September 2014

The Taste of Conflict

by Kamala Thiagarajan

Finding Kalpana

by Ranjani Iyer Mohanty

Obrigada, Brasil!

by Jana Seshadri

INDIA CURRENTS D.C.Edition

Celebrating 28 Years of Excellence

Who Is a Hindu? september • vol.

• www. indiacurrents.com august 20142014 • vol.

28 , 28 no,. no 5 .6 • www. indiacurrents.com

Why do we not speak to the modern world as Hindus? Not as fundamentalists, not as apologists, but simply as intelligent observers?

By Vamsee Juluri

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Robin Williams, engaged in the business of happiness, died tragically of sadness. His death captured something distinctive about the nature of a man’s engagement with the world. While the world chortled at Williams’ rapid fire verbal ballet of parody, insight and inventiveness he crumbled inside, day by day, with a pain that few could quite sense or fathom.

It is said that he was once asked what he had anything to be depressed about? History has shown us with examples such as Vincent van Gogh, Abraham Lincoln, Sylvia Plath that talent, fame or wealth are not immune to the disease.

Every forty seconds someone, somewhere in the world, commits suicide, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) report, and it is among the three leading causes of death among the 15 to 44 age categories in some countries.

I recall a conversation I had a few years ago at a dinner party, when someone mentioned that depression was a rich man’s disease and quoted a WHO study indicating that rich countries like the United States and France had a higher incidence of depression than less affluent countries.

As I delved deeper into the same study, I found that the poorer respondents in these

rich nations tended to have double the risk of major depression as compared to the richest respondents. It just might be the case that depression is reported and taken more seriously in these well funded countries.

Many of us have been touched by a wave or two of utter and debilitating grief at some point in our lives and getting out of that freefall state required some emotional fluency and support. And there are some of us who encounter this wave more frequently than others, in degrees more severe than the last.

The triggers might run the gamut from trivial to serious, leading to a sense of loneliness: a facebook post, losing a friend or loved one, losing a job or striving for that elusive sense of perfection.

The perceived sense of hopelessness can very quickly become all pervasive and debilitating. And the cover up continues. We put our happy faces forward and charge on, dissembling and hiding the palpable signs of our inner dystopia.

Robin Williams’ death showed us, again, that we are all vulnerable. It doesn’t matter what country we come from or whether we’ve achieved a level of success that the world deems unsurpassable.

Loneliness is painful.

Jaya Padmanabhan

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September 2014 | www.indiacurrents.com | 1

2 | INDIA CURRENTS | September 2014

INDIA CURRENTS September 2014 • vol 28 • no 6

PERSPECTIVES 1 | EDITORIAL Wave of Sadness

By Jaya Padmanabhan

Washington, D.C. Edition

LIFESTYLE

www.indiacurrents.com

17 | FINANCE Trading in Bitcoins

By Rahul Varshneya

Find us on

28 | RECIPE Fodder to Food

By Praba Iyer

6 | FORUM Should America Send Troops to Iraq?

By Rameysh Ramdas, Mani Subramani

32 | BOOKS Reviews of The Sleeping Dictionary and Where Earth Meets Water

By Jeanne Fredriksen, Girija Sankar

7 | A THOUSAND WORDS Woof, Yeah, Yeah, More

By Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan

8 | COMMENTARY Waving Stars and Warning Stripes

By Usha Akella

22 | OPINION Finding Kalpana

By Ranjani Mohanty

43 | RELATIONSHIP DIVA Keeping Jealousy in Check

By Jasbina Ahluwalia

12 | Who Is a Hindu?

Why is the modern world so unsure of the history and tradition behind Hinduism?

By Vamsee Juluri

44 | PERSPECTIVE I’m a Gastronomic Traitor

By Alakananda Mookerjee

10 | In Focus 24 | FICTION Rivers of Time

By Ritu Marwah

34 | ON INGLISH Puffed Up Over a Roti

By Kalpana Mohan

21 | MEDIA Maya, Marquez, Mandela

By Sandip Roy

48 | THE LAST WORD A Brave New World

By Sarita Sarvate

The Taste of Conflict

By Kamala Thiagarajan

47 | HEALTHY LIFE The Practical Vegetarian

By Gopi Kallayil

DEPARTMENTS

30 | Films Reviews of Kick and Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania

By Aniruddh Chawda

43 | DEAR DOCTOR Spanking Children

By Alzak Amlani

4 | Voices 4 | Popular Articles 18 | About Town 47 | Viewfinder

WHAT’S CURRENT

36 | Travel Obrigada, Brasil!

40 | Cultural Calendar 42 | Spiritual Calendar

By Jana Seshadri

September 2014 | www.indiacurrents.com | 3

voices A Wake-Up Call

I applaud letter writer, Jessica of New York (Contributing to America?, Letters Coumn, India Currents, August 2014) for her honest opinion, where she points out the burden American taxpayers have to bear for all the non-productive family members sponsored for immigration from India by their citizen relatives of the United States.

While family integration is a good goal, it should not be implemented at the expense of American taxpayers (including children of the sponsors), but instead it should be borne by the sponsoring relatives.

Those who sponsor their older parents who cannot work in the United States and therefore would not pay social security taxes and medical insurance premiums, benefit from living with or close to them, getting free babysitting for their children, free housekeeping, and pocketing the Supplementary Social Security payments of roughly $800 per person per month, that are handed out to the older immigrant parents on their honor system statement that they do not have any assets in their home country.

This is not fair to poorer American citizens who have worked all their life in the United States, paid taxes and medical premiums (like many school teachers for example), but get a pittance in Social Security payments when they retire.

Already our welfare system is burdened by tens of thousands of illegal immigrants, and United States is no longer as prosperous as it was after World War II, to maintain such generous handouts for family integration.

Maneck Bhujwala, Huntington Beach, CA

Three Cheers!

In the letter (Want Miracles? Letters Coumn, India Currents, August 2014), Usha Kris gives three cheers for Modi.

Amit Shah, the newly promoted BJP president, is a defendant in a long running murder case. He has been absent in the court trials since the Elections. When the trial judge criticized Shah’s absence, the judge was promptly transferred. Should we be now singing “Three Cheers for Narendra Modi’s Judicial Interference?” Congress viciously corrupted individuals. BJP is corrupting the System. Cheers for both!

Mohammed Shoaib, email

A Patronizing Attitude?

Your editorial (The Heart of India, In-

4 | INDIA CURRENTS | September 2014

dia Currents, August 2014) captures the indefatigable spirit of the people of India against all odds!

Rameysh Ramdas, CA Your editorial (The Heart of India, India Currents, August 2014) betrays the callous and patronizing attitude toward the poor in India that most English-speaking Indians have. You are not shocked by the fact that “a young boy, barely 10 years old,” is not in school but is forced to earn a living by hustling shoeshine in a local market in Delhi.

You casually mention the fact that “his face is grimy and his clothes are threadbare” without a hint of anger at the regime of linguistic apartheid that renders him inarticulate in his own country and keeps him in lifelong penury. You “laugh at his gall” and “meet his ink black eyes” and see a trite and vapid paradox about the people of India.

Kanchhedia Chamaar, email

The Modi-Obama Meet

It shall be the test for the most powerful, oldest and the largest democracies of the world. Both the leaders aspire to great things for their respective nations as well as for the whole world. Now they have to find ways to give shape to their ideas.

The Honorable Dr. A.P.J. Kalam once said that the real and the fastest progress is possible when technology meets spirituality. Here is the great opportunity for this to happen. United State’s technology and India’s spirituality can create waves in the world and can definitely make this earth, a much better place for all human beings to live.

Hope the ball shall be set to roll in this direction by the two big leaders during this meet. I wish them all the success.

A. Bhatia, email

A Vivd Picture

India Currents is now available on the Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/IndiaCurrents/dp/B005LRAXNG Follow us at twitter.com/indiacurrents on facebook.com/IndiaCurrents Most Popular Articles Online August 2014 1) Independence Day Celebrations Shyamal Randeria-Leonard 2) A Bag of Ashes Ravibala Shenoy 3) The Heart of India Jaya Padmanabhan 4) Rehearsing Return Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan 5) Bollywood Ties, Literary Knots Edited by Jeanne Fredriksen 6) Festival of India and Movie Fest Emma G. Blanco 7) Matchmakers and Meat Eaters Mak Akhtar 8) Street Food Entertainment Jagruti Vedamati

The fiction article (A Bag of Ashes, India Currents, August 2014) is a beautiful story

by Ravibala Shenoy. It paints a vivid picture of living oceans away from aging parents in India.

Ambika Kasbekar, Facebook

9) Poetic Alchemy P. Mahadevan

Insightful Reviews

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

Jeanne Fredriksen (Love is in the Aril, When Worlds Collide, India Currents, August 2014) asks the most insightful questions of an author. I can’t tell you how many books I have read because of her great reviews. The Last Taxi Ride was the latest. Fabulous! City of Devi is on my summer read list.

Bonnie J Becker, Facebook

10) Heavenly Kailash Mansarovar Anita Kainthla

Online Extras:

September 2014 | www.indiacurrents.com | 5

forum

Should America Send Troops to Iraq?

Yes, America should look for lasting solutions

No, America should not interfere

By Rameysh Ramdas

By Mani Subramani

S

ince we created it with our invasion in 2003, we are now obligated to fix the deteriorating and perilous situation in Iraq that is threatening its sovereignty. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a terrorist group that is believed to be worse than Al-Qaeda, is taking over entire cities including the Iraq-Syria border. Most recently, ISIS drove tens of thousands of Yazidis, a minority group, up a mountain to starve without food or water, prompting the United States and other countries to consider sending relief supplies.

President Obama responded to the worsening situation by ordering limited air drops of food and water while authorizing air strikes against ISIS, if necessary.

In an ill-advised move, our President also declared that he will not send ground troops into Iraq to contain the situation. Many have rightly questioned if the Obama administration should have been more assertive in responding to the civil war in Syria and thus prevented the growth of ISIS into Iraq.

The President’s own former Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford has pointedly said “Nothing we can point to that’s been successful,” referring to Obama’s approach to the Syrian It is time for President crisis. In a sign of partiObama to acknowledge san frustration, even the House Foreign Affairs that we have a serious leading Democrat Eliot problem in the Iraq-Syria Engel (D-NY) said, “I cannot help but wonder region that can threaten what would have happened if we had committhe direct security interted to empowering the ests of the United States. moderate Syrian opposition last year. Would ISIS have grown as it did?”

Others have pointed out that Obama totally miscalculated when he decided not to leave any residual troops behind in 2011 to keep the peace in Iraq. James Steinberg, Obama’s former Deputy of Secretary of State expressed bewilderment saying “His [Obama’s] last news conference leaves you scratching your head.

Yeah, we can’t do everything. But what matters to us?”

It is time for President Obama to acknowledge that we have a serious problem in the Iraq-Syria region that can threaten the direct security interests of the United States.

This President has summarized his foreign policy doctrine as “Don’t do stupid stuff,” which as Hillary Clinton said cannot be an “organizing principle for great nations.”

The President needs to step up and realize that the United States has both a moral obligation and vital national security interest in leading the charge to quickly assemble the support of the international community and yes, put boots on the ground in Iraq if needed to contain and eliminate ISIS and bring peace to this region. This is a solemn obligation of anyone who is elected to be the “leader of the free world.” n Rameysh Ramdas, an S.F. Bay Area professional, writes as a hobby.

6 | INDIA CURRENTS | September 2014

F

oreign policy is one of the more difficult aspects of a presidency to articulate and implement. Going to war with another nation or invading one is something that needs to be evaluated and considered in both the short as well as long terms.

Decisions on war and peace, however, are made easier when a nation has a moral ground to do so. This was the case during World War II when America and the Allies were able to exercise a moral judgement.

In the conflict at hand in Iraq the United States clearly is on the right ethical side in order to protect the Yazidis who are fleeing genocide at the hands of ISIS. To this end the administration has taken a number of steps.

They have dropped relief supplies for the Yazidis stranded in the mountains. They have sent in a few hundred advisors to assess the security situation on the ground. They have armed the Kurds who have captured back some territory from ISIS. In addition, through diplomatic pressure, they have unseated Prime Minister Al-Maliki.

Al-Maliki’s non-inclusive government perhaps gave rise to discontent among the population and prevented the rise of a unified defense of the country against ISIS. How the people of Iraq Any other justificagovern themselves is not tion for additional involvement like ground our business or concern ... invasion in Iraq is without merit. The We can ill afford to subject United States is not our veterans to another responsible for Iraq’s integrity. While the illwar. conceived invasion in 2003 was very costly to our country, it enabled Iraqis to attain democracy at a relatively minimal cost when compared with the struggles other nations have endured through history. How the people of Iraq govern themselves is not our business or concern. It is not for the United States or Britain to determine if Iraq is more stable as three, two or one country.

Since the break-up of Yugoslavia into three separate states the region has become more stable. Who is to say this will not occur in Iraq. It is a mistake to argue retroactively for a residual troop presence in Iraq. This was in keeping with the agreement made with the Iraqi government by the previous administration.

Alas, our military is tired desolate and war weary. According to a 2013 survey, 1 in 4 veteran families are dependent on food pantries for their daily food needs. This compares to 1 in 7 for the general population. Add to this the issues with the veterans administration and the fact that 30% of returning veterans suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. We can ill afford to subject our veterans to another war.

No disrespect to McCain, Hillary, et al., but when it comes to our military let’s not talk about boots on the ground let’s instead focus on food on the table! n Mani Subramani works in the semi-conductor industry in Silicon Valley.

a thousand words

Woof, Yeah Yeah, More

By Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan

M

rinalini is talking now. Every day, she acquires new words. At first, it seemed that she was simply imitating the words she heard: “Backpack,” I showed her. “Backpack,” she said. “iPod,” I unwrapped my earbuds. “iPod,” she said. But then, days later, she ran into my office and looked over at my old Jansport: “Backpack!” The next week, I found her in my brother’s room fiddling with his iPod shuffle: “iPod!” She had internalized the words and successfully matched them to their referents, which is no small task. As Rousseau writes in the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, “the primitive idea of two things is that they are not the same, and it often takes a long time for what they have in common to be seen.” Mrinalini had begun to categorize, so she could recognize and identify two different bags as both species of “backpacks,” and an old fashioned mini and a trendy blue shuffle as both types of the “iPod.” German shepherds, poodle puppies, Dobermans: all “dogs” that say “woof.” Revlon and MAC: both “lipstick.”

And so it began.

From the identification of objects, Mrinalini swiftly moved to the naming of actions: “kicking,” “rocking.” She began to adopt an imperative form: “up,” when she wanted to be carried; “down,” when she wanted to walk. Forbidden fruit—the dirt and rocks in the sandbox she wanted to taste, the crackers she yearned to smash into the carpet—became “no no.” She would grab a handful of sand and bring it carefully to her mouth, stopping short of her lips as they sounded the words, “no no no,” accompanied by a knowing shake of the head, back and forth, up and down, chin waggling with the classic Indian ambivalence. And she developed a language of assent: “yes,” “okay,” and the charmingly acquiescent, “yeah yeah.”

For Rousseau, the awareness of categories (that all things of a certain height and appearance, with the functions of giving shade and growing fruit, are different but nonetheless all “trees,” and so on) swiftly develops into an awareness of the differences between things in a particular category: “Men began now to take the difference between objects into account, and to make comparisons; they acquired imperceptibly the ideas of beauty and merit, which soon gave rise to feelings of preference.” Within the category of fruit, for Mrinalini, there is a clear pecking order: first, kiwi; then, blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries. Cherries only if there is no alternative. When it comes to vegetables, her typical demand is for “peas” and “corn.” As for food in general, she loves “idlis” above all.

Of course, Rousseau was interested in the kinds of preferences that extend into practices of social distinction, leading to the establishment of hierarchies and structures of inequality in human society, preferences premised on judgments about strength, intelligence, and material abundance. But the primitive preference for peas and corn has a lot to do with these more significant operations of discrimination. Until Mrinalini knew that the two things were related—that both peas and corn are foodstuffs that will lessen her hunger—she could not begin to differentiate between them. And until she developed a preference for one over the other, she could not exercise her free will. Now, she makes choices about what she is going to eat, and she has begun to engage in her first bargaining transactions, premised on a fairly sophisticated under-

It’s incredible to hear a child begin to speak.

It’s even more incredible to watch children develop the cognitive capacities to discriminate, to make decisions, to articulate preferences, to announce demands: in short, to develop the tools with which to become members of society. standing of the conditional form. Sometimes, I imagine that if she could formulate full sentences, her thoughts would go something like this: “Mama says that if I eat more peas, I can have more corn.”

“If I finish my rice, I can have more peas.”

(Granted, she more often expresses herself by picking up her rice and throwing it on the floor, or sitting on it, in the hopes of making it disappear. She says “no” to most foods before she says yes. But the seeds of conditional understanding are there.)

“More” currently features prominently in Mrinalini’ vocabulary, meaning both “more”—more blueberries, more balls, more peas— and “again.” Like all babies, she has a remarkable appetite for repetition. Sing that song “more.” Twirl me around “more.” Let’s go down the slide “more.” Make that bunny hop “more.” “More,” she says, with a slight narrowing of the eyes, as if she doesn’t expect me to do as she asks. “More,” she says again with a smile this time, already coy and aware of subtle facial cues at not even fifteen months of age. “More, more,” she says, refusing to budge.

Sometimes, Mrinalini’s “more” is plaintive; sometimes, it is aggressive and insistent. Sometimes, like when she wants me to sing some terrible children’s song for the hundredth time, it is annoying.

But I try to remain attentive to what Mrinalini’s “more” really is: a primitive avowal of desire, an attempt to make her preferences known, a request for a repetition of a pleasurable sensation, a call for continued engagement in a world of competing desires, fastpaced living, distraction and widespread attention-deficit.

The next stage of language acquisition will involve the more precise understanding and articulation of abstractions, like emotions and time. Already, she has started to say “happy.” When I leave the house to exercise or work, I tell her, “Mama will be right back.”

Sometimes, she seems unfazed and will even issue a cheery, “Bye!” Does she understand the temporal significance of “right back”? Is it different for her from “soon” and “later”?

It’s incredible to hear a child begin to speak. It’s even more incredible to watch children develop the cognitive capacities to discriminate, to make decisions, to articulate preferences, to announce demands: in short, to develop the tools with which to become members of society. In every “woof ” is a note of empathy for and interest in another creature. In every “yeah yeah,” an affirmation of life. So I try hard to listen to what Mrinalini is saying, even when it means singing “Little Bunny Foo Foo” that one more time.n Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan is a doctoral candidate in Rhetoric at UC Berkeley.

