Ic september 2016

What is Organic Anyway?

by P. Mahadevan

Nilita Vachani: A Master Storyteller

by Nirupama Vaidhyanathan

From Washington to New Hampshire to California, meet these dreamers who will inspire you!

by Gayatri Subramaniam

An Olympian's Journey

by Shikha Tandon

september august 2016 2016• vol.

• vol.

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Life is Good!

A

s I watch the sunflowers in my backyard move gently in the breeze, I remember spending time with my mother just a few months ago, planting seeds in trays. We filled the trays with potting mix, placed seeds in tiny holes by making slight indentations with the thumb and then the trays were watered ever so gently. Even as my mother watered the seed trays every day, all we saw was damp potting mix. The color of dark brown, the potting mix hugged the contours of the seed tray and stayed entrenched, with not a sign of green. And then, suddenly, the dark brown soil was broken up with dots of green that made a pretty pattern. Still, seemingly nothing changed for a couple of weeks. The watering continued, the trays were placed on the deck during the day and pulled into the shadows in the scorching heat. And then it started to change and when it changed, the change came quickly.

I had planted sunflower seeds of different varieties. There were the “knee high” yellow sunflowers, a variety dubbed Cinnamon Sun for its bright red hue, and then there was the “Birds and Bees” variety.

The seed trays were suddenly filled with seedlings of various heights and we had to transplant them quickly. I worked the soil making it pliant and ready for the tiny seedlings and pushed them into little holes in the ground. I, then left for a few weeks of vacation. Upon our return, as we pulled into the driveway, I opened the car door hastily and rushed through the garden gate into the backyard.

And, there they were—the Cinnamon Sun sunflowers true to their name, with red sunflowers on stalks that were six feet tall. I stood next to the plants gazing up at them. I was awed that life could have existed in those tiny seeds. Life, as we learn time and again, sprouts with vitality and vigor in ways that are exciting and hopeful.

As I write my first editorial, that’s how I feel—excited and hopeful about a new beginning. Within these pages, I hope that you will find articles that plant seeds of thought in your minds. For this first issue, I have worked with many writers who bring a diversity of ideas and thoughts to the readers of India Currents.

Our cover story written by Gayatri Subramaniam features desis who have made unconventional choices to follow their passions. An Olympic swimmer, Shikha Tandon, writes about the challenges of pursuing sport at the highest levels in India. “What is Organic Anyway?” an article written by P. Mahadevan, offers practical information that you can use. Anirvan Chatterjee writes about perceptions and misperceptions in his commentary on flying in America today.

Our columnist Kalpana Mohan reveals that the word “thug” has origins in India.

Who would have thought of that? Sarita Sarvate shares a personal story, while Jagruti Vedamati shares recipes for festival dishes from Odisha.

Also check out the profile of Nilita Vachani, a storyteller and documentary filmmaker, who followed the trial of Raj Rajarathnam, the billionaire hedge fund investor, and his informant Anil Kumar in the insider trading scandal all the way to a

tiny village in Bengal to find the maidservant Manju Das who had been wronged.

A short film on her story has just been released—use the digital link with the article to see this. Our book review of Incarnations by Raj Oza has links to podcasts recorded by the author Sunil Khilnani, produced by BBC Radio. These digital extras add depth to our artticles and you can check them out on our website.

As you read our magazine, an idea we planted could take shape in your mind making you look at the world anew, in ways similar to how I felt standing next to that giant sunflower.

Hello and welcome to this exciting and hopeful time—ideas are being born—life is good!

Nirupama Vaidhyanathan, Managing Editor

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September 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 3

INDIA CURRENTS September 2016 • vol 32 • no 6

PERSPECTIVES

West Coast Edition www.indiacurrents.com

3 | EDITORIAL Life is Good

By Nirupama Vaidhyanathan

Find us on

29 | RELATIONSHIP DIVA Green-lighting a Guy

By Jasbina Ahluwalia 38 | BOOKS Reviews of Incarnations and River of Ink

By Rajesh C. Oza, Jeanne E. Fredriksen

10 | VIEWPOINT What is Organic Anyway?

By P. Mahadevan

15 | ORDERS WITHOUT ORDERS Constitutions Have Consequences

By Atanu Dey

LIFESTYLE

16 | UnDesi: Unconventional Choices From Washington to New Hampshire to California, meet these dreamers who will inspire you

22 | COMMENTARY Fear of Flying In Trump’s America

By Anirvan Chatterjee

By Gayatri Subramaniam

8 | Perspective An Olympian’s Journey

82 | ON INGLISH A Thug Among Us

By Kalpana Mohan

88 | HEALTHY LIFE Mitigating the Risk of Heart Disease

By Prakash Narayan

94 | THE LAST WORD We Will Always Have Bhopal

By Sarita Sarvate

By Shikha Tandon

42| Travel Journey to Land’s End: Dhanushkodi

By Vidya Pradhan

54 | PROFILE Master Storyteller: Nilita Vachani

By Nirupama Vaidhyanathan 63 | MUSIC Punjabi-Dhol, CubanCarnatic, All That Jazz

By Priya Das 90 | DEAR DOCTOR Dealing with Shame and Loneliness

By Alzak Amlani

DEPARTMENTS

6 | Letters to the Editor 30 | Tax Talk 31 | Visa Dates

59 | Films Reviews of Rustom and Mohenjo Daro

By Aniruddh Chawda

4 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | September 2016

46 | RECIPES Divine Platter

By Jagruti Vedamati

WHAT’S CURRENT

66 | Cultural Calendar

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letters to the editor How Can India Unlock Its Human Potential?

Vijay Rajvaidya’s IC Opinion (The Global Indian Phenomenon, August 2016) inspired me to write this note.

India is ready for double digit growth in coming years, as noted by the Economic Survey 2015-16. However, to make it sustainable, the Government of India has to focus special attention to empower its human capital.

The most effective economic policies are ones that improve quality of life including productivity. India has become the tenth largest economy in the world in terms of GDP but still has an extremely low per capita GDP. The country placed at the 148th position among the 189 countries surveyed, as per the World Bank. This is perhaps the most visible challenge.

India could see an economic renaissance like China, but must invest in the development of human resources. A comprehensive package for unlocking human capital must discuss issues like ensuring quality education, enhancing primary and reproductive health including population stabilization, strengthening the decision making power of women, improving physical living conditions like sanitation and water supply, shifting access of labor force from agriculture to non-agriculture sectors, and sustaining human capabilities in the context of climate change.

For more details see my article on unlocking the human potential at http:// kotharionindia.blogspot.in/2016/05/indianeeds-to-be-as-wary-of-unlocking.html Dev Kothari, email

gust 2016), that Hinduism is an inclusive religion unlike others. If that is so, why are low caste Hindus treated like lepers and forced to suffer daily humiliations?

There are approximately 167 million dalits in India.

The basic Vedanta philosophy that all minds are part of one single consciousness is a wonderful concept but hardly offers comfort for those who fail to win the lottery of life and are forced to endure lives of deprivation and misery. What hope of salvation and inclusion does Hinduism offer these poor souls? Hinduism is a stratified system of four major castes with clear winners and losers, layered on top of a fifth category of “untouchables” who are treated by higher castes as sub-human life forms.

Sadly, even the traditional Indian secularism is under further assault following the election of Prime Minister Modi who has chosen to remain silent while vigilante Hindu militant groups such as the Bajrang Dal sect viciously assault Dalits for the “capital crime” of slaughtering a cow.

Why are cows given a free pass while their cousins, the water buffalos head to slaughter houses in such large numbers? India is now the largest exporter of beef in the world. A growing number of non-Hindus have expressed concern over the rise in Hindu radicalization and militancy, hardly a model of inclusion.

Jagjit Singh, email.

Editor’s Note: We received several messages and emails appreciating the work done by Jaya Padmanabhan, our previous editor over the past four and a half years, who has left the IC family to pursue writing full-time. We wish her all the very best!

Kashmir’s Girls

Adhik Kadam of Borderless World Foundation was featured in the IC cover story last month (Kashmir’s Girls, August 2016) He will be honored at the Indians for Collective Action Annual Function on Saturday, October 8 in Milpitas, California.

Smita Patel, San Jose.

India,: World’s Largest Exporter of Beef

I would like to respectfully differ from Krishna Upadhya’s assertion in the Letters to the Editor column (India Currents Au6 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | September 2016

SPEAK YOUR MIND! Have a thought or opinion to share? Send us an original letter of up to 300 words, and include your name, address, and phone number.

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Write India Currents Letters, 2670 S. White Road, Suite 165 San Jose 95148 or email: letters@indiacurrents.com.

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perspective

An Olympian’s Journey

By Shikha Tandon

I

ndian columnist and author, Shobha De, recently commented via social media on India’s performance at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. According to her, “Goal of Team India at the Olympics: Rio jao. Selfies lo. Khaali haat wapas aao.

What a waste of money and opportunity.”

Translation: Goal of Team India at the Olympics: Go to Rio. Take selfies. Come back empty-handed. What a waste of money and opportunity.

As an Olympian swimmer, having represented India at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece, the lack of empathy in Ms. De’s comment was startling. It highlights the ignorance that prevails outside the sporting community, ignorance towards what it really means to be an Olympian.

In the summer of 1993, a little girl, all of eight years old, got into a swimming pool for the first time. She was petrified.

After dipping her feet in the water for a few minutes she called out to her mother, for she was ready to leave. The next day, she felt better and after an hour of being in the water, she was able to float. In a few weeks, the coach promoted her to the “big” batch where she soon managed to swim the length of the pool. I was that little girl.

The very next year, I won my first medal at the national level. My mother and I had tears in our eyes, but for very different reasons. My mother’s tears were tears of joy, while I cried because I did not like the color of the medal. The bronze medal that I had won that day did not match the glitter of the gold medal. My mother said, “If you want the other color, then you have to work much harder.” Those simple words transformed my life.

For the next 15 years, I trained as hard as I could, and over the course of my swimming career, won 37 international medals for India, 146 national medals, and created 75 national records. Some other highlights included representing India at the Olympics, World Championships, Commonwealth Games, and Asian

Shikha Tandon at the 2004 Olympics

In the course of my career, I won 37 international medals for India, 146 national medals, and created 75 national records.

