strength via political organizations; getting more organized is the key.”

Assemblyman Jim Beall says that the Indian American community is a powerhouse in Silicon Valley politics. Getting Indian Americans elected to local, state, and national offices is going to become a common occurrence.

Both young men and women are stepping up to serve our public.’’

“Assimilation into society and getting support from the mainstream is critical,” says Upendra Chivukula. “I cannot run as an Indian candidate and win.” He goes on to emphasize the need for a foundation “There is a process. You need to have small wins before going for the big one.”

Democratic fundraiser, analyst and lawyer, Kavita Tankha emphasizes assimilation.

“Be perceived as a mainstream candidate, to be elected. Appeal to a broader base ... be proud of your heritage, but don’t go to an extreme. The defining issues are not ethnicity, gender. We need folks to get us out of the economic mess.”

According to Jack Uppal, “You gotta have a good message. Have a good reason—that is truly from your own heart as to why you are running and clearly articulate that to people.

Being an Indian American is neither positive nor negative. We are all Americans.”

But our community has to make a gradual shift through some introspection and reconciliation that politics in America runs quite differently from back home. If there is an opportunity to get engaged and make a difference, take it. Get involved in local community issues, launch voter registration campaigns, and rally the community to get ourselves the attention we deserve.

Reshma Saujani stated it best in an interview for The Politics Daily when she ran in 2010, “When you get to the ballot box, you don’t know if that’s a boy or a girl, a Muslim or a Hindu. Someone named Barack Hussein Obama made a lot of us feel like we could run.”

Let’s support our candidates’ aspirations by voting on November 6, 2012. n Rishi Kumar lives in the heart of Silicon Valley with his wife Seema and their two boys. Rishi’s day job is in the valley tech industry selling software. In his spare time, Rishi loves being involved in volunteering for charity, local politics, and hosting the “Saratoga’s Got Talent” event. india currents • october 2012 • 15

IC

desi voice

V. V. Sundaram

In Memory of Lakshmi

I

t all started when my grandmother, Paati, couldn’t tolerate the cowherd Aandi Muthu’s lazy and dictatorial tendencies and she withdrew her cow from his charge and hired the dhobi’s young son as his replacement.

Aandi Muthu held reign for many years in the village. Every morning he would mark his entry to the village at 9 a.m. calling out, “Unleash your cows,” to the villagers as he walked by.

With his unkempt, long, dry hair, his bulging eyes reddened by the previous night’s liquor, and wielding a cane, the scene in no way reminded anyone of the cowherd, Krishna. On the contrary, had Aandi Muthu mounted a buffalo and had a mace replaced the cane, he would have passed for Yama Raj on a morning shift for a hurricane cattle sweep.

Accustomed to his drinking habits, impatience and short-temper, the moment my Paati heard his voice, she suspended her kitchen activities, rushed to the cowshed and released her cow Lakshmi before he could go past our house. Aandi Muthu never looked back to check if the household had released its cattle. And we couldn’t afford to keep Lakshmi cooped up, for a cow that gets exercise is a cow that is more bountiful. Besides the food for the cows was out there in the meadows and fields. Paati, like the other village ladies managed her domestic needs with the help of Lakshmi and sold the surplus in the form of milk, butter, or ghee. It was my grandmother’s source of input to the family kitty. So, we could ill afford any harm to our cash crop.

Aandi Muthu’s routine was well known.

Everyday, he herded the forty or fifty cattle to a vast meadow past the village. The cattle were no problem. Either they knew, too well, his nature or were eager to enjoy the temporary freedom from the cooped up life in the cowshed.

Muthu allowed them to graze happily as he reshaped his shoulder towel into a pillow for a nap under the shade of a bush to get over his hangover. Occasionally a passerby accidently stepping on him, a snake hissing past his legs, the grunting among the cattle for territorial grazing rights, or the oppressive sun would wake him up from his siesta. He would then look up at the sun for the approximate time. If there were still some moments left, he would light a bidi and smoke it to its last puff—or till his fingers felt the burn. Around 3:30 p.m., he would herd the cattle back to 16 • india currents • october 2012

their homes.

This went on regularly for years until his dedication deteriorated. He began bringing the cattle back at 2 p.m., then 1 p.m., 12 noon, and finally at 11.30 a.m. This gave a totally different twist to the adage “till the cows come home.” Paati found this unacceptable.

Surely, sunset couldn’t commence at 11.30 in the morning, she argued. But Aandi Muthu had his own explanation: “Dry ground. No grass to graze. Subjecting the cattle unnecessarily to the scorching sun could impact the milk output.” Paati feared that if she argued with Muthu, he would stop taking Lakshmi.

So besides grumbling and gossiping with the village ladies, she tolerated his lack of dedication for a while. Some village ladies pointed to a possible second marriage as a strong reason for his poor work ethic and others blamed his worsening drinking habits.

Paati finally replaced Aandi Muthu with the dhobi’s son. In time, more and more villagers followed suit. Besides herding cattle to the fields and watching over their grazing, the boy gave the cattle a bath in the canal, as well.

This new trend did disturb Aandi Muthu’s peace of mind and he was heard complaining frequently about the new cowherd.

Then one evening, it was past 4 p.m. and there was no trace of our cow, Lakshmi. The milking time was 5 p.m. Paati got worried.

Enquiries with the ladies who entrusted their cattle to the same boy revealed that their cattle had returned, but unaccompanied by the boy.

Paati sent me on a search mission. I ran to all the possible places; I could not locate Lakshmi. No trace of her. I got worried. I asked passersby if they had seen a white cow grazing. One man said that he had noticed an animal lying near the village cremation ground. Elders had prohibited children from going near the cremation ground. So I went just up to two hundred yards from the place and saw a white cow lying motionless. I called out to her, “Lakshmi, Lakshmi,” but she did not raise her head. For once I violated the instructions and went close to the cremation ground. Yes, it was Lakshmi, lying with her right front leg broken and hanging, and tears rolling from her eyes in pain.

I sped home and informed Paati. She mobilized manpower and had Lakshmi loaded onto a cart drawn by two oxen. The Government Veterinary Hospital was closed for the day since it was 6 p.m. in the evening. But I knew where the veterinarian lived. I per-

Photo Credit: A Creative Commons Image

suaded him to come home. After a thorough examination, he opined that it was not any vehicle accident but a deliberate act of malice that had caused this. He said he would fix a cast for some weeks and if things didn’t improve, the leg would be amputated.

Two months of vigorous attempts to naturally join the bones did not help. There were clear indications of pus formation. The leg was amputated. In course of time Lakshmi managed to move around, one leg short. But Paati did not want to send her out again for grazing. My grandfather’s client had a huge agricultural land in his village twenty miles away. He volunteered to have her taken there so that she could lead a peaceful rest of her life. Eight or nine months later we got the news that Lakshmi had passed away.

The usual practice was to replace a cow or buffalo once the milk yield declined or stopped. But from the time I could remember till Lakshmi’s leg got broken, she was part of our house—milk or no milk. So the news of her passing away was no less than the loss of a member of the family.

For Paati it was still worse, for while she milked Lakshmi, I would hear her talk to Lakshmi, direct her not to move her legs or to postpone her excreta disposal till she had finished with the milking, plead with her if the yield fell short of her daily commitments to customers, or sing songs to persuade her as I sat at a permissible distance enthusiastically watching the proceedings, with occasional pleas to Paati to let me milk Lakshmi. Lakshmi’s loss cut deeply. The loss of a pet is always tough. But, sharing memories can help celebrate the life of the animal lost. This is my way of coping. n V.V. Sundaram retired from a U.N. organization managing their publications programme.

He taught Sales and Marketing for a book publishing course and, as a hobby contributed to Hindustan Times and Times of India.

india currents • october 2012 • 17

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feature

Ophira Ginsburg and Dr Raywat Deonandan

The Hidden Epidemic—Breast Cancer

“W

hen I told my husband I had breast cancer, he said, ‘I don’t want anything to do with you.

You can go die.’” These are the words of a 45 year old divorced and homeless woman in Bangladesh. When we think of breast cancer, our image is usually of women seeking treatment in American hospitals, or of loved ones participating in those many fundraising runs that have popped up around the country. It’s rarely of the already destitute and downtrodden women of the developing world being further denigrated or cast aside. Yet it is in the slums and villages of the world’s poorest places where scientists are only now realizing that breast cancer is a hidden epidemic.

While high-income countries have begun to celebrate significant recent progress toward curing women with breast cancer, the extent and severity of this disease has only begun to be recognized in poorer countries; and the nations of South Asia are particularly at risk.

As economic disparities lessen in some areas of the world, the burden of cancer is rapidly increasing.

Globally, cancer now causes more deaths than tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and malaria combined (8.1 million vs. 4.3 million in 2008).

And more than 70% of all cancer deaths occur in low and middle-income countries, such as India and Bangladesh. Once diagnosed, the likelihood of dying of cancer in a developing country is as high as 75%, compared to less than 50% in the United States. This gap is particularly striking for cancers of the breast and cervix, for which early detection and effective treatment greatly influence survival.

The cancer burden is expected to rise to global pandemic proportions, with the greatest projected increase in developing countries.

Yet certain age-old barriers prevent us from properly helping those in need, both in South Asia and among South Asians in the West.

They are: stigma, shame, cost and undervaluing the lives of women.

The Personal Cost of Breast Cancer

Every one of us has been touched by cancer, whether through personal experience or that of someone close to us. After that of the lung, breast cancer is the most common form of cancer globally, overwhelmingly affecting women, though a small number of men have also contracted it.

The National Cancer Institute estimates that 226,870 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in the United States in 2012, of 18 • india currents • october 2012

whom 39,510 will succumb to the disease. It touches women of all races, with white women exhibiting a slightly higher likelihood of being diagnosed, while African-American women are significantly more likely than all other ethnic groups to die from breast cancer.

Publicly available U.S. data does not distinguish between the racial sub-types making up the general category of “Asian/Pacific Islander,” in which most South Asian patients would be grouped. This group experiences the lowest death rate, though is largely represented by Chinese-Americans.

When considering these kinds of data, it’s important to consider some of the implicit biases connected with data collection.

For example, the fact that African-American women are more likely than others to die from breast cancer may not indicate a biological predisposition toward the disease, but rather a tendency for these women to seek treatment when their cancer is in a more progressed stage, thus making it harder to treat and more likely to result in death.

By the same token, an underrepresentation of South Asian women in the U.S. statistics may indicate reluctance of people in this ethnic group to be screened. And this hints at a continuous thread that is woven throughout the story of breast cancer among South Asians: the unfortunate effects of stigma and denial, and maybe a sense that breast cancer is “not an Indian disease.”

One Family’s Story

While rates are low compared to other

ethnic groups, South Asian women living in North America are definitely at risk. When families migrate to North America, beliefs and attitudes about breast cancer, as well as women’s roles and responsibilities, remain, making women from South Asian countries particularly vulnerable to undiagnosed breast disease. Indeed, South Asian women in North America are among the least screened populations for both breast and cervical cancer.

Dr Rita Ghatak, Ph.D., of Stanford University’s Medical Center recently lost her mother-in-law to breast cancer. As head of Stanford’s Aging Adult Services/Geriatric Health Program, she’s often found herself providing navigation to South Asian women regarding management of their disease. In Rita’s opinion, the number of women facing breast cancer is on the rise, or so it feels, based on experiences both with South Asians in the United States and those living in India.

Rita’s mother-in-law underwent a mastectomy. Though she had great reservations, the American team in California treated her with great cultural sensitivity and she was comforted by the extraordinary care she received.

Her aggressive treatment involved radiation and chemotherapy, which left her somewhat dependent on support for daily living. But with such resources and encouragement, she did very well.

Rita’s mother-in-law was not prepared to tell anyone—other than her immediate friends and family—about the disease. In Rita’s words, “I find that many South Asian women consider this a dreaded disease that attacks their grace and beauty.”

lions of people, they are no longer wholly accurate. Yet these impressions drive both our attitudes toward these countries and our investments in health interventions aimed to reduce suffering and improve economic stability. In fact, less than 5% of global spending on cancer is in low income countries, yet such countries bear 80% of the global cancer burden, when considered in terms of total numbers of people affected. The rise of chronic disease demands a reconsideration of our global health spending priorities.

The Rise of Breast Cancer in South Asia

What distinguishes Rita’s family’s experience in California from those of women in less resourced parts of the world is the degree, availability and quality of care received. “Care here was so culturally appropriate and so tender and from countless emergency room visits, trips to her primary care doctor, oncologist and her infusion areas, I think that my mother-in-law could not have experienced better treatment and better support.”

But more importantly, she feels that the tendency for breast cancer patients to lose contact with their primary care doctors is a gap in our system. In the process of navigating our complicated network of expensive specialists, clinics and examiners, our system sometimes misses the importance, both in terms of efficiency and emotional cohesion, of “the big picture” and continuity of care.

The Costs of Breast Cancer

A 2009 study published in the journal Pharmacoeconomics reported that in the United States, lifetime per-patient costs of breast cancer ranged from $20,000 to $100,000.

With medical costs sadly being the cause of many bankruptcies, it is not surprising to learn of stories like that of New York’s Natasha Pierre, who in 2007 related to reporters her inability to pay the $1000 fee for her lumpectomy, and the monthly $500 co-pay for her chemotherapy, both of which drove her into poverty.

These high prices are likely the driving force behind the reluctance of some largely low-income demographic groups, such as African-American women, to delay seeking care until the disease is well entrenched. As much as this phenomenon affects the poor in America, it is recapitulated and enhanced amongst the very poorest in the developing world, for

whom wages dip well below $1 per day.

A recurring trope in the study of global health is that when the impoverished must make health choices, it is often women’s health that is least considered, due in part to a belief that priority must be given to children and to husbands for their economic value to the household. The effects of the high cost of health care, then, disproportionately disadvantage women, and are particularly enhanced when the disease in question is primarily a woman’s disease. Pervasive sexism and poverty combine to complicate all attempts to address disease on the global stage.

David Bloom of Harvard University reports that the total cost of treating breast cancer in the Americas is well over $150 billion per year (in 2009), a figure that includes economic costs due to the loss of productivity of people unable to work because of the disease (accounting for about 27% of the total). The same year, costs in Asia were under $50 billion, based on the same criteria. Unsurprisingly, there is a strong worldwide correlation between how much money you have and how likely it is that you will survive your experience with breast cancer.

Over the next 20 years, chronic diseases which include all cancers will cause a projected economic loss in poor countries of $100 billion to $2.8 trillion, according to scientists at the World Economic Forum in 2011. This is clearly not the stereotypical expectation that many of us in the wealthy part of the world have of the so-called developing world. Images of malnourishment, natural disasters, water shortages, homelessness and plagues of viral and bacterial diseases are our more common health impressions of low income countries, not cancer and diabetes.

While such stereotypical images reflect the continued truth of the existences of mil-

Clearly, the new battle ground against chronic diseases in general, and cancers in particular, are the low-income, developing nations; and breast cancer is the most common type of cancer and the most common cause of cancer-related mortality among women worldwide. One in ten of all new cancers diagnosed globally each year is a cancer of the female breast. According to a 2004 study, more than 1.1 million cases are diagnosed and more than 410,000 patients die of it all over the world.

Its incidence is increasing almost everywhere.

However, its burden and death rate are not evenly distributed. In general, the incidence of breast cancer is high (greater than 80 per 100,000) in developed regions of the world and low (less than 30 per 100,000), though increasing, in developing regions.