September 2014 | www.indiacurrents.com | 7

commentary

Waving Stars and Warning Stripes

By Usha Akella

M

y first overt racial encounter occurred at Macy’s in Lakeline mall, Austin. I was in line. A man picked up an argument with me and asked me to go back to my country. I went into an existential angst.

I thought, perhaps, he hadn’t read American history. I suggested that he address this desire to leave the land to his ancestors. Far too many Indians were doing it both sides of the Atlantic. He mimicked my accent. Others in the line were silent. I became silent too, watching my breath go in and out, not wanting any more karmic collisions with the man in future births.

I also felt compassion welling up within. Had he just lost his IT job to an Asian?

Aren’t we everywhere? More important, he was substantially taller. I didn’t think I could win a fist fight.

It’s true. Our seniors are walking neighborhoods in groups with great gusto.

We are minding motels, ticketing in Macys, teaching in classrooms, dominating software, choking the corridors of hospitals, staffing eyebrow-threading carts, waltzing on Wall Street, drinking in bars, sailing in Silicon Valley, greeting customers in gas stations, cheering PTA and even warbling on American Idol. We organize impressive fundraisers for non-profits. We take over entire streets at times: Hillcroft in Houston, Edison in New Jersey and Devon in Chicago. There, you will smell chicken tikka masala, lamb kababs and sight 22 karat gold, paan stains and neon embroidered salwar kameezes. Right here in the Christian belt, temples are mushrooming.

On Gandhi’s birthday, a couple years back, a massive crowd danced on the steps of the state capitol to A.R. Rahman’s “Jai Ho.” Some of us are becoming governors and senators. We’re inching toward the White house. Beware!

This morning I looked at the American flag by my mailbox, which hailed us as American citizens, while a terracotta Ganesha looked on impassively from our front porch. I noticed there were a good many white stars on the flag asking us to reach for the sky, and broad warning red bands saying “Stop!” instead.

For Indians, it is destiny that brings us here and we reach for those stars—a university education, first job, first car, first 8 | INDIA CURRENTS | September 2014

A Creative Commons image two-car garage house, kids to Ivy League, wedding with American style reception, grandkids and lots of photos, now digital.

That’s the big print.

The small print: zillions of cereals with raisins or granola, junk mail, Taco Bell, Macys, fries, milk shakes, malls and malts, beer, tacos, mortgages, loans, Halloween, Hallmark, Father’s day, Mother’s day, Valentine’s day, diet coke, cherry coke, and diet sprite, lactose intolerance, gluten intolerance, substituting quinoa for rice, organic produce, farm fresh produce and rice or almond milk. We learn to say gas instead of petrol; shower instead of bath. We stop believing we’ve won a cruise to Alaska and find the courage to hang up on a marketing caller up. We praise with “Great!” and negotiate with “Ok” and “Sure!” We obey traffic rules pausing with civility at a red light. We acknowledge personal space, become alert to body odor, while thinking this nation is a pampered brat.

Our kids graduate many times, starting in Kindergarten. We whisper to each other how academics have no value in this country; while watching toddlers trip on capacious gowns, their tiny heads adrift under graduation hats. In India, we say with pride, “You earned your education!”

When the Chinese kid outwits the Indian kid, the Indian parent adds on Kumon classes. We pack off the kids to weekly classes: classical dance, classical music, Tamil class, Telugu class, Hindi class, Bal Vihar, Chinmaya. Short of wearing dhotis and nine-yard saris we vow to save India’s 10,000 year old culture here in America.

Meanwhile, our counterparts in India, with signature ability to absorb the foreign element are wearing spaghetti straps, mini

outfits and sporting Prada and Gucci.

The accents? We slaughter the Queen’s and the President’s English with many victorious stabs. Indian characters in American sitcoms, Hari or Harry grill the consonants like steak. We wince at clichéd portrayals.

Revenge is sweet via Bollywood waging its own gleeful takeover across the globe.

On weekends we volunteer at religious institutions: temples, gurudwaras and mosques. Circumambulating, genuflecting, cooking, kneeling, seva-ing, word-fully or word-lessly.

Hindu altars resound with Sanskrit mantras, sparkling with garlanded idols while fragrant incense envelops the house.

We sink into the smoky ambience, reassured that we have not lost our Indianness.

Dinner follows, hot parathas or pasta with a pinch of garam masala or rasam powder; then kids packed off to bed and CNN or a pirated Bollywood movie. In movie theaters, we wish for garam chai and samosa instead of Velveeta cheese on nachos. We witness chai packaged as a syrupy concoction in a carton sold in Starbucks.

Just like yoga. And yoga mats, yoga bricks, yoga tees. India sliced, packaged and served on America’s tray. We grudgingly acknowledge that the West may be preserving what’s worth preserving in Indian culture or what we think is Indian culture.

One kind of Indian immigrant is pained by his/her Indian roots. Her smile at a fellow Indian is distant and constipated. The other kind is resolutely Indian. She hobnobs only with the same community, caste, and culture. It’s science fiction of a kind.

She walks on Walter street but perceives it as Wadhwa Rd. They earn in dollars but when they look at the notes they see Mahatma Gandhi’s sagacious head. Take your pick. We come in many hues.

We learn to our dismay that we cannot speak of the United States without India, and India without the United States. A name followed by a surname. Or is it last name? Home now points to both sides of the Atlantic. Country is the space the mind inhabits, no longer a marked geographical entity. n Usha Akella is an internationally known poet.

She lives in Austin, Texas. Occasionally she writes whimsical prose.

September 2014 | www.indiacurrents.com | 9

in focus

The Taste of Conflict

A kitchen that serves food from nations that are in conflict with the United States

By Kamala Thiagarajan

F

our different kinds of mouth watering arepas (golden crispy corn cakes with an array of stuffing) catch my eye on the menu. And then there is the Ensalada Palmito (a fresh salad of marinated palm with tomato, red onion, bell pepper and avocado), Pabellon Criollo (shredded beef served on steaming rice, with black beans and fried sweet plantains), the Besitos de Coco (sweet coconut cookies), Tequenos (crispy fried pastry) and the Arroz con Leche (rice pudding with cinnamon). While this is staple fare in Venezuela, it’s hardly the kind of food you’d expect to find in the heart of an American city. But what is unique is that America’s ideological differences with some nations has fueled the gourmet menu at Pittsburgh’s quaint Conflict Kitchen. What’s really cooking here is food for thought!

Their Venezuelan theme has just ended its run. This take-out only spot in Schenley Plaza rotates its menu every four months, selecting the cuisine of a different nation every time (and always one that’s been in conflict with the United States), hoping to spark an awareness that could help Americans regard political issues without prejudice while promoting cultural integration.

“Experiencing different cuisines is an ideal way for people to relate to another culture,” says artist Dawn Weleski, cofounder and director of Conflict Kitchen.

“It’s logical too. Often, the first exposure that citizens of a country have to an immigrant culture is vastly through its cooking.”

In 2008, Jon Rubin, also a co-founder and director of Conflict Kitchen and a professor of art at the Carnegie Mellon University, had involved his students in

10 | INDIA CURRENTS | September 2014

a performance art project set up in East Liberty called the Waffle Shop: A Reality Show. The Waffle shop was a restaurant that not just served waffles, but engaged diners in impromptu interviews and conversation that were streamed live online. It went on to become a huge success. Weleski, then one of Rubin’s students, was involved in thinking of new ways and ideas to further engage the community. Storytelling sessions offered at the restaurant proved to be popular, but their first real challenge came when the Waffle shop, (which was bookended by numerous clubs and bars on a crowded street), faced intense competition from a local hotdog vendor.

“We decided to set up another restaurant next door that would offer a more versatile menu and made a list of cuisines that weren’t available in the city,” says Weleski.

“On our list was Iranian, Afghan, Cuban, Venezuelan, North Korean, Palestinian cuisines and it struck us then that these were all countries that were in conflict with the United States—and that’s how the idea for Conflict Kitchen took root.”

Today, Conflict Kitchen has engaged public attention so effectively, that it’s not just another restaurant, but a place where customers can learn about the nuances of new culture, acquaint themselves with the way people there think and not least, sample its culinary specialties.

Initially, they needed to find ethnic recipes on a shoe-string budget. For this, they sought out Pittsburgh based immigrants who were only too happy to share their culinary expertise. “We would cook in their homes or invite them to the restaurant to oversee our recipes,” says Welski. “This

Photos courtesy of ConflictKitchen.org

intimate setting often gave us the opportunity to bond, to ask them questions about the lives they had left behind, their customs and politics. We made it clear that we were interested in their personal opinions, which often differed vastly from contemporary media reports.” These interviews were then printed on the gaily colored food wrappers, further encouraging discussion and debate with customers.

Currently operating on a budget of half a million a year, the directors of Conflict Kitchen now receive grants to actually visit the countries whose foods they feature and this allows them to interact with the locals and research cuisines in greater depth. Developing the menu for the next cuisine begins months in advance and is often linked to global events.

For instance, the current theme which focuses on Afghan cuisine was developed to mark the Afghan elections in April’14.

In September, the restaurant is gearing up to feature food from Palestine. During the Iranian theme last winter, an intercontinental dinner party was set up, with diners engaging in a live Skype conference with people from Tehran!

Interestingly, the make-shift storefront changes with every cuisine to reflect native colors, designs and motifs. “The aesthetics are very important,” explains Weleski. “It becomes a cultural symbol and I think it’s important for immigrants to see signs of their culture in the city.” n Kamala Thiagarajan writes on travel, health and lifestyle topics for a global audience. She has been widely published in over ten countries.

UTSAV is a three-day celebration featuring performances of classical music and dance by renowned Indian artists. Please visit utsavfestival.com for more information.

TICKET PURCHASE: $35 each @ www.kennedy-center.org or (800) 444-1324 PERFORMANCE DATES & ARTISTS Friday, Sep. 19, 7:30 p.m. Jayanthi Kumaresh is one of the most accomplished and versatile veena instrumentalists who has been enthralling audiences all over the world with her graceful, emotive, and expressive music for the last 25 years.

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He collaborated with pianist Richard Clayderman for his album Confluence.

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He possesses the unique in-depth understanding of the beat.

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September 2014 | www.indiacurrents.com | 11

cover

Who Is a Hindu?

Laying bare the misconceptions of Hinduism that emerge in contemporary texts

By Vamsee Juluri

We belong to a moment in history when Hinduism is beginning to wake up, if not from a long slumber, then at least a long silence. We did not speak to the world, and to ourselves, as Hindus, in a very long time. For reasons of strategy and sensibility, we have been modest and easy-going about religion, despite some unpleasant encounters in history with forces to the contrary.

We prayed, no doubt, and we went to temples and we made deals with God. We enjoyed our festivals and sang our bhajans and watched our Ramayan serials.

But we did not ask, until the present generation came of age really, that provocative question: what does it really mean to be Hindu today?

W

hat is God? Who are our Gods?

Why is it that nobody has been able to explain what all of this means? Were these Gods great human beings who lived long ago? Were they symbols of natural phenomena? Were they mere superstitions? If so, why do they still feel endearing to us? Why do our arts, sculpture, culture, science, philosophy, poetry, music, revolve so much around them?

Why do we feel their kindness, protection and wisdom so palpably?

We must listen to these questions, for we probably contemplated them too, when 12 | INDIA CURRENTS | September 2014

we were younger. We probably made our own conclusions, but, for the most part, we went on praying, going to temples, fulfilling vows, without debating very much what it meant.

And then, there are the other questions too, questions not about our philosophy or our Gods, but about these strange times we live in, and the strange insults and lies they heap on our sacred sensibilities and values, the questions that our children who are growing up in the United States ask with ever greater urgency.

Why do movies depict us as turbanned

snake-charmers, beggars, or snake-eaters?

Why do some people say our tradition is to blame for India’s poverty, or our religion for the caste-system? Or for violence against women?

Why is it that history books do not tell us the truth of who we are and what we are?

Why does this modern world seem so unable to recognize our inner world of tradition? Why do we not speak to the modern world as Hindus? Not as fundamentalists, not as apologists, but simply as intelligent observers? (Excerpted from

my book: Rearming Hinduism: Nature, Hinduphobia and the Return of Indian Intelligence.)

What Does it Mean to Be a Hindu?

This is going to be one of the most important cultural questions of our time.

For a living spiritual tradition that is a few or maybe even several thousand years old, we are amazingly intellectually underequipped today. We are free in our thought and practice, and yet deeply dedicated to core ethical principles, like any great spiritual tradition.

My father, for example, taught zoology and read Darwin, and he was deeply devout and religious. My mother acted in movies and later entered politics, and she was deeply devout and religious. I was less religious than them, and certainly less disciplined about rituals and ceremonies, but I could not reject belief completely either.

In any case, we were much like the other educated, middle class Indians we knew. We had our Gods in our homes and hearts, and from there we seemed to make all our deals with the modern world of science, engineering and careers. It was rarely the other way around. It did not even occur to us to think of our Gods using the touchstones of modern conversation, like history, or even philosophy, for that matter.

We went on worshipping, singing, watching the old devotional movies, and that was that.

The challenge is that any attempt to answer this question today gets dragged into political questions about fundamentalism and secularism. We cannot avoid these questions, these are the realities of a postcolonial world, but we must learn to address them more intelligently now.

Doesn’t Hinduism Preach Secularism?

For a devout Hindu, and I suspect for a sincere spiritual seeker of any cultural idiom, the everyday ideals we associate with secularism probably come very easily.

The idea of the Divine as one and many, of one God being known through various names and forms, is deeply rooted in our sensibility, and expresses not only a mystical insight, but also a simple social and political reality: this world is diverse, and we must learn to live together, well.

This is part of a very old practice in the Indian subcontinent, and is recognized as such by many modern Hindus who respect a secular India with room for all, but feel marginalized by present intellectual and media discourses that portray mainstream

Hinduism as fundamentalist.

Why Are Liberal Intellectuals Choosing to Explain Hinduism Differently?

There has been a fundamental misreading of Hinduism and India by secularliberal intellectuals in the past two decades.

They saw political developments like the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and the rise of the BJP in the 1980s, followed by the Ayodhya issue and later the Gujarat riots, as part of a Hindu fundamentalist uprising that would destroy India’ secular fabric. Their concerns about violence, and the abuse of identity politics were understandable.

Amartya Sen’s The Argumentative Indian sought to fight the Hindu Right’s view of India’s glorious Hindu past by celebrating non-Hindu icons of tolerant statesmanship, such as Ashoka and Akbar. Martha Nussbaum’s The Clash Within questioned the post 9/11 climate of Islamophobia in the United States through an earnest exposé of Hindu extremism. Other South Asian writers well known in the West like Arundhati Roy and Pankaj Mishra wrote frequently about the evils of the Hindu Right. They came to stand, even if by default, for a liberal vision of Hinduism in opposition to that of the Hindu Right.

However, this position was neither honest nor well informed. The supposedly liberal-secular vision of Hinduism they proposed against the Hindu Right had little consideration for how Hindus themselves see their religion in the first place.

Consequently, a whole era of writing about South Asia ended up answering the Hindu Right’s claims on history not by engaging with Hinduism as it is lived and understood by Hindus (which would mean acknowledging at least some grievances felt by them), but by promoting its own normative fantasy about what liberal, secular Hindus ought to believe.

To the claim that India is a Hindu nation, they responded not against the exclusionary aspect of that claim, but went so far as to insist there is no such thing as Hinduism. To the statement that India was hurt by Islamic invasions, they responded that Hindus were invaders of India too (just like Nazis, according to one scholar).

To the claim that our Gods and Goddesses mean something more to us than what sexualized academic theories propose, they responded that this is a puritanical fantasy which violates Hinduism’s rich erotic traditions like the Kamasutra and Khajuraho.

And to the belief that Rama and Krishna are Gods, they responded that they are

merely fictional characters, and that it is just as valid to talk about them as villains, because in some versions, they are depicted as such. Simply put, there has emerged an outright—and outrageous—denial of the moral legitimacy of Hinduism’s place in India, and of course, Hinduism’s intellectual integrity as a whole.

Why is History Important For Hindus and Hindu Americans?

The way in which history is taught around the world is essentially a modern, colonial relic. Until very recently, history was taught from the perspective of a small group of people, carrying over their prejudices, intact. For example, we used to learn that Columbus “discovered” America.

Now, we know better. The old model, which is often described as a Eurocentric one, was challenged in the academy, and since the 1960s and 1970s, more perspectives began to be heard; third-worldist, feminist, Islamist, and so on.

Unfortunately, a Hindu voice did not emerge at this time. So today, we have a strange situation. We have scholars able to speak, produce knowledge proudly in the name of their identities, as feminists, gays, Islamists and so on, but one of the oldest living intellectual heritages in the world has no voice to speak of the world.

This is not to say we must simply rewrite history books with simplistic slogans to make us feel good (or others look bad).

We must challenge historiography, the way history is narrated, itself. A Hindu history of the world, for example, could be about humanity’s place in nature, its engagement with animals, a lot more than present discourse perhaps can imagine.

September 2014 | www.indiacurrents.com | 13

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Have We Fallen Behind Because of Our Enthusiasm for Science Over Arts/Humanities?

In some ways, we have, though we must acknowledge the fact that much of the energy in rediscovering Hindu history is coming now from scientists and engineers. The trouble is not so much that our parents pushed us into “safe” professions, but that as a nation, India neglected its arts and humanities in the early years after Independence. It was a major pitfall of the Nehruvian vision, which was commendably internationalist in some ways, but severely lacking in terms of respect for India’s own civilizational, and that does mean spiritual, heritage.

The important thing though would be to create better conversations across professions, and ways of looking at the world.

Academics, for example, really need to start listening to the Hindu community and its scholars, and reject old orientalist fantasy theories about Hinduism. The biggest change will happen only when more of us go into the arts and humanities.

What Are the Consequences of Misrepresentation of Hinduism in the United States?

It is in America, this bastion of privilege, and possibility, this dream of the world, that the real consequences of misrepresentation play out. American school textbooks contain condescending fallacies about Hinduism on a scale which would have been instantly seen as scandalous had these been about other minority communities.

On bookshelves, you will see no Hindus except by token of name perhaps. You will find top of the line seculars who will equate any critique of racism and orientalism against Hindus with Hindu fundamentalism. You will find, reflected back and forth in the words of the four or five authors who have been chosen to portray 1.5 billion people to America, the same malignant fantasy as the old colonizers about Hinduism. It is mitigated, perhaps, by a streak of anti-colonial idealism, a great anguish for the poor, the minorities, the oppressed of the world. But their view of Hinduism is limited. They either did not know it in their lives, or knew no affection for it.