Games. Training was strenuous and it included 12 sessions of swimming every week, apart from sessions that included running and weight training. A typical training day would include two and a half hours swimming in the morning, along with two and a half hours of weight training, agility, and core exercises. In the evening I swam for another two and a half hours. This was my routine for six days of the week for 15 years! To win at the international level, I had to focus with singleminded determination to excel.

The payoff to this kind of exacting lifestyle came in many forms. One of the most thrilling moments was the feeling

8 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | September 2016

I had while walking alongside my teammates during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games at Athens in 2004.

During the Parade of Nations, as the name of each country is called out, the entire contingent walks a lap of the ground. The thunderous cheers from the crowd is electrifying, and no matter how many times you’ve experienced this, you are bound to feel tears of joy coursing down, as you walk a lap representing your country among the world’s best.

To compete in the Olympics, irrespective of the country, there are strict qualifying procedures and standards for each sport and unless an athlete meets these standards, you do not qualify to compete.

I hope that all Indian-Americans who watch the Olympics realize that each participating athlete has had their own inspiring journey and story, and has passed this exacting litmus test before entering the Olympic stadium. I was the lone swimmer from India to meet the qualifying times, and I got to represent India at the 2004 Olympics. The entire experience is something I will always cherish.

Along with this feeling of elation, came the intense responsibility of the task ahead. Was I nervous? Yes, I was. The atmosphere at such a global stage can be nerve-wracking. I observed athletes cope with this nervousness in different ways— some tried to play down the grandeur of the Games in an attempt to stay relaxed, while others embraced the hype surrounding the Games as a way to get motivated further. Whatever the strategy, the goal was the same for every athlete—to be the best athlete that one could possibly be.

I swam the 50m and 100m freestyle events at the Olympics, with the goal of doing my very best. Why would any athlete who has sacrificed so much do anything less than their best when they have the opportunity to perform on the world stage?

As India returns with two medals from the Rio Olympics, one is bound to ask the question—can we not do better? India has a tremendous amount of sporting talent. I have no doubt about that. However, there are many cultural and institutional barriers that prevent us from producing worldclass athletes. Having had the fortune of training in the United States for a few months, I can see the difference between Indian and other international athletes.

Sport is not yet considered a viable career option, even though there have been Indian athletes who have won World championships and Olympic medals. This results in a lot of emphasis on pursuing only academics and this, in turn, forces talented young athletes to drop out of their sport. An example is the drastic decline in the number of Indians participating at the swimming open nationals (no age restrictions) versus those participating at the nationals held for youngsters (under 18 years of age). When you look at the average age of the US National swimming team at the Rio Olympics, it was 23.9 years for men and 22.5 years for women, with the youngest in both being 19 years of age. These statistics further highlight that Indian swimmers, and Indian athletes in general, are dropping out of their sport precisely at the age when they should be training hard to reach peak performance.

Academic institutions outside India overcome this dilemma by supporting the “student-athlete,” an individual pursuing academics, while training and competing in a sport. Olympic medal winners from

countries like the United States have once been student-athletes at the school and college level.

In India, while there are a handful of schools and colleges that champion student-athletes, the driving force is typically the athlete’s family. Some parents relocate their entire family to a different city just so that their children can pursue their chosen sport and academics. As a big-picture and long-term solution, this model is not sustainable.

I believe in the power of education. I believe in the power of sport. Most importantly, I truly believe in the power of education through sport. There are many real-life soft skills that one learns through sport, and some that will never be part of a textbook. These include time management, teamwork, self-confidence, goal setting, ability to handle the emotional ups and downs of winning and losing, and most importantly perseverance.

My parents were by my side at the pool throughout my competing days, and encouraged me to pursue my twin passions—biosciences and swimming. Growing up and training in India, I completed my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Biotechnology. In 2009, I moved to the United States for a second Master’s degree in Biology. This, along with my swimming experiences, allowed me to transition to a rewarding career post-retirement.

As the Rio Olympics came to a close, I reminisce about my time in Athens. There were 10,000 athletes in various disciplines from across the globe. The feeling of representing my country at Athens was intense, and something that I treasure to this day.

I hope that Indians and Indian Americans who watch the Olympics clap even harder for the Indian athletes who participated in Rio, knowing that there were many challenges that they had to overcome to reach this far. As far as the individual Indian athlete is concerned, what you should admire is their determination, years of hard work and sacrifice, and most of all, their passion for the sport. n Shikha Tandon is, to date, India’s fastest female swimmer. She lives in the Bay Area and mentors athletes and others pursuing their passions. She consults and collaborates with organizations involved in education and sports.

She can be reached at 2powerten@gmail.com September 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 9

viewpoint

What is Organic Anyway?

By P. Mahadevan

S

everal months ago, I posted a question on Facebook: What is an organic coconut? There was an immediate response—if there is a cell phone tower next to the palm, will it still be considered organic? It was just a jocular response.

The question on Facebook was asked in earnest though. When we see the label “organic” what does it really mean? The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) formulated the term in the Farm Bill of 1990. Organic foods are produced through farming methods where the following may not be used: Synthetic fertilizers, petroleum based or sewage sludge based fertilizers, industrial solvents, irradiation, and other contaminants. A new industry was born with the action of the USDA, and it has grown from about 11 billion dollars in 2004 to 27 billion dollars currently.

Let us look at the tomato, one of the most common vegetables used in cooking.

Years ago, my daughter looked horrified when she saw a green-horn worm, which can be frequently found under the tomato leaf. This is one of the most common pests to affect kitchen gardens. She stayed away from the fruit for several years after seeing that worm. If the worm is meticulously removed by hand or by a tool, the fruit can be called organic. If a pesticide is used, the label cannot be used. It is very difficult to identify any product as being 100% organic. There are too many uncertainties.

Approximately, 90% of the corn and soybeans produced for commercial use now are genetically modified. We have many derivative products such as corn syrup and soy sauce made from these genetically modified ingredients. It becomes almost impossible for the devout organic consumer to find the remaining 10% of organic corn and soybean ingredients in the market to claim strict adherence to organic products, unless they grow these crops. Even then, the source of the tender plant or the seed should be known. When we grow organic crops along with other crops on adjacent tracts of land, factors such as wind, water, birds, bees and hu-

with Organic ingredients, and Natural.

The first category where a food item carries a “100% organic” label requires no further explanation. An “Organic” label requires that the item be made with 95% organic ingredients, while a “Made with Organic” label requires at least 70% compliance with using organic ingredients, and a “Natural” label simply means that no synthetic products were used.

Farmer’s Markets man or animal movement all contribute uncertainty to the nature of the final product that carries the “organic” label.

The role of the honeybee in agriculture cannot be belittled, especially here in America. We are the sole suppliers of almonds to the world, and Kern county in California is the center for almond production. Artificial pollination with bee swarms accounts for about 75% enhancement of the nut yield here. But, the crop yield cannot be labeled as organic anymore.

The oceans are, by and large, the most natural habitat for a long list of edible marine species. The fishing catch in the vast areas of the ocean far away from the coastlines, is more likely to be natural since there is less human activity. In Washington state, the existence of hatcheries for the enhanced production of salmon provides a sharp contrast.

More quality control is exercised on the production and distribution of meat and meat products in the United States than the requirements for the growth and distribution of vegetables, grains and fruits. Examples of stringent quality control include the non-use of growth hormones, radiation, and antibiotics in the production of meat.

Given all of these factors that exist, choosing a food item that is truly organic can be confusing. Here are solutions to help the consumer solving this conundrum.

Labeling

The USDA has set labeling requirements where four categories are defined.

These are: 100% Organic, Organic, Made

10 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | September 2016

The farmer’s market is one of the most direct methods for marketing directly what the single farmer produces in a very limited scale in his backyard or small farm to the local population. His resources are small; so, too, is the field he gets to work on. The product therefore, in many cases, remains an organic one. In the United States `the methodology of including organic farmers in local markets is supervised closely by local authorities.

Even as we worry about ensuring the labeling and availability of organic foods in the marketplace, we have to remember that we are currently tackling the enormous challenge of providing food for the world’s burgeoning population.

The population of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma and Sri Lanka in the 1930s was about 330 million. Now, in less than a century, the same geographical area has approximately 1.5 billion people. The same multiplier effect on population can be seen in other parts of the world as well.

In order to feed the projected numbers for the next century, food scientists will have to work seriously on all aspects of food production—increasing the availability of food, labeling and availability of organic produce and meat, and the distribution of food to the world’s needy. n P. Mahadevan is a retired scientist with a Ph.D. in Atomic Physics from the University of London, England. His professional work includes research and program management for the Dept. of Defense. He taught physics at the University of Kerala at Thiruvananthapuram. He does very little now, very slowly.

He can be reached at pimahadeva@aol.com.

September 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 11

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order without orders

Constitutions have Consequences

P

eople act, individually and collectively within institutional constraints. These institutions are created by and embody rules that have developed historically partly through some social evolutionary process, and partly through some correctly or incorrectly conceived and constructed processes.

In some cases, the broadest set of rules—the supreme law of the land —are written down and used as the superstructure within which all other rules are framed. The classic example of this is the United States constitution which went into effect in 1789. Another example is the “Government of India Act 1935,” which the British created to rule colonial India, and which forms the core of the Indian constitution which was formulated later.

The prosperity of a nation depends ultimately on the aggregate behavior of the people constituting it. People’s behavior, in turn, is determined by the rules and regulations that constrain and motivate behavior. Thus, the constitution as the set of meta-rules—rules on how to make rules—has an unavoidable impact on everything that takes place in a nation. The constitution truly defines the character of the collective called a nation.

Consider, for example, the rule which prohibits the government from discriminating among citizens based on religion, as is the case in the United States.

This rule makes it pointless for religious groups to seek differential benefits from the government. In the absence of such a rule, the Indian government has the ability to discriminate against some religious groups while favoring others.