In South Asia, breast cancer is second only to cervical cancer in some of the more remote populations. With improved access to cervical cancer screening and treatment, as well as the recent availability of low-cost vaccines against human papilloma virus (HPV, the primary cause of cervical cancer), breast cancer will soon emerge as the most prevalent cancer and commonest cause of cancer-related death among all women in South Asia.

It is estimated that each year 76,000 women die of breast cancer in South Asia, and over 50,000 in India alone: almost double the number in the United States. This is undeniably a dramatic underestimate, given our inability to detect a great many cases, and a tendency for causes of death to not be fully ascertained, particularly among poor villagers.

The prevalence of breast cancer in the region is expected to grow due to a combination of population explosion and, perhaps ironically, some of the more positive effects of economic development, including increased life expectancy, delayed child bearing and fewer numbers of children. Add to this the decreased duration of breast feeding and the adoption of “Western” lifestyles (higher fat diets, overweight and obesity, and reduced activity), and it is projected that global breast cancer cases will grow from 1.4 million in 2008 to over 2.1 million cases by 2030, due in large part to the increase in cases in South Asia.

Despite the high quality of cancer care in india currents • october 2012 • 19

some urban centers, such as the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, where more than 70% of patients receive treatment at almost no cost, many people suffering from cancer in India are simply unable to attend such a facility.

A recent, high-profile study of Indian cancer mortality highlighted key differences in cancer deaths between urban and rural settings.

Distance, education, language, awareness and even psychological barriers persist in preventing those suffering from seeking and receiving appropriate care. Misconceptions about the origins and implications of cancer abound, muddying any potential public education initiatives. Much like other diseases discussed openly in the West, in many South Asian communities, stigma remains a daunting barrier to both measuring the problem and treating it.

Inconceivably, unfairly and tragically, shame has entered the equation, often preventing sufferers from acknowledging their conditions or even sharing their status with loved ones. This is all the more tragic for breast cancer because it is a treatable and often curable disease.

Experiences in Bangladesh

Our recently published work in rural Bangladesh, in a region of about 15 million people, just 80 miles from Kolkata, taught us that most women do not seek care for a serious breast problem until it is too late. More than 80% of new cases we see at our small breast center—Amader Gram (Our Village, in Bengali)—are at a very advanced, generally incurable state. When we ask these women why they apparently waited for months and even years before seeking care, most said that they were aware that they had a serious problem, even a life-threatening disease, but told us they had “no choice” but to wait. Almost all reported a financial, geographical, or familyrelated obstacle to seeking care. And most of them viewed breast cancer as a curse and a death sentence, a sentiment seemingly shared by their communities, since women who do seek treatment often risk divorce or abandonment. As a consequence, many women die without ever seeking care.

These women’s words were as heartbreaking as they were concerning. Their incorrect perception of breast cancer’s treatability is reflected in one woman’s stark statement that, “No one getting cancer gets saved.” Another suggested a demonic origin to the disease: “It is evil. Once it visits your house, it kills.” But a prevailing attitude is one of shame and guilt, as in one woman’s belief that “It’s a curse from God for wrong-doings.”

There are, of course, other reasons that South Asian women are not seeking or receiving care. One widely-reported trend is a basic mistrust of doctors, or a desire to only see a female doctor, which is difficult to accommodate. This has lead to many patients turning to alternative medicine, such as homeopathy,

20 • india currents • october 2012

Ayurveda and spiritual healing, none of which has shown any success. As a 28-yearold patient told us, “The homeopath prescribed me many drugs and gave me some injections … but my breast lumps didn’t go away.”

These words are recapitulated in the experiences of Dr. Rita Ghatak’s mother-in-law in California. Before her death, her relatives in India suggested that she, too, seek homeopathic or other kinds of unproven traditional methods, suggesting that the cultural aspects of addressing breast cancer among South Asians have a global reach.

As in all communities without socialized medicine, especially those with pervading poverty, the potential for a serious disease to financially ruin a family is tangible. As discussed, this is the cause of many bankruptcies in the United States. It may also compound the stigma, as many women fear that their husbands would sooner abandon them than shoulder the immense financial burden that cancer treatment may entail.

This has accelerated the turn to cheaper, though unproven and possibly harmful alternative treatments.

Even when the husband and in-laws are supportive, the money just might not be there. As a 30-year-old patient reported, “Two years ago I noticed a lump. The homeopath prescribed a paste that made my skin burn like a spice and now I can’t touch my breast because it’s so painful. My husband earns Taka 150 (US $2) per day … he wants me to go see a good doctor. But it will take time to save up for this … My last visit to the doctor cost Taka 3000 (US $43).”

Problems and Solutions

How do we address this simmering epidemic, when so many cultural, financial and logistic barriers conspire to deny care to those most in need? The entangled threads of disease, poverty, and sexism are complicating enough; but the situation is exacerbated further by structural failures in nations’ formal health systems. Doctor absenteeism, reported by one study to be over 70% at smaller clinics in Bangladesh, and doctor malpractice (either as a result of incompetence or greed) contribute to the perception that modern, Western medical care is ineffective and corrupt, and that cancer is “a death sentence.”

Furthermore, services that should be very low cost or free have been co-opted by

Ophira Ginsburg in Bangladesh at a Breast Care Clinic

individuals seeking to make a profit from an overstressed medical system, such that many services required for standard breast cancer care are unnecessarily unaffordable by the average family. The problem of breast cancer in South Asia is a combination of cultural, social, infrastructural and political issues. It’s in the latter arena that an impact can be most immediately felt.

Tedious bureaucratic systems, lack of collaboration across the health sector, and poor governance have contributed to delaying advances in health care solutions throughout South Asia, and must be minimized for significant progress to be made. A commitment to this aim alone could have major implications for advances and cost savings in not only breast cancer care, but many other infectious and chronic diseases, as well.

Despite the gloomy picture that our story paints, there is reason for hope. In October of last year, the Global Task Force on Expanded Access to Cancer Care and Control (GTF. CCC), published “Closing the Cancer Divide,” which explores specific opportunities to affect the global burden of cancer.

Percolating through these strategies, though, must be an awareness of the need to empower women to advocate both for their health and their deserved status in society and in the home, to better shrug off the bite of stigma. Effective and affordable treatments for breast cancer do exist. Our inability to care for so many stricken South Asian women is evidence that it is us, not they, who should be ashamed. n Ophira Ginsburg is an oncologist, a scientist at the Toronto Women’s College Research Institute, and an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

Raywat Deonandan is an epidemiologist and Assistant Professor in the Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences at the University of Ottawa.

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IC

books

Rajesh C. Oza

The Visible Invisibles THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE DAMNED: LIFE IN THE NEW INDIA by Siddhartha Deb. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011. 253 pages.

Hardcover $16.50)

T

he adage “write what you know” lightens the load of, what is for many writers, a craft that is hard-earned, wordby-word. Thus my respect for authors who are able to traverse many landscapes, many cultures, and many socioeconomic strata is usually quite high. In the case of Siddhartha Deb, this respect is especially heightened. In constructing The Beautiful and the Damned, Deb glides from The Great Gatsby to The Girl from F&B. The subtitles of the opening and closing chapters of this fine book hinge at the boundaries that Deb crosses: “A Rich Man in India” and “Women in the Big City.” The reader who is curious about F&B will first have the joy of reading the first four chapters. Taken as a whole, these readings serve as an Indian Rorschach Test of sorts.

The reader who is optimistically fascinated by Arindam Chaudhuri, “a phenomenally wealthy Indian who excites hostility and suspicion,” can be forgiven for believing that New India truly is the (con)temporary land of milk and honey; with a little bit of inspiration and a lot of perspiration, hard-working Indians can come out of nowhere and amass incredible wealth. This sweat equity has long been considered an American virtue, suggesting a culture that privileges the so-called Protestant work ethic. For the longest time, Old India’s modest economic growth, hierarchical caste system, and dharmic humility (con)spired to keep wealth (con)centrated in the coffers of a handful of family-owned industrialists (e.g., Ambani Father and Sons) and heredity-based royalty (e.g., the Nizam of Hyderabad). But as Deb writes, “Every age gets the rich people it deserves. In contemporary India, the new rich are the anti-Nizams. They are people in a hurry, expressing fevered modes of consumption, flaunting gargantuan appetites meant to astonish and dazzle the rest of us.” Most middle-class Indians know the story of Dhirubhai Ambani, who seemingly came out of the backwaters of small-town-village India to build a global empire that his sons divided; but even with the division, one son—Mukesh —became India’s richest man with a sixtystory residence.

Arindam Chaudhuri’s particular genius has been to channel the get-rich-quick dreams 22 • india currents • october 2012

of India’s middle-class into a Ponzi scheme built not only on those dreams, but also on India’s long-held belief in higher education.

His Indian Institute of Policy and Management is meant to reflect the elite Indian Institutes of Management, and in its acronymic form—IIPM—even sound like the world-class IITs that are statistically more selective than Harvard. But Chaudhuri’s model sets a low bar for selectivity: if you can pay the fees, you get in. “IIPM had the same relationship to IIM as knock-off goods do to branded products, which is to say that there is always a market for a knock-off version among aspirational crowds.” Sadly, if this reading of India is accurate, the country is in for trouble. For while you can at least wear fake Ralph Polo shirts, or work in a factory making those shoddy products, a faux-MBA is a con-job which will not get you a well-paying employment and most definitely will not help build a sustainable economy.

The second reading of India is the one that has become quite popular in Western popular media—that of brilliant but geeky engineers. If the chapter on Chaudhuri is about the lumpen-proletariat who take almost useless coursework developed by a pony-tailed business guru, this chapter, titled “Ghosts in the Machine: The Engineer’s Burden,” is about the tiny bourgeoisie who have studied engineered and developed marketable skills in information technology. Before the millennium, most of these engineers toiled away at middle- to upper-middle-class jobs in smallto mid-size companies. But as the year 2000 approached, and fears of the “Y2K bug” demanded a global response, the Indian engineer became an archetypal hero, brought in to save the world’s computers form cataclysmic collapse. Rather than rehash the decade-old story, Deb uses caste constructs to contrast the IIPM students’ common-man fantasy of New India’s wealth engine with the engineers who are actually driving that engine: “Engineering had become a Brahmin occupation … There is also something Brahminical in the very way engineers perceive their work around computers, if by Brahminical one means the idea of exclusive access to knowledge that cannot be shared with commoners.”

This bit of anthropology is taken deeper

by Deb’s vignette-like visits with engineers.

These interactions introduce us to technologists of different stripes: Arvind Krishnan, a former engineer who started A Fuller Life, a

company that supplies happiness; Chakravarthy Prasad, a senior engineering manager for a Bangalore-based American semiconductor company; S.S. Prasad, an engineer who hides poetry in his software code; Vijay Chandru, who had attempted to build a Gandhian computer which was affordable and accessible to all; and Kartik, who conflates the absence of Muslims and lower-caste students at IIT and IIM with their backwardness.

While no simple story coheres from this all-too-brief introduction to the engineer’s India, a nice bit of sociology attributed to Chakravarthy (a.k.a. Chak) suggests that India is building walls that will make cross-socioeconomic interactions less possible: “The lowcontext technology hubs of Bangalore existed in conflict with the high-context society all around. Chak was conscious of this. He lived, in his own words, in a “gated community.”

The only time he interacted with high-context India was when he travelled between his two nodes of work and home, jostling through traffic … every many for himself.”

The next two chapters, “Red Sorghum” and “The Factory,” take the reader from the countryside to the city; but regardless of the shift in the geography, the picture that Deb renders remains one grim Rorschach test of whether India will ever be an equitable country or will forever be wedded to its feudal past.

In The Beautiful and the Damned there is no romanticized beauty of village life; both farmers and factory workers seem doomed to live damned lives.

Perhaps because of the bleak hand-tomouth existence of its subjects, the writing in the “Red Sorghum” chapter is not as compelling as in the rest of the book; or perhaps it is just this reader’s failure to pass a test that paints India in such an unfavorable light. How can India be shining when millions of farm workers commit suicide because they cannot survive off the land that has been tilled by generations who came before them in an India that was far less prosperous but far more livable? Deb’s oblique answer is red sorghum; he unconvincingly makes this crop his main

character to explain how the dystopic nexus of seed dealers, local politicians, police, and rich farmers heaps distress on poor farmers. Rather than frame an economic argument in favor of a nostalgic and idealistic vision of Marxist India, Deb may have been better served by personalizing the tragedy by describing the plight of one suicidal farmer and bereft family.

Deb seems to be writing from the same manifesto in his exploration of factory workers’ plight when suggesting the structure of dislocated temporary labor “is an arrangement that suits employers everywhere well, ensuring that the workers will be too insecure and uprooted to ever mount organized protests.”

However the writing in the factory chapter soars above the simple Communist/Capitalist dichotomy. There is a cool objectivity when he writes that “the changes that have been wrought in India in the past two decades have not been kind to the poor.” And there is hot poetry in Deb’s description of the invisibility of the poor and the stinking visibility of their squalid living quarters, conditions that are an unbridgeable divide between the “beautiful” and the “damned:” “Although they are everywhere … they are invisible in the sense that they seem to count for nothing at all ... There was a constant smell of shit in the air, and the entire place seemed to be cast in shades of grey … Men from the managerial class did not cross the border into this living space of theirs. This was their domain, and the only people from outside their class who came here were the labor contractors, the tough middlemen straddling the decent bourgeois world of management and the rough, desperate realm of the workers.” Deb brilliantly enables the reader to similarly straddle the border, recognizing that one need only turn the page to return to our privileged lives.

After such powerful writing, the allegorical final chapter is anticlimactic. The saving grace is that the masculine feel of the rest of the book is given a rest in a profile of Esther, “The Girl from F&B.” But except for curiosity about F&B (the part of luxury hotels where young women serve Food and Beverages to rich Indians and foreign visitors), this reader was neither curious about, nor sympathetic to, the choice that Esther made in moving from rural Manipur to the country’s capital.

Delhi has money and Esther has “the taste of money.” In some ways, she is a sad caricature of New India longing for something lost some 65 years after Independence: “Her mother was a schoolteacher too, and what Esther sometimes wanted, after all her independence, striving, exposure and mobility was a simple repetition of her mother’s life.” n For Muniraj, a gentle soul who goes by one name, navigates RCO through the busy streets of Bangalore with subtle intelligence and grace.

Rajesh C. Oza is a Change Management consultant who also facilitates the interpersonal development of MBA students at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Jeanne E. Fredriksen

Gaining Lost Ground AEROGRAMMES: AND OTHER STORIESby Tania James. Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. $24.00. 192 pages. aaknopf.com. taniajames.com. Available in hardcover and for digital readers.

F

ollowing her successful and highly-acclaimed debut novel, Atlas of Unknowns (India Currents, August 2009), Tania James’ latest offering is Aerogrammes: And Other Stories, a collection of tightly-written, language-loving short fiction. These nine stories explore personal unease, family disappointment, and acceptance in lieu of compromise.

Aerogrammes consists of stand-alone stories, making it convenient to pick up the book and read at will rather than follow a prescribed sequence. All of the stories previously appeared in Boston Review, Granta, Kenyon Review, and other reputable short fiction outlets before they found a communal home at Knopf. Recently, the collection was included in Oprah’s Summer Reading List.