The Hindu-American community was slow to recognize these issues perhaps, and when it did, got broadly tarnished by self-styled secularists as “Hindu extremists”

The real issue is that Hindu history—mainstream, alternative, call it what you will— is at the moment a profoundly imperialist and racist denial of the right of nearly one billion people to their sense of home, place, and god. for its efforts, as was the case in California in 2006. If law-abiding parents concerned about their children’s education could be branded as extremists, then the word truly has no meaning left. In India, the consequences of poor textbooks may not be as bad as it is for Hindu Americans who face certain challenges as minorities in this society.

What Does it Mean to Speak of Myth and History?

One of the biggest intellectual challenges we face today is in distinguishing between “myth” and “history.”

As a high school student in Hyderabad, I recall not being especially bothered by what our history textbooks said about our religion; most importantly, they said that our sacred epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, were literature, and the gods, like Krishna and Rama were therefore not real. Our religion did not seem to need any sort of validation from the curriculum, or from school in general.

We got our religious stories, and our sensibilities, from our parents and grandparents and from comic books and movies. It didn’t occur to us that our modern curriculum was actually saying the gods didn’t exist. We took history, after all, with a pinch of salt.

“Myth,” on the other hand, was something we were steeped in, regardless of how much we believed in it. We believed that Rama and Krishna were real, that they were avatars of God in human form, and that they lived on this land long ago. But we also assumed that it was all really long, long ago, and that we needn’t bother looking for them in our history lessons. It was an accommodation between belief and the modern mind that had held in India for many generations.

Whatever new forms of understanding emerge in the future, it is important they stay true to the philosophical, ethical, and aesthetic sensibilities of Hinduism. In any case, it is perhaps best to slowly find better

ways to describe our god-stories than the condescending term “myth.”

Why is Wendy Doniger’s Work Problematic?

One unfortunate fall out of the controversy surrounding Doniger’s The Hindus is that it has shut out serious discussion of the problems in her work. Enthusiastic supporters like Stephen Prothero hail her as the voice of liberal Hindus, and sweepingly dismiss her critics as fundamentalists.

To understand the problem, imagine the following situations: a book called The Women, written by a man who claims to be an expert on women, or a book called The Poor, written by a millionaire who read a few books on poverty (written mostly by other rich people), or a book called The Gays, written by a heterosexual who insists he loves them even if his subjects say he is quite homophobic.

Now consider a book called The Hindus.

There is a problem in representation, and in privilege, here, and this is not to simply say a non-Hindu cannot speak for Hindus (there has been great writing on Hinduism from many “outsiders,” for a fact). The reality is this: If you walk into a bookstore in America, or open the review pages of the New York Times, chances are you won’t find any other views about Hinduism or Hindus other than the likes of Doniger’s. It is not an “alternative” view in the sense of being marginalized at all. Though it tries at some level to speak for “marginalized” groups in Indian history, it is still, in fact, the dominant view; and more importantly, it is a mistaken one.

The real issue with The Hindus is not so much its gratuitously sexualized misinterpretations of Hinduism. The dirty jokes and poor puns aside, at the core of this book (and the current academic quasi-consensus on Hindu history) is a bizarre myth: that of some ancient genocidal conquest of a preHindu India by a Hindu Aryan force. This claim is made perhaps with the good intentions of countering majority intolerance and assuring minorities in India that they have a place in India. Still, it is neither noble nor factual.

The real issue is that Hindu history— mainstream, alternative, call it what you will—is at the moment a profoundly imperialist and racist denial of the right of nearly one billion people to their sense of home, nature and God.

What are the Challenges Ahead?

September 2014 | www.indiacurrents.com | 15

One sign of hope is that young Indians are devouring history and mythology voraciously, even if in the world of popular culture and social media rather than the classroom.

Novelists like Amish and Anand Neelakantan, for example, have created a vibrant interest in the past and through it have raised very contemporary humanistic questions.

Bloggers and readers are daring to challenge canonized academics about Hinduphobia. I am excited about the fact that India, and its diaspora, is preparing to take on the question of who we are in a way that goes beyond the usual anxieties about secularism and communalism. We may have lived with all the funny stories we had to memorize on the night before exams as “our” history for many decades now, but no longer. Everything is telling us that we are moving now into a different vision of the past, and more importantly, into a different vision of who we are and who we would like to become. n Vamsee Juluri is a professor of media studies at the University of San Francisco. His latest book, Rearming Hinduism: Nature, Hinduphobia and the Return of Indian Intelligence, will be published by Westland Books India later this month and can be purchased from amazon.com

Quotes about Hindu History From The Hindus: An Alternative History by Wendy Doniger: “Like most of the Indo-Europeans, the Vedic people were cattle herders and cattle rustlers... (and) resembled the cowboys of the nineteenth century American West, riding over other people’s land and stealing their cattle... Compare... the scornful attitude of these ancient Indian cowboys.... Towards the “barbarians” (Dasyus or Dasas) whose lands they rode over... and the American cowboy’s treatment of the people whom they called, with what now seems like cruel irony, Indians.” (p. 111) “The Vedic drive towards wandering (without settling) had developed into what the Nazis called, euphemistically, incorporation (Anschluss), and nineteenth century Americans called manifest destiny.” (p. 144). “(T)he violence and uncertainty of the monsoon create an everpresent psychological factor that may well be related to Hindu ideas about the capriciousness and violence of fate and the gods.” (p. 62) From a History Textbook in the United States: “Hinduism developed thousands of years ago. It was inspired in part by the religion of the

Aryans, light-skinned invaders from the north who shared an Indo-European language.”

“Hinduism also adopted the Aryan caste system. This is a social system in which an individual’s social position is determined by his or her birth. That social position cannot be changed. Someone who is born to a lower class can never move up the social ladder.

By the same token, someone from the upper class cannot move down. The highest class is the Brahmans, followed by the Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Sudras. Lower than all these are the Dalit, also called the “untouchables.”

Untouchables do the lowest, dirtiest jobs.”

Comment: This “light-skinned invaders” bit is an attempt to impose a highly racist lean into Hinduism. There may be all kinds of issues about caste, complexion and discrimination in India, but to make this the focus at the expense of addressing the philosophical core of Hinduism is highly misleading.

The caste system bit also misleads in that it conflates jati and varna, and more importantly, presumes a rigidity that is belied by processes of upward mobility for communities as a whole. n

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finance

Trading in Bitcoins Understanding the digital currency and its impact

By Rahul Varshneya

B

itcoin belongs to the class of crypto-currency or digital currency—an asset class that has become quite popular in 2014. Bitcoin is often spoken about but news and media hardly go in to any depth into what it is. Whereas real currency is printed and maintained by a country’s central bank, bitcoin is traded, created and maintained by market participants. Its highly speculative nature stems from its decentralized nature, trading on Bitcoin Exchanges around the world. Bitcoin can be exchanged for real currency, services or products. Although not as popular as a nation’s currency, it serves the same purpose and is often used as a medium of payment because it bypasses the traditional 2-3% service fees that credit card companies impose.

The Transaction

As a function of it being online, it begs the question—how exactly is Bitcoin created? At any point of time, a bitcoin is being created or transferred between buyer and seller. Buyers and sellers enter into this transaction on an online Bitcoin Exchange and that transfer is recorded on an online ledger with a unique identifier. This transaction doesn’t happen instantly; instead it is added to a set of similar trades between other participants called the “block.”

Now we come to the process of mining—creating bitcoin. As there is no central authority or clearinghouse executing these trades, individuals can contribute processing power to execute bitcoin transactions for a reward of 25 bitcoins.

To summarize, an individual looking to acquire bitcoins can either mine for them or purchase them. There is currently 13 million bitcoins in existence with an arbitrary limit of 21 million in place. Protocol states that the 25 bitcoins reward for mining will be halved every four years until the limit is reached.

Risks

While Bitcoin is popular for transactions because of its ease of use and circum-

vention of traditional bank fees it presents some risks. An investor can access her bitcoins in her online wallet, similar to a stock portfolio, which can be accessed by two keys (passwords). The public key is akin to an account number the private one is the user credentials.

As bitcoins are identical to one another it is imperative the investor keeps their private key safe because if it is lost or stolen that wallet along with all the bitcoins cannot be recovered. Serious investors tend not to store their private keys online where they run the risk of being hacked and losing their key. Instead they tend to print them out and keep them offline.

One of Bitcoin’s strength is also a weakness—its widespread, decentralized nature.

Due to its unregulated nature, bitcoin can be used for any purpose. In 2013, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) shut down the Silk Road, the largest deep web market for illegal goods. Upon confiscation of the website, the FBI also recovered about $30 million in bitcoin.

The second problem that comes from its widespread nature is the perception issue. In 2014, Mt. Gox in Japan (the largest Bitcoin Exchange) was seized and shutdown due to Bitcoin price manipulation. This led financial experts to surmise that the rise in Bitcoin’s value in 2013 had been completely fabricated. This crime had a dual effect—the biggest exchange of Bitcoin had been shut down leading to a drop in price due to less places to buy Bitcoin and in the more long term it created doubt in investors’ minds whether or not Bitcoin could be a legitimate form of investment.

Moving Forward

Bitcoin is considered a highly speculative asset class. Opinions of what its value should be run from zero to tens of thousands of dollars. It is a misconception that its value comes from commercial transaction supply and demand, when in fact the majority of transactions are speculators hoping to take advantage of short term price movements. Countries around the

world have different stances on Bitcoin.

The United States is completely open to Bitcoin—many businesses have started accepting bitcoin as a form of payment.

Meanwhile although China is receptive to Bitcoin, it still chooses to regulate the crypto-currency, which should not come as a surprise to anyone who is familiar with the Yuan.

Impact

Every few years, there is a craze for a new financial instrument. Like stock options were in 1990s, we have Bitcoin now.

Like every other financial instrument, it is imperative that one understands it intimately before investing in it. Whereas the value of stocks is derived from the performance of a company, Bitcoin is supported by nothing. Many economists believe that the fair value of bitcoin is zero and it is heading in that direction because it is priced solely from supply and demand.

Stocks are units of ownership and are essentially claims on future cash flows of company. Bitcoin’s price is determined by how many people want to buy it—a risky proposition for everyone but speculators.

Goldman Sachs released a report classifying Bitcoin as a highly speculative asset akin to IPOs and distressed debt (debt of struggling companies). Entering into a Bitcoin transaction would be a high risk investment and should remain a small percentage of an investment portfolio. n This article is the opinion of the author and is not shared by India Currents or any of its staff.

All investors should conduct their independent analysis before taking any actions and should not make any decisions on the information provided in this article alone.

Rahul Varshneya graduated from the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University with a degree in finance and is working in the technology industry as a financial analyst. If you have feedback or have a topic you would like addressed please contact Rahul at rahul89@gmail.com.

September 2014 | www.indiacurrents.com | 17

Sikhs Campaign to Reshape Image

By Sirmukh Singh Manku

Delegates pose for photo.

R

epresentatives of gurdwaras from across the United States have given the go-ahead for a new grassroots campaign to educate Americans about the Sikh religion and culture and change theperception of Sikhs in the country.

A meeting held at the University of Maryland Shady Grove Campus, on August 16, pledged support for the unprecedented campaign, under the banner of the National Sikh Campaign (NSC), which was launched in March 2014. The meeting was attended by more than 100 representatives of gurdwaras from across the country to raise $5 million toward the campaign.

Besides Maryland and neighboring states Virginia and Pennsylvania, other states represented include California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas. Dozens of Sikh community leaders from other states joined the meeting over the phone.

Two veteran media gurus who are helping with the campaign, Geoff Garin and Isaac Baker, made presentations outlining how the Sikh image can be reshaped.

Garin, who works with Hart Research,

18 | INDIA CURRENTS | September 2014

Credit: Sirmukh Singh Manku is a former political strategist to Hillary Clinton. Baker’s firm AKPD Message and Media worked for President Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns.

“The consensus was that there is a critical need for this kind of media strategy for the Sikh community,” said Rajwant Singh, president of the Sikh Council on Religion and Education, who facilitated the discussion. “Secondly, all possible efforts need to be made to include as many Gurdwaras as possible in the network as partners. Thirdly, our goal is to keep the focus on introducing Sikhism and the Sikh identity while showing the positive contribution of the community in the media.”

Singh, who is also a senior advisor to NSC, added: “Almost every person said that this type of campaign should have been launched long time ago and would have prevented many hardships that many members of the community have had to face since 9/11.”

One of the Sikh leaders who participated in the meeting was Kulwant Singh Dhaliwal, president of the Oak Creek Gurdwara in Wisconsin, where a white supremacist gunned down six devotees before taking his own life.

“[The] aim of the campaign is to counteract the negative image and perceptions Americans have about Sikhs and Sikhism and create a positive image of Sikhs and our faith,” he said. “This is about taking a proactive approach, or as in medicine we would say, a preventative approach— ‘Prevention is better than a cure’ approach.

Hopefully that will prevent future tragedies for our people.”

Many Sikh leaders who attended the meeting said such a campaign is necessary.

“It’s long overdue that Sikh organizations and gurdwaras work together to take a proactive approach to the challenges Sikhs face in America,” Jasvir Kaur Singh, who represented the Sikh Religious Society in Chicago, said. “This was the first time I’ve attended a Sikh event where we hoped to check our egos at the door and have a candid conversation about the lack of progress we’ve made despite our attempts and personal, professional successes.”

Explaining the fundraising raising strategy for the campaign, Jivan Singh Achreja, its national strategy director, said “a large section of the community will be tapped through gurdwaras and online sources in a creative fundraising strategy that will involve all levels of the community.” .n

Independence Day Celebrations

A

number of celebration events for India’s Independence were held in the Washington DC, area. At the Embassy of India in Washington, Ambassador Dr. S. Jaishankar unfurled the National flag and paid floral tribute at the statue of Mahatma Gandhi on the morning of August 15. The ambassador also read out the Independence Day message of President Pranab Mukherjee to the nation.

Besides the official Embassy event, several community organizations also held Independence Day public events across the region.

Montgomery County Chief Executive Ike Leggett was the chief guest at the National Council of Asian Indian Associations (NCAA)+++ Independence Day banquet dinner held on August 16. Heritage Foundation scholar Lisa Curtis delivered the keynote address and Community Affairs minister at the Embassy of India N.K. Mishra also spoke at the event, which was attended by dozens of Indian American community members and a number of NCAIA leaders.

Leggett, who will be leading a county delegation to India in November, was fulsome in his praise of the community. “I am here because of what you do for our community, for our state and for our nation,” he said. “We are a better country, a better state and a better county because of you. Your contributions in education, in all sectors of professions really enlightens, informs and uplifts our community.”

Mishra also praised the community’s contributions in strengthening India-U.S. relations. “[The Indian diaspora] in the United States has immensely contributed to the strength of the host country, and therefore, has proved themselves as ambassadors of the rich Indian culture and values,” he said.

In her keynote address, Curtis said the United States and India need each other to cope with local challenges in India’s neighborhood, including counter-terrorism and maintaining a stable balance of power in the Asia Pacific.

“India certainly has a lot to manage—a bouncing act of seeking to expand economic opportunity for all its citizens while also projecting strength outside of its borders and managing tensions with Pakistan on the one side and China on the other,”

County Executive Ike Leggett speaking at the NCAIA Independence Day celebrations.

Heritage scholar Lisa Curtis delivering keynote address at the NCAIA Independence Day celebrations.

she said. “The BJP’s assumption of power offers an opportunity to reinvigorate USIndia ties and to work together for mutual benefit of each other in areas such as defense, trade, counter-terrorism and other security issues.”

Rajan Anand, an Indian American com-

munity leader, was presented with NCAIA’s Lifetime Achievement Award by Leggett.

The India Cultural Coordination Committee (ICCC) hosted its Independence Day event at the Ernst Community Cultural Center of Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, VA. n September 2014 | www.indiacurrents.com | 19

T

Modi Comes to Washington

he United States capital is preparing to welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi this month, when he comes to town after addressing the United Nations General Assembly and the Indian American community in New York. The Indian leader will be in the United States from September 25 to October 1. The newly elected premier is expected to meet President Obama at the White House Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 30, 2014. during the visit will be his address to Even though several congressional lead18,000 members of the Indian diaspora ers have extended invitations to the prime and guests at a reception being organized minister to speak at a joint session of Conat the Madison Square Garden (MSG) in gress, it is appears Modi is unlikely to adManhattan, on Sunday, September 28, at dress the United States lawmakers because noon. The speech will be preceded by a of scheduling conflicts. grand cultural program.

India’s ambassador to the United The by-invitation only event is going States, S Jaishankar, has ruled out PM to cost a whopping $1.5 million, as of Modi addressing the Joint Session of Conestimates now, of which $500,000 will be gress. the rent for the venue, and an additional One of Modi’s biggest public events

20 | INDIA CURRENTS | September 2014

$300,000 for the security at the MSG, according to reports.

The money will be raised by the community through private sponsorships, although MSG has strict rules on how much money can be raised for such events, through business entities. Not more than $50,000 can be collected from a business entity. A website, www.pmvisit. com is also being set up.

Private donors will get a limited number of free tickets, but the emphasis is going to be screening individuals who want to attend the meet, while ensuring fair and equitable allocation of tickets.

All the Indian consulates in the United States are going to be asked to provide names of bonafide Indian American organizations, and then certain number of tickets would be allocated to them. Ten percent of the tickets of the around 18,000 invitations would be reserved for guests like Senators and Congressmen, as well as leaders from the academic and business world.n

media

Maya, Marquez, Mandela The disease of Fakebook New America Media • Sandip Roy

I

have never read a book by Maya Angelou.

However I must confess when Maya Angelou died I immediately felt I needed to Google “inspirational quotes Maya Angelou.” I knew my social media timeline would be flooded with them and I didn’t want to be caught empty-handed with my cultural pants down as it were.

How could I post a picture of my dinner in Kolkata on Facebook while the world was RIPing Angelou? What would they think of me?

For the record the Google search yielded 513,000 results in 0.27 seconds. That’s a lot of Maya Angelou to choose from even for the most Angelou-ignorant.

Once when a legend died, the problem was what to say if you hated him. But to have an opinion, good or bad, about a legendary literary figure you had to read her. Now for instant and innocuous insight you can just Google her. Once you faked sorrow. Now you fake familiarity.

Of course a few of us forget to do even that and trip in our haste to be the early mourner at this virtual wake. A good friend confessed she routinely confused Maya Angelou with Toni Morrison. Even worse others on Twitter thanked Angelou for refusing to sit in the back of the bus so people could be free today. I am not sure if Rosa Parks would have been shocked or amused.