Religious discrimination is embedded in Indian law, and this originated in the British era. For example, consider the case in Tamil Nadu. The Tamil Nadu “Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act XXII” of 1951 was based on an Act passed in 1925. The Hindu Religions and Charitable Endowment Act of 1951 allows state governments

By Atanu Dey to appoint governing boards to Hindu temples, thus gaining control over the operations of temples. Donations to temples that are freely given by devotees are collected by the government, and only a fraction is returned to the temples. The rest is used by it for purposes that are not transparent. That act controls 36,500 temples, over 1700 endowments, and 200 trusts today. By contrast, non-Hindu religious establishments enjoy full autonomy from government interference, and even get part of their funding from what the government takes from Hindu temples.

India is not really free, since it is still governed by a constitution that is primarily a set of rules designed by a colonial power to rule over its subjects.

The importance of education cannot be overstated. The “Right to Education Act” of 2009 destroys educational objectives under the pretext of doing good. It sets standards that are unrealistic and makes schooling unaffordable for the poor who desperately need schooling. Under that Act, over 4,000 schools were shut down by the governments of various states, around 8,000 closure notices were served to schools, and around 12,000 were served closure threats. These were schools that the poor attended where they could afford the few hundred rupees in tuition. Hundreds of thousands of children were denied what little education they could have had, because of this government interference.

Suppose the constitution were to

change so that the government was prohibited from entering the education sector, then, the government would not be able to prevent for-profit institutions from running schools and colleges. That would expand competition, reduce prices, increase supply, and improve quality. It would also eliminate the massive corruption that is currently present. It would have an impact at the familial level: parents and children would not be so desperately stressed.

One could argue that a policy change to allow the private sector into education does not need a constitutional change.

Unfortunately, unless the constitution mandates it, that kind of policy change is unlikely to happen because those in government have an incentive to prevent private sector entry because of the bribes they currently receive. Only a constitutional change will bring about policy change.

Prosperity has evaded India even after 1947. It can be argued that this is because India is not really free, since it is still governed by a constitution that is primarily a set of rules designed by a colonial power to rule over its subjects.

What citizens are allowed to do is constrained by government policies, and these policies have to be consistent with the constitution. If the constitution were to change, the ultimate rules of the game would change, the policies (the derived rules) will change, and thus the action on the ground (the play of the game) and the outcome will change.

A change in the constitution is a necessary precondition for altering the rules of the game, and therefore the game itself and its outcome. The link between the constitution and what happens on the ground every day is robust and observable.n

Atanu Dey, Ph.D., is an economist. His blog “Atanu Dey on India’s Development” is at deeshaa.org. Connect on twitter @atanudey.

September 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 15

cover

UnDesi : Unconventional Choices

By Gayatri Subramaniam

Race car driver, Devasena Morrissette

I

have come across many unusual careers, mostly from my couch potato moments. I learned about forensic odontologists because, thanks to my father who taught forensics, I am addicted to forensic shows. Forensic odontologists examine dental evidence to help police investigators. I’ve giggled at some careers— for instance, the “bubbleologist” I heard about while watching a documentary on the Bermuda Triangle. It sounds like someone who entertains kids at a birthday party, but I found that a bubbleologist is an expert on the methane bubbles that they believe are responsible for sinking mighty ships and planes. Whoa! Who would have guessed that?

I don’t know how you become one or how you go to your parents with your SAT scores and tell them you plan to be

a bubbleologist. But jobs that aren’t the natural offshoot of subjects we learned in high school—Chemistry, History, Literature—are fascinating because they say something not just about the different ideas one can pursue in this world, but about the people who choose these paths.

Need for Speed

M

eet Devasena Morrissette from New Hampshire. By day, she embodies Silicon Valley—a woman with an advanced degree in Computer Science who designs networks for Plexxi, a startup company. But, she does find time for a hobby at a local track near her home—she is a recreational race car driver! She grew up in Chennai, always fascinated by “precise engineering” and “things that move fast on wheels” so it was only natural that

16 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | September 2016

she gravitated to racing cars for fun.

She talks fondly of her speedy and lightweight 2000 lb. Lotus Exige S, awestruck at the beauty of its engineering. She acquired it, or as she puts it, “pounced on it” in 2007, when it became street-legal with the introduction of essentials such as working headlights and a rear view mirror.

When the car arrived from Great Britain, her supportive husband, himself a car aficionado, accompanied her to New York to collect it since it had a manual transmission and was not an easy car to drive. His job was to drive behind her to protect her from being rear-ended as she got comfortable with the new car. “I can’t tell you how many times I stalled on the way home from New York,” she laughs.

Her other car, a Porsche 911, is the one she drives to work, even in the snow,

rationalizing that if they do it in Germany, she can do it here, too. A woman driving a race car around town does not go unnoticed. She remembered talking to a gas station attendant a few years ago as she refueled her Lotus. As she absentmindedly pulled up to the wrong side of her gas tank, and then repositioned to fill up, the owner strolled over to ask, “Did you borrow this car?” Her voice tumbles in a torrent of words over the phone as she tells me that she has a feisty side, which morphs into sarcasm when irritated. “No, I stole it,” she snapped back at him. The man considered his response and finally retracted with, “that must be sweet around corners.” She swallowed this comment in silence, and added that attitudes like these are not uncommon.

As I spoke to her, I wished I had a bit of Home Improvement’s Tim Taylor in me to truly appreciate Morrissette’s passion for cars. As she talked about her love of detailing a car, I realized that for her, five hours waxing and shining a car are hours well spent, just so she can admire the liquid sheen of the car when she is done.

She doesn’t just drive a car; she feels one with it!

I asked what her family thought about her racing cars. The answer was quick.

“They don’t know.” What? “Are you sure you want this article printed?” I joked.

Well, they do know she loves cars, she said, but she doesn’t see the point in worrying them.

She chuckled when I asked about Indian women in the Lotus and 911 clubs to which she belongs. “Wom-a-n,” she corrected. “I am the only Indian woman in these clubs.” Inevitably, this brings more comments that can make one bristle.

She remembers standing by her car, packing up trophies she had won at an event.

A woman and her three sons walked by, the boys in all likelihood interested in the car and the trophies. As they spoke, the woman offered a comment: “Daddy gave you a really good gift, yes?”

Yes, she has these moments, but they are not going to diminish Devasena’s experience in the least. “Life is beautiful,” she says.

It’s a Grape Life

C

loser to home, I had the opportunity to talk to Deepak Gulrajani, vintner

and owner of Nicholson Ranch in Sonoma. With degrees from IIT Bombay and NYU, he had traipsed in the footsteps of many before him, to a job, first in the software industry, and then the financial district. He was introduced to weekly wine tasting in 1988 when he had a French boss interested in wines and weekends to spare. What started as a weekend hobby soon led to him procuring grapes from Sonoma and making wine in his garage for personal consumption. In the mid 90s, he decided to plant grapes on some family property, which had hitherto been a cattle ranch. He started with Pinot Noir grapes from Burgundy, hoping to make a niche in Sonoma, since most of the Pinot Noirs at the time belonged to Napa, Sebastopol and Russian River wineries.

After initially selling grapes, he turned to winemaking and with some help from local winemakers, produced 500 cases of wine. This initial success spurred him to hire a winemaker and in 2003, Gulrajani opened his winery to the world, hosting visitors and the occasional formal event.

He also took classes in Chemistry, Microbiology and the science of wine making at Napa College (where else would one go for a lesson in wine making?). He was still in the financial district, but with the economy changing and his winemaker leaving, he decided to be a full time vintner. Nicholson Ranch soon started selling its own Merlots, Chardonnays, Pinot Noirs and Syrahs.

It is clear that Gulrajani puts a lot of love and labor into his venture. He prides himself on “organic winemaking” using vineyard yeast and gravity, rather than pumps. Wineries have to be adapted for “gravity flow wine-making,” which typically involves multiple descending levels to allow wines to go from the initial grape crushing to bottling. It is more time-consuming and labor-intensive, but the process allows for minimal oxidation and delicate handling of the wine. Nicholson Ranch added underground caves to age the barrels, and minimizes the use of chemicals, which, Gulrajani says, “clarify the wines, but add unwanted flavors too.”

Gulrajani remembers that the first year was challenging, but his winery produced some good vintages, leading to awards, including some double golds (where every panelist awards the highest ranking to

a particular wine). Asked to compare the pressure of being a winery owner to what he experienced in the financial district, he says that the pressure now comes in forms that he cannot control. Weather adds a great dimension of worry, but as forecasting has improved, wineries have learned to mitigate the damage by managing leaf cover to keep plants warm.

“Is there anything you miss about your previous career?” I asked. Gulrajani is quick to say that he enjoyed the fastchanging corporate world, but he accomplished what he had set out to do. He sees that the tools that made him a success in that world like organizational skills, logistics, and planning help him as a business owner now. His social world is different as well, and his friends have grown from the “intellectual and technical group,” to include the “sensorially adapted.” He loves the fact that while software has a shelf life of a few months to a few years, a good wine is actually enhanced by its cellar life, as he calls it. The giant game of numbers was satisfying in his youth, but he appreciates what his estate can do for him, particularly loving the fact that he gets to work with his product from start to finish.

I wondered if his friends and family had reacted with surprise to his career change, and he shrugs it off as “maybe a

Jatinder Kaur, Power Supervisor with the VTA September 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 17

little but not really,” since they had seen the progression of his former hobby. Now, he strongly encourages his kids to follow their passions, and not become an engineer or doctor because “that is what Indians do.” For him, the most satisfying experience now is getting a thank-you note from someone who opened up a bottle of his wine to let him know how much it was enjoyed.

Transportation is her game

I

t’s a man’s world in some places, and no one knows it better than Jatinder Kaur or Jyoti, as her friends call her.

Growing up in the city of Khanna in Punjab, Kaur was encouraged by her father to pursue nursing as a career, but she knew it was not for her. She convinced him to let her study Electronics and Communication Engineering at a Polytechnic college instead.

Once she arrived in the United States, she tried her hand at many things— security guard, cashier, bookkeeper and car mechanic. When her life posed new challenges as she faced single parenthood and possible homelessness, she looked for a secure position as a county employee.

She took up a job as a facility worker at the VTA, hoping it would open the door to better things. When she was laid off however, she went back to school to study computer science, and was subsequently offered a job at a credit card company. She laughs and says that she was simply not cut out to sit at a desk for 10-12 hours; so she opted out and continued to study, waiting for the right opportunity.