With her crisp imagery and clean writing, James sees the poignant humor in each character’s unique situation and need to connect, but she never stoops to ridiculing them. Instead, with a loving and tender hand, she oversees her characters who are varied in age, location, and ability to adjust their own degree of feeling adrift in a world they can’t control. Emotions, small or overwhelming, bubble with a need to find balance.

In “What to Do with Henry,” James examines the displacement and struggles of a chimp and young girl from Sierra Leone, both adopted and raised by a woman in the United States. When Henry the chimp is handed over to a zoo, he adapts—with great effort— while his human sister, Neneh, realizes that she needs him. The line between chimpanzee and human is, for a time, blurred enough that both “siblings” reach out to each other with the hope that life could be as it once was.

The 8-year old narrator of “The Gulf” tells a story of confusion (is the man in the living room really the same as the man she knows as her father via a photo?) based on distance and time. The only fatherless child at her Holy Communion, she felt the sting of omission: “I was his absence. Even in my

new white veil and black patent shoes, I was the dented suitcase he had left behind, the one with no wheels.” Having lived half her life creating fantasies about her father, his exotic work, and derring-do escape from evil employers in Dubai, she is perplexed by the man who finally shows up on their doorstep, beat down, melancholy, and unaffectionate.

“Light & Luminous” tells the story of Minal Auntie, who supports herself by teaching classical Indian dance in her home.

To supplement her income, she works at a grocery store far enough away that friends and acquaintances won’t find out. An offhand compliment revives her lost dreams of success and praise, and a newfound competitive streak leads her down the trail of vanity and lies.

In the title story, “Aerogrammes,” Hari Panicker, a new resident at a retirement home, is alone and anxious to hear from his absent son. By accident, he befriends a neighbor, May Daly, who asks him endless questions about Bombay even though he is from Kerala.

Eventually, Hari finds himself wondering if May and his other neighbors have become the family he so desperately longs for.

Each story opens with an intriguing statement, drawing the reader in effortlessly. “The Gulf” begins: “In later years I will come to avoid him, but for now, I am eight years old, and the man everyone says is my father is sitting in the living room.” “Ethnic Ken” begins curiously, stating “My grandfather believed that the guest bathroom drain was a portal for time travel.” “Girl Marries Ghost” tells us “That year, thousands entered the lottery for only handful of husbands.”

Questions form. Interest heightens. The guessing game begins, and the reader is hooked. At the conclusion of each story, it is apparent that there is more ground to be had, but the clipped endings are, nonetheless, satisfying.

While James’ talents were displayed more completely in her novel, she has created a collection that will surprise and entertain from the first to the last page. n Jeanne E. Fredriksen reads and writes from Wake Forest, North Carolina, where she is happily at work on her young adult novel. india currents • october 2012 • 23

24 • india currents • october 2012

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india currents • october 2012 • 25

I C ask a lawyer

Priya Alagiri

Immigrant Entrepreneurship

Q A

How can a foreign entrepreneur start a company in the U.S.?

Being in the center of innovation in Silicon Valley, this is a commonly asked question and the following lays out some visa options to explore.

First, the L-1 visa. Known as the intracompany transfer visa, the L-1 visa specifically permits the starting up of a new office in the U.S. The caveat, though, is that the new office must be related (ex. subsidiary or affiliate) to a foreign company, and the visa applicant must have worked as an executive, manager or specialized knowledge employee for that foreign company for at least one year out of the last three years. If approved, the L-1 visa is granted for only one year, after which time the L-1 visa holder must apply for a visa extension. The benefits of this visa are that there are no minimum education requirements and visa holders can likely eventually qualify for the fast-track EB-1 category to obtain permanent residence. However, all L-1 new office applications must include extensive evidence of the company’s viability as well as proof of sufficient physical premises

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to house the new company.

Second, the E-2 visa. This visa also permits foreign nationals to start up a new company in the U.S. However, it is only reserved for citizens of E visa treaty countries. Unfortunately, India is not an E visa treaty country, but Japan and many South American and European Union countries are treaty countries. If the foreign entrepreneur is a citizen of an E-2 treaty country, then this visa further requires that he or she make an at-risk, “substantial” investment in a bona fide U.S. enterprise. The E-2 investor must also own at least 50% of the startup company. The E-2 investor could potentially stay indefinitely on the E-2 visa, but the downside is that, unlike the L-1 visa, E-2 visa holders are not permitted to pursue permanent residence.

Third, the H-1B visa. Most everyone has heard of the H-1B visa. Although commonly used by companies to hire specialized workers, it can also be used by foreign nationals to startup a company in the U.S. under certain conditions. According to a recent initiative by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, a foreign entrepreneur can apply for the H-1B visa to start a company in the U.S.

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Finally, the EB-5 visa, which was addressed in the August issue of India Currents.

The above is a very general outline of the visa options available to foreign entrepreneurs.

Each option comes with its own set of unique requirements, but it provides a good place to start for those brave and innovative foreign citizens wanting to launch a startup in the United States. n

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I C relationship diva

Jasbina Ahluwalia

Finding the Connection Q

I’ve been dating my boyfriend for about two and a half years, and it seems like for the last four or five months our connection has become less and less. We both seem to want similar things in life, so I’m hopeful things will turn around, but I’m just not sure how to go about turning it around. Any suggestions?

A

“Connection” is one of the most frequent words to come up among both my dating coaching and matchmaking clients, men and women alike, when they describe the kind of relationship they seek. I believe being understood and appreciated by one’s partner is important. While your question does not contain any details regarding the particular circumstances of the diminishing sense of connection with your boyfriend, the timing of the diminishing connection gives me a hint as to what may potentially be going on.

I appreciate that you believe there is enough fundamental compatibility between you and your boyfriend to motivate you to reclaim your connection. As such, I will answer your question in a way that will provide you with a possible explanation, as well as potential solu-

tion, and at the same time provide general guidance to other readers grappling with a similar situation.

Let’s begin with the timing issue. The euphoric experience of falling in love generally runs its course within about two years.

Dr. Gary Chapman, author of The Five Love Languages, discusses how “the being in-love” state gives us an unrealistic illusion which inevitably ends when, typically after about two years or so, we return to reality and each individuals emotions, thoughts, desires, and behavior patterns begin to assert themselves.

It is then that we must consciously choose to meet each other’s emotional needs to feel loved.

One challenge many of us face in meeting our partners’ needs to feel loved is that we and our partners many times speak different emotional love languages.

There are five different “love languages:” Words of Affirmation (words of appreciation and encouragement) • Quality Time (focused attention/enjoying time together) • Receiving Gifts (visual symbols of love) • Acts of Service (errands/chores)

• Physical Touch Dr. Chapman’s book suggests that you and your boyfriend ask yourselves three questions to discover your respective love language(s): 1. What does your partner do/not do that hurts you the most (as the opposite of this probably represents your love language)?

2. What do you most often request of your partner (as your requests likely reveal what would make you feel the most loved)?

3. How do you express love (as your way of expressing love may indicate what makes you feel loved)?

So the two of you may wish to consciously express your love for one another in each other’s love language, as a means of reclaiming the sense of connection you enjoyed in the past. n Jasbina is the founder and president of Intersections Match, the only personalized matchmaking and dating coaching firm serving singles of South Asian descent in the United States. She is also the host of Intersections Talk Radio, a monthly lifestyle show. www.IntersectionsMatch.com. Jasbina@intersectionsmatch.com.

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IC

films

Aniruddh Chawda

The Spy Who Danced With Me EK THA TIGER. Director: Kabir Khan. Players: Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, Ranveer Shorey, Girish Karnad, Roshan Sheth. Music: Sohail Sen, Sajid-Wajid. Theatrical release (Yashraj)

I

n an industry notorious for having “camps” of one type of another, it is not unusual that Salman Khan, despite his sizable box office following (Bodyguard, Ready) has never previously worked with Yashraj, the biggest movie studio in Hindi movies. Khan started with the Rajshri label and eventually moved to make his own movies while Yashraj forged an arrangement with Shahrukh Khan and, first with Fanaa and the upcoming Dhoom 3, only recently warmed up to Aamir Khan.

When Yashraj enlisted another major star the last time—Akshay Kumar in Tashan—was disastrous. Working with Salman Khan in Ek Tha Tiger, has better results.

If exceedingly noisy and busy film-making were the norm, Ek Tha Tiger would be a champion. What is passed off as a plot has Khan as Tiger, a spy—he works for RAW (loosely equivalent to India’s CIA)—materializing in Dublin to track down a gifted Indian scientist (Seth) suspected of passing India’s military secrets to Pakistan. As both luck and plot connivance would have it—Tiger learns that in order to get close to the scientist, he must first win over the scientist’s attractive assistant Zoya (Kaif). Also as luck would have it, Tiger finds himself drawn to the hard to pin down Zoya, and, mixing business with beauty, falls hook, line and sinker in love with Zoya. And oh yes, did we mention that Zoya is also a spy, working for ISI—loosely equivalent to Pakistan’s CIA? First with Agent Vinod and now Ek Tha Tiger, an emerging trend is the resurgence of the on-screen subcontinental Cold War, the slow burning often incendiary geopolitical chess game between India and Pakistan since 1947. In the first wave of that Cold War’s plotlines—think Farz (1967), Aankhen (1968) or Yakeen (1969)—uniformly referred to a “foreign power ” for fear that Indian censors would not allow naming Pakistan as India’s mortal enemy. It wasn’t until 1970 that Dev Anand broke the onscreen taboo by naming Pakistan in Prem Pujari! (Never mind that in Rockstar (2011), in the new freer India, Indian film censors blocked out a huge concert banner with the words “Free Tibet.” Does that mean China is the new “foreign power” and 30 • india currents • october 2012

onscreen boogey-nation?

Time shifting between Dublin, Mumbai, London and that rarest of foreign locales, Havana—director Khan serves up a visually evocative road trip enhanced by the exotic setting. Former BFFs Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif “reuniting” here hold a surprising amount of interest. Kaif still needs to have her voice dubbed and Khan, in an unusual turn, keeps his shirt on throughout! The spectacle of a RAW agent and an ISI agent both going rogue and being chased by their respective spy agencies is interesting in itself! Other than that, the supporting cast of both Seth and Karnad, as Tiger’s RAW handler, is top notch.

The Yashraj label’s rep for box office success (Vicky Donor, Mere Brother Ki Dulhan), is based on both studio’s uncanny success at converging elevated stagecraft with shrewd marketing. Case in point: With the all-encompassing YouTube emerging as the primary global mass media tool of choice, the studio rolled out a fun-to-watch and stylish version Tiger’s chart-topping “Mashallah” video.

Wise move. The ploy not only preempted online pirates—who were bound to roll out crude versions of the popular dance number, regardless —but eyeballs that tuned in to catch “Mashallah” then logically clicked on the other song videos from Tiger also rolled out on YouTube.

If the medium was ever the message, currently it is YouTube. “Mashallah’s” catchy

beat—featuring a shirt-on Salman Khan and scantily clad Kaif, along with Wajid Khan’s lilting Arabesque falsetto and set in a nether spy-world—garnered 6.5 million hits within a month. That is quite successful. In comparison, other popular Hindi songs stack up as follows: “Dhunki” (4.5 million), “Munni Badnam Hui” (4.9 million), “Chinta ta ta” (5 million), “Anarkali Disco Chali” (5.7 million).

The only Hindi song with more YouTube hits than “Mashallah”—a seemingly unattainable 13.7 million hits—is a record for the megahit “Twist” from Love Aaj Kal. This not-so-stealth positioning landed Tiger the biggest opening for a Hindi movie ever. With a global take of more than approximately $20 million within three days of a celebrated opening on August 15 (India’s independence day), Tiger also roared to blockbuster status within a week. Salman Khan may not have Aamir Khan’s artistic virtuosity, Hrithik Roshan’s good looks or dance moves or Shahrukh Khan’s media savviness, but for where he is at, Salman Khan has immense box office draw and excels at being a bad boy even in his 40s. Ek Tha Tiger gets a decent bang for a one-viewing buck. n EQ: B Globe trekker, aesthete, photographer, ski bum, film buff, and commentator, Aniruddh Chawda writes from Milwaukee.

Madhumita Gupta

Stirred and Shaken COCKTAIL. Director: Homi Adjania Players: Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone, Diana Penty, Boman Irani, Dimple Kapadia, Randeep Hooda Music: Pritam Theatrical Release: Illuminati Films

H

omi Adjania’s second celluloid outing, coming seven years after Being Cyrus, is very different from its predecessor. While his debut movie was a dark, quirky tale, Cocktail is a fun, breezy film which glides along on the strength of gorgeous visuals, trippy music and expert performances.

A hapless Meera (Penty) lands in London only to be dumped unceremoniously by Hooda, who had married her in India only to facilitate his immigration to London. She meets an unlikely savior in the form of a drunk Veronica (Padukone) who generously invites her to stay with her. As a bond grows between the two girls, lonely in their own ways, into their haven comes Gautam (Khan)—who appears to be the perfect male counterpart to Veronica. Trouble starts in this “awesome threesome” paradise when Gautam and Mira start falling for each other.

Cast in the rom-com mold, the movie differs from others in the genre by trying to answer a tricky question—what would happen if three people caught in a love triangle were to be honest about their feelings?

Nothing very different, as it turns out.

There’d still be sacrifices, envy, unrequited love, stormy walk-outs et. al. But somewhere amidst this routine there are flashes of something new, as yet unseen. And it comes in the form of Veronica (Padukone) as the spoilt, rich-brat who ultimately emerges as the most layered character tinged with a shade of grey.

Her initial façade of chirpy acceptance of the unexpected romance between her lover and her best friend soon crumbles as raw jealousy surfaces. This is followed by a venomous outburst, a descent into alcoholic-despair and finally, an attempt to win the affection of the only man she loves, thanks to a car-accident (a convenient plot contrivance). It is only when the movie ends that you realize that she has quietly walked away with the film with her multi-hued characterization.

Of course, this does not take away from the other performances. As the demure, conservative Meera (Penty) may well be the find of the year. Fresh-faced and radiantly pretty, she delivers a surprisingly mature and sensitive turn which forms the emotional core of the film. Refreshingly different from the bimbo-brigade of female debutantes, she could be the next big thing if she chooses her films well. As Gautam (Khan) proves, he is the go-to actor for romantic comedies with his effortless Lothario act which he has by now perfected. Dimple Kapadia and Boman Irani, as Khan’s Mom and Uncle respectively, are dependably hilarious—the movie’s funniest sequences are the ones with either one or both of them. Kapadia deserves a special mention for her superb performance as the over-the-top Panju Mom. Cinematographer Anil Mehta keeps the look cool and urbane. The South Africa scenes are given a summery, sunnier feel while the nightclub scenes—with their stroboscopic effects and disco colors—are kinetic, especially an outstanding blink-and-you-miss-it sequence which shows Deepika standing eerily alone in a throbbing crowd. Salim-Suleiman’s minimalist background score blends into the scenes without ever calling attention to itself and the music—by Pritam—is an instant winner, be it the catchy “Tumhi Ho Bandhu,” the irresistibly desi “Second Hand Jawaani” or the breezily innovative “Daaru Desi.”

It should come as no surprise that the script is penned by Imtiaz Ali—reigning emperor of all things romance. After Jab We Met, Love Aaj Kal and Rockstar, it is yet

another different take on love and human relationships. The only letdown is that once again the hero and the hero’s mother root for the docile, touch-me-not Meera despite Veronica’s attempt to dumb-down and become the stereotypical “good girl” and one is left wondering when Bollywood would ever wholeheartedly embrace the bold if bad-girl?