Apparently these feisty old black ladies all look alike.

But most of us do our due diligence— at least one Google search. My social media feed is flooded with Angelou quotes. I have no idea how many of my friends have actually read Angelou. Or like her. Or for how many of them an Angelou quote is just a social media must-have fashion statement.

In the virtual world it’s almost impossible to tell the real from the pretender.

When Gabriel Garcia Marquez died last month, it was much the same. Everyone wanted a piece of the Nobel prize winner to claim as their own.

This is part of what The New York Times calls “faking cultural literacy.” “Data has become our currency,” writes Karl Taro Greenfield. “What matters to us, awash in

petabytes of data, is not necessarily having actually consumed this content firsthand but simply knowing that it exists—and having a position on it, being able to engage in the chatter about it. We come perilously close to performing a pastiche of knowledgability that is really a new model of know-nothingness.”

It’s not unique to our age. But it’s never been such a pandemic. And that’s largely because it’s never been easier to fake it. At one time it might have been embarrassing but unavoidable if we had to admit we had not read anything by an Angelou or a Garcia Marquez. We could try and save face by talking about a film based on their work if we happened to make that connection. But there was no easy way to pretend. But now that “pastiche of knowledgability” is so temptingly close at hand, we can search it on our phone and be instantly able to nod our head and add our two bits to the conversation. Of course those are the only two bits we know. And we didn’t know them two minutes ago. But they will suffice for the brief period we need to stay culturally afloat as the Angelou wave washes over our social media timelines.

It’s in fact almost a waste of time to actually read Maya Angelou since most of us will only need her for that one status update.

But oh, the pressure to make that status update count. It has to be the most profound. The most poignant. The most throat-catching one. And it certainly has to be a rare gem, the one that will demon-

strate to our friends and followers that our knowledge of Maya Angelou is not just Wikificial. A little knowledge is no longer a dangerous thing. It is a good thing. An essential thing.

The barrage of information that assaults us from all sides has exponentially increased this pressure to always seem on top of it. As a journalist you don’t want to be caught in an editorial meeting clueless about the story everyone else is discussing knowledgeably. So you nod along as you desperately and covertly search on your annoyingly slow PDA. When a legendary figure dies, everyone has to have their Nelson Mandela tribute handy whether or not anyone has asked them for it.

But Mandela, at least was a political figure. His life was writ large before us. We did not have to read books about him to be impressed and moved by him. Cultural figures however require a level of homework that no one needs to do anymore. I don’t know how many of us had actually read Chinua Achebe but we all RIPed him with enormous feeling when he died as if in our own worlds things had just fallen apart as well.

It’s the relentless performance anxiety of being on social media that forces us to have an opinion on everything important.

Except of course the more we do it, the more we are trapped in some hologram version of ourselves. Each bit of cultural literacy we fake gets added to the makebelieve intellectual gravitas of our persona.

And it makes confessing ignorance the next time around that much more difficult. He who mourned Achebe cannot be clueless about Angelou.

And so we tweet on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into our dissimulation.

As Angelou said ... Actually I don’t know what she said. I’d have to Google that first. n Sandip Roy is the Culture Editor for Firstpost.com. He is on leave as editor with New America Media. His weekly dispatches from India can be heard on KALW.org. A version of this story appeared on Firstpost.com.

September 2014 | www.indiacurrents.com | 21

opinion

Finding Kalpana

A mother finds parallels in Finding Nemo as she bids adieu to her college bound daughter

By Ranjani Iyer Mohanty

O

ur family loves the popular movie Finding Nemo. But while others appreciate its vivid animation and clever script, we feel the story is really about us. Marlin the father fish is very much my husband: organized, wary, and protective. Dory, the mother substitute, is like me: accepting of everyone, well-meaning, and highly forgetful. Nemo is the equivalent of our daughter Kalpana: optimistic, thoughtful, eager to be independent and out in the world, but concerned about her parents’ well-being.

Like Nemo, we too were living in a paradise—in the small sea-side town of Cascais in Portugal. Our barracuda was cancer; it snatched Kalpana’s little brother away when he was three and she was seven.

Thereafter, like the singleton Nemo, Kalpana found an assortment of friends along the way. Beginning with her constant cousin Kiran and joined by a myriad of transient international school kids, Kalpana finished high school with a diverse tight-knit gang of pseudo-siblings.

And now Kalpana is beginning her solo journey. Having spent most of her school years in India, she’s off this fall for university in the United States.

While her grandfather went abroad for his doctorate degree and her father went abroad for his master’s, Kalpana is going away for her undergraduate. Today, earlier and larger migration for higher education is common. The number of foreign students has doubled since even 2000. Some 265,000 go to Canada, over 200,000 to Australia, and more than 420,000 to the United Kingdom. America’s universities hold a great allure for the youth of the world for their academic leadership, freedom to explore and create and share, and their inviting and equitable atmosphere.

During the 2012-2013 academic year, over 800,000 foreign students came just to United States colleges. While slower economic conditions in Western countries may be compelling their students to live at home and study, a growing middle-class is pushing those in crowded and competitive developing countries—like China, India, and South Korea—to look west for inter22 | INDIA CURRENTS | September 2014

esting, better, and simply more education opportunities.

With the advance of telecommunications, the world is made significantly smaller and homesickness is reduced. Students like Kalpana can retain an inexpensive and extensive daily link with home via email, Facebook, Skype, Viber, WhatsApp, and a myriad of other programs. If only Nemo and Marlin had had cell phones, they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble.

But while technology will enable us to stay in touch easier, we’ll still need to learn to live without each other—physically and emotionally. And that may well be the biggest education for both child and parents in the year ahead. Kalpana will need to be organized without parental nagging and assess risk, realizing there is no parental safety net. And on our part, we’ll need to shift the focus of our last 18 years of existence and find new ventures to absorb our passion.

Having long instilled in Kalpana the feeling that the world is her playground and her responsibility, it would be unfair on us now to impose geographic restrictions on her just to suit our aching hearts. Her hopes, interests, and concerns transcend national boundaries.

There’s that old mushy quote “If you love something set it free. If it comes back, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.” Well, Kalpana may not come back. But in some sense, she will always be ours and we, hers.

And in spite of my daily forgetfulness, the times we shared over the past 18 years are unforgettable.

Although Kalpana now stands five inches taller than me, I still remember bringing the 6 pound 5 ounce baby home from the

hospital in a car seat that was too big for her, the colic, her learning to walk and finally sleep through the night, the slow eating to endless playing of the Lion King audio tape, laughing and dancing and singing around the house, reading Franklin the Turtle books at bedtime, our worries about the scars of her brother’s death, and her efforts to make us smile again.

I remember her growing: from initially moving away from our touch to later initiating hugs herself; from being scared of other children to being surrounded by a gaggle of friends; from being shy to talking calmly in front of 400 students and teachers at last year’s school assembly.

Nemo in Latin means “no one.” The optimist in me likes to think that therefore that name includes everyone and his journey is one we can all empathize with.

Kalpana in Sanskrit means “imagination.” I like to think that armed with that, she will manage her way in the wider world. And if she does meet any predators along the way, I hope they will be in rehab—like Bruce the shark: fish-friendly or at least trying to be good.

Finding Nemo may take place under the ocean but it’s actually a road movie. And while the plot may seem to be the journey of father Marlin searching for and finding his son Nemo, in essence it’s the journey of Nemo finding himself. As in Nemo’s ocean, there may be set currents but no set paths. Kalpana will go to places we have never been. She will meet people we do not know. She will have adventures we will not be aware of—unless she wants to share them with us. I hope all she’s learned so far will serve her well. And if she’s ever feeling low, I hope she’ll remember how much she is loved.

We found Kalpana 18 years ago. And she has been a treasure in our lives. Now— as we stand back, watch her swimming away from us and our sheltered coral reef and alone towards the unknown—it’s time for her to find herself. n Ranjani Iyer Mohanty is a writer and editor, based in New Delhi.

September 2014 | www.indiacurrents.com | 23

fiction

Rivers of Time Katha Fiction Contest 2014 • Third Place

By Ritu Marwah

K

usum dipped her biscuit in the tea and watched the hardness of its outer shell soften. Just before the soggy mess dropped, she deftly pulled it out and caught it on her tongue.

The sweet, moist, doughiness of it filled her mouth. She washed it down with a gulp of milky tea.

The airline tea was lifeless, a bit like her life, tepid. It was going to change finally. A butterfly wound its way up inside her body. It traveled from her stomach to her heart, setting it aflutter. She was a bride again, seventy-year-old woman from Punjab going to America to meet her seventy-six year old husband.

Her brow furrowed. She hadn’t seen him for forty-six years. Forty-six years of waiting and watching in the mirror as her youthful body had slowing changed. A bulge here and another one there had attached around her waist and then melted away. Her belly had sagged, covering her privates like an overgrown vine that takes over a deserted house. Her breasts hung their heads hiding in the fleshy curtain. She had watched helplessly as the youthful flush of her smooth skin had slowly opened its pores. The toes had sprouted bunions and the ankles had thickened. She had wanted the clock to stop. Stop for her husband who had gone to make a fortune in the United States leaving behind her two children and her. Stop, so her children could play out their childish and then youthful indiscretions in front of both of them and they could hide their smiles behind frowning foreheads as indulgent and yet strict parents. Stop so that they could live their life together sharing daily confidences and small secrets that are whispered between husband and wife.

Their nine-year-old daughter had blossomed before her eyes into a beautiful mature woman with four sons of her

24 | INDIA CURRENTS | September 2014

A Creative Commons Image own. Their four-year-old son had become a handsome man like her husband. A river of time had flowed past her carrying with it moments, memories and remembrances.

The mirror reflected back a person she didn’t recognize. In her mind’s eyes she was still twenty-four waiting, waiting, waiting for a husband who had promised to return, to take her with him, but had never come.

“Biji the plane is landing,” Moti her nineteen-year-old grandson exclaimed excitedly. “We have reached San Francisco.

Bauji will be here to receive us. Chalo. I’ll bring the bags.”

Pulling a black bobby pin from her hair, she opened it with her teeth and, quickly pushed it into the back of her head taking with it any stray hair that had wandered out over the three day journey from Jullundur, India. What would he think of her? Maybe she should have worn a brighter color. He was not used to seeing her in grey. She no longer had any pink suits, she mused as she patted her silver hair down.

He was waiting for them at the mouth of the airport. Atma Ram’s eyes scanned the arriving passengers. Would he recognize her after all these years? Years had passed like ages waiting for this moment and yet she was still twenty-four in his

mind. He had not made the mental adjustment. She existed in his memory as an apparition, the mother of his children, the fantasy of his nights. He had forgotten the smell of her, the warm angularity of the way her body had molded to his when they had lain on the cot staring at stars. All he remembered was the excitement of moments stolen from the eagle eye of his parents, the furtive hugs and the stolen kisses. They had been married four years when he had left Punjab for America. He had lain alone nineteen thousand nights reliving the memories of nights spent together.

The year had been 1919, when he had left India. World War 1 had ended. Britain still ruled India and famine still ravaged the countryside. Soldiers of the British Indian army returned with stories of a land that had thrown off the British yoke, stories of a land where man was free. They had dreamed of this land.

He remembered Gandhi’s visit to Amritsar, the closest city to their village. Gandhi was teaching his countrymen to fight for freedom using non-violent, non-cooperation. His face broke into wrinkly smiles at the thought. Non-violent non-cooperation indeed! The time-honored ploy used by Indian housewives to get their way.

Tongue-tied Kusum had never ever said no to any of his demands under the watchful eye of her parents-in-law. To get what she wanted, she had refused to serve him dinner or just disappeared when he needed her most. Atma Ram laughed out loud at the thought.

A vision clad in Indian trousers and a long shirt came before his cataract-clouded eyes. Wiping his silent tears he bustled towards them. His grandson bent to touch his feet. Atma Ram looked at Kusum who had her head down but was peeping at his

face from beneath her lashes. He saw the shadow of the coy, diffident woman he had once known. She seemed nervous and yet surer of herself. Her firm directions to Moti, their grandson, showed her to be a capable person who had managed the family single-handed. She was no longer running away from the mother-in-law. She was the mother-in-law, he realized with shock.

With her head slightly bent down, as was customary, she had a view of his sneakers. She realized she had always seen him in sandals, his big toe waving at her as it had curled upwards, always a few inches above the rest of the toes. Now his pant bottoms stood stiffly in a straight line, above the alien Blue Ribbon sneakers hiding his feet.

She looked at him sideways as he blessed their grandson. His hair had become a river of snow. The once muscular body had given way to a lean one. The shoulders curved in slightly like they were permanently braced against a cold wind.

She thought of the young husband of her memories, the furtive lover who had teased her as she rushed around doing the chores her mother-in-law had assigned to her.

Atma Ram yanked the cart towards the car park. Moti excitedly pushed another cart loaded with luggage right behind. The air is nippy but not cold, he thought as he looked over his shoulder at Kusum who was wrapping a shawl around her shoulders. They turned the corner and Atma Ram reached for the keys in his pocket. She had probably never ridden in a car, he thought. Though cars were common in 1969 America, they were few and far between in Punjab, India.

He looked at Kusum through the rear view mirror. She seemed engrossed in the view, taking in the country where he had lived for three quarters of her life.

He had come for the American dream.

Three village buddies, who had walked from their village for three days to board a train for Calcutta, the port on the eastern coast of India. There they had bought their passage on a ship heading for Mexico.

It had been a new beginning, Atma Ram reminisced. The three lads had landed in Mexicali, a city just south of the United States border, after a voyage of three months. The blinking lights of the casinos, restaurants and brothels had shone like it was Diwali. The streets bustling with people from all parts of the world, and merry sounds had filled the air. A perpetual mela it was.

“But we did not rest for the night there,” he said to her in his head. “We did not want to waste a minute. I did not go into any of the boarding houses. What if I had? After three months of traveling by boat rested my head next to a blonde one?

Huh? I could have called her Kusum? But no I didn’t. I was waiting to be with you.”

It would be a habit hard to break, talking to her in his head that is. He had done it for years. They had held long conversations, discussing his work, their children, and his buddies.

Now that she was here, a watery silence hung between them, shimmering in its awkwardness. Tongue-tied they looked away from each other in silence.

Kusum saw fields as far as the eye could see, green lushness wrapped in five blue ribbons of the Sacramento River. Fruit trees laden with peaches stood blushing in the sun. Large open vans groaning under the weight of the produce drove slowly along carrying the fruit of her husband’s labor. The first sight of her new home in Yuba City reminded her of her Punjab, a land watered by five rivers. This place looked very much like it, the soil, the water, the fields and the sun.

The car came to a stop in front of a white house surrounded by acres of land.

He carried her bags to a room with a big bed.

“This is our room. Wash yourself in the bathroom,” he opened the door next to the nightstand. “The tap with the red dot has hot water,” he mumbled as he shuffled out.

She was dumbstruck. Hot water out of a tap! A bathroom next to the bedroom!

Wouldn’t it cause the room to smell? Whoever would build a house like that? In the village, people left the house to do their business.

She opened her bag and took out the food snacks she had brought for him. A bottle of pickle had leaked its yellow mustard oil. A spicy pungent odor invaded her clothes. She shook out a brushed cotton shirt and salwar.

Did he expect her to sleep in the same bed as him? What will the children think?

What was he thinking? Had they ever slept in the same room? Her mother-in-law had always slept by her side and he had slept on the terrace with the rest of the men. How could she now start sleeping with a man?

Atma Ram entered the living room. He sat down in a rocking chair next to the sofa lost in his thoughts. The monologue with his twenty-four-year old bride continued in his head. “I was very eager to get going.

We were all here to change our luck. Make some money and go back to Punjab, to you my rani, my queen.”

“We started walking north towards El Centro on the United States Mexico border, hoping to reach there overnight. A bath, a hot meal, and a cot, that is all I wanted. Some families from Punjab had settled in the Imperial Valley. When we

saw the twinkling lights of our manzil I was ever so glad. My feet were hurting, my stomach was churning, and sweat was pouring down my back in little rivulets.

Do you know Kusum, the valley lies between two registans, Colorado Desert and Mojave Desert? The amazing thing is when you pour water on the land it turns into rich velvet. Rainfall is scant but the soil is resham. Colorado river water flowed from a newly built canal. The white man did not like the desert heat. The Punjabi took one look at the soil and picked up their hoes and turned it into gold.”

Kusum came out of the bedroom. Her hair was wet from the shower and hung loose about her shoulders. Her trousers and shirt were firozi, the color of deep blue pools. Gold hoops that she had worn on their wedding night dangled from her ears.

On her feet were the Punjabi ballet flats, a delicate color of blue and brown. Her eyes were drowsy with jet lag and yet alertness hid within them. She came to his side and he shuffled to his feet.

“Let me show you the rest of the house,” he said.

“Who cooks for you,” she asked softly.

Her eyes ran around the kitchen taking in the large metal canisters and jars of beans.

“I cooked for myself. Who do you think would cook for me?” His smile reminded her of the young man who had teased her.

She opened the closets and peered inside. “Now, at least, you don’t have to

Katha 2014 Results

award $300): FIRST PLACE (cash A PRADHAN DY Blood and Guts by VI a Fremont, Californi sh award $200): SECOND PLACE (ca BALA VI A Bag of Ashes by RA nois Illi e, vill SHENOY Naper award $100): THIRD PLACE (cash MARWAH, TU Rivers of Time by RI a rni Cupertino, Califo ION: HONORABLE MENT ANI SH Memory Metric by RO Georgia h, ug no Do CHOKSHI, Mc ION: HONORABLE MENT MPRASAD RA A Kindness by SUJATH a rni San Jose, Califo

September 2014 | www.indiacurrents.com | 25

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A Creative Commons Image

worry about food,” she said. *** A car pulled into the driveway. Her grandson Moti jumped out. He whirlwinded into the kitchen and flopped down on the chair.

“Bauji is going to let me work on his fields and he is going to pay me. I am going to work with my brothers picking fruit off the trees.”

“Come eat lunch. You can earn money later.”

“Biji I don’t like this roti. It is too stretchy and chewy. “ “Chal chal. You are too picky.”

Kusum secretly agreed with Moti. She too missed the wholewheat flatbread that came out of the hot tandoor oven at home.

She placed the bread in her open palms, placed a dollop of butter in the center of the flatbread, and squeezed her palms together, crushing the bread before placing it in Moti’s plate. The white flour yielded but did not fall apart as the bread in Punjab did.

“Biji, a new kind of truck has come, I just shake the tree with it and the fruit falls.

I don’t have to pick each fruit with a bag and a ladder. I can fill a truckload in no time and get paid five dollars for it!”