And then that door opened! The VTA recalled her, and she underwent training to become an electro-mechanic. The

job involved, “everything to do with the trains—repairs, troubleshooting, and major overhauls.” She credits coworkers with helping her train for this position, but breaking through the bureaucracy was not easy. In spite of passing the required test, she was not offered the position, and she appealed to executive management before being hired. She did not stop with just getting hired. She joined the workers’ union, and was elected Shop Steward. Feeling empowered, she ran for a position on the Executive Board, and currently serves as Union Treasurer.

Kaur mentioned the transportation challenge for the WWE event last spring as being a project where she used her technical and leadership skills. Upset that middle management tried to outsource for the event, she met with the Deputy Director, armed with statistics to show how the VTA could help. If her team could provide 80 trains within three weeks for the event, then the management might reconsider the outsourcing plan, she was told. With three weeks to go, Jatinder managed to pull together 88 trains and pressed them into service. With successes like this, she looked for better challenges and applied for a Power Supervisor job that had a high turnover rate, fully convinced that she could do the job, and confident in her reputation and credibility to lead a team.

In her current position as Power Superviser, she has been hard at work, learning the ropes and doing the job for the better part of last year.

It is a high-stress job, she admits, putting out fires for what seems like 24 hours a day. However, it is still not a desk job and she appreciates being on-site with her staff. Kaur hopes to change the hir-

Deepak Gulrajani, vintner and owner of Nicholson Ranch in Sonoma 18 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | September 2016

ing mentality to make it more diverse, by including more women on the team. With leadership training, she has learned the art of hiring, firing, and crashing the glass ceiling. She is proud that she has negotiated a salary that she deems commensurate with her experience and capabilities, something that, she points out, many women are hesitant to do.

It is clear that Kaur is a rebel and she chuckles and says that she has always been one, though her uncles and mother did not necessarily support her maverick ways.

But she knows that her work ethic has paid off. “I’m a fighter,” she says. “I never give up.”

The Foodies

M

oving up the coast to Seattle, I spoke to Shama and Seema, a vibrant pair who have created a new career for themselves. Shama Joshi and Seema Pai met over a decade ago as students, and had a dream that someday they’d create “some kind of food establishment.” They lost touch for a few years as Joshi established a career as an engineer at Microsoft, and Pai moved to the East coast to teach at Boston University’s business school. While in Boston, she wistfully looked at the vibrant food truck culture, and thought about her own roots in Bombay with delectable “frankies,” but could not summon the courage to start a restaurant on her own. When she heard that Joshi had quit her job at Microsoft and was starting a food truck service, she flew back to celebrate the launch of the business. Soon after, the friends fulfilled their long-time dream by becoming partners at the ‘Roll Ok Please’ food truck.

Joshi describes their typical day as

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Foodies Shama Joshi and Seema Pai

“crazy and labor intensive.” The day begins with an early visit to the commissary kitchen where they get food ready for the day, alongside other truck operators, and then drive to their location to meet hungry customers at 11 a.m. Pai estimates that on a good day, they serve about 120 people in 90 minutes. Of course, bring in a celebrity like A.R. Rehman, and get invited to serve food at his concert, and one has to scramble to prepare food for 800 people!

It stands out in their minds as an event to remember!

What does one’s family do when their daughter quits a 15-year career at Microsoft to operate a food truck? Joshi smilingly says that though her parents were always supportive, they probably let out a sigh at first, thinking about the uncertianty ahead.

However, her mother flew out to lend a hand, staying up late with Joshi, “making chai and helping with recipes.” Her father worried about financial security, but she shrugs it off and says that one just learns to be more frugal and prioritize. Pai describes herself as a “middle-class Tam Brahm” and concedes her parents probably cringed at “one more challenge” that she had thrown their way. Once her mother saw the truck in operation, her perspective changed, and she realized that what she saw as dire risks and sacrifices from a continent away also had an exciting component up close.

The entrepreneurs admit that finances

are a challenge, especially since they gave up successful and stable careers. Like many other entrepreneurs, they’ve only recently started getting a stipend, says Joshi, reluctant to use the word “salary.” She reminds me that this is a physically challenging job as well and laughs as she remembers early attempts to master driving the food truck, and loading propane tanks. Pai talks about the stress of serving a long line of people on time and keeping them happy, though she adds that, as a former academic, she thinks of this as a “performance.” It is a far cry from the known paths of publication and tenure and handling the uncertainty has been an adventure in itself.

Needless to say, both women love to cook and it is in their bones to whip up a meal with little more than their imagination. The problem with food service, they found is that people return for the same dish, so they’ve had to come up with regular, dependable recipes. Surprisingly, both women say that even after a day on the job, they still enjoy preparing food for friends and family.

Joshi and Pai bring a happy spirit to the job. I asked about their planning and how they controlled food waste. I could almost see Pai twinkling as she said to Joshi, “Let’s pretend it’s scientific, shall we?” and raucous laughter followed. They spoke of the lessons learned in the last two years—anticipating sales based on location

20 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | September 2016

and weather, choosing a location when there are 180 trucks in Seattle competing for viable spots, and growing their niche as the only kati-roll food truck—and it’s clear that they have already earned a lifetime of experience in their new career. I wrapped up the conversations with promises to visit and eat, drink, and to go for hair-raising rides.

Most of us only satisfy parental and fmailial expectations when we choose careers and hobbies. Rarely do we move out of this comfort zone to try something unconventional and risky. I thought about all the individuals I had the privilege to interview. Some wanted to talk more about the details of their work than about themselves. And maybe that is what makes a passion—the seamless transition from self to work and back again. Others show conviction and a stubborn stick-with-itness through the vagaries of their chosen careers. The common thread was that their instincts serve them well, they don’t take ‘no’ for an answer, and they definitely don’t wallow in “poor me!” In fact, there is a lot we can learn from these desis about following your heart! n Gayatri Subramaniam is a pre-licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Silicon Valley.

She moonlights as a writer when the whim strikes her.

September 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 21

commentary

Fear of Flying in Trump’s America

By Anirvan Chatterjee

I

walk onto the plane, and head toward my seat. I look over, and see an older white couple, maybe Midwesterners.

And just for a second, I remember the stories that have been circulating on my Twitter timeline over the last 24 hours.

An Arab American man murdered by his neighbor in Oklahoma. Two Bangladeshi American men murdered in New York. A Pakistani American student bullied by his school principal is forced to “confess” to being a terrorist.

I look away from the older white couple, wondering if they’re the kind of folks who could get me, a brown dude with a beard, kicked off of a plane.

They wouldn’t do that, I immediately tell myself. These incidents are still rare enough. I can’t let myself fall prey to irrational fears, like the people afraid of terrorists lurking behind every corner.

I sit down. I work. Listen to an old Billy Bragg album.

Half an hour before landing, I’m reading articles saved on my tablet. And I find myself clicking on an article about women in the Irish Republican army.

As I scroll down, I see striking images of IRA fighters. I peer at them to see them in detail, when I suddenly remember

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where I am. I recoil, quickly turn off my tablet, and look around guiltily, to see if anyone had noticed the brown dude looking at images of terrorists while on a flight. My heart starts racing. In post 9/11 America, this is exactly how those worst case stories began.

I put the tablet away and close my eyes, relieved not to have become another hashtag, another one of those stories being circulated on Twitter. Me, I’d be that brown dude detained by security for reading about Ireland on a plane.

I drift off to sleep, and wake up when the plane lands. We’ve touched down safely in America in the age of Trump. n Anirvan Chatterjee is a Bay Area techie and community historian. He co-curates the award-winning Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour (BerkeleySouthAsian.org). Find him online at www.chatterjee. net and @anirvan

September 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 23

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relationship diva

Green-lighting a Guy Five reasons smiling is not enough

W

e are often told to smile—for the camera, for a date, and during a job interview. Yet how important is this element of body language?

According to numerous research studies, this is very important.

Yet for all the evidence that points to the benefits of smiling, is it really enough to snag (and keep) a date? Studies suggest that it takes more for a man to know that you are interested than a mere smile. Since many men avoid rejection at all costs, the result is that it takes more than your pearly whites to secure a date. Here’s why: 1) Men need more than mere hints You might think that a smile conveys interest. However, your smile may make him think that you’re just being polite.

Coming out and letting him know you’re interested is the only surefire way to ensure

By Jasbina Ahluwalia that he “gets it.”

2) Flattery works According to the book Are You Normal About Sex, Love, and Relationships? 51 percent of people state that flattery is the best way to indicate interest in another person.

Meanwhile, 25 percent of singles report that touching the other person is an effective way to flirt. These signals come across much more clearly than a smile.

3) Fear makes us inactive When polled, 40 percent of men acknowledge that they are “scared” when first interacting with a potential date, according to a commonly cited statistic from Neil Clark Warren. The fear of rejection holds people back, underscoring the importance of making your interest unambiguously clear.

4) Being confident makes women stand out A woman who unambiguously gives clear signals to a man sets herself apart from the crowd. Her confidence will undoubtedly impress him. A woman who knows what she wants and goes after it conveys a unique attitude that many men find attractive.

5) Clarity conveys success Being direct is imperative to success in any aspect of life. Many men want a woman who will be successful, both in and out of the home. n Jasbina is the founder-president of Intersections Match, the only personalized matchmaking and dating coaching firm serving singles of South Asian descent in the United States. Jasbina@intersectionsmatch.com.

September 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 29

tax talk

Emergency Savings-How Much is Right For You?

By Khorshed Alam

F

iguring out how much to set aside in a rainy day fund isn’t a one-sizefits-all proposition, though the rule of thumb of three to six months of living expenses is a reasonable guideline—and one that is widely disregarded.

According to surveys, two-thirds of American households earning less than $100,000 per year do not have enough available cash to handle $10,000 in unexpected costs. Other studies note that one in four Americans has more credit card debt than emergency savings. What is the result? A dependence on credit to get through the rough times. And, when reliance on loans and credit cards changes into a lifestyle, disciplined saving takes a back seat. Consider these questions when deciding how much you need to stash in your emergency fund.