Has anything really changed after all these years when the maxi-clad vamp would either die saving the hero or walk alone into the night while the sari-clad heroine got the hero for keeps!

However, the best part about Cocktail is that it never takes itself too seriously. Peppered with some great humor (at the end of a serious monologue Deepika chattily asks, “Ho gaya?

Ya thodha aur melodrama karoon?”) and witty lines, it is equal parts light fun and breezy romance. A well-mixed Cocktail, indeed! n EQ: B Madhumita Gupta is a freelance writer and teacher.

LATA’S LICK PICKS

F

ail Cockt Tha Tiger Ek ns Evil Retur i ari Ki Sawar Ferr seypur angs of Was  G Joker  imum Max Rathore Rowdy ai i Shangh h Nikal Pad Farhad Ki To in ir Sh   haani Teri Meri Ka 

india currents • october 2012 • 31

32 • india currents • october 2012

india currents • october 2012 • 33

IC

commentary

Anita Felicelli

Parody or Comedy?

O

n October 3, 2011 in The New Yorker, writer/actress/producer Mindy Kaling dissected the female types in romantic comedies, noting her love for the genre: “I regard romantic comedies as a subgenre of scifi, in which the world operates according to different rules than my regular human world.

For me, there is no difference between Ripley from Alien and any Katherine Heigl character. They are equally implausible. They’re all participating in a similar level of fakey razzledazzle, and I enjoy every second of it.”

Only someone who absolutely loves romantic comedies could make fun of them as artfully as Kaling does in her new show The Mindy Project. This summer, Nora Ephron, the witty author and screenwriter who defined romantic comedies for a generation passed away. The opening to Mindy Kaling’s new television sit-com The Mindy Project pays tribute to Ephron with a sequence to which many thirty-something professional women can relate: a history of watching romantic comedies.

While many professional women who jump from school to a high pressure career don’t have time for a relationship, a good percentage do have time for the tension release and fantasy that television provides and it’s those viewers to which Kaling’s show should especially appeal.

A capsule summary shows us that Mindy (Kaling’s character is named Mindy, too) arrives at the present day by imbibing so many romantic comedies that, when stuck in an elevator with an attractive doctor, she thinks “Met in an elevator, my hair came undone?

Are you kidding me? I’m basically Sandra Bullock!” Her twee “how we got together” story is turned on its head when we learn that the doctor is now marrying someone else. After giving a nasty toast to the newlyweds, Mindy bikes drunkenly into a swimming pool and winds up talking to a mean Barbie doll.

From there, romantic comedy tropes continue as we meet the advice-giving best friend with kid, the hot British doctor, the nasty colleague, and the blind date. In the first ten minutes alone, I saw references to You’ve Got Mail, Bridget Jones's Diary, Ally McBeal, My Best Friend’s Wedding, and Clueless. I’m pretty sure there were more there, but there were too many in the pastiche to pinpoint. Many of Kaling’s references were themselves referring to their predecessors, Jane Austen, Shakespeare and movies from Hollywood’s Golden Age, but none quoted from their predecessors as cleverly as she does. Nearly every element of the show was familiar, but in the best way.

Most of the humor in the show springs from 34 • india currents • october 2012

Kaling’s gentle skewering of our expectations.

What’s really interesting about the show is that Kaling is not only creating one of the first postmodern romantic comedies on television, but she’s doing it without the skinny blonde actress we would have seen if this show were created in the 80s, 90s or 00s. She breaks new ground by creating a chubby Indian-American character whose significant flaws make her three-dimensional and relatable. Like Lena Dunham in HBO’s Girls whose comedic material is similarly personal, she has the bravery to address the fact of her non-skinniness on air. Unlike Dunham’s character Hannah, Kaling’s character is confident.

In Kaling’s endearingly awkward character, you can see her roots as a writer on The Office, a show that in its best moments gave us comedy that felt like it arose more organically than your average network sit-com. Like Steve Carell’s Michael Scott, Kaling’s Mindy is often socially clueless and politically incorrect. But as you might guess from her Twitter persona, she’s also very likeable.

Besides parodying rom-coms, the pilot of The Mindy Project makes funny observations about doctors, the healthcare system, workplaces, and blind dates. Unlike the romantic comedies to which it alludes, The Mindy Project aspires to a mix of embarrassing vulnerability and faux pop-edginess (MIA’s “Bad Girls” plays in the soundtrack). Like Kaling’s memoir, it includes humorous cultural criticism. Most of the pilot wasn’t funny in the laugh-out-loud sense, at least not to me. Most of it was funny the way that Jane Austen is funny—in the social satire sense. The pilot modernizes the premise of Austen’s Northanger Abbey, which poked fun at young women who internalized the Gothic novel. Instead of satirizing the craze for Gothic novels, Kaling makes fun of young women who internalize romantic comedies.

The show is not flawless. Two jokes in particular, one about Serbian war criminals and another about burqa, fall flat. It is only after I watched the show a second time that I realized that Kaling was making an amusing

observation about the state of racism today— instead of fixing racism, even people who are the subjects of racism or cultural prejudice engage in it.

But if a sit-com joke requires that much thought, it might not be as smart and funny as intended. And maybe it’s not very successful as an observation either. Hopefully there will be fewer ham-fisted ethnic jokes through the season.

When Harry Met Sally, the classic story of friends turned lovers, plays in the background of a scene with Mindy and one of the doctors. In a movie like Sleepless in Seattle, you could predict the last scene because of an involved earlier conversation between the women about An Affair to Remember. Critics of romantic comedies often point to how simplistic, symmetrical and predictable they are as a sign of their inferiority. It’s a testament to the creativity of Kaling’s pilot that I don’t know whether her character will end up with the doctor she watches the movie with or her blind date (well-played by Ed Helms, also of The Office) or a completely different character.

Pilots don’t always tell the truth about a show’s upcoming season. Most comedies get better with time, as you get to know the character and inside jokes develop. The pilot for How I Met Your Mother, for example, started out simple and more cute than funny, before developing into a hilariously complex, madcap narrative. Willa Paskin, the television critic at Salon.com has likened the pilot to a book jacket, rather than a first chapter. This “book jacket” was very promising, both as a comedy for all Americans and for its social impact on the representation of Indians in mass media.

Equal parts acidic snark and sugary earnestness (and sometimes both simultaneously), The Mindy Project promises something above and beyond razzle-dazzle. You can watch it on Fox’s Tuesday line-up. n Anita Felicelli is a writer and attorney who lives in the Bay Area. She is the author of the novel “Sparks Off You” and other books.

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fiction

Commonwealth Games M

uniamma hobbled out of her hut on a pair of crutches to study the massive billboard.

The government had installed it a week ago, to hide the slum from international guests and television cameras during the Commonwealth Games.

They have done well to conceal their guilt, she thought.

It was not the first time she was rendered invisible, hidden from kindness and good fortune, and barricaded from mercy. It wouldn’t be the last.

From the time she could remember, she was told that the untouchables were destined to a life in the slums. They were only worthy of living next to broken drain pipes that leaked shit and slime, and junk that poisoned their soil and drinking water.

The advertisement, which featured athletes of different nations running towards the finishing line, also blocked their access to the main road.

An extra thirty minutes to get to work at the laundry was inconvenient, but Muniamma was more worried that her dear grand-

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36 • india currents • october 2012

daughter, Rani, would have to take the old shortcut through the land fill, to get to school.

A few weeks after school had started, one of the parents discovered a path through the garbage dump adjoining the shantytown.

It was a mountain range of rotting dead bodies, decaying waste from restaurants, tattered clothing, resilient plastic, diseased needles and dark brown soil abused by toxins leeching into it. In the day, rag pickers and birds and cows with sores all over their bodies harvested its harmful fruits. Ancient trucks that ferried people and trash created arteries of filth that in time became roads.

Cardboard signs guided users through the maze of garbage to the school. Soon, starched bright white uniforms traversed the route in the morning and frenetic beams of light from steel torches sought the way back to the slum after sunset.

That was until a pack of wild mongrels attacked Abu Salim the tailor, on a cold February night. They found him with his throat ripped out, lying amongst broken soft drink bottles.

The dump was a scary place at night with its dark mounds and eerie sounds. But the men in the slum gathered their lanterns and knives and looked for the dogs, but didn’t find any.

A month later, the animals mauled a child, but she managed to escape with injuries.

An agitation was held in front of the Municipal Corporation Office under the leadership of a local activist, and the Mayor annoyed by damning press reports, sent his workers to round up stray animals in the area.

After that most people still braved the path in the morning when the waste pickers were around but no one risked the trip after dark. The kids started using the main road to return home.

But now with the billboard cutting off the route, they had no choice.

“At least it gives us shade from the sun in the morning Amma,” Rani said interrupting her thought.

Muniamma smiled at the little one and stroked her hair. “Get ready for school, darling.”

Rani’s parents died in a fireworks factory accident some years ago. The little girl was the sole reason for her existence.

She went to the kitchen and prepared lunch for Rani—chappathi, yoghurt and pickled lime.

Rani came into the kitchen tying her curly hair with a band. She looked unhappily at

Nikesh Murali Katha 2012 Honorable Mention

.

her lunch box, grabbed it from Muniamma’s hand.

Muniamma smiled.

“Amma, I am leaving,” Rani said, slinging a school bag over her shoulder.

“Study well, my love. When you become a teacher one day and make lots of money, I will buy expensive fish and meat from the market and make better dishes.”

Rani kissed her hand.

“Tell you what. I will bring sweets back from work,” Muniamma said.

“Can’t wait,” Rani squealed with joy and waved her goodbye.

Muniamma watched the little girl leap over rivulets of filth and cow dung in her white top and green skirt, her anklets leaving a sweet trail of music in its wake.

“Do you want me to come with you?” she shouted.

“No,” said Rani.

She asked the question everyday and received the same answer.

Muniamma smiled at the sweet nature of her little girl who knew grandma could never will herself to enter the street where the school was located. Waves of pain shot up her crippled leg as she recalled the trauma.

As a little girl Muniamma was fond of racing boys in the neighbourhood on her rusty bicycle decked with red ribbons. One day she accidentally rode into that same street, the domain of high caste businessmen several decades ago.

The boys halted at the entrance, but she ignored them and the glaring shopkeepers and pedaled faster. Then someone kicked her.

She landed on her side, legs straddling the bike. Her body pulsed with pain and she tasted blood. It took her a few minutes to recover from the shock.

“How dare you cast your impure shadow on this street?” the man who brought her down, said.

A little crowd gathered around her.

“Teach her a lesson so that the other vermin wouldn’t dare step here.”

Someone threw the man a wooden log.

Muniamma pleaded with folded hands and tears in her eyes. She tried to sit up, but the man pinned her left leg to the steel frame of the bike with his foot.

She screamed as he lifted the log and slammed it into her leg again and again. Her cries brought the busy street to a halt.

She looked around and begged for mercy.

Many looked away, some smiled at her with relish.

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There was a loud sickening crunch and Muniamma lost consciousness.

The man carried on till he was exhausted.

Then he dropped the log and walked away.

The crowd dispersed, disappointed that the show was over.

The world passed by, careful not to step on her blood and flesh.

Finally a rickshaw puller took her to the hospital.

Muniamma shed a tear as she recalled the horror. Some things had changed since then, a lot hadn’t. ***

M

uniamma made her own lunch, packed it into a cloth bundle and left for the laundry.

The long walk through the dump and on the road was tough on her body. She stopped several times to give her good leg a rest.

When she arrived, she signed the register and entered the large courtyard with a waist high cement tank in the middle. Men in white vests and sports shorts and women in their saris slapped clothes against flogging stones rhythmically. Sun rays caught in constant spray of water and soap, created mini rainbows. The air smelled of detergent and wet garments.

She picked one of the numbered stainless steel buckets and joined the others To forget the pain in her leg, she willed herself into a trance washing the clothes, watching the dirty water and suds drain into an outlet that took it to the black river flowing just outside the compound.

She had lunch with her dearest and longest friend at the laundry.

Chanki was greedily smoking her favorite brand of beedi.

“What’s that on the side of your face?”

Muniamma said pointing to the red welt.

Chanki blew smoke.

Muniamma coughed. “Not to my face, you idiot.”

Chanki grinned, displaying her yellow teeth.

“Did the old man beat you again?” she said placing a hand on Chanki’s shoulder.

“And I gave him good. But to get back at me he peed in his bed.”

Muniamma gave her a half smile.

“What’s bothering you today,” Chanki asked.

“Nothing.”

“Nonsense. I saw you mumbling prayers.”

“I am worried about Rani. She’s been walking through the dump to go to school.

The dogs … ” “The corporation killed them all. I was there. They took most of them away in a van. The ones that resisted were beaten with wooden clubs or kicked to death.”

Muniamma gave Chanki a disapproving look.

38 • india currents • october 2012

“They deserved it,” she said, “for killing poor Abu Salim and mauling Saroja’s girl. She still can’t see out of one eye.”

“We don’t have the right to take a life.”

“You wouldn’t say that if something happened to … ” Chanki stopped, “I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

Muniamma got up, “Time to get back to work.”

She hated to think something nasty would happen to her darling.

She didn’t talk to anyone for the rest of the day, but waved goodbye to Chanki at the end of the shift.

She bought some candy from a nearby store. She couldn’t wait to see the delight on her angel’s face.

The sun disappeared in a hurry and her failing eyesight made it difficult to see the potholes and exposed drainage. The constant stream of high beams and honking on the road numbed her senses.

She paused for a second before entering the landfill and trained her light on the surroundings. Dark hills of waste like the surface of an alien planet. She listened for the sound of animals, but all she could hear was the rustling of plastic bags.

She was glad Rani walked to school and back with a group of children.

She moved as fast as she could through that blasted landscape, oblivious to the pain. ***

M

uniamma knew Rani wasn’t home because the house was dark.

She lit a kerosene lamp and shouted the girl’s name as looked around the house.

There was no response.

“Have you seen my little Rani?” she asked neighbors. They shook their heads.

She asked the group of girls that Rani usually travelled with. They hadn’t seen her.

The old woman sat down and let out an anguished cry, “Rani.”

People came running from nearby homes.

“It’s nearly 7 now, what is my little girl doing? Where is she?”

“She must be playing with friends somewhere. We will find her soon,” others consoled her.

“Rani is always home before I get back.

She is a good girl. She wouldn’t worry me.”

She sat at the same spot clutching the bag of candy she bought for Rani and wailed. She refused to have a drink or accept a word of solace till her granddaughter was found.

A search party was organized, but they

failed to find any trace of her in the slum.

Then someone suggested they should look in the land fill. The idea conjured feelings of dread, but they took iron rods and torches, and scoured the wasteland. They even searched the roads that lead to the school and the building itself.

There was no sign of Rani.

The men returned exhausted and dirty and they stayed up all night in their huts, worrying about the little girl.

Muniamma fell asleep after hours of crying.

She had a nightmare of Rani being chased by hounds the size of cows with red eyes and sharp teeth. Muniamma shouted and banged her crutches together to draw their attention.

She pleaded with them to take her instead.

And they did. ***

T

he next day, a few hours before the “parade for peace” was to pass through the main road, a traffic policeman found the half eaten body of a child.

He radioed it in.