“Panj dollar! Your bauji used to make one dollar in a whole day and then send half of it home.”

“Biji this a shaker. Maybe he filled a truck in one day. I can now do it in an hour.” He leaned forward swiveling his chair.

“Achha achha.” She put another flatbread on his plate.

Atma Ram’s tea was cold. He picked up the cup and cupped it between his two hands and saw the children of the 1960s dance to a different tune from their grandparents of the 1920s. The peach trees Moti wanted to shake were growing on soil thrown down to the valley by the golddiggers of the late 1800s. The Punjabi farmers had turned the rich soil into gold.

“Biji, with the money I will buy a mill

and grind fresh wheat flour and corn flour like the one you had in India,” Moti continued. “Everyone in Yuba can have a taste of India.”

She looked indulgently at him and joined him in his American dream. “ We will open grocery stores which sell suji, besan, bajra flour……”

Atma Ram left the kitchen to the dreamers. He missed hanging out with his buddies. Being a bachelor had become second nature to him. He thought back to the time when he and his two buddies used to pick asparagus together in the Imperial Valley.

Squatting on their haunches they had shuffled along in a steamy dance. The Mexican women had cooked them Indian roti-sabzi and hot tamales. “You know Kusum, hot tamales are makki ka atta wrapped around some meat. The hot tamales were sensuous, my mouth waters just thinking of them.”

The wife of his dreams smiled back at him.

Out in the fields, Kusum was advising Moti on the fineness of the corn meal she needed to make makki rotis. “Not too fine,” she nodded. A brand new shaker stood in the parking area.

“From Imperial Valley we walked 600 miles north to the Stockton gurudwara, here near Yuba.” Atma Ram shook his head at his child bride. “Three years after our arrival the government passed a law forbidding any Indians from entering the United States or owning land. Satwinder, remember him from our village, he married Marie to keep the land safe. The Mexican girls could own land and save them for our children.” His bride turned her face away.

“Kusum, I was trapped here by the immigration rules. Decades passed and I could not visit you. By then I had built a nest for us here. A nest I had feathered with the sweat of my brow and callused hands.

Every year we hoped the law would change and we could reunite with our loved ones.

You could not come to visit me, and I was caged here.” His bride nodded understandingly. A tear welled up in her eyes and flowed down her cheek. His hand rose involuntarily to wipe it and the picture got blurred and static-ridden.

As Moti rode off in his new shaker, Kusum walked into the living room and saw Atma Ram sitting on his favorite rocking chair. She was finding it difficult to take the silent moods of her husband. His ways were alien to her. When they went to the gurudwara he had pulled up a chair and sat down. Hai Rabba! He has lost all sense of propriety. Mustn’t we always sit at the feet of the guru’s holy book? He walks step in

step with the women. Why, she had seen him hug Marie, Satwinder’s wife, the one with the wavy hair who wore a dress.

She dutifully stood behind his chair.

“Lunch?” she asked. He blinked away the tears and looked at her anew. When he grasped her hand she felt the stirring of an ardor buried under years of history. Streams of thoughts pushed against the banks of historical sand eroding them layer-by-layer.

Life flowed around them making plans for a new future filled with freshly milled corn flour, just right for makki rotis. n Ritu Marwah is a resident of the Bay Area where she has pursued theater, writing, nonprofit marketing, high-tech marketing, startup management, raising children, coaching debate and hiking. Ritu graduated from Delhi with masters in business, joined the Tata Administrative Service and worked in London for ten years before moving to the Bay Area.

The judges were Indu Sundaresan and A.X. Ahmad.

Judges’ Comments: Indu Sundaresan: There’s a deep sense of history in Rivers of Time, and more importantly, it’s full of heart. Incredible to us today is the parting of a husband and wife for almost fifty years, not due to a lack of affection, but mere circumstance. How they meet again, reconnect with longing, is handled with nuance and finesse by the writer.

A.X. Ahmad: A story that deals with the complex re-union of an elderly couple separated by history, geography and decades of time. They have idealized each other, and their actual awkward meeting is written with compassion and skill. I wanted to read more, and see what happened to this couple.

Indu Sundaresan was born and brought up in India and came to the United States for graduate school. She’s the author of five novels and a collection of short stories. The Twentieth Wife (book #1 of the Taj trilogy) won the Washington State Book Award. Her latest novel, The Mountain of Light, is based on the Kohinoor diamond and its last Indian owners.

More at:www.indusundaresan.com A.X. Ahmad is the author of The Caretaker, the first in a trilogy featuring ex-Indian Army Captain Ranjit Singh. His second book, The Last Taxi Ride, will be published in June 2014. A former international architect, he lives in Washington, D.C. and teaches writing. www.axahmad.com September 2014 | www.indiacurrents.com | 27

Fodder to Food

recipes

By Praba Iyer

M

y mom and I loved visiting my grandaunt in Kerala. She lived in a small village called Chunangad.

She refused to move to the city and live with her children. She was a short dark lady, dressed in a nine-yards saree, with a wide smile and a long black braid. Her demeanor demanded respect. She managed her farms, orchards and fields, and lived life on her own terms. She had a way of teaching me about life, from cooking, to milking a cow, with some women’s rights and independence thrown in. I still remember the morning when I had assisted her, as she mixed in fodder for the cows. To my surprise, the same fodder ended up as a side dish for lunch! I asked her, “Did you mistake me for Lakshmi, the cow?” She smirked as she replied “to get the strength of a Kuthira (horse in Malayalam) you need to eat Muthira (horse gram).” That was the best horse gram curry I had ever tasted. Now every time I cook horse gram, I remember my grand aunt.

Horse gram is known as a “poor man’s pulse.” Although it is used in many parts of

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Southern India, it is a relatively unknown bean. According to Seed and Research Center in Hyderabad, horse gram (macrotyloma uniflorum) is a sub-tropical legume native to Africa and Asia. The plant is a climbing bean with trifoliate leaves and cluster of flowers with hairy stems. It has many names including Muthira (Malayalam), Kollu (Tamil), Ulavulu (Telugu), Kulith (Marathi), Hurali (Kanada) and Kulthi in Hindi.

Horse gram is used as a healing medicinal plant in Ayurveda. It is used as an antioxidant, astringent and diuretic, attributed to the treatment of various diseases like kidney stones, conjunctivitis, menstrual issues in women, rheumatism and fevers.

It is widely used in weight loss programs.

Due to its high iron content, it is given to nursing mothers after delivery and to anemic patients. The Indian Institute of Chemical Technology cities horse gram as an anti-hyperglycemic, that helps in reducing insulin dependence in diabetic patients.

It is also used in the treatment of ulcers, piles, hemorrhoids, and to eliminate flatu-

lence. In the treatment of heart disease, it helps reduce cholesterol levels. Its anti-inflammatory qualities reduces excess phlegm and thus helps in curing sore throat, cough and asthma.

The adverse effect of too much horse gram is that it produces excess bile in the body which can be dangerous. Moderation is a good mantra to follow.

I use horse gram in my cooking quite frequently. Seeds get roasted and made into a chutney. Sprouts are put in salads or ground to make dosa batter. Water used for soaking horse gram, or excess water from the cooked gram can be used to make rasam or soups. Horse gram dal and curries combined with raw jackfruit, potatoes, spinach and other vegetables taste delicious. It is just another variation of protein for a vegetarian diet. n Praba Iyer teaches custom cooking classes around the SF Bay Area. She also blogs about cooking at rocketbites.com.

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Ingredients for Muthira Vada

Muthira Vada

Perfect as an appetizer, these fritters do not soak up too much oil. The fritters look and taste like falafels.

Ingredients 1 cup horse gram washed, soaked in water overnight 1 inch ginger 2-3 green chillies 1 tsp black pepper ½ cup cilantro salt to taste 2 tbsp rice flour Oil to fry Method Drain the soaked horse gram. Save the water to make rasam or soup. Grind the horse gram with no water along with ginger, black pepper, cilantro, and salt, to a smooth paste. Remove and mix it with rice flour to bind into a thick paste. Heat oil in a fryer to 350 degrees and make small patties, and fry it in hot oil. Remove once it turns dark golden in color and drain on a paper towel.Serve hot with a spicy chutney.

Variation: Add chopped onions and spinach or fresh fenugreek leaves.

Sprouted Horse Gram Dosa

This is a variation on Pesarattu dosa and adai that is very popular in South India. The leftover batter is made into small shallow fried dumplings called Paniyarams, a famous Chettinad snack.

Ingredients 1 cup horse gram, soaked in water overnight, drained and sprouted 1 cup whole moong, soaked in water overnight ½ cup whole urad, soaked in water

Muthira Vada

Paniyarams

overnight ½ cup chana dal, soaked in water overnight salt to taste 1 tbsp cumin seeds 1 tsp black pepper 1 inch fresh ginger 3 curry leaves chopped fine ½ cup fresh cilantro chopped fine 1 tbsp golden flax meal Method Sprouting beans: Soak the whole bean overnight, in a large glass jar with a tight lid. Open the jar and drain the water. Repeat every 12 hours and the damp seeds should sprout. My short cut method is to soak it in water overnight, drain well and put the damp beans in an insulated hot pack casserole warmer with a tight lid. The beans sprout in about a day.

Soak all the legumes (moong, chana, urad) in a bowl of water, overnight. Drain the water and grind all the legumes with the sprouted horse gram, cumin seeds, black pepper and fresh ginger, to a smooth batter (add little water or an ice cube while grinding). Leave the batter in a closed container for about 6 hours or overnight to ferment.

Once fermented, add salt, curry leaves, cilantro and flax and mix well. Heat the dosa griddle, grease it with oil and spread out the batter to make crispy protein rich dosas and serve it with tomato chutney.

Paniyarams

You will need a paniyaram pan, which looks like a mini donut maker.

Ingredients Oil for shallow frying 1 small red onion chopped

Horse Gram Dal

Method Add the chopped onion to the leftover dosa/adai batter and check seasoning. Heat the paniyaram pan on a stove with little oil in each hole. Pour the batter into the holes and cook it until the sides are a golden brown. then flip the paniyarams with a spoon or skewer and cook the other side on low heat, so that the inside is cooked well.

Remove, drain on a paper towel and serve.

Horse Gram Chutney

¼ cup horse gram seeds ¼ cup fresh grated coconut 2 cloves of garlic 1 tsp tamarind concentrate Dry red chillies to taste 1 tsp oil ½ tsp mustard seeds 2 curry leaves. salt to taste.

Method Roast the horse gram seeds until they turn reddish brown in color. Grind the roasted gram with coconut, garlic, red chillies, tamarind to a smooth paste. Heat oil, add mustard seeds and after it splutters add curry leaves. Mix this seasoning with the ground chutney. Season with salt and serve. n September 2014 | www.indiacurrents.com | 29

films

Masked and Furious

By Aniruddh Chawda

KICK. Director: Sajid Nadiadwala.

Players: Salman Khan, Jacqueline Fernandez, Nawazuddin Siddique, Randeep Hooda, Mithun Chakraborty. Music: Himesh Rehammiya, Yo Yo Honey Singh. Hindi w/ Eng. Sub-titles (UTV).

P

roducer Nadiadwala has amassed an impressive array of box office hits, including Jeet (1996), Mujhse Shaadi Karogi (2004), Hey Babyy (2007) and the knock-out Houseful franchise. Nadiadwala usually opts for either Salman Khan or Akshay Kumar for leads. For his directorial debut, Nadiadwala roped in Khan for Kick, a remake of Surender Reddy’s Telugu language 2009 hit of the same name. Brawny, not always coherent and often loud, Kick has just enough muscle to please Khan’s diehard fan, and not much else.

Dipping into the recent global trend in making, remaking and reimagining successful big screen super hero formula entries on an ever-grander scale, Kick borrows from Hrithik Roshan in Krrish 3 and Aamir Khan in Dhoom 3. Chetan Bhagat’s script starts out promisingly enough. Shaina (Fernandez) and Inspector Himanshu (Hooda) share life experiences during a train ride, reflect on a character both of them have crossed paths with—the hard-to-pin-down, ne’er do well Devi Lal Singh (Khan).

Now betrothed to each other, Shaina and Inspector Himanshu soon find that their run-ins with Devi Lal, who judges all things big and small with the degree of “Kick”—thrills—they offer, may not be over. For Shaina, Devi Lal’s return gives her pause in the path of romance. For Inspect Himanshu, Devi Lal may be chief suspect in the cop’s search for Devi Lal’s masked-avenger alter-ego Devil, suspected in a string of very high stakes Robin Hoodstyle robberies that appear to target a seemingly un-related group of industrialists and philanthropists led by Siddique’s amoral

30 | INDIA CURRENTS | September 2014

usurper.

Kick as content must be stacked up against its afore-mentioned super hero counterparts Krrish 3 and Dhoom 3. And that is where the staging appears spotty.

Unlike the polished action sequences of Krrish 3 and Dhoom 3, Kick appears implausibly jagged and, put simply, made up. At least some of the success of the competition was due to Aamir Khan (Dhoom 3) and and Hrithik Roshan’s (Krrish 3) acting chops— the pain that their characters had to endure and which led them to take on alter-egos appeared far more convincing.

Since so much of the selling of the Kick is premised on it being an action-comedy, and given that the action sequences are flat, the comedy must step up. To cut to the chase, Khan’s comic timing here is not as fluid as it was in Dabangg, his best

movie to date. Khan’s limited histrionic bandwidth may be better suited to a brawny village constable single-handedly avenging the murder of his parents than a super hero who can carry the mass of a heavier, broader social burden. That is augmented by fact that Khan does not share the same onscreen chemistry with Fernandez in Kick as he did with Sonakshi Sinha in Dabangg.

On the other hand, in a country where the average Joe often feels overwhelmed by the sheer volume of red tape that must be negotiated as part of a daily grind, the concept of a super hero who helps equalize the odds in favor of an increasingly vocal middle class may have odd appeal.

The fact that Devil’s nemesis are made up of characters that stand in for social and business power brokers—hospital administrators, bank managers, religious organizers—may boost that perspective.

That attribute may also have aided in a bigger than big Box Office for Kick.

Within three weeks of a huge July-end global rollout, Nadiadwala’s movie raced up the charts to become the fourth-highest grossing Hindi movie of all-time, behind only Dhoom 3, Krrish 3 and Chennai Express.

Not bad for a movie that has no signature song tie-ins similar to “Malang” or the title track from Chennai Express. The Kick soundtrack’s biggest song, Yo Yo Honey Singh’s “Yaar Naa Miley,” comes across as a dark Halloween video on steroids. Kick may have Salman Khan at his super hero best. That best, however, lands somewhere between warm and, alas, tepid. n EQ: C

The Wedding Whoas HUMPTY SHARMA KI DULHANIA. Director: Shashank Khaitan. Players: Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt, Sidharth Shukla, Ashutosh Rana. Music: Jigar-Sachin. Hindi w/ Eng. Sub-titles (Dharma).

T

he Karan Johar myth would have it that if you draw in at least semibankable fresh faces, a catchy retrosounding title, a director who is learning the trade and an added ethnic touch then the result will be akin to the huge successes Johar recently nailed with Student of the Year (2012) and 2 States (2014). The formula gets even sweeter if one can land, say, Alia Bhatt, whose first three movies were either incredible box office hits (Student of the Year, 2 States) or critically successful (Highway). Where it would all come together for Johar and Company would be the catchy-sounding Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania. When the rubber finally hits the road, Johar ends up with an inarticulate and unimaginatively formulaic hodgepodge that amounts to a mess of a movie.

One of the oldest storylines in Hindi movies—a criticism leveled at the lack of script originality which originally landed Hindi movies the derisive “Bollywood” label—is i) Boy meets girl of his dreams, ii) Girl is already spoken for and iii) Boy must prove that he is the best suitor for the girl. That staid formulaic retread, and perplexingly heavy for a Karan Johar movie, similar to Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (DDLJ), this box-office juggernaut, which was all about camera angles and better directing rather than script originality, Humpty struggles from the get go.

Like in DDLJ, there is Kavya Singh (Bhatt) who, while in Delhi to shop for her trousseau in advance of her upcoming arranged nuptials, runs into the mischiefmaking campus doofus Humpty Sharma (Dhawan). As Humpty follows Kavya on her shopping excursions to various destinations he soon realizes that the real reason he is doing so is not to stalk, harass or intimidate—despite appearances—but that he truly, honestly, deeply loves Kavya, even though she can barely stand the sight of him. Not one to give up easily Humpty shows up, uninvited, at Kavya’s Punjab home—immediately sending Kavya’s entire clan into a tizzy and setting up a battle of wits between him and her overbearingly patriarchal father (Rana).

For DDLJ, the entire movie was summed up by Amrish Puri, the controlling patriarch, who let go of his daughter both symbolically and literally from an equally symbolic train about to pull out of a station. Humpty wants to have the same feel.

What it gets instead is an always-angry girl’s father who will not listen to a wife (Deepika Amin) who is also not allowed to speak up. In the role of Kavya’s father Singh, the entire motivation appears to be to avoid the “mistake” that Kavya’s older sister (Mehnaz Damania) made by eloping with a beau of her choosing and then living to regret that decision. Singh would much rather that Kavya tie the knot with and move to the United States with the arranged-groom to be Angad (Shukla).

Because Humpty is steadfast on “proving” that he is better suited for Kavya, he goes to great lengths to find faults in the otherwise, well-educated, well-buffed and well off Angad. In one implausible scenario Humpty chases down the possibility that Angad is not as much a man (sic) simply because he could be gay. Placing himself as yawn-inducing bait to possibly “out” Angad, Humpty nearly succeeds in arranging a kiss between himself and Angad.

The pain does not stop there. When all else fails and the wedding cards have been printed without his name and the Kavya-toAngad wedding plans are being finalized, Dhawan’s Humpty resorts to playing the I-am-weak-therefore-my-love-must-be-true trick. Pitiful. Dhawan as lead is playful and matched well with Bhatt. What is lacking is fully fleshed out story lines for the other characters, especially Kavya’s sister.

That pretty much leaves Bhatt to shoul-

der the movie. Bhatt is a credible performer and to her credit her mere appearance in a line-up sparks box office interest. With the elements working against her, Bhatt, cast appropriately in what is essentially a remake of umpteen other movies, finds that it’s all an uphill climb, adding woes to a movie that is more cringe-inducing than thoughtprovoking. n EQ: CGlobe trekker, aesthete, photographer, ski bum, film buff, and commentator, Aniruddh Chawda writes from Milwaukee.