1) How stable is my job? If you’re in a relatively secure position with your com-

pany or organization, you may not need to set aside as much for emergencies as someone in a highly volatile industry that is prone to layoffs. Think government versus tech startup jobs. Of course, as the last recession made abundantly clear, the expectation of one career at one company is no longer common. So it makes sense to err on the side of caution 2) What are my necessities? Think dayto-day costs, not salary. Plan for your emergency account to contain adequate funds to cover fixed costs such as mortgage and car loan payments. Put expenses for food, transportation, child care, insurance, and utilities on the list too. If you lose your job or a medical crisis looms, costs such as dining out, new clothing purchases, and cable television subscriptions may need to be reduced or eliminated.

3) Do I have other sources of income or assets? In a true emergency, you might

30 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | September 2016

need to cash out a mutual fund or sell an existing asset. These non-salary sources can reduce the amount of cash you need to draw from your emergency fund.

If you run the numbers and still feel overwhelmed, remember that even a small amount set aside from each paycheck will accumulate over time. Make your deposits automatic, so the money is swept from your checking account to a savings account. Then forget about it until that rainy day arrives.

Contact us for assistance in establishing an adequate emergency fund, as well as budgeting tips to help you achieve your goal.n Khorshed Alam is a practicing CPA and business valuation analyst. He is the President and CEO of Alam Accountancy Corporation. Check out http://alamcpatax.com or call (408) 445-1120.

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September 2016

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books

Epic Entendre

By Jeanne E. Fredriksen RIVER OF INK by Paul M. M. Cooper. Bloomsbury USA; New York. 304 pages. bloomsburyusa.com paulmmcooper.com. Available as hardcover, digital book, Audible, and MP3 CD.

H

istory tells stories and those stories about change, upheaval, or oppression should be compelling, as should historical fiction. What often makes them compelling are the words used to embellish settings, define crises, embody characters. In Paul M. M. Cooper’s lush debut novel, River of Ink, words are the centerpiece, the place settings, and the utensils of a table fit for a king—and his ultimate destruction.

In 13th century Sri Lanka, Asanka balances life as lover to Sarasi (a servant girl he is teaching to read and write) and being a royal poet in the court of King Parakrama of Polonnaruwa. The story begins with the city falling into the hands of the cruel Magha of Kalinga who conquers the kingdom handily. Impalements and beheadings become commonplace.

Citizens live in fear that they will be the next to die.

Magha’s blood-thirsty side is tempered by a love of poetry, and he commissions Asanka to translate the epic Shishupal Vadha, a classical Sanskrit poem written centuries before into the Tamil spoken by his recently-conquered subjects. Magha believes it will be an educational tool showing the people that his gods are the true path to righteousness, rather than what the Buddha has taught them. Fearing for his and Sarasi’s lives, Asanka feels it is imperative to do the new king’s bidding by translating the epic in installments.

As he begins the work of translation, he fears the power of the original poem with its sophisticated structure, its unique ties to specific meanings, and the hidden messages contained within. Haunted by

Sarasi telling him that “poetry makes nothing happen," he struggles to infuse his work with something meaningful to the people, while concealing the mockery from Magha.

Tweaks in translation offer opportunities to turn Shishupal into a Magha-like character. The change of a word, the modification of a phrase or connotation begins to turn each succeeding installment of the vadha into a rallying, poetic battle cry for the peasants and villagers outside the city, while Asanka continues to fear his own long and painful death should Magha decipher the translation’s true intent.

Told in retrospect as a love letter from Asanka to Sarasi, Cooper’s highly-

38 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | September 2016

researched novel is based on the historical figures of Kalinga Magha who ruled Polonnaruwa from 1215-1236 CE after deposing King Parakrama Pandyan II who ruled from 12121215 CE. This research evolved from Cooper’s time spent in Sri Lanka teaching English, and in crafting this novel with its dreamlike qualities and deliberate, slow-paced prose, he opens the gates to Asanka’s Polonnaruwa without weighty exposition.

The complexity of bringing an ancient civilization to life is accomplished with seemingly effortless skill, leaving the reader fulfilled and figuratively far from home.

Whether there ever was a royal poet commissioned to translate the Shishupala Vadha for Kalinga Magha matters not; there is enough historical framework to allow the telling of a story about love, loyalty, and the power of language. Had the author not used beautiful language in his novel about a royal poet’s challenges under a regime change, Cooper would have been remiss. However, his imagery cascades in precise similes (“Raindrops came down like judgement”) and metaphors (“I was a leaf caught in the canal, on its way out to sea”).

Emotions and tensions heighten as Asanka works on each installment of the vadha (“I felt like the man who is sentenced to death but allowed to choose the method of his execution.")

Interestingly, one of the novel’s two epigraphs transports the book’s theme into present-day America. An ancient Sinhala proverb states, “You can build a fence around the country, but you can’t build a fence around the mouth.” n Jeanne E. Fredriksen lives in North Carolina, where she is the managing editor of a monthly newspaper and is a Books for Youth reviewer for Booklist magazine, a publication of the American Library Association.

books

Reincarnations

By Rajesh C. Oza INCARNATIONS: INDIA IN 50 LIVES

by Sunil Khilnani. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016. 444 pages. Release date: September 20th 2016.

I

raced back to the table of contents after reading the opening paragraph of Sunil Khilnani’s engaging Incarnations: “India’s history is a curiously unpeopled place. Beyond a few iconic names, most of the important historical figures recede into a haze.” Khilnani has written in-depth profiles on 50 Indians through the past two and a half millennia, providing strong biographical essays on these achievers, thus filling a gap in current Indian academic thinking. The race to reread the table of contents was a personal challenge of sorts, to assess how much of a “haze” I was in. Scanning the list with famous Indian thought leaders over the past two and a half millennia, I realized that I only recognized 41 out of the 50 individuals that Khilnani had profiled. That gave me a score of 82% overall and a grade of B minus, but I was sure to fail miserably, if I had been asked to write even a simple five paragraph essay about the featured individual. Fortunately, a thorough reading of this illuminating book, Incarnations, has helped me learn about the lives of these distinguished Indians. Now, I can consider myself reincarnated as a reasonably wellinformed Indian.

Befitting his position as professor of politics at King’s College London, Khilnani has done a marvelous job researching each of the people who are featured in 7-10 page profiles. While there was considerable research undertaken to inform the end product, this is not a heavy tome laden with scholarly footnotes that can sometimes bog down the lay reader. This is great entertainment (or edutainment, if you will) as the author is more of a conversationalist, who employs a lightness of touch that belies the seriousness of

his project to bring alive the past two and a half millennia of Indian history. Like a short story collection that one can pick up and put down without losing the thread of the narrative, Incarnations can be read at leisure in parts—a profile at a time. That being said, a close reading in one sitting will probably help one make insightful connections between various key figures in Indian history.

I was so intrigued by how Khilnani’s mind made interconnections between the 50 historical figures profiled, that I found myself developing a relationship map as I read the book. This map enabled me to better understand the relative degrees of influence that each of these Indians had on each other. To be sure, they’ve all left an imprint on India. However, it was fascinating to note that while Gandhi was referenced in 19 of the profiles, the Buddha was the only other historical figure referenced in double-digits (12). This suggests that Gandhi and the Buddha have had an outsized impact on thought leaders that followed them (certainly, no surprise there); but

what do we make of the fact that only six women are featured, and that collectively Mirabai, Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi, Annie Besant, Amrita Sher-Gil, M.S. Subbulaksmi, and Indira Gandhi are referenced only 16 times in other profiles? Khilnani would argue that “nearly all the lives in this book illuminate, in some way or another, pressing contemporary questions about the position of women in society, about the nature of love and sexual choice, about cults of personal political power, about claims to water and land, about racial prejudice, about economic inequality, and even about the mechanics of the universe.”

And he preemptively welcomes disputes about who has been left out. But although the author is sympathetic to the plight of the less powerful, women do not figure significantly in Incarnations; instead, Khilnani has elected to train his considerable intellect and analytic skills on inequities of caste and religion.

Life stories of the Buddha, Mahaveera, Rajaraja Chola, Basava, Kabir, Guru Nanak, Malik Ambar, Jyotirao Phule, Birsa Munda, Periyar, Bhimrao Ambedkar, Manto, and M.F. Hussain are thematically woven together to demonstrate the “many imaginative struggles [that] have been waged against what remains a profoundly rigid society. Sometimes, the battle against conformity has been inward and psychological. Sometimes it has been outward, against the social order, frequently assuming the form of an assault on the hierarchies of caste.”

Oddly, Khilnani does not attack India’s rising Hindutva nationalism; instead he uses Gandhi as a punching bag and elevates Ambedkar to say, “alone of all India’s founders, he recognized the importance of fraternity, the ability to treat one another with dignity, as fundamental to the creation of a political community.” Alone of all founders? This hyperbole reflects a flaw in what is otherwise an outstanding book.

Even a cursory reading of the subcon-

September 2016| West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 39

Photo Credit: BBC London suggest that Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaha rlal Nehru, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Balgangadhar Tilak, Sardar Patel, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and many others recognized the importance of fraternity.

In the spirit of full disclosure, for five years, I wrote a Gandhi-inspired column for Khabar magazine titled Satyalogue. I take issue with much of what Khilnani has written about Gandhi’s views on caste.

Khilnani sets the tone of antipathy toward the “Father of Modern India” by relating an anecdote of a film audience in Gandhinagar “erupting into wild applause and cheers,” upon seeing Gandhi assassinated on the screen. To be sure, the author strikes a fair and balanced pose by later noting, “Gandhi made people believe that they could make a difference. He built a movement, shaped a nationalist imagination, and expanded the

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world’s repertoire of dissent, protest, and peaceful disagreement.” But then, some twenty pages later in the Ambedkar profile, Khilnani quotes Gandhi as saying, “I claim myself in my own person to represent the vast mass of the untouchables.” In a rare moment of piqued subjectivity, Khilnani judges this quote as “an imperious view that left no room for self-representation.”

It’s as if for Khilnani the only way to destroy caste in India is to praise Ambedkar while denouncing Gandhi as being casteist.