A crew arrived immediately and removed the corpse. A cleaner poured chemicals on the road and scrubbed the spot.

He rushed the job on account of urgency, but it didn’t matter because when the large procession of bright smiles and flags and colourful sports jerseys and expensive suits and flashing light bulbs passed by, nobody noticed the large dark stain in the middle of road. n Judges’ Comments: Chitra Divakaruni: The setting and description were well done.

Bharti Kirchner: Timely topic; poignant; holds the reader’s attention till the end.

Nikesh Murali’s work (which includes comics, poems and short stories) has appeared in more than 80 publications worldwide. His poems have been translated into Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and French. He won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize for the Asian region in 2011. His poetry was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2007. He has completed his Masters in Journalism from Griffith University for which he was awarded the Griffith University Award for Academic Excellence in 2005, and his Masters in Teaching from James Cook University and a Bachelors degree in English Literature and World History from University of Kerala. He is working towards his Doctorate in Creative Writing.

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india currents • october 2012 • 41

IC

youth

Octavio Martinez

. Silicon Valley DeBug

I Just Gave You the World

I

t must have been when I was about 10 years old that I’d rush out of my house at the sound of the ice cream truck, nearly losing my balance going down the stairs every single time. We lived in an almost exclusively Mexican immigrant apartment complex, and word would spread quickly of the Indian ice cream man’s arrival. My brother would call out “lla llego! lla llego!”—He is here, He is here, and we would rush out trying to beat our neighbors across the hallway.

My goal was always to get the Worldwide Wrestling Foundation (WWF) ice cream bar with the random collectible card it came with in hopes that I’d get my favorite wrestler, the heartbreak kid, Shawn Michaels. I remember practicing for hours the “sweet chin music” move, all the time, hoping that it would come in handy at some point in my life. The ice cream man was a very nice man, always happy, giving us kids ice cream for what ever change we had.

Each time I ran short of a dollar, which was the price of the bar, the ice cream truck man would let it slide. His signature move was to look at the change in my hand, give me a skeptical look, wiggle his bushy eyebrows together, fold the wrinkles around his eyes to make me think he wasn’t going to take what I had for the ice cream. Then he would smile, a genuine smile, and hand me the ice cream I coveted.

The ice cream man had a long beard, the longest I have ever seen to date. We always thought it was a mysterious thing to have a beard that long. The beard went along with his accent, it was like nothing we had ever heard, so at times it was hard to understand him. But we got used to it.

42 • india currents • october 2012

My neighborhood was and still is full of kids running around, and this is probably the reason why street vendors love coming to my neighborhood. Street vending is very common in Mexico and in India, I suppose. Walking through these countries in impoverished areas you can probably buy just about anything on the streets without having to step into an actual store. My neighborhood is a bit like that.

It’s a street where people of all sorts of ethnicities come together through street vending.

The ice cream man stood out because he was the one who always tried to talk to us and knew just about all the neighborhood kids by our names and nicknames. He even tried to learn Spanish by talking to us. There was another ice cream truck vendor before the Indian man who stopped coming to my neighborhood one fine day. He was unfriendly, seemed to hate his job, and his prices were 25 cents more expensive.

I still don’t know why I never asked for my favorite ice cream truck man’s name. One day I asked why he would always let us get away with paying less than what the ice cream costed. His response was, “If you saw where I came from, I just gave you the world.”

At that age, I didn’t understand what he meant. Now, I am guessing that he, like my own family, grew up in a place of poverty and struggle. And that it is a joy to be in a position and place where he can give a young boy his favorite ice cream. n Octavio Martinez, aka Tiburon, is a Silicon Valley DeBug writer and photographer. This article was part of the series, “Arriving and Becoming—First Person.”

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IC

perspective

. B’Khush

The Tyranny of Beauty Purba Ray

Is independence being sacrificed at the altar of beauty?

W

atching Nigella Lawson’s cooking show on TV is an act of sheer decadence for me. A strikingly beautiful woman, spilling out of her dress, she makes gluttony look like a form of art. I sigh as I watch her pour cartons of heavy cream, slabs of dark chocolate and a generous dash of rum—forbidden pleasures for most of us. And as she gleefully adds a slab of butter, your eyes pop out in horror.

But she is unperturbed by your extreme reaction as she continues to whip her heavenly concoction in a bowl and closes her eyes in ecstasy as she takes a lick. Nigella takes erotic pleasure and delight in her cooking and eating.

Later as she opens her mammoth refrigerator to fix a midnight snack for herself, you can feel her rapture as she puts a spoonful of bacon in her mouth. You derive vicarious pleasure in watching her surrender to her gastronomic indulgences. You sigh wistfully as you munch your bowl of roasted gram. Here’s a woman who loves her butter and carbs and is not apologetic about it.

Very different from the woman of today.

Let me rephrase that. Very different from the woman that society insinuates, directly or indirectly, that women be today.

At one level, the new millennium femme has emerged triumphant after decades of struggle against a social order that asserted man as supreme. You are but a mere extension to him ... is what she was made to believe.

Smothered by a long list of “don’ts” imposed by society and religion, her rights were denied, opportunities curtailed, her voice silenced.

Not anymore.

I know what I want and usually get it—I have learnt my lessons from History. She is now aware of her reproductive, marital and political rights and doesn’t hesitate in asserting herself. She fights for what is due to her at her workplace. She is unapologetic about indulging herself. She is focused and wears her many hats effortlessly. Yet, at another level, she struggles to conform to stereotypical notions of beauty imposed by society. She toils at the gym, gets her hair straightened every few months, prefers “French” manicure.

She starves, goes under the knife, takes painful injections in her eternal quest for beauty.

As Germaine Greer, the Australian academic and journalist has so succucintly put it, “A woman lives in terror of her bum looking big.

I hate my nose, change it please. My laugh lines make me feel older, I want them erased.

Flabby thighs, crows feet, close set eyes—they 44 • india currents • october 2012

all dent my self-esteem. With beauty, I have the world at my feet.

But how many of us can be that woman?

A friend of mine dreads meeting her friends from school. Every time they do, all they can exclaim about is her post-baby weight. Barbie with no individuality or character is the beauty icon of today, transcending the oriental and the occidental. Teenagers starve themselves because they want to look like Katrina Kaif.

They want bikini perfect bodies and greedily devour their favorite star’s health gyan! Ooh I love lauki, I snack on seeds, I meditate for an hour. A pack of lies if you ask me. Most of them go on extreme diets surviving on just orange juice for days and work themselves to exhaustion with their fancy trainers.

But why blame them? Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is ridiculed for not losing her pregnancy adipose tissue accumulation. The media derives sadistic pleasure in highlighting a celebrity’s cellulite. An unwanted tire on her midriff is captioned with a “What Was She Thinking?” An actress in her 30s is considered past her prime. Wrinkles, mismatched shoes, bed-heads are the new cardinal sins. Kate Moss makes a reappearance on the catwalk for her friend Marc Jacobs and all the world can talk about is her wrinkly, sagging behind. The world would rather go gaga over Demi Moore who spends millions on surgery!

The beauty industry thrives on our insecurities. Don’t go under the sun, harmful UV rays will damage your skin. Did you know your face has dark spots that you can’t see!

Your skin starts aging in your 20s—some skin care company informs you smugly. Gosh you are 40 and you don’t use anti wrinkle cream?

A bleak future awaits you. There are creams peddled for every part of your body, every hour of the day—there is one for daytime, one for night, one for under the eye, for hands, for cuticles. Beauty is available off the shelf and for a price.

If patriarchy was the greatest con in the history of humanity, you just have to look at the starving bodies of female models walking on stilts on the ramp to know that women are still manipulated by men. The tyranny of patriarchy has been replaced by the tyranny of beauty. We are scared of our grays, we are petrified of sagging skin, we are consumed with the idea of youth and beauty.

Naomi Wolf has argued in her book The Beauty Myth that forced adherence to standards of physical beauty has grown stronger for women as they gained power in other societal arenas. She posits the idea of an

“iron-maiden,” an intrinsically unattainable standard that is then used to punish women physically and psychologically for their failure to achieve and conform to it. Pick up any magazine and the women look picture perfect—not a hair out of place, her skin glowing, her never-ending legs taut and perfectly bronzed. If something is less than perfect, there is always the air brush. She is not a woman, she is just an idea peddled by the fashion mafia! We see the glamor but not the frustration and the pain. And like a bunch of gullible fools we fall prey to it.

Is the woman of today truly emancipated? Isn’t she sacrificing her happiness and independence at the altar of beauty? To be truly emancipated she should be free to do whatever she wants with her face and body.

Don’t let anyone have you believe that Men are “seen” and Women “looked at.”

I am not advocating that you gorge on kurmas and let go of your fitness regime. I am all for healthy living. But don’t let others dictate beauty to you. If a man falls for your physical attributes rather than you, he is not worthy of your affection. You are not just a body, you are not mere statistics. Your warmth, your sunny disposition, your smile, the way you tilt your head, your ready wit—this is your inner beauty. Your face with its laugh lines, crow’s feet and creases on the forehead tell a story.

Love your child-bearing hips and look at the mirror with your head held high.

The next time you meet a long lost friend, don’t gloat about her ample frame—she has a mirror at home, she already knows it! She is still that girl who made you laugh, was with you through your heartbreaks and was your closest confidante. Remember how happy you were for her when she won that singing contest? Love her for what she is.

Pulchritude has its place. But let it not compromise a woman’s right to happiness and contentment. n This article was first published on Bkhush.com.

B’Khush is an online interactive magazine for desi women around the world. www.bkhush. com. Purba Ray is a blogger from India.

IC

media

Viji Sundaram

. New America Media

Sex Selection Fuels Human Trafficking V

iji Sundaram talked with Urmi Basu, founder and trustee of the Kolkatabased New Light shelter program for prostitutes and their children, while Basu was on a brief visit to California. The trip comes ahead of the U.S. broadcast of the PBS documentary, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, which features the work of the activist.

The heart-wrenching film takes the readers to several countries in Africa, Southeast Asia and India where young girls are victims of unspeakable violence, but where too women’s rights activists are providing them opportunities to get back on their feet when they leave their oppressors. The four-hour film was inspired by the widely acclaimed book of the same name by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn.

When and why did you start New Light, and could you describe the work you are doing.

I started New Light in 2000, a few years after I had an opportunity to visit a red light area in Mumbai while I was a graduate student at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

That visit, as well as seeing the [1988] film, Salaam Bombay, made a lasting impression on me, especially when I realized that no concerted effort was being made to bring civic services to families living in the red light areas.

You say the widespread preference for boy children over girls has contributed to the problem of India’s child trafficking. What’s the connection there?

The gender ratio in parts of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Bihar has resulted in a shortage of girls in those states. In some places, for every seven boys there are only three girls. Traffickers see this as a business opportunity. They are bringing girls from Bangladesh and Nepal to those states.

Are these traffickers from outside places?

It’s a total misconception to think that traffickers come from outside places. Most of them are from the villages from which the girls are trafficked.

They entice parents with promises of jobs and a better life for their children. Parents, who are living in utter poverty, hand over their children, believing they will send money back home. For a month or two, the trafficker sends the parents some money. Then the traf-

ficker goes back to the village and tells the parents that their child left him without his knowledge.

The New Light shelter is based in the heart of Kolkata’s red light district.

The shelter houses children of prostitutes.

But how do you Urmi Basu with America Ferrara in a still from the documentary persuade a prostitute to give up her child? slavery.”) That sends out a signal to us that Most of the girls in the shelter are forwe need to pay attention to the way girls are mer school dropouts. What does a mother treated. She said she was our (the NGOs) do? Most times the mothers are grateful we greatest cheerleader. have taken their children in.

We take the sons of prostitutes in as well Bollywood actor Aamir Khan has used his because about 54 percent of the children celebrity to make documentaries that shine who are sexually abused in India are boys. a light on some of India’s social ills, includThey too need to be given opportunities. ing child sexual abuse. Has that helped your And besides, when they are with us, we can cause? teach them that girls need to be respected.

If there’s one human being we should In a 2011 report, the U.S. State Department take our hats off to, it is Aamir Khan. He ranked India as a “tier-2 country” in terms is someone I have a lot of respect for. If he of sex trafficking, by which it means that the ran for political office tomorrow, I’d vote for government is not doing enough to eliminate him. the problem, although it is taking steps to How did New Light come on the radar of the curb it. What is your take on this? Do you documentary makers? think that in the last couple of decades things I’ve known Nicholas Kristof for some have improved for women? seven or eight years now. He has visited our Women in India are far better off today shelter and seen what we are doing – in fact, than they were 20 years ago. They are better he has mentioned us in his book, Half the educated, entering the workforce in larger Sky. He must have seen we were not a flynumbers and empowering themselves. by-night operation.

The PBS documentary features trafficked It must be really expensive to run all the sheland abused girls in East and West Africa and ters and feed and educate so many children. several Southeast Asian countries, as well.

Do you think that after people see the docuHow does the problem there compare to what mentary, donations to New Light will spike? it is in India?

We have been getting donations all India is far ahead of Southeast Asian these years from people in different councountries when it comes to prosecuting tries, some of whom have not even visited cases of trafficking because of the laws the us. Our operating budget is about $250,000 government has passed. a year, about 80 percent of which comes Also, after Hillary Clinton visited Kolfrom foreign donors. If the documentary kata earlier this year and met with a numbrings in more donations, we will welcome ber of NGO’s who are working in the field that.n of human trafficking, she made it clear that she was committed to doing everything she Half The Sky is scheduled to air on PBS stacould to end (what she calls “modern day tions October 1 and 2. india currents • october 2012 • 45

Edited by: Mona

Shah

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special dates Gandhi’s B’day

Oct. 2

Navratri begins

Oct. 16

Dashahara

Oct. 24

Idu’l Zuha

Oct. 26

Navratri ends

Oct. 24

Sharad Purnima

Oct. 29

Karva Chauth

Nov. 2

Dhan Teras

Nov. 11

Divali

Nov. 13

Govardhana puja

Nov. 14

Bhai Duj

Nov. 15

Muharram

Nov. 15

IC October

cultural calendar

6 Saturday

Encounter—A Dance Theater Production. Based on a story about an

indigenous woman, Dopdi, inspired by Magsaysay award-winning writer Mahasweta 46 • india currents • october 2012

Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia performs, October 6

Devi’s work and adapted for the stage

by S M Raju and Aparna Sindhoor. Ends Oct. 7. Organized by East West Players in Association with Navarasa Dance Theater.

8-9:15 p.m. David Henry Hwang Theater at the Union Center for the Arts, 120 Judge John Aiso St., Los Angeles . $36-$31. (213) 625-7000. info@eastwestplayers.org. www. eastwestplayers.org.

Karnatik Music Concert. Mysore

Brothers (violin), Srimushnam Raja Rao (mridangam). Organized by South Indian Music Academy. 5 p.m. Hoover Middle School Auditorium, 3501 Country Club Drive., Lakewood. General, $25, student/senior, $20.

(714) 681-2099. ask_sima@yhaoo.coms. www. simala.us.

IC

recommends

Shyamal Randeria-leonard

Festival of Indian Music I

n an era of head banging Bollywood remixes the profound, transcendental nuances offered by Hindustani classical music can never fade away. Audiences eager to experience the doyens of Indian classical music will not be disappointed with the upcoming and one of a kind all day festival entitled Raga Spirit 2012.