L ATA’S

FLICK PICKS

2 States Jasoos Bobby ain Ek Vill is ay-A Soldier id ol H y Never Off Dut Sharma ki y pt um H  a ni Dulha n Kochadaiiyaa    l ha Koyelaanc il Deewaana D Lekar Hum undred-Foot The H ne Jour y

September 2014 | www.indiacurrents.com | 31

books

A Defining Life

by Jeanne E. Fredriksen

THE SLEEPING DICTIONARY by Sujata Massey. Gallery Books, a division of Simon & Shuster, Inc.: New York. simonandshuster.com. sujatamassey.com. Available in paperback, digital book, MP3 CD, or Audible book. 528 pages. $12.61

S

ujata Massey, award-winning author of the Rei Shimura series, has stepped confidently out of her mystery mode and into the realm of historical fiction. Her novel The Sleeping Dictionary breathes new life into both the well-worn tale of an orphan against the world and the always popular coming-of-age narrative by utilizing unusual settings and unconventional challenges.

The narrator, given a succession of names representing the four major changes in her life, must recognize her situation, use her wits to find a solution, and learn from her mistakes more than once. In doing so, each phase of her life builds upon the previous to make the next more successful, just as India moves steadily toward independence.

The novel is set between 1930 and 1947, when the narrator ages from 10 to 27 and is constantly caught between who she was and who she believes she can be. Considerable emotional ground is covered: the sorrow of loss, the joy of friendship, and the promise of love. As if that weren’t enough, there is caste conflict, espionage, betrayal, survival, heartache, heartbreak, and the fire of activism in the nearly 500 pages of this captivating odyssey. Massey handles all of it beautifully with language that shimmers and shines as brightly as her heroine’s hopes, dreams, and determination.

As Pom-then-Sarah-then-Pamela and finally as Kamala, the story’s narrator endures much, is tremendously likeable, and takes the reader’s hand as she makes her journey. She holds on tightly because while she may seem outwardly confident, she’s often unsure, scared, or overwhelmed, and all for good reason. She survives a cyclone, servitude at a British Christian boarding 32 | INDIA CURRENTS | September 2014

school, a turn at a high-class brothel for high-profile customers (where she learns what a “sleeping dictionary” is), and the Calcutta riots of 1946.

Pom/Sarah/Pamela/Kamala is a clever girl who is intelligent, but she is naïve in the ways of the world. Within that naïveté, however, the basic notions of kindness, right versus wrong, and justice help to propel her forward. It is that inherent decency that allows her to find ways to work within the system to get what she needs without harming those for whom she feels affection.

“One thing I felt strongly about keeping true was the fact that women couldn’t speak out to others about their feelings during these years,” Massey told me in an e-interview. “Kamala had to put up with a lot of nasty things said and done to her, because to rail against it would make her ap-

pear to be a lunatic who was seeking to lose employment, friends and worse.”

Along the way, those cruel characters are contrasted by ones that are genuinely good and kind. Portrayed as having open hearts and minds, some of the positive characters in Kamala’s life are British. Those characters were born as a result of Massey’s research.

“As I worked on this book,” she explains, “I came to believe that not all British residents of India during this time were evil people. It’s so easy to label people because a government’s policy is unjust. The characters of a teacher called Miss Jamison, the government bureaucrat Simon Lewes, and the liberal minister John McRae show how some British people opened their eyes and grew to love India: treasuring its literature, making real friendships, and acting responsibly to right wrongs.

Of course, the prejudiced, destructive British characters are there, too.”

As if the novel were a watercolor, a wash of humanity is portrayed within.

Kamala becomes acquainted with girls, women, and men from different walks of life, social classes, religious backgrounds and different political viewpoints.

“India was then—and still is now —a multiplicity of small kingdoms of different religions, languages and tastes,” Massey said. “Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Christians were quite peaceful in their coexistence during this period, and I really wanted to share that and expose the roots of misunderstanding and hatred that grew out of the 1946 Calcutta riots. I also seek to illustrate that when freedom activists yearned for a free India, they sometimes had different ideas about which political parties would represent their communities fairly. Just as we do today, every time an election rolls around.”

The Sleeping Dictionary is as far-reaching in its breadth as it is in its depth, and part of that is because Massey takes a different look at the bid for independence. Rather than focus on Gandhi, she chose a different freedom leader and his movement. I asked her if the book was always going to be

about the last days of colonialism.

“I’ve been traveling to India since childhood,” she said, “and while I have been to many places, I’ve always been drawn to the richness of my family’s ancestral city, Calcutta (Kolkata). When I was in Kolkata in 1998 and 2002, I began learning things that were new to me about its history, such as the “other” freedom movement led by Subhas Chandra Bose, and the active role women played in underground independence work. I relished the idea of writing something set in the city’s past, when streets had different names and a very grand, yet divided, lifestyle truly made it a “City of Palaces,” which is what my Indian publisher titled the book for its release there.”

Massey’s four years of research and writing reflect her desire to adhere to historical truths and authenticity. Her research was as varied as her heroine’s life, and it took her to the Ames Library of South Asia at the University of Minnesota, the British Library in London, and the National Library of India’s Reading Room in Kolkata. She also studied Hindi because Bengali wasn’t available to her, and Bengali, of course, is the narrator’s first language. Nevertheless, studying Hindi allowed her to structure the appropriate dialogue correctly.

“Another aspect to the research I really enjoyed was working with my father who’s from Bengal,” Massey explained. “He not only reads and speaks Bengali but was a young boy during this historical period.

I drafted my father to translate proverbs out of an aged Bengali-English dictionary, and what he found jogged his memory and became some of the epigraphs in the book.

“Almost every political event that occurs in the book is true, as well as a lot of the spy-craft,” Massey revealed. “I found many more documents than I expected related to freedom fighting and the daily life of old Calcutta. I read these memoirs, novels, newspapers, and nonfiction records. All the politicians I’ve named are real, and even the college girls’ political group, Chhattri Sangha, was a true organization founded by female students in Calcutta.”

There is a Facebook page called “A Mighty Girl,” a resource page dedicated to helping “a new generation of girls to grow and pursue whatever dreams they choose.”

Kamala exemplifies everything “A Mighty Girl” should be. n Jeanne E. Fredriksen lives in Wake Forest, North Carolina, where she freelances in advertising and public relations. Between assignments, she writes fiction, enjoys wine, and heads to the beach as often as she can.

In the Wake of a Tragedy

by Girija Sankar WHERE EARTH MEETS WATER by Pia Padukone. Harlequin Mira. harlequin.com piapadukone.com Available in paperback, digital book. 269 pages. $14.95.

K

arom Seth should be dead by now, three times over. Throughout his life, he dodged one disaster after another, through sheer luck and quirks of fate. As a child, he escaped the brutal aftermath of the Bhopal gas leak in India, and later, as an adult, he ought to have been in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He wasn’t there. And, neither was he with his family, vacationing at a beach resort in Kanyakumari, India in December 2004, when the tsunami struck and took their lives.

Where Earth meets Water is a story about Karom’s quest to make sense of a world that is at once cruel and magnanimous. Cruel for orphaning him and magnanimous for sparing his life. In this debut novel, author Pia Padukone examines Karom’s seeming invincibility by offering up the life experiences of the people who are guideposts in his quest for making sense of a senseless world.

The novel begins with Karom and Gita, his girlfriend of Indian and Norwegian heritage, taking a trip to India. While there they stay with Kamini, Gita’s grandmother from the Indian side of her family. Karom finds out that Kamini is a novelist and that she shares some of her deepest pains through her novels. The narrative then breaks to Lloyd, his college roommate in Boston, who harbors a secret, a longing that inextricably links him with Karom, but also eventually severs their relationship.

Mohan and Rana Seth, Karom’s parents, have a secret, which they reveal to Karom through a series of letters. Karom stumbles upon the letters when he is clearing up their home in Brooklyn soon after they are killed by the tsunami.

Gita is so deeply affected by Karom’s life experiences that she goes to India without Karom to better understand his past.

The novel ends with Karom finally coming to terms with his life and destiny. From Kamini he learns that one cannot control destiny. Destiny controls you.

The author employs different narrative styles such as the inset story and letters, perhaps for a change of pace. The narrative style with the back and forth story arc,

the multiple character histories and the attempt to collapse three real-life natural disasters into one grand narrative have the unintended effect of “character” overload.

It is after all a work of fiction, and a fictional work should be allowed to take liberties with actual events and weave stories that bind them together in a fictional world. While the chosen premise of the book is ambitious, one is left with the sense that the burden of the ambition is too heavy for the prose and the characters.

And, the book loses itself in the breadth and depth of its ambitions. The story and characters seem unmoored, jostling for the reader’s attention. As soon as the reader sinks in to Gita and Karom’s relationship, one is hurled into Kamini’s past. And then on to Lloyd. And then on to Mohan and Rana. Where Earth Meets Water may have been better served by limiting its range to fewer life changing events or fewer characters, affording these very real-life events the expansive narrative they fully deserve and thereby allowing the reader to grasp the larger-than-life effects of these events on individual and his near and dear.

It has to be said that of all the people in Karom’s life, Lloyd and his characterization are the most endearing. Lloyd’s internal conflicts can almost contend with the severity of Karom’s experiences. Notwithstanding the limitations of the narrative style, Where Earth Meets Water is an insightful commentary on what binds humans-shared histories, tragedy and the redemptive power of love. n Girija Sankar lives in Atlanta and works in international development. Her writings can be found here: www.girijasankar.com September 2014 | www.indiacurrents.com | 33

On Inglish

Puffed Up Over a Roti

By Kalpana Mohan

roh·tee noun (in India, neighboring countries and the Caribbean) a type of unleavened bread Origin: Hindi and Urdu roti bread; akin to Sanskrit rotika, kind of bread First Known Use: Unknown

I

n the video that has been doing the rounds on the Internet of a man somewhere in Pakistan who makes rotis as rounded and soft as Provencal tablecloths, it isn’t clear how a lone man can make rotis of a size that may cover a cricket stadium and also stack them up on his side like a perfectly aligned battery of iPads.

When I make a roti, it assumes the shape of Australia. Sometimes it looks like Wyoming, that is, it is a square that is stretching at the edges, hoping it could pass off as a rectangle. Once in a while, my roti limns into an India when that was not my intention at all. But that, I believe, is a moment of dramatic irony in my humble kitchen for the word roti was once cooked up in the Indian subcontinent, after all. In both Hindi and Urdu, roti means “bread” and the word is believed to have originated from Sanskrit. Rotika means a “kind of bread.”

A roti is an unleavened Indian bread made from stone-ground whole meal flour—known traditionally as atta flour—that is consumed in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Naturally, the taste of the roti traveled across the oceans when Indians traveled to different parts of the world as indentured laborers to manage sugarcane plantations or to build railways.

Hence the bread became popular also in parts of South Africa, the Caribbean, particularly in Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname and Fiji.

At Queens, in Bangalore, I found out that a well-made roti could squelch all conversation. Located on Church Street, Queens looks like a wayfarer’s inn for paupers. Above this home style Punjabi eatery, its grimy green canopy is caked with decades of dust, cobwebs, wires and neglect. Its truck-stop appearance, with a sea of hundreds of motorbikes parked in front of it in tandem, does nothing to beckon a fine family looking for food worthy of royalty. But step inside this little cave with its clay veneer walls depicting art evocative of the Indus Valley civilization and you will become a slave to the soothing aroma of a hot griddle and the earthy simplicity of its rustic decor. The low-fat tadka dal, a simple mung lentil gravy seasoned with onions, green chillies, garam masala and cumin seeds will remind you of the dal at a Punjabi friend’s home. Sweet lassi arrives in nicked copper tumblers and vegetable dishes in small two-eared copper-bottomed woks. Here, while you’re being served dal and vegetable, hot rotis arrive at the table. Waiters bustle about the place with hot bread and all you must do is pick up the satin fluff that is dropped on your plate and tear the thing like you would a piece of Kleenex.

Our family could never have enough of those thin breads that summer in Bangalore. At a restaurant called Roomali With a View, we lusted after wafer-thin roomali (roomali in Hindi means handkerchief) rotis. We feasted on these breads, folded into four, in mint, spinach and garlic flavors. Young men tossed this cloth bread up in the air and cooked them swiftly on the curved undersides of upside-down woks.

34 | INDIA CURRENTS | September 2014

In contrast to those, the rotis in my father’s home in Chennai were made by a cook whose end product resembled denim.

I don’t believe she actually cooked the bread. They remained leathery sheets of dough that she then stuffed into a casserole inside which they sweated. On this last trip, Vinayagam, my father’s man-friday, told me about this young man called Shiva from Nepal whose forte was making rotis. I discovered that Shiva hardly talked. Shiva’s other great skill was that he rendered my late father’s valet speechless.

First, Shiva kneaded the dough very tight with salt and water.

Then he set it aside. A half hour later, he kneaded it over and over again on the counter until it was soft as silk and loose as a ripened mango. He rolled the dough rapidly between his fingers, and then he began pressing out the balls of dough with a wooden rolling pin, dusting the ball, doing a little jig with the fingers of his left hand as he pushed out thin flat discs shaped by his imaginary compass. He slapped them on the tava. Then he tossed them on the gas burner until they puffed like pillows. Sometimes they burst or they sparked and caught fire at which time a sharp acrid smell of carbon punctured the air. But mostly they rose, like a balloon, under the open flame. Shiva made two a minute until he’d stacked up enough to feed us for a few days.

When Shiva left, our little apartment reeked of the earth, smoke and charcoal, a scent that reminded me of the essence of the roti: at its perfectly puffed peak, the roti was iconic of hospitality, health and good living.

I found out recently that good living is being simplified further by a roti machine called Rotimatic that spins out rotis by the minute. The man of the house throws in the atta, the salt, the oil and water into the Rotimatic. Almost simultaneously, he’s laying the table, setting out the salad and the gravy dishes, figuring out which placemat will match his mood, and pouring the wine.

Rotimatic goes about kneading and pressing and rolling out a roti a minute. While the man is operating the machine—which is also the point by the way—the wife is busy painting. In the meanwhile she cannot help looking like a painting herself and has therefore given the viewer the impression that she will never drop her brush to pick up a rolling pin.

While I chewed Shiva’s roti the other day, I watched a video of the Rotimatic and located its main flaw in design. The dress fit the woman’s form so well that it was obvious that the Rotimatic was romantic only in concept. I actually wished to see the woman two months after her man began using the Rotimatic. Forget the roti.

She would be all puffed up, wouldn’t she? n Kalpana Mohan writes from Saratoga. To read more about her, go to http://kalpanamohan.org and http://saritorial.com.

September 2014 | www.indiacurrents.com | 35

travel

Obrigada, Brasil!

Experiencing Brazil’s World Cup

By Jana Seshadri

I

embarked on my month-long trip from the Bay Area to Brazil, expecting adventure, excitement and a lot of soccer—football, as it’s commonly known outside the United States. What I didn’t expect however, and to my pleasant surprise, were desi connections in the South American country, a long way from India.

Football and Brazil are often uttered in the same breath, having won the FIFA World Cup tournament a record five times—in 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994 and 2002—and has been a favorite to win every time. Besides being Brazil’s favorite pastime, the passion for the sport reaches far and wide, attracting fans from all over the world with a kindred spirit, eager to watch the “Jogo Bonito”—the beautiful game—being played in Brazilian soil, take in the sights and experience the euphoric atmosphere first-hand. Several hundred Indians were among the almost six million people who visited Brazil between June 12 and July 13 and watched 32 countries compete for the coveted gold trophy.

Jayanta Bhowmik, a software developer from Fremont, California, was one of them. “I never thought I’d be able to attend World Cup Football in Brazil,” Bhowmik said. “It was a lifelong dream.”

Jana and Suresh Seshadri at the USA vs.

Belgium match at Arena Fontenova in Salvador, Brazil. Photo courtesy: Jana Seshadri

Gautham Subramaniam holds up the Indian tricolor at the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro. Photo Courtesy: Gautham Subramaniam

A resident of California for the past 19 years, Bhowmik said he grew up in India and played football in school and college.

“I continued playing even after coming to the United States until I injured my ankle badly a few years ago,” Bhowmik said.

Having made frequent business trips in the past to Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro while managing global development for Microsoft in the past, Bhowmik wanted to experience a different region during his last visit. “This time I wanted to check out

Boats and ferries refuel at the floating fuel stations on the Amazon outside Manaus.

Photo courtesy: Jana Seshadri

the Amazonas region,” Bhowmik said. “Hence Manaus. I loved it—the people, the natural beauty of the region and the local food.”

Manaus, one of the tournament host cities, is the capital of the Amazonas, the largest state in Brazil, and an important port of entry for tourism and trading. Inspired by the surrounding mighty Amazon rainforest, the brand new sustainable stadium—Arena da Amazônia—was built in 2013 to hold almost 43,000 people.

Bhowmik was among several thousand red-, white- and blue-clad United States supporters—including my husband Suresh and myself—at the USA vs. Portugal game in Manaus. We proudly waved the Stars and Stripes and loudly joined in the stadiumwide chant of, “I believe that we will win.”

Team USA tied with Portugal but moved up to the round of 16 with more points in the group due to their win against Ghana.

Thousands of brightly clothed fans from around the world packed into the stadiums sporting their team colors, waving flags, cheering and chanting.

“I’m glad that I got the opportunity,” Bhowmik said. “It was a great experience.”

Jana and Suresh Seshadri meet with Indian American Sunil Gulati, president of the United States Soccer Federation at the party before the USA vs. Portugal game in Manaus.Photo

courtesy: Jana Seshadri 36 | INDIA CURRENTS | September 2014

Several hundred fans sporting USA jerseys in red, white and blue attended the pre game party hosted by the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) in Manaus on the eve of the match. Sunil Gulati, an Indian American and president of the USSF, was visibly pleased and thanked the fans for their support. In March Gulati was unanimously reelected to a record third 4-year term as USSF president and in April he was elected to a 4-year term on the FIFA Executive Committee. Gulati is also a senior lecturer of economics at Columbia University. Many credit Gulati for developing soccer and increasing its visibility and interest in the United States and raising the sport to a new level.

Long before Bhowmik visited the Amazon region from the United States, traders from India set out for Brazil, for a different reason.

A group of Sindhis pioneered the first phase of Indian immigration by arriving in Manaus in the 1960s during Brazil’s rubber boom to take advantage of customs free trading. They later set up shops and businesses in the area. Ramsons, first established by an Indian businessman, is a profitable and popular chain of stores selling household appliances and home goods, located in malls and shopping centers across Manaus.