Fortunately, Incarnations is much more than an analysis of Ambedkar, Gandhi, and caste. Khilnani has written a very personal book, and his fond identification with India is clear throughout. Ranging from politics to film to art to mathematics to music to religion to literature, the author has proven himself to be a polymath in his appreciation of all lives Indian. n For Sunil Khilnani’s radio program on BBC, check out our website for digital extras.

For Maneesh, who, like Dr. Ambedkar, graduated from Columbia Law and has a keen appreciation for the Constitution.

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travel

Journey to Land’s End A trip to Dhanushkodi

By Vidya Pradhan

Ruins of the old church

L

egend has it that Prince Rama, the hero of the Hindu epic Ramayana, built a bridge from the Indian mainland to Lanka to rescue his wife, the Princess Sita, from the clutches of Ravana, ruler of the island. An epic battle ensued, ending with Ravana’s death and the coronation of his brother Vibhishana. When Rama returned to the mainland, so the story goes, Vibhishana asked Rama to demolish the bridge, which he did with one end of his mighty bow.

The site where this event is supposed to have happened is venerated today as Dhanushkodi, or Bow’s End (Dhanush=Bow, Kodi=End) and this little spit of land, jutting out of the southern tip of India, is the closest point to the tiny country of Sri Lanka, the modern equivalent of the mythological island city ruled by Ravana.

We begin our journey to Dhanushkodi in the holy city of Rameswaram, about

15 miles away. Rameswaram bears several markers of Prince Rama’s journey, including places where he rested, coronated Vibhishana, and prayed. Most important is the main Ramanathaswamy temple which contains one of the 12 jyotirlingams, representations of the god Shiva, one of the members of the Hindu holy trinity.

Prayers to all 12 jyotirlingams are said to absolve a Hindu of all sins and end the cycle of death and rebirth to achieve nirvana. In addition, the main lingam is considered to have been created by Sita from sea sand for Rama to worship after her safe return from Lanka. Both Rameswaram and Dhanushkodi are extremely significant for the rites of absolution because Rama’s prayers to Shiva are said to have absolved him of the killing of the Brahmin Ravana.

If Rama could be cleared of such a heinous sin, why not us mere mortals for our petty transgressions?

42 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | September 2016

The last five miles to land’s end are only accessible through private jeep and van operators and we opt to hire a jeep for the three of us, my parents and myself.

We start at seven in the morning from Rameswaram and reached the checkpoint to Dhanushkodi in about half-an-hour.

A rickety jeep awaits us, with the driver in a shirt and veshti, a piece of cloth tied around the waist and lower limbs. We climb in and hang on to the crossbar for dear life as the jeep wobbles and bucks its way through the sand dunes. The little town that serves the tourists to Dhanushkodi rapidly recedes, till within a minute we are all alone on a sandy path that is spanned by the sea on both sides.

Along the way the driver narrates the history of the town, and later Wikipedia research confirms he knows what he is talking about. As the jeep navigates its way through low shoals marked by the

footprints of water birds, we learn that, once the district headquarters for the area, Dhanushkodi is a ghost town today, inhabited by just 350 fisher families after a massive tsunami completely wiped out the town in 1964, killing over 1,800 people and destroying every building. Today the area has been declared “Unfit for living� by the Indian government and deprived of electricity, running water and other basics for habitation. Despite the horrific effects of the tsunami, fisher folk returned to the area gradually, choosing to brave the elements to make a lucrative living off the sea. They live in thatched huts that they abandon every winter when powerful winds buffet the area, destroying the makeshift dwellings.

As our jeep makes its way to the final beach, we stop near the water birds crowding the shallow waters and step out on to the sand, hiking our pants to keep them dry. In April there are mostly egrets and herons, but visitors in February have spotted visiting Australian flamingos, and there have been reports of some lucky encounters with dolphins.

On the way we have noticed heavy rains across the sea over Sri Lanka. The clouds eventually reach us and a little cloudburst right over our path cools down the temperature and makes the sweltering summer heat a little bearable. The pristine beach beckons and we notice a few earlier visitors making their way to the shore.

Some are dressed in the formal attire suitable for religious ceremonies, leading us to the conclusion that these are rites for deceased ancestors. After Kashi, a North Indian city significant for these rites, it is said that bathing at Dhanushkodi is a must for helping ancestors ascend to heaven.

Enterprising locals have set up stalls for shell-based trinkets and we saunter over to examine them. On display are necklaces of shells and pearls, and little oval black and white stones representing the Shiva lingams so venerated in nearby Rameswaram. Some of the mother-ofpearl necklaces are embossed with rather professional designs and a conversation with the enthusiastic seller reveals that these were screen printed using computers in the city. We are delighted with this confluence of ancient trade and modern technology. Much to their credit, the fisher folk value education and all the children study in a local school, moving on to to

Rain over Sri Lanka

The author and her parents driving through the seas

Remnants of the railway station

September 2016| West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 43

higher education in the city when they are done.

The sea is a rich source of wealth for these folk and the living is rather easy, given that the waters are so shallow that one can walk about four miles across the water to an island visible nearby. Sri Lanka is just 15 miles away, as the pings from Sri Lankan cell towers can attest, but these fishermen stay out of trouble by hewing close to the Indian shore in their simple oar-propelled boats.

Alas, the fishermen in Rameswaram are not quite as prudent, and commercial trawlers have often strayed into Sri Lankan waters, prompting arrest and retaliation from that country’s Coast Guard, an understandable reaction. After repeated requests of intercession from various Tamil Nadu governments to rescue these foolhardy souls, the Indian central government has decided to put up a naval station nearby to discourage fishing beyond territorial waters.

We take a dip in the placid and warm waters without any religious motives behind our splashes. A little exploration rewards us with conch shells, perfect miniatures of Panchajanya and Devadutta, martial conch trumpets blown by Krishna and Arjuna on the battlefield in the epic Mahabharata.

Heading back, we stop at the fishing village, where we encounter one of the few remaining survivors of the 1964 tsunami, a toothless crone who was ten when the waves struck. She was rescued by her grandmother and lost her parents in the tragedy.

Ruins from that disaster still exist; a church facade here, a crumbling post-

well protected and we get close enough to notice that it is in fact a coral fossil, which explains its buoyancy. These are the stones that are supposed to have formed the top of the bridge that Rama built to Sri Lanka and, suddenly, the legend of the Ram Setu (Rama’s bridge) seems almost plausible, though geologists describe the underwater ledges of sandstone and conglomerates variously as coral reefs or limestone shoals.

Regardless of the veracity of the legends of the Ramayana, this is a magical place for both religious worshippers and nature lovers and we return from Dhanushkodi in our bouncy jeep well satisfied with our excursion. Future visitors will have an easier time with the construction of a motor road right to land’s end, but I feel rather sorry that they will miss out on our bouncy sand dune adventure. The road is planned for later in the summer of 2016, so hurry if you want to experience Dhanushkodi in its unspoiled glory. n Survivor of the 1964 Tsunami

The floating stone

office wall there. Remnants of the railway station have been featured in the most common photos of Dhanushkodi and we stop the jeep there to take pictures and visit a little shrine which has a “floating stone” as its main attraction. The “stone” is not

Pamban Bridge

How to get there: Rameswaram is accessible by rail and by road via NH 49.

The rail journey goes right over a cantilever bridge below the famous Pamban bridge and is a very convenient overnight journey but needs advance booking. For a road journey, visitors can fly in to Madurai and travel about 3.5 hours by car to Rameswaram.

Where to stay: Rameswaram has had its share of budget hotels, but a few bigger chains are considering developing properties in the area. A Hyatt is supposed to be built soon, but for now here are a couple of recommendations - a budget hotel named Blue Coral Cottage for about Rs.1500 a night and Jiwan Residency, a budget luxury hotel for about Rs. 3000 a night. Both are very close to the water, though the Jiwan Residency is much more in line with visitors accustomed to professional hotel accommodations.

When to visit: Other than the winter months from November to January, when the area is too wet and windy to visit, any other time of the year is suitable.

Vidya Pradhan is a freelance writer and a published author of children’s books. She was the editor of India Currents from June 2009 to February 2012. She hosts the popular Safari Quiz Show every Saturday on 1550 AM in the San Francisco Bay Area.

44 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | September 2016

September 2016| West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 45

recipes

Divine Platter - Mitha Khechudi & Mitha Dali

O

By Jagruti Vedamati

n the auspicious occasion of Ratha Jatra this past month, I could not help but recollect fond memories associated with this grand festival. Ratha Jatra is the annual grand chariot festival that takes place in the coastal city of Puri in Odisha. The three main deities—Lord Jagganath, Lord Balabhadra and Subhadra are decked in their finest ornaments as they travel ceremoniously in their newly built chariots to visit their beloved aunt at Gundicha Mandira about 2 km from their abode at the Sri Mandira.

Joy swept over me as I saw the three grand chariots with the deities on their way to

their beloved aunt’s home this year using a live streaming website. It brought back such fond memories. As a child, I did not understand the importance of this grand celebration, and I would secretly regret that the celebration dominated television coverage. Further, the day was a strict Arua day, a day where meals were prepared without onions and garlic. And with underdeveloped taste buds, that simply translated to bland food on my plate. Or, so I thought. Now, I realize that nothing could be further from the truth. How time changes and unknowingly changes us too!

A visit to the Puri Jagannath Mandir was always followed by a mandatory visit to Ananda Bazar. Ananda Bazar is a large open air mart where thousands of devotees thronged daily to taste the Mahaprasad.

The ambience of Anand Bazar is electrifying. The memory of the sheer bliss of eating some warm, fresh delicacies out of earthen pots there during the festival urged me to recreate this menu with equal fervor. n

Mitha Khechudi

Add in 2½ cups of warm water to the rice. Sprinkle the sugar, salt, turmeric and nutmeg powder and boil for 20 minutes until done.

Bring to a boil 4 cups of water and add in the turmeric, salt, jaggery, the soaked lentils, and the paste. Add this mixture to the dal, and cook for 15-20 more minutes.

Reduce heat to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally until the chana dal is almost tender. Once the lentils are cooked, heat the ghee/butter over a medium-high flame in a small skillet and toss in the mustard, fennel, fenugreek and cumin seeds.

Fry until the mustard seeds begin to pop.

Stir them into the dal. Taste and adjust the seasoning, if needed.