Film maker Gita Desai who won acclaim for her comprehensive documentaries Raga Unveiled and Yoga Unveiled along with Irvine based Ektaa Center’s President and Executive Director Harish Murthy are fusing arts with academia as they unify their efforts with the support of the Department of Ethnomusicology within the Herb Alpert School of Music at the University of California, Los Angles (UCLA).

Honorary coordinator Vijay Kichlu who has committed his life to preserving the traditions of classical music will inaugurate the festival. Now in his 80s, Kichlu is traveling a great distance to simply support the purist ideology and “love for an

Pandit Vijay Kichlu

authentic cause” he shares with Desai.

The first presentation of the morning begins with Thumri Ki Kahani, a lecturedemonstration symposium by Kichlu who will guide the audience through the style’s romantic and evolutionary journey. In terms of classical vocal forms, thumri has been labeled as semi-classical by orthodox followers of classical styles, as the beauty of the composition often overrides the mechanic perfection of ragas.

Kichlu will also present rare recordings of the earliest thumri composers and the “greatest thumri performances.” He serves as executive director of the ITC Sangeet Research Academy, a classical music academy that possesses a rich and priceless collection of music in its archives built up

over half a century.

With ease and grace, Kichlu has laced together the presentation of two gharanas of thumri called Poorab Ang and Punjab Ang. Live recitals of the different schools will be contrasted and interspersed during the lecture which will be presented by accomplished vocalists Sanjukta Biswas and Shantanu Bhattacharyya who are accompanied by Durba Bhattacharyya (harmonium).

Each session’s design and musician selection by Kichlu is likened by Desai as a work of art “where every flower grows in the right place, with lots of love and humor.”

Kichlu afforded the same reverence for each performer he personally selected with Desai’s consultation, categorizing them as the “finest that our country has.”

In the afternoon session, an array of instruments and vocal choices representing Hindustani styles are synthesized with tabla artists Samar Saha and Calcutta’s Arup Chatterjee, Durba Bhattacharyya (harmonium) and Debashish Bath (slide guitar).

The evening performances feature a juglabandi duet with Tejendra Majumdar (sarod) and Kushal Das (sitar) and Subhanker Banerjee (tabla). Karnatik vocalist Aruna Sairam will be accompanied

by H.N. Bhaskar (violin) and Patri Satish Kumar (mridangam). The evening will end with vocalist brothers Rajan and Sajan Mishra and their accompanists.

Thoughts on the state of Indian classical music were expanded by Kichlu, who called it a “marvelous blend of academics, science and artistry.” He is wary of modern tendencies in music that seeks thrill and excitement created by skill. “Our music is not skill only, it has a deep academic background we call it Raga music, which is not just a scale, it is rules, melodic notes, and the artist’s inner condition.”

On the idea for the festival, Desai was partly inspired by the total immersion festivals people experience in India which are “common in Indian pockets such as Madras and Calcutta and often stretch as long as 10 days.” Attendees “soak themselves till late night as the festivals begin with new comers and end with the very best.” Such an experience is like a “yatra and pilgrimage of the arts” says Desai.

Murthy, who is also keen on establishing

Aruna Sairam

the festival as a tradition in Los Angeles understands the complexities, “this is an introductory effort in Los Angeles, and we must take into consideration, the audience here.” Murthy encourages lovers of world and Indian music to come and enjoy “the finest exposition of Indian classical music, vocal and instrumental where one can garner awareness and understanding of the different styles and genres of Indian music.”n Saturday October 20. 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 a.m. UCLA Schoenberg Hall, 445 Charles E. Young Drive East, Los Angeles. Tickets: All Day Concert Series Passes: $60-$125, Individual Concerts: $15-$35.www.ragaspirit. com, ektaacenter.org.

Rajan and Sajan Mishra india currents • october 2012 • 47

48 • india currents • october 2012

Fusion of Dance And Theater

bone marrow donor programs, bone density checks, eye exams and dental consultations. Organized by Hindu Matiya Patidar Samaj. 8 a.m. -2 p.m. Matiya Patidar Center (Sanatan Dharma Temple), 15311 Pioneer Blvd., Norwalk. (562) 2449035, (909) 576-8317. (714) 300-3589. hmps@matiyapatidarcenter.org.

October

13 Saturday

Karnatik Music Concert. Bharat

Sundar (vocal), BU Ganesh Prasad (violin), Trivandrum K. Balaji (mridangam).

Organized by South Indian Music Academy. 5 p.m. Hoover Middle School Auditorium, 3501 Country Club Drive., Lakewood. General, $25, student/senior, $20. (714) 681-2099. ask_sima@yhaoo.com. www.simala.us.

E

ast West Players (EWP) opens its 47th anniversary season, themed Spirited Away, with the critically acclaimed dance theatre production Encounter. A dance theatre production that unearths various kinds of encounters: with the Divine, the Self, Love, and the military.

Encounter explores imageries from history and from around the world—whether it is Native American history or indigenous peoples’ history globally, or a modern day occurrence in Iraq, Afghanistan or Rwanda.

The play is based on a story about an indigenous woman, Dopdi, inspired by Magsaysay award-winning writer Mahasweta Devi’s work and adapted for the stage by SM Raju and Aparna Sindhoor. Veteran In-

dian actor, Mohan Agashe says, “[Encounter] is a powerful piece. It is gorgeously staged. The dances are beautiful, and the impact of the show makes one think about it for a long time.”

EWP is the nation’s largest producing organization of Asian American artistic work and the longest-running professional theatre of color in the country.n

The Mystical Flute of Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia. Organized by AID

24410 Calvert St., Woodland Hills. Free.

(818) 451-6575. gkvknktk@yahoo.com. www. vic-la.org.

Through October 7. 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. David Henry Hwang Theater, Union Center for the Arts. 120 Judge John Aiso St., Los Angeles.

Tickets: $26 - $36. (213) 625-7000 or visit www.eastwestplayers.org.

3 Days of Ras Garba. Musicians Meena Modi and Group (Oct. 13), Hemant Mehta and group (Oct. 20), Jayshree Gohil and group (Oct. 27). Organized by Natoo Patel and friends for International Swaminarayan Satsang Organization. 8 p.m. Anaheim Convention Center, 800 West Katella Avenue, Anaheim. www.lagarba.org.

(951) 318-7375.

October

14 Sunday

Vocal Music Concert. Hindustani classical and Nirguni bhajans by Kalapini Komkali (daughter and disciple of the late Kumar Gandharva). Accompanied

by Sanjay Deshpande (tabla) and Raya Korgaonkar (harmonium). Organized by Baithak. 4-6 p.m. Simi Valley Town Center Hall, 1555 Simi Valley T own Center Drive, Simi Valley. $15 individual; $25 couples; $10 seniors and students. baithakla@gmail. com.

House Music Concert. Featuring

LA-OC. 5:30-8:30 p.m. La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, 14900 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada. Tickets: $75, $49, $39, $29. www.aidla-events.org/hpc/.

October

7 Sunday

The Occupy Movement and Gandhi.

As part of the Gandhi Day Celebration.

Featured speaker, Joseph Prabhu. Event includes cultural exhibits featuring jewelry, clothing vendors and children’s activities.

Followed by an Indian vegetarian dinner.

Organized by Valley Interfaith Council.

3-7 p.m. St. Bernadine of Siena Parish Hall,

Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay (vocal), Subhajyoti Guha (tabla). Organized by Music Circle. 7 p.m. Savla Residence, 746

Bollywood Extravaganza. S.P.

Balasubramanyam, K.S. Chitra, Sailaja, and Charan will perform with an 18 member orchestra.The show will feature songs from Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Hindi movies. Organized by Indian Fine Arts Academy of San Diego. 4-7 p.m. California Center for Arts, 340 North Escondido Blvd., Escondido. $50, $35, $30, $25. (607) 206 8786, (800) 988 4253. shekar.viswanathan@ gmail.com. www.artcenter.org, www. indianfinearts.org.

Medical Camp. Free medical checkups, chiropractic and acupunture services,

Suman Laha in concert, Nov. 3 india currents • october 2012 • 49

Harini Narasimhan

Diwali Festival Lights up Balboa Park Jay Gandhi in concert, Nov. 3

South Lotus Ave., Pasadena. General, $25, students and memebers, $20. (626) 449-6987. www.musiccircle.org.

October

20 Saturday

Ragaspirit 2012 – Festival of Indian Music. A multi-concert format with lecture-

demonstrations. Featuring an ensemble of musicians from India. Organized by Ektaa Center. 9:30-12 a.m. Schoenberg Hall, UCLA, 405 Hilgard Ave., Los Angeles. $15 - $125.

(949) 300-8912. tickets@ragaspirit.com. www. ragaspirit.com.

A

symbol of Surya (Sun) and Agni (fire), the lamp plays a very important role in life in India. It is an essential form of worship believed to carry one’s prayer to God. At every stage of life lamps are lit to celebrate the eternal life force. Indian philosophy calls the soul a self-lighted torch. “The flame of the lamp is likened to the Supreme Self.”

San Diego’s fifth annual Diwali celebration will showcase Indian food, culture and activities, including lamp lighting where 12 different types of lamps many of them are recreated from ancient designs, will be lit.

1,008 small lamps, similar to the ones used in India during Diwali celebrations will be lit in celebration.

This annual festival depicts victory of virtue over vice. Indian epics portray this concept in many ways and the festival

Navratri Raas-Garba and Dandiya.

Organized by Hindu Temple and Heritage Foundation. 8-11:45 p.m. Arcadia Community Center, 365 Campus Drive., Arcadia. $10 per person (heavy snacks included). (626) 991-4789, (626) 579-9649, (626) 3510664. imu8@yahoo.com. www.facebook. com/events/116771735138608/, www. pasadenahindutemple.com.

October

States showcase their traditions

Mingei Museum, the San Diego Museum of Art and the San Diego Museum of Man at Balboa Park.n Sunday, October 21. 3:30 p.m. -8 p.m.

Balboa Park, 1549 El Prado, San Diego. manish@1parikhs.com, ram.seshan@yahoo. com, sudesh_kumar@hotmail.com. Tickets: $5 per person or $15 for a family of four.

27 Saturday

Karnatik Music Concert. TV Sankara narayanan (vocal), Vittal Ramamurthy (violin), Tiruvarur Bhaktavatsalam (mridangam). Organized by South Indian Music Academy. 5 p.m. Hoover Middle School Auditorium, 3501 Country Club Drive., Lakewood. General, $25, student/senior, $20.

(714) 681-2099. ask_sima@yhaoo.com. www. simala.us.

November

3 Saturday

Double Concert. Featuring Jay Gandhi (flute) and Suman Laha (veena). Each artist accompanied by Salar Nader (tabla).

Organized by Music Circle. 7:30 p.m. Herrick Chapel, Occidental College, Campus and Alumni Ave., Los Angeles. General, $35, members, $25, students, $5. (626) 449-6987. www.musiccircle.org. © Copyright 2012 India Currents. All rights reserved. Reproduction for commercial use strictly prohibited.

50 • india currents • october 2012

Cultural performances

celebrates these victories by presenting cultural traditions of India through the prism of different states. Each state will have a specific space along El Prado Blvd. People originally from these states will share their cultural traditions from 4 p.m. to 5.30 p.m.

A cultural performance drawn from various states of India will be presented on the stage in Organ Pavilion from 6-7:30 p.m. Following that, there will be a controlled participatory folk dance for 20 minutes. The lamp lighting will take place at 6:15 p.m. in Organ Pavilion.

This ode to the Sun is conceived by San Diego Indian American Society and presented by San Diego Indian American Society, Mingei International Museum, San Diego Museum of Art and Committee for Arts of Indian Subcontinent, India associations, and San Diego Museum of Man. Ticket prices include admission to the

Lighting of the lamps

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IC

reflections

Satya Kalra

What Does Goddess Durga Symbolize?

T

he festival of Navratri celebrates nine nights dedicated to the nine divine forms of Goddess Durga. A Hindu festival symbolizing the triumph of good over evil, Navratri takes place at the beginning of October around harvest time and, as the name implies, is celebrated for nine days. On the tenth day is Dussera which celebrates the victory of Lord Rama over Ravana. An effigy of Ravana is burnt; often giant dummies of Ravana stuffed with fireworks are shot with arrows until it blows up. Navratri in Gujarat is celebrated with dandiya, and garba-raas.

Goddess Durga symbolizes the divine forces (positive energy) known as divine shakti (feminine energy/ power) that is used against the negative forces of evil and wickedness. She protects her devotees from evil powers and safeguards them.

It is believed that Goddess Durga is the combined form of powers of Goddesses Lakshmi, Kali and Saraswati.

It is also believed that Goddess Durga was created by Lord Vishnu as a warrior goddess to protect good people (devas) for fighting the demon, Mahishasur.. Her divine shakti contains the combined energies of all the gods in the form of weapons and emblems (mudras).

Goddess Durga represents the power of the Supreme Being that preserves moral order and righteousness in the creation.

The Sanskrit word durga means fort or a place that is protected and thus difficult to reach. Durga, also called Divine Shakti, protects mankind from evil and misery by destroying evil forces (negative energy and vices—arrogance, jealousy, prejudice, hatred, anger, greed and selfishness).

Goddess Durga is depicted as a warrior woman with eight hands carrying weapons of different kinds assuming mudras, (symbolic hand gestures) that represent her teachings.

• Chakra in her 1st upper right hand symbolizes dharma (duty/righteousness).

We must perform our duty/responsibilities in life.

• Conch in her first upper left hand symbolizes happiness. We must perform our duty happily and cheerfully and not with resentment.

• Sword in her second right lower hand symbolizes eradication of vices. We must learn to discriminate and eradicate our evil qualities.

• Bow and arrow in her second left

52 • india currents • october 2012

lower hand symbolizes character like Lord Rama.

When we face difficulties in our life we should not lose our character (values).

• Lotus Flower in her third lower left hand symbolizes detachment.

We must live in the world without attachment to the external world.

Just like the lotus flower stays in dirty water yet smiles and gives its beauty to others. This is the only way to receive Her blessings.

• Club in her third right lower hand is the symbol of Hanuman and symbolizes devotion and surrender. Whatever we do in our life we do with love and devotion and accept the outcome as the Almighty’s will.

• Trident/Trishul in her fourth left lower hand symbolizes courage. We must have courage to eliminate our evil qualities and face the challenges in our life.

• Fourth Lower Right Hand symbolizes forgiveness and Her blessings. We must forgive ourselves and others for mistakes and/or any hurt we may have caused.

Durga Maa is depicted as riding on a lion or a tiger. A tiger symbolizes unlimited power. Durga riding a tiger indicates that She possesses unlimited power and uses it to protect virtue and destroy evil. The lion is a symbol of uncontrolled animalistic tendencies (such as anger, arrogance, selfishness, greed, jealousy, desire to harm others etc.) and Her sitting on it reminds us to control these qualities, so that we are not controlled by them.

She is usually shown wearing a red sari.

The color red symbolizes action and the red clothes signify that She is destroying evil and

protecting mankind from pain and suffering.

Thus, Goddess Durga symbolizes the Divine forces (positive energy) that is used against the negative forces of evil and wickedness.

She represents pure energy (positive), known as divine light or jyoti that is the embodiment of feminine and creative energy.

This month we must pray to Maa Durga, the Universal Mother, asking Her to use Her destructive power to remove the vices within us (anger, selfish desires, greed, ego and undue attachments), imperfections and faults; and purify us to become a receptacle of her Divine Shakti—Anandamayi Shakti.