Manaus, an important port for trading and tourism, is conveniently situated at the confluence of the two rivers—Rio Negro from Colombia and Venezuela and Rio Solimões from Peru—which combine to form the mighty Amazon. Huge ships regularly negotiate the 4,000-mile waterway, transporting goods and cargo to and from other countries to Brazil. People travel in ferries and use the river system like the freeways in the United States. River villages, among the verdant rain forest, are self sufficient, each with about a dozen homes on the water supported by a school, church and restaurant.

Indian immigration to Brazil continued through later decades. Professors and academicians arrived in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in the 1970s and were followed by nuclear scientists and computer professionals in recent years. Additionally, the migration of other people of Indian origin from other countries have increased the Indian population in Brazil to a little less than 2,000 among about 200 million people.

In addition to assimilating themselves into the Brazilian way of life, they have also maintained close cultural and economic connections with India.

Krishnaswamy Rajagopal, professor of chemical engineering at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, arrived in Brazil

in 1971 and never left. Graduated from Loyola College and the University of Madras (Chennai, India), Rajagopal completed his higher studies at the University of Florida and married Mallika in 1975. Indian businesses and universities constantly invite him as guest lecturer and for consultation, he said.

Despite challenges and compromises, they lived and raised their children in Rio. Their son Ram completed his graduate and doctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently associate professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University.

Mallika, who studied economics at Ethiraj College in Chennai and the University of Madras, has held several jobs in Brazil including being a consultant for TV Globo Internacional, when she assisted the network with the filming of the International Emmy Award-winning Portuguese television soap opera, India—A Love Story in 2009.

“I helped with everything,” Mallika said. “The casting, costumes and story lines for all the episodes.” It was very popular and was one of the most watched shows on Brazilian television, Mallika said.

The Rajagopals regularly receive invitations to hobnob with Indian celebrities and diplomats during their visits to Brazil.

In July they traveled to Brasilia to meet with India’s newly elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the recent BRICS summit hosted and chaired by Brazil. The acronym for five major emerging economies—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—BRICS members signed the document on July 15 to create the $100 billion BRICS Development Bank and a reserve currency pool worth over another $100 million to encourage commercial, political and cultural cooperation between the five nations.

The Rajagopals extend their hospitality to Indian artists and performers in Brazil by arranging their concert tours and sometimes, hosting them in their home. Having meals in their home is a certainty, Mallika said. Since Indian spices and lentils are not easily available in Brazil, they request family members to bring essential items either from India or the United States, she said. More than a dozen family and friends stayed with them during the World Cup, she said.

It was chaotic and hectic but her guests had a great time, she added.

Although Indian grocery stores and restaurants are scant in Brazil, a few eateries had items with an Indian twist

High-rise hotels and apartment buildings overlook the world-famous Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro.

Photo courtesy: Jana Seshadri

such as Brazilian samosas with cheese or meat filling at the Football museum’s café in São Paulo and ginger or cilantro-infused caipirinha, Brazil’s national cocktail made with cachaça (sugar cane hard liquor pronounced kashasa), sugar and lime. Accustomed to “water, no ice” in the United States, I got used to ordering “agua, sem gas”—water, no gas, the popular sparkling water—in Brazil.

Having been to two World Cup tournaments before—France in 1998 and South Africa in 2010—I was excited about watching the games in Brazil, often referred to as the country of football, especially the Brazilian team known for its skillful, free-flowing and samba-like swing style and made popular the world over by legends like Pelé, Garrincha and Ronaldinho. Although we watched many matches in the packed bars, cafes and restaurants, watching the Brazilian team win against Colombia live in the quarterfinals at Arena Castelão in Fortaleza was an unparal leled experience.

Jayanta Bhowmik, from Fremont, California, watches a match at the FIFA Fan Fest along with other Brazil supporters.

Photo Courtesy: Jayanta Bhowmik

September 2014 | www.indiacurrents.com | 37

38 | INDIA CURRENTS | September 2014

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets with the Rajagopals and other Indian families during the BRICS summit in Brazil Photo

Courtesy: Mallika Rajogopal

We got to the stadium early to people watch and enjoy the atmosphere. Anxious and excited Brazil fans sporting their customary yellow jerseys waved flags and sang patriotic songs, eager to see their team win and progress to the next round. Some Colombia fans were also in yellow, while others were in red, their away color. The seats filled up quickly and pretty soon we were among 60,000 strong, a vermillionhued sea of turmeric with a sprinkling of chili powder.

Engaged with every move and pass throughout the match, the passionate fans would sometimes disagree with the referee’s rulings and break into arguments

flailing their arms wildly. Impromptu discussions would sometimes turn into arguments involving the whole row. And the arguments would suddenly pause to allow the people in the section to stand with raised arms and join in a stadium-wide wave.

Their euphoria and their pursuit of the sixth championship title ended with this match in Fortaleza, as a few days later, Brazil faced a crushing loss to Germany in the semifinals in Belo Horizonte. The country was despondent and the fans heartbroken, but they shelved their grief to cheer the remaining teams.

Everyone was there to bask in the spirit of the tournament. No one was bigger than the game and it clearly showed.

Brazilians endeared themselves to the foreigners with their hospitable and helpful attitude. They went out of their way to assist foreigners, whenever and wherever they could, according to Gautham Subramaniam, who had traveled from Ahmedabad to watch a few matches. “The people were amazing,” Subramaniam said.

If you needed directions, they wouldn’t just tell you how to go, but many times they would walk with you and show you where to go, Subramaniam said. He was very impressed with their warmth and help-

ful nature, he said.

Watching a match at the Maracanã stadium in picturesque Rio de Janeiro, where Pele scored his 1000th goal many decades ago, was an unforgettable experience, Subramaniam said.

About 65,000 fans streamed into the refurbished Maracanã on July 13 to fanfare and closing ceremony performances by Carlos Santana, Shakira and others. Germany beat Argentina in the finals to win the championship.

Despite protests and discontent among some Brazilians about their government spending more than $11 billion on public works improvements—including 12 new and renovated stadiums—and widespread concerns about crime and unrest, the World Cup in Brazil was an amazing show.

Local businesses have begun gearing up for the 2014 Summer Olympics to be held in Brazil, preparing to draw more crowds from all over the world.

Brazil is yet to win the World Cup at home, much to their fans’ disappointment.

But they are winners in my book.

Obrigada, Brasil! n Jana Seshadri is a freelance writer who lives in Brentwood, California.

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events SEPTEMBER

Your Best Guide to Indian Events Edited by: Mona Shah List your event for FREE! OCTOBER issue deadline: Friday, September 19 To list your event in the Calendar, go to www.indiacurrents.com and fill out the Web form

Check us out on

special dates Labor Day

Sept. 1

Onam

Sept. 7

Navratri begins

Sept. 25

Gandhi’s B’day

Oct. 2

Navratri ends

Oct. 3

Idu’l Zuha

Oct. 5

Sharad Purnima

Oct. 11

Karva Chauth

Oct. 11

CULTURAL CALENDER September

1 Monday

Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha’s USA Programs. A renowned exponent of

Vedanta, Swamiji will be accompanied by Sannyasin Disciple Ma Gurupriya. The programs include spiritual discourses, interactive satsangs and Vishnusahasranaama Maha Yajna. Ends Sep. 9. Organized by Center for Inner Resources Development. 7-8:30 p.m. American Legion, 1355

40 | INDIA CURRENTS | September 2014

Upakar Foundation 15 Year Anniversary Celebration featured speaker Neera Tanden

Balls Hill Road, McLean VA 22101. Free, registration required. (703) 642-8593, (301) 464-2117, (703) 748-8405. events@cirdna. org. www.cirdna.org/2014Events.

September

6 Saturday

GR Mudal ARR Varai—Tamil Mu-

sical Night. A journey of Tamil film music, celebrating 100 years of cinema. Artists include Saindavi Prakash, supported

by Sathya Prakash, Ravi Shankar, Harini, Venkat (percussion), Rajesh (keys), and Selva (flute). Organized by Bhairavi Fine Arts Society. 5 p.m. Eleanor Roosevelt High School, 7601 Hanover Pkwy, Greenbelt, MD 20770. $10-$100. (443) 995-2657.

events

Best Guide to Indian Events

Vocal Music Concert. In celebration of

Kirana gharana with Sanjoy Bannerjee (vocal), Debu Nayak (tabla), and Kishen Patel (harmonium). Organized by Chhandayan Inc. 7 p.m. Walker Nature Center, 11450 Glade Drive, Reston, VA 20191. $20, $30.

(703) 795-3019. debutablaguy@gmail.com, Chhandayanva@gmail.com.

September

12 Friday

South Asian Film Festival (DCSAFF). Celebrates alternative, indepen-

dent cinema from the global South Asian community by providing filmmakers, actors, and industry professionals a platform to showcase their work. Ends Sep. 14. AMC Loews Rio Cinemas, Gaithersburg, MD 20878. (301) 502-0850. info@dcsaff. com.

September

14 Sunday

Mega Health Fair. A community

service event launching the enrollment of Americans and Permanent Residents to comply with Federal Government Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Free flu shots administered at fair as well as basic blood work for the under-privileged and a host of other tests and health education. Guru Nanak Foundation, 12917 Old Columbia Pike, Silver Spring, MD 20904.

(240) 330-9421.

September

20 Saturday

SLAM, the tour, Sept. 21

Upakar Foundation 15 Year Anniversary Celebration Luncheon.

Featured speaker, Neera Tanden, President, Center for American Progress and Counselor to the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Introduction by Shekar Narasimhan, founding board members of Upakar Foundation and the Managing Partner at Beekman Advisors. Master of Ceremonies, Ajay K. Ojha, who works as a consultant for the federal government in Washington, DC primarily assisting the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security with Program Management and Strategic Communications. A special performance by the South Asian Performing Arts Network (SAPAN).

Organized by Upakar Foundation. 12-3 p.m. Indique Heights, 2 Wisconsin Cir, Chevy Chase, MD 20815. $50, $25 children under 10. www.upakarfoundation.org.

Dance Performance by Radha Dutta. Classical Mohiniattam dance with a live orchestra. 5 p.m. Sri Siva Vishnu Temple, 6905 Cipriano Road, Lanham, MD 20706. Free. (301) 581-0323.

September Dance performance by Radha Dutta, Sept. 20

21 Sunday

Asha-Jyothi 5K Run/Walk. A family

event for both adults and kids of all ages, after the race there will be medals for the 1 mile finishers, food, moon bouncing, face painting and Bollywood dance/music.

Organized by Asha Jyothi. 8 a.m. Fairfax Corner, 10370-10398 Main St, Fairfax, VA 22030. Adults $25, kids $20. (571) 2267193. events.sulekha.com/asha-jyothi-5k-runwalk_event-in_fairfax-va_295931.

SLAM the Tour—Featuring Shahrukh Khan Live in Concert. With

Deepika Padukone, Yo Yo Honey Singh, Abhishek Bachchan, Malaika Arora Khan, and more. Organized by Intense Entertainment. 7 p.m. Jiffy Lube Live, 7800 Cellar Door Drive, Bristow, VA 20136. $65-$1005.

(202) 596-2784. www.intensedmv.com.

October

3 Friday

Eid Mela. Organized by Eid Mela Guoup VA. 4 p.m. Embassy Suites, 44610 Waxpool Road, Ashburn, VA 20148. Free.

(703) 332-5189. khabor24@gmail.com.

© Copyright 2013 India Currents. All rights reserved. Reproduction for commercial use strictly prohibited.

September 2014 | www.indiacurrents.com | 41

events

Best Guide to Indian Events

SPIRITUALITY & YOGA

Saturdays Balaji Suprabhatha Seva. Group

chanting of Balaji Suprabhatam. Vishnu Sahasra Namam, Balaji Astothram, Lakshmi Astothram and Balaji Govinda Namam. Followed by prasad. 9:45-11 a.m. Rajdhani Mandir, 4525 Pleasant Valley Road, Chantilly, VA 20151.

Yoga Classes. Self-guided and instructor assisted. 7-9 a.m (Self-Guided), 9-10 a.m. (instructor assisted). Rajdhani Mandir.

4525 Pleasant Valley Road, Chantilly, VA 20151. (703) 378-8401.

Balgokul. Help children learn and

appreciate Hindu values through participation in Hindu festivals held at the temple, yoga, games, bhajans and shlokas.

10:30 a.m. Sri Siva Vishnu Temple, 6905 Cipriano Road, Lanham, MD 20706. (703) 338-5637, (703) 732-4732. ssvt.balgokul@gmail.com. www.ssvt.org.

Yoga Classes. Organized by Dahn

Yoga. 10 a.m. 700 14th Street NW, Washington, DC 20005. (202)393-2440. washingtonDC@dahnyoga.com. http:// www.dahnyoga.com.

Rd, Glen Allen, VA 23059. (804) 364-1396. http://www.chinmayadc.org.

Sanskrit Class. Emphasis on Sanskriti

Sundays

(culture). Taught by Moti Lal Sharma.

Organized by Rajdhani Mandir. $60. 3-4 p.m. 4525 Pleasant Valley Road, Chantilly, VA 20151.

Bhajans. 6-7:30 p.m. Mangal Mandir,

Yoga Classes. Self-guided and instructor

60+ Senior Citizens Club. 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Mangal Mandir, 17110 New Hampshire Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20905. (301) 421-0985.

Prarthana, Satsand, Prabachan. Fol-

17110 New Hampshire Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20905. (301) 421-0985.

Geeta Discussion. Explanation of vari-

ous chapters of Karma and Bhakti Yoga.

Organized by Rajdhani Mandir. 4:15-5:30 p.m. 4525 Pleasant Valley Road Chantilly, VA 20151.

Gita Study Group. Organized by

Chinmaya Mission. 10 a.m. Vision Learning Center, Grove Park Square 11537A Nuckols

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assisted. Organized by Rajdhani Mandir.

7-9 a.m (Self-Guided), 9-10 a.m. 4525 Pleasant Valley Road, Chantilly, VA 20151. (703) 378-8401. lowed by prasad and Priti Bhoj. Organized

by The Hindu Temple of Metropolitan Washington. 5 p.m.10001 Riggs Road, Adelphi, MD 20783. (301) 445-2165. http:// www.hindutemplemd.org.

Balagokulam. Learn and appreciate

Hindu values through games, shlokas, story-telling, music, and group discussions.

Organized by The Hindu Temple of Metropolitan Washington. 5:30 p.m. 10001 Riggs Road, Adelphi, MD 20783. rsdiwedi@ comcast.net. (301) 345-6090. http://www. hindutemplemd.org. © Copyright 2014 India Currents. All rights reserved. Reproduction for commercial use strictly prohibited.

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

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

relationship diva

Keeping Jealousy in Check

By Jasbina Ahluwalia

Q

My girlfriend says my jealousy is ruining our relationship. What’s your view about what counts as “jealousy” vs being legitimately watchful?

A

I’ll respond generally by providing six common signs of jealousy derailing a relationship. i) Possessiveness: Showing the world that your girlfriend is yours is one thing, but thinking about her as more of a possession than a person is where this behavior enters dangerous waters. When you seek to “own” your girlfriend—even subconsciously—it will eventually cause her to rebel against you. This behavior typically shows up with the frequent need to know what your girlfriend is doing, where she is, or who she is with. Micromanaging your girlfriend like this is bad news and will only serve to push her away. ii) Insecurity: In order to truly love someone else, you must first love yourself.

Believing that you’re not worthy of love or that you’re not worthy of a relationship

dear doctor

opens the door for insecurity to take root and can cause extreme jealousy issues. If you find yourself putting yourself down or constantly feeling like other people are better than you in one way or another, it’s a sign that jealousy is starting to creep in. iii) Always Watchful: Keeping one eye open for signs that your girlfriend is cheating on you is actually a sign that jealousy is taking over your relationship. While infidelity does happen, there’s a deep seated issue within your relationship if you’re expecting it. iv) “What-If:” If you’ve started to imagine scenarios that haven’t happened, such as your girlfriend breaking up with you or leaving you for someone else, chances are good that you’ve been bitten by the jealousy bug. When jealousy manifests itself like this, it can cause you to treat your girlfriend as though these things have actually happened, even though they haven’t.

She will be confused as to why you are acting as though she has done something wrong, and you’ll be harboring negative

feelings over a situation that doesn’t even really exist. v) Space: When jealousy begins destroying your relationship, your girlfriend will slowly but surely find reasons to not be around you or excuses to not see you. If she isn’t returning your calls or asking to spend time with you, she could be putting space between the two of you because your jealousy is hard to handle.

Failure to get your jealousy in check can lead to the total demise of your relationship. If you truly care about your girlfriend, consider seeking help in dealing with your jealousy issues before it’s too late. A healthy relationship isn’t a jealous one but is, instead, much more fulfilling for both of you. n Jasbina is the founder and president of Intersections Match, the only personalized matchmaking and dating coaching firm serving singles of South Asian descent in the United States. She is also the host of Intersections Talk Radio. Jasbina@intersectionsmatch.com.

Spanking Children

By Alzak Amlani

Q

I am a parent of two children, ages seven and twelve. They are essentially obedient and good children, doing their homework, chores and respecting my husband and me. However, from time to time they don’t listen, yell and don’t follow through on our expectations. I have always been taught that having children fear their parents is a good thing to assure they will not misbehave. If they don’t realize who is the authority and who is in charge, they will test and push limits and start to rebel much more. From time to time my husband and I spank our children. This is when they are not listening and we feel we have no choice. However, these days teachers and friends, who have their own kids, are doing things differently. They admonish us for “hitting” our kids and tell us about other options.

I inform them that we love our kids very much and do not hit them often and they need to know there will be serious consequences for their misbehavior. However, my husband and I are interested in a professional opinion and want to know your viewpoint?

A

This is a very relevant dialogue, as more parents are leaving the tradi-

tional authoritarian and hierarchical model of disciplining their children, for a more gentle and supportive one. This approach does not discount that firmness, rules and expectations are part of a non-spanking way of parenting. Children need to know who is in charge and that, at times, parents will make decisions and have expectations that the kids won’t like. Parents see a fuller picture of a situation, carry a lot of responsibility, have a lot to teach their children and can greatly assist a child in working with their emotions and impulses and in cultivating their talents and helping them grow into aware, kind and well-functioning adults.

I think the base of good parenting is loving understanding and clear expectations that are reasonable, age appropriate and make sense. If they are explained well, often and with respect and support, most kids respond well. If there is greater stress in the family or the child’s life, he or she will find it more difficult to follow through. Developing effective communication skills is essential for any parent-child relationship. I think the book, How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and How to Listen so

Kids Will Talk is very helpful in building this communication-foundation. There are many ways of being firm with a child, if that is necessary. These include giving consequences, warnings and rewards. Drawing on the natural desire in each child to want to cooperate, learn and be responsible on a consistent basis is the best approach.