This rice and lentil pilaf, fragrant with nutmeg powder is a sweetened version of the khichdi which is a well-known comfort food in many parts of India. The crunchiness of cashews imparts a nuttiness that elevates this simple dish to a gourmet level.

Ingredients 1 cup rice ¼ cup split yellow moong dal ½ tbsp ghee or oil 1 small stick of cinnamon 2 cloves 1 bay leaf 1 whole cardamom 2 ½ cups warm water ¾ tablespoon sugar ½ tsp turmeric powder ½ tsp nutmeg powder A pinch of salt Handful of cashews and raisins Method Wash and soak the rice and lentils together for about 20 minutes. Add ghee to the pan and when it is warm, add in the whole spices. Once the spices turn fragrant, add in the cashews and raisins.

Stir till light brown. Strain the rice and lentil mixture thoroughly and mix it with the spices. Stir the rice mixture for 2-3 minutes till it is lightly browned. The rice tends to stick—so keep stirring.

Mitha Dali

Ingredients 1¼ cups chana dal ½ cup red lentils/ masoor dal ¾ tsp turmeric powder 1½ tsps salt 1 tbsp jaggery/sugar 1 tsp grated ginger For the paste: ½ cup dessicated/ fresh grated coconut ½ inch cinnamon stick 1 tsp cardamom powder 4 whole cloves 1 tsp ground black pepper 1 tsp coriander seeds 1 tsp cumin seeds ½ tsp fenugreek seeds ½ tsp fennel seeds ½ cup hot water For the tempering: 1 tbsp ghee/butter 1 tsp cumin seeds 1 tsp mustard seeds 1 tsp fennel seeds Method Combine all the ingredients for the paste with ½ cup of very hot water. Let it seep for five minutes and puree until it is a rough paste. Add more water if needed.

46 | INDIA CURRENTS |West Coast Edition | September 2016

Jagruti Vedamati is a post-doctoral student at Stanford University.

Tip: I used the pressure cooker for fast and efficient cooking. Put all the above ingredients in the pressure cooker along with the water and wait till one whistle. Let it release the pressure before proceeding to the second step of adding the paste.

Add in the paste and put the pressure cooker back on the stove for another whistle. No more than two whistles (in total) is needed for the dal. If the lentils need further cooking, cook it with the lid open for the remaining time.

This hearty lentil soup with the wonderful aroma of jaggery, coconut and fennel seeds together with the al dente texture of the chana dal works very well with the sweetened rice pilaf or Mitha Khechudi. n

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Profile

Master Storyteller: Nilita Vachani

By Nirupama Vaidhyanathan

N

ilita Vachani is a master storyteller who crafts narratives about those who live in the shadows of society. Giving voice to the voiceless is a thread of commonality that runs through her work. An award-winning documentary filmmaker, she was recently feted for her role as an investigative journalist who exposed the web of lies that surrounded Anil Kumar’s dealings with his maidservant Manju Das in the Galleon Group scandal that brought down Raj Rajarathnam, the billionaire investor.

In 2011 Vachani listened to courtroom testimony of how Rajarathnam worked to get important information from Kumar, which he later used in an illegal insider trading scandal. As she listened to the testimony, Vachani realized that an important player in this scheme was the innocent maidservant Manju Das whose identity had been stolen by the wily Kumar.

Vachani set out in search of Manju Das who had been sent to India at the beginning of the scandal. All she had to begin this search was the name of a district in Bengal in which the village was situated. With dogged determination, Vachani tracked her down and spoke to her about her time in Kumar’s employment at his home in Saratoga, California.

The details that emerged will make one truly believe in the proverb, “Fact is stranger than fiction.” Kumar had employed Manju Das in his home where she worked close to 80-hour weeks with pay that was far below minimum wage standards. When she injured herself on the job, instead of seeking medical treatment in the United States which would have been costly, he paid for her treatment in India. While traveling to India, Das suffered intensely and to this day, there is a slight pain in her hip. Vachani wonders now whether the delay in seeking treatment had left her with a permanent disability. And, then, there was the question of unpaid wages. Das’s dream was to build a store for her son to conduct business. It

now stood—half-built with rafters jutting out—a daily reminder of how her modest dreams had been thwarted by Kumar, a businessman who had set out to fool the smartest business minds in the country.

What choice did illiterate Manju Das truly have to go against such a wily businessman? None really.

And that has been the driving force of Vachani’s quest as a documentary filmmaker and writer. She has empathy for those who do not possess the intellectual heft to find themselves portrayed on the silver screen or written about in the pages of newspapers and magazines. And, yet, each of their stories needs to be heard.

In her teens, she felt empathy for a maidservant who worked in her grandparents’ house in New Delhi. “I was eighteen years old and so was she, and yet our lives were so different. Here I was going to college, with many opportunities ahead of me. On the other hand, she was being treated for being possessed by spirits with shamans coming home from time to time.

My grandparents assured me that these rituals were tied to their superstitious practices and there was not much that we could do to help. That unsettling experi-

54 | INDIA CURRENTS |West Coast Edition | September 2016

ence stayed with me.”

As a graduate student at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, a documentary filmmaking workshop with Dr. Steven Feld changed the focus of her goals from becoming a journalist to becoming a documentary filmmaker. After graduate school, she landed a dream assignment as the Assistant Editor to Mira Nair for her movie, India Cabaret, and worked assiduously to learn as much as she could on the job.

Working on a tight budget for Mira Nair’s next film, Salaam Bombay, she wore many hats as Assistant Director, Script Supervisor, and served as an important liaison with the slum children of Mumbai.

After this fruitful association with Mira Nair for many years, Vachani struck out on her own with the documentary, Eyes of Stone about the practice of driving out spirits in many rural areas in North India. As she traversed rural areas on buses collecting primary research for her first documentary, she came across a fascinating group of common townsfolk—vegetable sellers who rode the buses selling their wares while putting up impromptu entertainment shows for the travelers. She

soon realized that many of them had had dreams of making it in Bollywood. With their dreams thwarted, they used their entertainment skills to keep passengers laughing and open to buying their goods.

Thus was born her next documentary, Diamonds in a Market.

In 1995, her documentary When Mother Comes Home for Christmas, focused the spotlight on Sri Lankan mothers who cared for children in Europe even as their own children grew up in orphanages. Vachani says, “These women were bringing in foreign currency in staggering amounts. The Sri Lankan government was promising them a future that did not exist. Work for two years in a foreign country, save enough money to build a better future—this was the story that sent thousands of women abroad, forcing them to give up their own children. The sheer economics of this situation was never in their favor. They had to work for many years before they could even dream of returning home.” She stumbled upon this story when she traveled in Europe and saw women of Sri Lankan descent taking care of young children. As she got to know

them, she realized that this story encapsulated trade practices, travel of human capital, and brought issues of class and nationhood into the limelight, precisely at a time when the word, “‘globalization” was just starting to enter the lexicon of economies worldwide. Activists in Sri Lanka arranged film screenings in many communities to show women the true picture of what it

meant to travel abroad for work.

Time and again, Vachani’s work helps showcase people from marginalized communities. Her story on Manju Das for Caravan won the Asian College of Journalism’s inaugural prize for investigative reporting. She has won prizes in film festivals around the world for her films.

Depending on the subject that she is working on, she has helped activists with her artistic works. When she wrote the Manju Das story, so many reached out to her to offer financial help that she helped create a fund which provides a modest monthly stipend to her family.

Talking to her, I realized that she is truly an artist who has straddled multiple forms of storytelling, from documentary film making to investigative reporting.

Each time, she follows her subjects closely, treating their lives and choices with compassion in the retelling. An artist with empathy – Nilita Vachani! n For Nilita Vachani’s newly released short film on Manju Das and for excerpts from her other documntary films, check out our website for links.

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films

Knock Three Times

By Aniruddh Chawda

RUSTOM. Director: Tinu Desai. Players: Akshay Kumar, Ileana D’Cruz, Arjan Bajwa, Esha Gupta, Pavan Malholtra, Kumud Mishra, Usha Nadkarni. Hindi with Eng. sub-tit. Theatrical release (Zee Studios)

I

t’s 1959 all over again! In Hollywood, the 1959 classic Ben Hur remake got a wide release at about the same time as Rustom, which is based on a sensational true life high society murder case set in what was then Bombay. While Ben Hur recreates Roman era chariot racing, Rustom opts for slightly more sedate pacing. And what pace it is!

Served up as a polished period piece thriller mindful of socio-economic realities and sensibilities of that era, Rustom is a sumptuous reenactment of a tangled murder mystery.

A decade after Independence, India had fully come of age and a free press was thriving. A murder that would normally go unnoticed captures the popular imagination because the principal figures involved are very wealthy, belonging to the upper crust of society. The accused is Commander Rustom Pavri, (Kumar) a highly decorated officer with the Indian navy. Returning home from an extended stint out at sea, Rustom discovers an affair between his wife Cynthia Pavri (D’Cruz) and the couple’s long-time friend Vikram Makhija (Bajwa). What exactly happened before, during and after three famed gunshots that killed Makhija at his palatial home might as well have been three shots heard around the world.

This entire framework would fall flat on its face if not for Santosh Thundiyil’s excellent cinematography that places Rustom and Cynthia smack in the middle of society ball rooms or Rustom at shipside on the high seas. Color filters create a mood of intrigue in the navy parlors where a behind-the-scenes high

stakes arms race to acquire India’s first aircraft carrier is played out as a tangent to the main narrative. The sets come alive to inject a dose of realistic make-believe. Just don’t look too far into the distance or a computer-generated period auto rickshaw may pop up out of thin air.

The real life 1959 case had massive implications for India’s legal system.

Amazingly, the original case became the very last Indian court case tried by a jury.

After this case played out, India did away with jury trials in favor of a sole judge

or a small group of judges deciding all cases, including capital murder. And small wonder. The sensation created by the case and its hold on the popular press at a time when the jury had full access to all media while the trial was ongoing, effectively

meant that the verdict was issued by the tabloids long before the case went to the jury.

The pudgy paparazzi Billimoria (Mishra) prints anything and everything to create a line of “reasoning” that will sell more papers. His playbook includes baiting ethnicity into the case. The Pavris like Billimoria and his media barons are from the Parsi community, while the murder victim is from the Sindhi community.