There are several mantras for Goddess Durga, but the most simple and easy mantra to remember is “Om Sri Durgaya Namah.”

It is believed that by chanting this mantra regularly the Divine Mother will remove the physical, mental and worldly problems in life and shower us with her unlimited blessings.n Satya Kalra, a former CEO from the biotech industry and founder of nonprofit organizaiion, Path to Anandam (www.pathtoanandam. org), is a spiritual guide, self-transformational coach, meditation and self-healing expert, author and international speaker.

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spirituality and health

October

6 Saturday

Krsna Katha Pravachan by Devkinandan Thakur of Vrindavan. Ends Oct. 7. 2-5

p.m. Shri Mandir, 9474 Black Mountain Road, San Diego . Free. (858) 566-5644. htto://www. shrimandir.net.

October

7 Sunday

py labor What isday!

Truth? Sunday Service. Lake

Shrine Temple and Retreat, 17190 Sunset Blvd., Pacific Palisades. (310) 454-4114. Hollywood Temple, 4860 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood.

(323) 661-8006. Glendale Temple, 2146 East Chevy Chase Drive, Glendale. (818) 543-0800.

Fullerton Temple, 142 East Chapman Ave., Fullerton. (714) 525-1291. Encinitas Temple, 939 Second Street, Encinitas. (760) 436-7220.

San Diego Temple, 3072 First Avenue, San Diego. (619) 295-0170. Call temples for times.

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

October

8 Monday

Srimad Bhagwat Sapta. Devkinandan

Thakur Maharaja of Vrindavan conducts seven days of Bhagwat Katha. Ends Oct. 14.

7:30-9:30 p.m. Radha Raman Vedic Temple, 1022 N Bradford Ave., Placentia. Free. (71) 854-7202. support@radharamantemple.com. www.radharamantemple.com.

October

14 Sunday

Ways to Conquer Fear. Sunday Service.

Lake Shrine Temple and Retreat, 17190 Sunset Blvd., Pacific Palisades. (310) 454-4114.

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

October

(323) 661-8006. Glendale Temple, 2146 East Chevy Chase Drive, Glendale. (818) 543-0800.

Fullerton Temple, 142 East Chapman Ave., Fullerton. (714) 525-1291. Encinitas Temple, 939 Second Street, Encinitas. (760) 436-7220.

San Diego Temple, 3072 First Avenue, San Diego. (619) 295-0170. Call temples for times.

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

October

28 Sunday

Overcoming Nervousness. Sunday Service.

Lake Shrine Temple and Retreat, 17190 Sunset Blvd., Pacific Palisades. (310) 454-4114. Hollywood Temple, 4860 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood.

(323) 661-8006. Glendale Temple, 2146 East Chevy Chase Drive, Glendale. (818) 543-0800.

Fullerton Temple, 142 East Chapman Ave., Fullerton. (714) 525-1291. Encinitas Temple, 939 Second Street, Encinitas. (760) 436-7220.

San Diego Temple, 3072 First Avenue, San Diego. (619) 295-0170. Call temples for times.

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

November

2 Friday

Ahimsa and Sustainable Happiness Conference. The conference explores

the synergy, reciprocity, and unity between ahimsa and happiness. Ends Nov. 4. Organized by Ahimsa Center at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Cal Poly Pomona Bronco Student Center, 3801 West Temple Ave., Pomona. (909) 869-3868. tsethia@csupomona.edu, ahimsacenter@csupomona.edu. www.csupomona. edu/~ahimsacenter/conference/conference_12. shtml.

A SUGGESTION:

Shrine Temple and Retreat, 17190 Sunset Blvd., Pacific Palisades. (310) 454-4114. Hollywood Temple, 4860 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood.

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21 Sunday

What is the Soul? Sunday Service. Lake

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IC

the healthy life

Vijay Gupta

The Case Against Cancer Screening

H

ere is an interesting question to flummox your statistically savvy friends.

The PSA (prostate-specific antigen) test commonly used for prostate cancer screening has a sensitivity of 80% and a specificity of 60%, meaning that 80% of people with cancer will test positive and 60% of people without cancer will test negative. Based on his age and race, a man has a 1% probability of prostate cancer before the PSA test. What is his probability of cancer after the test if he tests positive?

Most people intuitively guess an approximate answer in the 60-80% range.

However, they are completely surprised, even shocked, to learn that the correct answer (using the well-known Bayes’ Theorem) is only two percent.

This surprisingly low answer stems from the very low pretest probability of cancer (1%) and the fairly low specificity of the test, leading to a large number of “false positives,” i.e., positive test results for people without cancer. Cancer screening is very unlike a diagnostic test ordered by your doctor during a typical office visit. For example, when a doctor orders a throat culture to confirm a suspected case of strep throat, she has already established a high pretest probability of the disease based on symptoms like fever and sore throat.

The low post-test probability of cancer also explains why the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recently made an official recommendation against the use of the PSA test for prostate cancer screening. Earlier, the task force had recommended against breast self-examination, and reduced the scope of mammography screening by increasing the starting age from 40 to 50 years and decreasing the screening frequency from annual to biennial. Likewise, it had added a new upper age limit of 75 years for colon cancer screening.

The USPSTF recommendations are age-specific, but not race-specific or ethnicity-specific. As it turns out, the incidence rates of all these cancers among Asian-Americans and Indian-Americans are significantly below the average U.S. rates. Therefore, had the USPSTF segmented the population by ethnicity, it would have likely recommended against any cancer screening for Indian-Americans.

54 • india currents • october 2012

The USPSTF recommendations are not universally accepted by all the mainstream cancer associations in U.S., some of which may recommend more screening. However, some grassroots groups, such as the National Breast Cancer Coalition, recommend no mammography screening for any age group.

The Screening Controversy Although early detection and treatment of cancer may benefit some people, it does not change the ultimate outcome in most cases. Moreover, the high number of false positives caused by frequent screening leads to anxiety, distress, invasive biopsies, and unnecessary and harmful cancer treatment for many healthy men and women.

For example, after a comprehensive review of the evidence, the USPSTF found that the only benefit of screening 1000 men with the PSA test is that at most one man avoids death from prostate cancer. However, the expected harms of such screening include urinary incontinence or erectile dysfunction for 30-40 men and serious side effects such as a heart attack or a serious blood clot for three men.

In the case of mammography screening, a rigorous study by the highly regarded Cochrane Group (2011) concluded that: “For every 2,000 women invited for screening throughout ten years, one will have her life prolonged. In addition, ten healthy women, who would not have been diagnosed if there had not been screening, will be diagnosed as breast cancer patients and will be treated unnecessarily. Furthermore, more than 200 women will experience important psychological distress for many months because of false positive findings.”

Similarly, colon cancer screening studies show that about 1,000 people need to be screened for ten years (using fecal occult blood test followed by colonoscopy) to avert one death. The potential harms of colonoscopy include perforation of the colon, major bleeding, severe abdominal pain, and cardiovascular events.

Finally, prostate cancer, and a type of breast cancer called DCIS, grow very slowly and may forever remain localized. However,

biopsy of such cocooned tumors may spread (or “seed”) cancer cells along the track of the biopsy needle. Moreover, in the case of mammography, there is a small but real risk that radiation exposure from repeated mammograms may itself cause breast cancer.

Prevention The incidence rates of these cancers among ethnic Indians vary widely (tenfold) with the lowest rates being found in rural India. An important implication of this huge variation is that these cancers are caused primarily by our lifestyle and environment, and therefore, are essentially preventable. Many of the cancer prevention strategies, such as a healthy organic diet, regular exercise, low exposure to environmental toxins, and a lowstress lifestyle, may also help slow down any incipient cancer.

In summary, cancer screening for asymptomatic people is likely to cause more harm than good. This is especially true for groups with low rates of cancer, such as Indians and Indian-Americans. Of course, people with any overt symptoms of cancer should see their doctor, as they would for a persistent sore throat. In the long run, an anxiety-free mind and a healthy lifestyle will yield far greater dividends than any screening ever could.n Vijay Gupta researches and writes about health issues from a consumer’s perspective.

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travel

Kavita Kanan Chandra

Delectable Darjeeling

A tea tasting tour taken amidst breathtaking scenery

T

he sparkling brown beverage glinted, as I raised my cup against the soft rays of sun streaming through the window panes of the boutique tea bar. I was in Darjeeling, India—the Queen of the Hills—home to the world’s finest tea. This bar, somewhat plainly named, The House of Tea, was situated in the heart of the city, at its most happening mall, a wide promenade lined with elegant shops and restaurants. Brought up in a family where one wakes up every morning with the aroma of Darjeeling tea, it had always been my ardent desire to taste this ambrosial drink at its place of origin.

Various tea paraphernalia like tea pots, tea sets, tea cosies and tea strainers in finely carved silver, porcelain, bone china, ceramic, steel and glass adorned the glass shelves at the tea shop. Several varieties of the choicest tea from various plantations of Darjeeling were displayed in glass jars which I could

56 • india currents • october 2012

smell, feel and taste under the guidance of the hosts. As the leaves of camellia sinensis was left to infuse in hot water, a delicate fragrance permeated the air. In the coming days I was to become a discerning tea taster (well, I thought so!) fully appreciating the complexities and nuances of the exquisite Darjeeling brand of tea.

I had actually started my tea adventure at the Bicky Tea Stall at Garidhura, en-route to Darjeeling from New Jalpaiguri, which gave me a fair idea of what lay in store for me. I enjoyed the finest tea after tucking into delicious hot puris and potato curry on a cold misty winter morning. It was the perfect end to a perfect breakfast and that too at a roadside dhaba.

On route, the sight of lush green plantations on rolling hill slopes at Mirik and later at the Happy Valley Tea Estate in the vicinity of Darjeeling increased my enthusiasm for tea tourism manifold. I had several cups of tea at the various tea stalls that lined the estate perimeters, in the reflected glow of the mighty Kanchenjunga mountain. As the setting sun cast its glow on the pristine white peak, an orange halo enveloped it. A perfect setting for some solitude as T’ien Yiheng had written; “Tea is drunk to forget the din of the world.”

But this region known for its exquisite tea that relaxes

and rejuvenates has also had a violent past.

The demand for separate statehood with its accompanying violence had riven the town in the eighties. It was only after the formation of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council that a truce had been negotiated. Our driver Sanjeev acknowledged that there was peace but it was an uneasy peace.

Darjeeling is largely populated by Gorkhas, who speak Nepali. Trouble between the Gorkhas and Adivasis (people of local tribes) led to a commonly acknowledged geographic segregation, with the Gorkhas occupying the hills and the Adivasis occupying the low lying areas. With billboards and hoardings in the market proclaiming “Gorkhaland,” the assertion for a separate identity was quite evident.

The chink of cups and saucers at the tea bar was a welcome respite from the simmering political undercurrents in the marketplace and the fresh aroma of tea wafting into the pleasant sunshine awoke my senses. A Victorian Prime Minister William Gladstone had rightly said that if you are cold, tea will warm you; when hot, it will cool you; if depressed, it will cheer you and when excited, it will

calm you.

The latent tea connoisseur in me was tapped as I leafed through the menu of exotic names of tea, the various varietals and their qualitative descriptions. These names are actually the tea estates from where they are sourced. I could opt for “Phugari” at a reasonable Rs. 20 or a cup of “Longview” at Rs. 90. The menu card even includes the subtle flavors so one can make an educated choice.

I learnt about the “first flush” (MarchApril) and “second flush” of tea (May-June) which merely means the first and second pluck of the “two leaves and the bud,” considered the finest plucking. They are most sought after.

First flush is very delicate tea that cannot stand deep steeping. The cup I ordered had

light, clear broth. The second flush is fuller bodied with chocolate, malt, lemon or muscatel (grape) character. The flavors jumped on the tips of my tongue. The muscatel or grape taste is a characteristic found only in Darjeeling tea.

The finest two leaves and the bud are plucked to enhance the muscatel flavor, so unique to Darjeeling tea, that becomes more pronounced in spring (second) flush. Autumn flush (Oct-Nov) tea leaves have a slight coppery tinge and the brew has a more delicate character.

The friendly tea attendant helped me make my selection while explaining the nuances of tea tasting. How the tea feels in your mouth determines the body of the tea. Astringency is the pungent sensation that makes it so refreshing.

Through my various tea tasting experiences, I got some terrific insight into the world of tea. The Black, Oolong, Green, White and Organic tea are a result of variations in the way the leaves are processed after they are harvested.

Priced at a whopping Rs 3000/Kg (approx $25/lb), White tea is a connoisseur’s

drink consisting of the finest buds and leaves (sometimes only buds) discriminatingly handpicked, steamed and dried.

Green tea has medicinal properties as the leaves are withered, steamed, rolled and dried. Black tea is fully fermented and oolong is partially fermented while bio-organic tea is chemical free.

Prior to the British making Darjeeling tea a stylish afternoon drink, the Himalayan native tribes had long been drinking tea imported from Tibet that was coarse, harsh and black. Credit goes to Dr. Campbell, the civil surgeon who first planted tea seeds brought from China way back in 1841, and the various nurseries of tea plants that sprang up due to the efforts of the British Government. True commercial tea cultivation commenced only in 1870.

The combination of natural factors like cool climate, rich soil, abundant rainfall and steep terrain gives the tea its unique flavor, delicate character and lively aroma. Since this cannot be replicated elsewhere in the world, Darjeeling tea is exquisite and aptly called the “Champagne of the East.”

The tea plants are confined to 86 gardens in and around Darjeeling which produce 10 million Kgs of tea annually.

An arduous manual process goes into plucking the tender leaves, gently but swiftly.

Then the leaves are dried, rolled and fermented and then manually sorted and packed.

The old Chowk Bazaar was marked by frenzied activity when I went tea shopping on the last day of my trip. Locals were mix-

ing their Darjeeling leaves with Assam CTC (Crush, Tear, Curl) to get both flavor and color at a low cost. There was whole leaf, broken leaf, fannings (small particles of leaf) and the lowest quality, tea dust available. I opted for the best of the basic medium grade Orange Pekoe whole tea leaves. The charming shopkeeper explained the acronyms SFTGFOP (super fine tippy golden flowery orange pekoe). Tippy denotes generous amounts of leaf tips which are known to produce a more flavorful cup. The tea is pretty expensive and tea officionados joke that FTGFOP stands for “far too good for ordinary people.”

I bought several grades of orange pekoe, Lopchu tea and green tea. The latter was bought on the shopkeeper’s insistence, for all the goodness of its antioxidants.

On our return journey, we chose to drive through Kurseong. Unlike the sloping tea plantations of Mirik, there were many tea plantations on flat land in the Kurseong vicinity. It was intriguing and fascinating to see the narrow gauge railway lines running along the roads from Darjeeling to Kurseong. At places the lines criss-crossed and the bright tiny stations on the way lent a rustic charm to the scenic drive. As the Himalayan toy train chugged past us bellowing soot laden smoke, its rhythmic sound brought back the memory of yesteryear Bollywood superstar Rajesh Khanna and the iconic song, “Mere Sapno ki Rani.” We could well imagine a beautiful Sharmila Tagore peeking through the windows on the train.

The wide expanse of tea bushes on both sides lifted our spirits as we drove along. The women plucking tea leaves and throwing them into the wicker basket tied to their backs was a scene to behold, the stuff of postcards.