Spanking out of frustration and anger is definitely hurtful to a child. He or she will end up feeling shamed, hurt, distrustful and angry. Those are not good feelings to inculcate while disciplining a child. Hitting is aggressive and can be violent. Violence begets violence. Instead of using fear, a parent can use real life consequences that adults face in not doing what is needed in a situation. For more resources and information, you can look at the website: EndHittingUSA.org. n Alzak Amlani, Ph.D., is a counseling psychologist of Indian descent in the Bay Area.

650-325-8393. Visit www. wholenesstherapy.com September 2014 | www.indiacurrents.com | 43

perspective

I’m a Gastronomic Traitor

By Alakananda Mookerjee

T

he American novelist, John Cheever, once said, “I’ve been homesick for countries I’ve never been and longed to be where I couldn’t be.”

So is the state of my gastronomic patriotism. What can I say? I’m Indiaborn. But I’ve never craved my own cuisine. I don’t even miss it.

When was the last time I cooked a pot of curry, or a dish that had minims of turmeric or cumin in it? I genuinely can’t remember. And outside the home, when did I order it at a restaurant? It must have around the time when we were still using Internet Explorer 5. Yes, that long ago.

In the more recent times, the closest I’ve come to having an elaborate ethnic meal is an abridged lunch of rice and chicken, a version of the Spanish paella, at a greasy spoon in Queens, New York. That was 2,190 days ago. Even more, perhaps.

As I said, I don’t quite remember.

I haven’t gone back there. Not that the food was unpalatable, but because I’d walked in not out of conscious choice, but cold compulsion.

Earlier that hot afternoon, my BFF had felt dizzy with exhaustion. She hadn’t eaten all morning. As we were gallivanting in the bustling neighborhood, popping in and out of shops selling DVDs of Bollywood songs, grocery, sweetmeats, we felt she had to eat a bite, lest she fell into a hypoglycemic swoon.

I enjoy my meats and veggies and fruits, roasted, grilled, sautéed, tossed, or raw, but very rarely fried and almost never prepared by a process that might tempt the fire alarm to go off—an event that occurs, I presume, with an embarrassing regularity in a traditional Indian household.

So, you will understand when I say that Indian food, though familiar a fare, has lately, morphed into a refreshing novelty, of sorts. After all, that which you don’t consume daily is bound to have an air of newness about it, no?

Around Memorial Day, my BFF and I rode the 6 train to Lexington Avenue to give our rather cosmopolitan taste buds a 44 | INDIA CURRENTS | September 2014

A Creative Commons Image jolt of spicy adventure. We looked forward to the quiet jollity of tearing a piece of bread or two, with our fingers and dipping it in a dollhouse-edition of piping-hot copper woks.

How did we end up going to Saravana Bhavan? My BFF came across it in her Facebook stream. A friend of hers had recently paid it a visit and was crowing about it. It might be relevant to state that the friend in question is a widely-traveled American—not Indian-American.

Instead of sifting through the reviews on Yelp or UrbanSpoon, she trotted over to the New York Times, where, perhaps she’d read more than she’d needed to. The über researcher that she is, she fished out a profile of its owner, a “gentleman” named Rajagopal, who hails from Chennai.

“Masala Dosa to Die For” painted a portrait of a figure not unlike that of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, who was, on one side, an astute businessman of gumption, who took patriarchal care of his employees, and on the other, an arch criminal, who’d served jail time in an Indian prison for murdering his girlfriend’s hubby.

The paper had followed up by polling its readers on whether they’d patronize his restaurant, knowing his nefarious history.

Most didn’t care about that. They cared about the victuals.

My BFF asked me if I cared.

What vile side-alley of human experience this man had strayed into wasn’t my concern, I told her. Whether he kept a ha-

rem of eunuchs or flogged his wives or had asphyxiated a lascivious cousin, though profoundly shocking and distasteful, didn’t matter to me enough to shun his grub, which I’d gathered had earned a sterling reputation.

Saravana Bhavan was the world’s largest vegetarian restaurant chain that was also looking to set up shop in the swell metropolises of Frankfurt, Doha, London, Dallas, and Paris.

And so we went.

We located it with relative ease.

Quite befitting its name—“bhavan,” in Hindi, means “mansion”—it declared its presence by an oversized sign.

The building it occupied, the color of gram flour, thrust itself onto the street and craned over a block of nondescript, singlestoried curry houses, small and puny. It was drab, stodgy, and uninspiring. A knot of men, women, elders and kids milled about outside the entrance, possibly awaiting their turn to be seated. The place must have been busier than Mario trying to save Princess Peach.

On the opposite sidewalk, we were waiting for the pedestrian signal to change when I remarked a “B,” in bold, light-green lettering, ogling from the glass-window pane. The light turned from red to silver, but we kept standing where we were.

What had abruptly changed our minds was the letter, not the proprietor’s past dark deeds. Where others saw nothing, I saw filth and infestation.

At least, once a year, a food safety inspector from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene performs unannounced inspections of every restaurant and rates them on the level of their hygiene. A “B,” roughly translates into unclean.

We walked desultorily and somewhat dispiritedly, back along the path we’d come, along a stretch of eateries owned and run by an Indian, a Bangladeshi, or a Pakistani restaurateur. One menu melted into the one next to it.

They advertised staid staples, not ex-

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ceptionally appetizing or singularly vanilla.

They conjured the everyday dinner of a middle class, joint family, hunched around a cheap formica table, heads cocked to a shrill soap, playing on a 32-inch plasma screen TV. We’d planned on feasting on dosa (which the Oxford English dictionary defines as “a pancake made from rice flour and ground pulses, typically served with a spiced vegetable filling) and so we stuck to it. On the first door we saw an “A,” we walked through.

We’d stepped inside the mouth of a cave. No maître d with a starched collar.

No hostess in pencil heels. A server was doing a quick once-over of the floor with an old broom. They might as well have told us to naff off. A few garçons putzed around like perambulatory billboards, “Got Dosa,” printed in black, on their uniforms. They couldn’t be more original, could they?

Colored, wire-mesh bowls, hang from a wall, yellowing under attack from the kitchen fumes. Fake banana leaves, cellotaped in irregular intervals, attempted to evoke the tropical beaches of the Coromandel Coast.

At the far end, a dirty tablecloth hid the underlying imperfections of the buffet table.

A pot-bellied man in a grimy red T-shirt and a pair of denim jeans showed us to a table for two and thrust a laminated menu at us. We ordered à la carte, ate, and left— with a bare minimum tip.

My appetite had fallen like a lead ball in a jar of ethanol. Was it the callous attitude of the server? Was it the gloomy décor? Was it the stainless steel crockery? Evidently, I didn’t feel like someone in an audience, who’s just been given away a free Volkswagen Beetle by Oprah.

It’s quite clear then that I came away unhappy. Yet, every blue moon, I’m happy to go in search of an Indian eatery.

I go because it’s my only link to the culture of the land that I left behind a great while ago. I read the ingredients of soup cans. But books on India, by Indian writers, I scrupulously avoid. All the music I listen to are by composers and DJs born west of the Prime Meridian. My walls are broken by perfectly rectangular windows into, say, a Pointillist scene of Parisians strolling and basking on an island park on the Seine River, or of a tin vintage CocaCola ad, or a door-size cover of the first edition of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.

For whatever it is, I’m alienated enough already from everything Indian. If I stopped partaking of its tastes and flavors, every now and again, who would I be, then?

Where would I say I was from? n

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September 2014 | www.indiacurrents.com | 45

healthy life

The Practical Vegetarian

By Gopi Kallayil

I

am a practical vegetarian. In a world where vegetarians are already marginalized, and fringe groups are further sub-categorized into vegans, pescatarians, raw foodies, lacto-ovo vegetarians, and on and on, I have invented a new category.

A practical vegetarian is someone who almost always eats plant-based food when that choice is available. And when that choice is not available he/she is open to eating whatever food is available and doing so with gratitude. The difference between being a strict vegetarian as opposed to a practical vegetarian is the world of difference between easily following a kind diet and struggling to stick to a rigid regimen.

Strangely, when growing up in India, where it was easy to be a vegetarian, I was a meat eater; and now, living in the United States, where it is easy not to be a vegetarian, I have chosen to be a practical vegetarian. Part of the reason is that it took time and a shifting of consciousness to really understand the virtues of eating mostly plant-based food. As Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote in One Hundred Years of Solitude, “Wisdom comes to us when it is of little use.”

Over time, the wisdom sunk in. And I must confess that Alicia Silverstone’s talk at Google on her book The Kind Diet was a tipping point.

It was easy to embrace the virtues of vegetarianism. If you’re part of the yoga and consciousness community, you may be all too familiar with these and not need repetition. The impressive and long list includes lower body weight, reduced cholesterol, and lower risk of developing cancer and other diseases. In addition, the livestock industry is one of the largest contributors to environmental damage: air and water pollution, land degradation, climate change, loss of biodiversity. But being a global citizen, a professional in the tech industry with a passion for travel, and a rootless nomad of sorts has meant that I have had to adapt or die. The last few years have taken me to 53 different countries as far 46 | INDIA CURRENTS | September 2014

apart as Iceland, Mongolia and Bahrain.

In Mongolia, outside of the capital Ulan Bator, boiled mutton was the only item on any menu in any restaurant. In Buenos Aires, my business school classmate laid out the most delicious food he had lovingly prepared to make up for the 10 years we had not seen each other—Empanadas stuffed with minced beef. And on the longhaul United flight returning from a day of meetings in New York, when the attendant came to the last row where I sat hungry and tired, all she could offer me was a turkey sandwich.

And so it is that I have adapted to survive. I eat only plant-based food when I have the choice in front of me. And I gratefully eat whatever is in front of me when I don’t have the choice.

Tips for being a practical vegetarian: Eat plant-based foods. Do this as much as you can when you have the choice.

And eat them as close to their natural state as possible. If you can point to something on your plate and see that it is a carrot or an eggplant or a bean, that is excellent.

And if it is not cooked or processed in any way, you are in dietary heaven. We are fortunate at Google, where the chefs in our cafes lovingly lay out a wonderful spread of plant-based food to choose from—often from farms within 150 miles of the campus and sometimes even grown on the campus.

Put color on your plate. Nature has done a pretty good job of building the right

signals into us. A plate that is exploding in naturally occurring greens and red and pink and purple is visually appealing. But it is also likely a healthy plate with a balanced set of nutrients you need.

Choose and eat consciously. Put things on your plate mindfully. Be conscious of what plants, fruits and vegetables you are choosing. Be conscious of how much or how little you need to feed you body and your taste buds. And eat mindfully too. Be aware of the taste, texture, smells of the food you eat. Be conscious of the natural goodness and life energy that is packed into that crunchy lettuce, juicy carrot and sweet grape.

Eat with an attitude of gratitude. The simple truth is that each plate of food in front of me has involved about 60 people whom I will never meet. The person who planted the crop, the person who fertilized the field, those who picked the crop, transported it, chopped it, cooked it. Most of the them were toiling away in jobs less comfortable than mine, and doing jobs I am incapable of. I don’t know about you, but without these people and their skills I might actually starve to death, unable to grow my own food. I try to remember this and eat thankfully.

Don’t beat yourself up—be practical.

Having said all this, I also recognize the fact that the dietary choices of others in this world may be different, and that is where the practical aspect comes in. If I don’t have a choice of plant-based food, then I am okay with eating animal products. In my book being vegetarian 96 percent of the time is good enough. I get the health and ecological benefits of a vegetarian diet.

It makes my life easier. It make my host’s life easier. And it makes it easy to travel to Arusha, Papete, Liberia, Koh Samui, Banjul, Tiruchirapalli, Gdansk, Karahnjukar . . .

During the day, Gopi Kallayil works as Chief Evangelist of Brand Marketing at Google. He teaches yoga, travels the world, speaks, writes, sings, lives freely and joyously. At other times he espouses radical ideas like eating plant-based food and can be a general threat to orderly, civil society.

viewfinder

Breakfast For Bunny

By Akram Din Hencie

r

winne

R

abbits come on my backyard deck in my home everyday, particularly in winter when food is scarce.

One particular rabbit comes and stands on his two rear feet near the sliding deck door asking for food. I leave carrots, cabbage or bread out on the deck for them.

As I have no dogs, they feel safe on my deck. They hang around on the deck during the day, but go somewhere else at

night. n Akram Din Hencie is originally from Nairobi, Kenya. He came to Canada in 1975 and moved to the United States in 2007. He divides his time between in Vista, California and Calgary Alberta Canada.

Photography has been his hobby since childhood. He claims that he cannot survive without spicy Indian food for more than two days.

India Currents invites readers to submit to this column. Send us a picture with caption and we’ll pick the best entry every month.

There will be a cash prize awarded to the lucky entrant. Entries will be judged on the originality and creativity of the visual and the clarity and storytelling of the caption. So pick up that camera and click away.

Send the picture as a jpeg image to editor@indiacurrents.com with Subject: A Picture That Tells a Story.

Deadline for entries: 10th of every month.

September 2014 | www.indiacurrents.com | 47

the last word

F

A Brave New World

By Sarita Sarvate

rom the top of a double decker train, I watch the Riviera go by. The word, Riviera, conjures up a sepia colored village in my mind, straight out of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. So, on my way from a writers’ residency in Italy to one in France, I have decided to stay in Juan Les Pins, a town, I imagine, with cobblestone streets and an azure bay.

My attention is riveted, however, by an Australian man who is talking to a young Korean woman. It is a classic pick-up scene; the tall, blond, almost middle aged male spreading his charm, blabbing on about his expertise in Korean cooking—Korean cooking, really? His guile nauseates me even as a part of me wonders if he will succeed in taking her to his hotel. Before I can find out, I am descending the train. I feel excited; my host has promised to take me to the Alps and has referred to our cohabitation as Woodstock.

She is tall, strong, and black, I discover, a fact I had not gathered from her photo. She is from the French West Indies, she tells me.

“Did you bring what I asked for?” she asks. When I shake my head, she frowns.

Alone My stomach tightens. A few days ago, when she wrote me asking for cigain a forrettes, I nearly canceled my booking. eign country But then she reassured me that she did not smoke in the house. whose language We go to the tiniest apartment I have ever stayed in. After a nap I do not speak, I I walk to the beach. Traffic whirls feel vulnerable. I past. It is July and the entire country is on vacation. Balcoam paying for the nies are filled with people. On a terrace, an elderly gentleman is room but the truth serving drinks to a group. The is that I am at my French idea of a holiday is to leave a tiny flat in a crowded city, only host’s mercy; I to arrive at a tinier one in a busy beach town, I muse. Stragglers stroll cannot very the beach; an occasional child splashes well walk in the waves. But the real action is on the other side of the street where sidewalk out. cafes are bustling with revelers.

Returning to my host’s flat, I feel a premonition. Sure enough, the kitchen is cold, even though she has offered to make dinner for me and the three Italian girls she is hosting. I wait; to expect dinner before eight thirty is foolhardy, I know.

A shadow falls across my door. “The girls are going out; I am not making dinner,” my host says.

I run to the store in panic and just before it closes, return with containers of tzatziki, tabouli and cheese.

“Do you want to go to Cap d’Antibes tomorrow?” my host asks. I nod. For a moment, my doubts melt away; the hope for Woodstock lives on.

The next morning, I make my tea, then peek into the living room where my host is somberly smoking a cigarette. “Oh, you are up?” I say, and am met with a frown. I am afraid to ask about our outings; instead, I hurriedly get ready, anxious to be out of this cloud of disharmony.

I take the bus to Antibes where musicians are playing in the streets; markets are bustling. I find a shady spot behind the Pi48 | INDIA CURRENTS | September 2014

casso museum to partake of my lunch. Other travelers too are eating under slivers of shadows in the courtyard; there is no park or even a bench here. Afterwards, the art in the museum leaves me cold. The trouble, I think, is that once an artist is labeled a genius by the Western establishment, even his childlike scribbles are valued at millions.

I walk past ochre buildings to the beach upon which bodies are sprawled, inches away from one another. This is European vacationland. I wade in. The Mediterranean is somewhat cold so I float to catch the rays. Afterwards, I lie on my windbreaker, and even as children scream, adults converse loudly, and Bangladeshi vendors peddle their wares, I fall asleep. There is, after all, safety in numbers.

Waking up, I discover that I have squandered the afternoon away.

I want to go on the Cap d’Antibes hike, but I waver. My host has given me scant information; I do not know if I am within walking distance of the flat or not; it is Sunday and buses will not run late. I don’t want to be stranded like I was in Italy.

Upon my return, my host says, “I wanted to take you to Cap d’Antibes, but you were not interested.”

I apologize, even though I have done nothing wrong. Alone in a foreign country whose language I do not speak, I feel vulnerable.

I am paying for the room but the truth is that I am at my host’s mercy; I cannot very well walk out. We are in a brave new world, I think, where we can stay with strangers across the world, expose ourselves to other civilizations, and risk getting abused in a way we could never do before.

My host informs me that we will leave for the Alps in the morning, and once again, I want to believe in Woodstock.

I wake up, pack my lunch, and don my hiking boots. When my host rises, she can see that I am ready. But then the flat goes eerily quiet. I run to the street to find my host smoking a cigarette. “I told you eight o’ clock,” she says, pointing to her watch. My discomfort is palpable now.

It is snowing in the Alps, so we will go on another hike, she tells me. I don’t believe her but I hop in the car nonetheless. She asks me if I have food, even though last night she had informed me that her friend would bring us sandwiches.

I will have to get something, I say.

We drive to a Carrefour store where I get lost in the aisles, wishing that my host had pointed out the exact shelf. It takes me a long time just to find a sandwich and an apple. When I go to the bathroom, there is a notice on the door saying it is closed; French bathrooms have operators, who, according to official rules, will not start work until nine.

We drive up the corniches, past tiny towns hugging the Mediterranean. They remind me, not of Rebecca, but of Sausalito. I am despondent that my host’s friend speaks no English but cheer up when I discover that we can converse in Spanish. Without this kind woman, I know, the hike would have been unbearable. As we walk up barren hills in temperatures of over eighty degrees, I realize that the French idea of hiking is quite different from that of Californians.

On my last night, my host’s boyfriend brings food from his restaurant so we can all eat together. And suddenly I am glad I have seen this other Riviera, the real Riviera, the Riviera where the ninetynine percent live, even as the Riviera of my dreams lives on. n Sarita Sarvate (www.saritasarvate.com) has published commentaries for New America Media, KQED FM, San Jose Mercury News, the Oakland Tribune, and many nationwide publications.