Back home, I can smell the muscatel and savor the rich aroma of the fresh, misty hillside, as I sip my morning cup of Darjeeling tea. n Kavita Kanan Chandra is a freelance journalist and travel writer based in Mumbai. She has lived and worked in different parts of India and understands the pulse of her country. india currents • october 2012 • 57

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recipes

Shanta Nimbark Sacharoff

The Bounty of Winter Squash

T

he North American Vegetarian Society has designated October 1st as World Vegetarian Day and October as Vegetarian Awareness Month. Vegetarians are encouraged to share their knowledge and skills with other to make a sustainable vegetarian diet more accessible and non-vegetarians are urged to minimize meat consumption, and try some new meatless foods.

There is no better way to celebrate vegetarian awareness than by exploring the bounty of winter squash. Winter squashes are easy to store due to their hard skin and they have substantial nutrients.

Butternut Squash Curry

(makes six servings) Ingredients 1 small or 1/2 medium butternut squash (to yield three cups when cut into chunks) 2 to 3 red or red or gold potatoes (to yield 2 cups when cut into chunks) 1 teaspoons fresh garam masala, a spice blend made from 1 teaspoon cardamom seeds, 1 small cinnamon stick and 4 whole cloves (you will have some left-over) 6 medium or 4 large tomatoes, boiled for a few minutes, then peeled and chopped to yield about 4 cups (canned tomatoes can be substituted) 4 tablespoons olive oil 1 medium onion, chopped 4 cloves minced garlic 1 teaspoon each turmeric, coriander and cumin powders ½ teaspoon or less cayenne powder 1 tablespoon finely grated fresh ginger 2 teaspoons salt ½ cup green bell pepper or Anaheim pepper, chopped ½ cup water Fresh cilantro for garnish Method Cut the potatoes in half, and boil them until the skins loosen and they are partially cooked, but still quite firm. Drain the potatoes, peel them, cut them into bite size chunks and set them aside.

Using a serrated knife, cut the squash into three or four pieces. Remove all seeds and strings from inside. Steam the squash pieces in a vegetable steamer for approximately 10 to 15 minutes, until the skin loosens but the flesh is still firm. Cool, peel, cut into large 58 • india currents • october 2012

Check out our collection of recipes at indiacurrents.com/articles/ categories/recipes

When I came to the United States I was unfamiliar with many of the winter squashes popular here, such as “acorn,” “butternut” or “kabocha,” but I was impressed with their many colors and large sizes. n Shanta Nimbark Sacharoff, author of Flavors of India: Vegetarian Indian Cuisine, lives in San Francisco, where she is manager and coowner of Other Avenues, a healthfood store.

bite-size chunks, and set aside.

Do not overcook the squash or potatoes at this stage, as they will be cooked more later, and if they are overcooked they will dissolve into the curry instead of staying firmly as chunks.

To make the spicy tomato sauce, first prepare the fresh garam masala by grinding cardamom, cinnamon and cloves using a mortar and a pestle or a spice mill. This recipe uses only a teaspoon so you will have some garam masala left over.

Heat the oil in a pan over a medium flame and add the onions. Stir fry for a few minutes until the onions are translucent. Then add the garlic and sauté for a minute. Add the tomatoes and cook for 5 minutes, breaking up any lumps. Add a teaspoon of the garam masala, cumin, coriander, turmeric, ginger, cayenne and salt. Simmer for 10 minutes stirring frequently.

Then add the potato, squash and bell pepper to the sauce and mix thoroughly. Cover, lower the heat and cook the mixture for 10 minutes. Then uncover, add 1/2 cup of water, and cook for a minute while stirring. Then, cover and let the curry cook for another five minutes. Check to see that the squash and potatoes are soft and fully cooked. Sprinkle with chopped cilantro and serve this colorful curry with a flat bread such as chapatis or tortillas or with brown rice.

Stuffed Acorn Squash with Brown Rice and Nuts (makes six servings)

Ingredients 1 cup brown rice (see the cooking directions below).

2 small acorn squashes, cut in half, seeds and strings removed

3 tablespoons olive oil ½ cup pine nuts or slivered almond slices, toasted lightly for a few minutes in ½ teaspoon of oil ½ teaspoon turmeric powder salt and cayenne pepper to taste Juice of ½ lemon or lime 2 to 3 tablespoons each finely chopped cilantro and green onions ¼ or ½ cup any type of hard cheese, shredded Method Prepare the rice as follows: Bring 2½ cups of water to boil. Rinse and drain the rice and add it to the boiling water. Cover the pot, reduce the heat to moderate, and cook the rice for 45 to 55 minutes until soft. You will not use all the rice for this recipe. Refrigerate the left over rice for future use.

Set the oven to 375 degrees. Line a shallow baking dish with ½ cup water. Rub some oil on the surface of the squash and place them cut side down in the baking dish. Bake for 30 minutes until the meat is soft. Cool for a few minutes. Carefully scoop out most of the pulp with a spoon leaving enough meat to keep the squash “bowls” intact.

Place the pulp in a mixing bowl. Set the squash halves aside.

Combine the squash pulp, two cups of rice, nuts, turmeric, cilantro, green onion, nuts, salt, cayenne, lemon juice and remaining oil. Spoon the mixture into the squash halves. Top with the optional cheese. Turn the oven up to 450 degrees. Place the stuffed squash in a dry, shallow casserole dish or a cookie sheet, and bake them for 10 to 15 minutes until the top is slightly brown (or the optional cheese is melted). Advise the diners to scoop out the filling as they eat, leaving the shells behind.

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Inglish columns at 9-17-2008 All I ask for is for a certain blissful state that will allow me indiacurrents.com/ y husband has since returned from Beijing. to write. My home doesn’t do that for me. In my home office in articles/categories/onHe reminds me that he and I are alone again Saratoga, I’m away from pests, children, and all family members. inglish after twenty-two years and that maybe we should But I have so much quiet that the silence is disquieting. All I can live it up before we are older and grayer. I’m trying think of is what still needs to be done around the house and in my hard to find romance once again with the man with whom I’ve life. I have no peace of mind. had two children and a lot of happy times. But just last night The mailman smiles when he catches my eye through the window. But when we were in bed he says, “Hey, I can’t sleep. Is a light on in why does he so often give me my neighbor’s mail? The electrician—who the family room?” visits without his tools although he does not forget his business card—drops I open the blinds just a little to see if the light is indeed on by to survey the damage. Then he doesn’t drop by for weeks. Between my in the family room across from our bedroom. And there, from writing and editing, I must remember to send him three emails and follow up out in the blue night sky, the full moon beams at me, flashing with a call about those emails before he will arrive at my doorstep again. My its light on my face, its effulgence bursting with promises of a landscape architect, Jose, has a few to-dos pending from the time he overhoneymoon late in my life. hauled my yard two years ago. Every time we talk, I realize how he and I have I turn to my partner in bed. Oh yes, the moon’s high over our the same dreams for my yard, dreams my husband has no idea I dream. Jose heads. But the honey’s snoring softly, dreaming about connecting and I hang out by the patio, look out at the yard and talk about the figs that with old girlfriends on Facebook and LinkedIn. are fruiting and the citrus-scented flowers that are just peeping before the Nirvana? Heck, not yet. Just pour the tequila n kumquats rear their orange heads. While he and I are out fawning over the backyard, my husband is sitting in our living room, gushing over the photo Kalpana Mohan writes from Saratoga (this one's from Chennai). of the same backyard on Facebook.

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india currents • october 2012 • 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 • october 2012

I C dear doctor

Alzak Amlani

Renewing, Re-energizing and Re-fueling Q

I find myself feeling out of sorts the last six months or so. Projects that I was excited about seem dull and even meaningless. I don’t find myself wanting to get up and get my day going the way I used to. I have functioned quite well most of my life and have always gotten a lot of acknowledgement for my work. That fed me and motivated me to work harder and accomplish more. Now that accomplishment doesn’t do much for me. I think about the big issues in the world—the recession, wars, global warming and poverty and don’t feel that my life is contributing much to help with these situations. Yet, I don’t know what I really want to do with my life. I am 52 years old and I feel lost.

A

Seems like you are quite aware of your recent feelings and you are honest and open about feeling confused and a bit down.

There might be several things going on here.

If you have worked very hard most of your life and got charged by others’ positive reflection and appreciation, it is more than likely you

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were not in touch with the deeper and more genuine part of you. This is common when you are a high functioning, intelligent individual. You may be a bit burnt out after such work. Do you feel tired, disinterested and wish you could just get away from it all? Have you given yourself some real time off? Not just a week or two, but have you taken at least a month of vacation where you are actually resting, reflecting and nurturing yourself in ways that replenish and fulfill you? This time can be healing and is a way to attune yourself to your deeper self. See if you can afford to take such time off and go where the environment can greatly support your rest and refueling.

With all the drastic changes in the world and your being 52, it’s natural to think more deeply about your purpose and role in today’s life. Most people are so caught up in daily tasks that they are not looking at what really fulfills them and how they want their lives to offer something more meaningful and to make a difference. As age begins its inevitable

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slide, the tendency is to work harder to keep, maintain and sustain the jobs and businesses.

This is an opportune time to consider what you really care about. To find this out, you need to know yourself more fully.

You can do this by making space for your thoughts, feelings, reactions, dreams and interests. If you’ve been more driven by outer reflection, going inward might feel awkward, empty, confusing or even scary.

Stay with whatever feelings you have as you get quiet. Some people even feel like some part of them is dying. Although this can feel sad and disorienting, it opens you up to deeper truths which allows for old values and patterns to break down, so there is space for a type of rebirth to take place inside you.

This process can be very rich and energizing. 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 • october 2012 • 63

IC

the last word

Sarita Sarvate

Obama Is Our Only Option

J

on Stewart labeled the Democratic National Convention, “Hope and Change—II.” Larry David, the creator of Seinfeld, quipped that Obama’s 2012 campaign platform is “Less Bad is Better Than More Bad” or, alternatively, “We Could Have Done Worse.”

I can see where these two comedians, whom I admire more than most politicians, are coming from. It was not long ago that I wrote a letter to Obama in these very pages, decrying his timidity, his willingness to kowtow to the Republicans, and his lack of passion in pushing his agenda forward.

But now that the 2012 election is in full swing, I want to stand behind Obama. I am in fact contributing to the Presidential campaign.

Why? Because I cannot risk the alternative.

Sure Obama made mistakes. Lots of them. Some commentators have even pointed out that he is and has always been a moderate Republican.

But he did promise to close Guantanamo Bay, he did say he would create a healthcare plan, and he vowed to end corruption in Washington. These are not policies that Republicans believe in. So, in 2008, the Democratic base rallied behind him.

This time, many Democrats, like me, feel disappointed. The biggest mistake Obama made, is that Obama did not exploit the voters’ mandate to push his agenda forward within the first 100 days. He should have made use of majorities in both houses of Congress to pass legislation quickly rather than rely on a divided Congress to act. He should have appointed fresh blood to clean up the financial mess and created consumer protection regulations. He should have stood for Universal Health Care or at least the Public Option.

The New York Times said as much the day after Obama’s speech at the convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.

But perhaps we do not know what would have happened if Obama had passionately pushed his agenda. Perhaps the country’s subconscious was so racist that it could not have tolerated the sight of a passionate black man. Perhaps it would have pigeonholed him with the likes of Malcolm X, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton. Perhaps they would have killed him, literally.

After all, you cannot underestimate the stupidity of a large segment of the American public, who do not remember that George W. Bush, and not Obama, plunged the country into debt, with his two wars and tax cuts for the rich. Who do not understand that they and their children are the ones who need Obamacare, with its protections for preexisting conditions and its mandate for health exchanges.

Which is why Romney has been head to head in polls with Obama.

In reality, the choice is a no-brainer, even for those mentally challenged.

Romney is a puppet in the hands of the rich, who will vote him in simply to reduce their taxes and get richer.

Obama is no puppet. In fact, Democrats have been quite hypocritical in criticizing him for not enacting campaign reform laws and then turning around and beating up on him for not catering to rich donors during this campaign.

Just imagine for a moment a White House run by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. Obamacare will be overturned (even though, recently, Romney, in his zillionth flip-flop, vowed to keep intact the provision for cov-

Sure Obama made mistakes. Lots of them. Some commentators have even pointed out that he is and has always been a moderate Republican.

64 • india currents • october 2012

ering people with pre-existing conditions). Check out other artiMedicare will become a voucher program. cles by Sarita Sarvate Abortion will be banned. Contraceptives at indiacurrents.com/ will not be covered by insurance, making articles/categories/ them accessible only to rich women, and last-word putting poor women at risk of unwanted pregnancies. Numbers of poor children will therefore increase.

The arms budget will rise, even beyond what the Pentagon has requested, creating a classic situation of a military in search of a war, probably with Russia. Welfare programs will be abolished, putting poor people on the streets. Medicaid for the disabled and the sick will also disappear. Unions will be non-existent; jobs will continue to be outsourced abroad. The rich will pay less in taxes, while the rest of us will undoubtedly have to pay more in order to close the budget deficit.

Education will be the privilege of the rich. Christianity will be the official religion of the country. Fox News will set our political agenda. Freedom of the Press will be further jeopardized, with the media accused of bias every time it points out a Republican lie.

Bipartisanship will be a thing of the past. What little financial regulations have been put into place as a result of the crisis of 2008 will be overturned, making it more difficult for poor people to get mortgages or other loans.

Climate change will become a myth; all regulations such as California’s mandate to generate 30% of its electricity from renewables, will be declared unconstitutional. Production of power from coal and other fossil fuels, will multiply. Ice caps will melt; oceans will rise; rainfalls will decrease; temperatures in India and Africa will be so high that no farming will be possible. And all the while, Republican politicians will be sitting around the hearth talking of families.

In fact, we will not be far from the Dystopia depicted in Hunger Games, my favorite book of this summer, in which powerful politicos send children to fight one another for food.

That the Republican Party has lost all sense of morality is obvious when you consider a simple fact, that the name of George W. Bush, as far as I know, was never mentioned during the Republican National Convention. How can a President, who was in office on 9/11, which gave the Republicans the opportunity to carry out their agenda of fear-mongering and hawkishness, not even be mentioned, let alone invited to speak? Sarah Palin, who allegedly rallied the Republican base in 2008, was also treated like the plague. The Republican Party instead behaves as if the country only got Independence from the British in January 2009, when all of the country’s problems, including massive debt and a recession, began. In fact, the financial crisis and the depression occurred during W’s reign.

Obama was conveniently handed the monumental task of cleaning up the mess.

I still dream of a future America with universal healthcare; an America whose military budget will be diverted to quality education so we can produce a labor force that can compete in today’s global economy. Of an America which does not bring immigrants from China and India to do jobs that our children should be educated to do. An America in which there is a social safety net for those disadvantaged or disabled. An America in which the media caters to facts, not biased opinion. An America in which intelligence is valued, not sneered at.

I dream of such a country because of people like Bill Clinton, who, during his speech in Charlotte, gave me reason to believe that Democrats are still superior to Republicans. After all, they still use reason and logic, even though a stupid electorate shuns them for their knowledge and intellect.

If we want to continue to dream of such an America, we need to give Obama a second chance, if not to carry out his promises, then as an interim measure to stop the bleeding. So please vote for Obama. The alternative is too scary to imagine.n Sarita Sarvate writes commentaries for Pacific News Service and KQED. Visit www.saritasarvate.com

HAPPY DASHAHARA

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