There is also the maid Jamnabai (Nadkarni) whose loose lips could just about sink ships. Preeti Makhija (Gupta), the murder victim’s conniving sister, meanwhile, is up to no good at all. It is up to the chief police investigator Vincent Lobo (Malhotra) to read through the tarot cards of evidence that don’t seem to add up.

As a cuckold decorated navy officer in sailor whites, Kumar comes across as a wronged man numbed by court proceedings—in other words, a victim. Strangely, the empathy factor swings away from him, and we feel more for D’Cruz who plays the anguished wife fending loneliness.

In roles where the social stigma of adultery burns heavier on her than murder does on him, D’Cruz manages to keep tears to a minimum, and she is restrained in her portrayal.

Desai’s Rustom is not the first feature based on the famed original case. R.K. Nayyar’s Yeh Raste Hai Pyar Ke (1963) with Sunil Dutt and Leela Naidu and Gulzar’s Achanak (1973) with Vinod Khanna and Lily Chakravarty both touched on this story. As a time capsule with critical and box office validation however, Rustom breaks refreshing new ground. Three gun shots, three figures and a two and a half hour big screen joyride. We are guilty as charged, my Lord! n EQ: A

September 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 59

Banks Of An Ancient River MOHENJO DARO. Director: Ashutosh Gowariker. Players: Hrithik Roshan, Pooja Hegde, Kabir Bedi, Arunoday Singh, Nitish Bharadwaj, Suhasini Mulay. Music: A. R. Rahman. Hindi with Eng. sub-tit. Theatrical release (UTV Disney)

T

he enigma of Mohenjo Daro, the largest site attributed to the Indus Valley civilization, continues to be one of the most beguiling mysteries for anthropologists and historians. To transfer to the big screen a title that instantly evokes nothing short of epic storytelling would be a stupendous task. Ashutosh Gowariker, a specialist in constructing large scale box office hits like Lagaan (2001) and Jodhaa Akbar (2008) steps up to this task, and he has his work cut out for him. Even though this expensive undertaking puts up gorgeous sets, spectacular city-scapes and a decent music score, Mohenjo Daro lags behind in the ratings for great cinema that Gowariker is best known for.

Combing through a trove of known historical Mohenjo Daro lore, Gowariker’s team has pieced together a film based on speculation of what life might have been at the time. Sarman (Roshan), an adventuring laborer along with his uncle Durjan (Bharadwaj) collects indigo, a precious trading commodity at the time. He is from the outlying regions and finds himself drawn to the capital Mohenjo Daro.

There, a run-in with Moonja (Singh), the son of Mohenjo Daro’s strong man Maham (Bedi), sets Sarman on a collision course intertwined with nothing short of the future of the city-state. Sarman’s interest in Channi (Hegde), the enchanting daughter of the temple priest only complicates Sarman’s prospects further, as Moonja also professes interest in the same girl.

The tantalizing detail and care that has gone into bringing all of this together is remarkable. The sets, from a 25-acre model city built in Bhuj to represent the city’s central baths which are the same dimensions as the actual baths dug up at the Pakistan site are eye-popping and beautiful. The mythology that centers on

an emblem featuring a unicorn, a two tier way of life–an “upper city” for the Indus Valley one-percenter power players and the “lower city” for folks of meager means also accentuates an outlook that taps into feudalism as an ancient practice.

To describe it in broad strokes, this movie is an action-adventure-love story.

This means that Roshan and Hegde have to feature on the screen extensively. Roshan’s Sarman finds himself in harm’s way with man-eating crocodiles, giantsized cannibals and hordes of Moonja’s goons and also possible flooding in the Indus River which Maham the usurper has sinister plans to exploit. Because the Indus Valley script remains undeciphered to this day, that language remains unknown. Gowariker uses an interesting ploy to have the dialog revert to (mostly) classical Hindustani. The sub-titles come in handy.

So where are the gaps? The staggering budget, for one. Covered by one of the largest budgets ever for a Hindi movie, the “making of ” was talked about for months before. Then, we heard about cost overruns and also about Roshan’s payday for this movie, reported to be equivalent to the full budgets of most A-list Hindi movies. Ouch! The shooting schedule was further delayed by Roshan having to recover from injuries suffered during the extensive action shoots. Ouch again!

A. R. Rahman’s score has one or two stops that make those pieces good listen-

60 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | September 2016

ing. Javed Akhtar’s lyrics also toss in bits of an imaginary lingo ascribed to that period. The title track here is from the same school as Rahman’s celebratory “Azeem O Shaan Shahenshah” from Jodhaa Akbar and here also it sounds moderately pleasing. There are ample tribal chimes and wood instruments that form an alternate sound. The “alternate” however, could be Rahman in an experimental mood rather than the score being an out-of-this-world salute to an era that slipped unknown into antiquity.

Still, “Tu Hai” and “Sindu Ma” sung by Rahman and Sanah Moidutty are love tracks—the latter is an ode to the Indus River and lingers on.

Released on the same day as Rustom, the other recent box office contender, Mohenjo Daro underperformed at the Box Office on a one to one count with Rustom.

We need to wait and see if the tepid box office returns can help recover the massive outlay for the movie. The story of the rise and relatively sudden disappearance of the Indus Valley civilization, a culture that thrived in what is now primarily Pakistan and India about 4,000 years ago is shrouded in the mists of history. If nothing else, Gowariker deserves kudos for imaginatively recreating bits of that history. n EQ: B

Globe trekker, aesthete, photographer, ski bum, film buff, and commentator, Aniruddh Chawda writes from Milwaukee.

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music

Punjabi Dhol, Cuban-Carnatic, All That Jazz

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laza de César Chavez Park in downtown San Jose saw the Jazz Summer Fest return for its 27th festival season last month. The quintessential Punjabi dhol was in the line-up, front and center of the eight-member Red Baraat band.

Baraat is the Hindi word for wedding procession; and as such, it evokes a feeling of celebration and kinship.

Red Baraat’s claim to being the first baraat band in the United States is unchallenged. In 2005, they played at no less than 40 weddings. Sunny Jain, leader of the band and the dhol player, believes Red Baraat could only have happened in New York City, asserting, “Sure, the concept is rooted in Indian Brass Band history, but there’s a rhythmic sensibility that comes from living and playing in NYC. There’s a certain edge, grit and urgency traversing the environment of this city, and this is reflected in the music that gets made here.

Another important distinction of living in this city is that you can hear all types of music by walking down a single block. You can hear a cabby playing Punjabi music, a jazz trumpeter practicing in his apartment, and a delivery biker playing merengue on his boombox. It’s this city and the wonderful artists that inhabit this place that brought about Red Baraat’s sound.”

Between 2006 and 2013, he occasionally played the dhol and dholak (a smaller folksy drum) for Junoon, a popular group recognized for their Sufi rock sound. For Red Baraat, he mostly plays the dhol.

When asked what it was like to play among these two very different acoustic scenes he says, “While both bands are very different in sound, my goal is to always support and create music with everyone on stage.”

He shares the Red Baraat stage with Rohin Khemani (percussion), Chris Eddleton (drum set), Jonathan Goldberger(guitar), Jonathon Haffner (soprano sax), Sonny Singh (trumpet), Ernest Stuart (trombone), and John Altieri (sousaphone).

Their latest album LiveWire was actually not recorded as an album; it is a collection of tracks they played during an in-studio

By Priya Das interview for KEXP in Seattle.

The music Jain grew up with, as a first-generation desi (jazz, rock, hip-hop) seems to have asserted itself in LiveWire: it has significant electric guitaring by Goldgerger, which is atypical of the baraat sound. For example, the track, “Horizon Line” starts off unusually with strings.

Jain expands, “What you’re hearing at the beginning of “Horizon Line” is the guitar, dhol and sousaphone being processed with various effects that we are manipulating.

Then, comes the powerful horn melodies.”

Incidentally, their previous album Gaadi of Truth also had some departures, in that it had a Spanish number written by the trumpeter, Singh: “Se Hace Camino” was a call for action; todo el mundo puede cambiar, se hace camino al andar (the whole world can change, we (will) make the road by walking). LiveWire also includes a bonus remix by The Police’s Stewart Copeland of the track “Gaadi of Truth.”

Another desi artist in this year’s Jazz

Photo: www.ganavya.com

Summerfest was Ganavya Doraiswamy, whose voice was a strong, dulcet and husky combination of richness. She was featured with Alfredo Rodriguez, a classically trained Cuban pianist in Tocororo. Rodriguez has been mentored and produced

by Quincy Jones, the legendary Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, best known for being the producer of Michael Jackson’s mega hit, Thriller.

NPR had this to say: “Tocororo is equal parts sophistication and sincerity.

It’s the sound of a prodigiously talented Cuban embracing the wider world of mu-

sic. Best of all, the album resonates with the possibility of all the other new music we’ll discover as Cuba itself opens up to the world.”

With the inclusion of Doraiswamy, Tocororo opens itself to the South Indian classical world, every poly-rhythm in step with the complex tonal trajectories. It is one of the most stylish and more importantly, Jazz-y interpretations; matching, perhaps for the first time so elegantly, each Carnatic vocal musical note to the Western piano tone. On visiting her website, one is welcomed by an open throated soundscape “Aa ri ra ra ro” in Tamil followed by the classic “Summertime” originally by Louis Armstrong, where she forays seamlessly in and out of classic Americana and Indian classical sounds. Thus, the word “high” starts in rural America but ends in the high notes of a raga; you can’t tell if “Summertime” is Western or Indian any more if not for the English lyrics.

The vocalist Doraiswamy is multitalented. She plays the jalatharangam, an almost extinct Indian instrument, and is trained as a bharatanatyam dancer. Doraiswamy has catalogued the hundreds of mudras or hand gestures, found in bharatanatyam and published the document for Florida International University’s SRAI Conference under the title “Rasam for the Dancer’s Soul.”

Lately, Jazz has been a catch-all for all kinds of experimental music. True, what constitutes Jazz is not well-defined; each musician has a personal definition of it. Above all though, Jazz is a sound that is born out of an improvisational or organized coming together of individual expression. Red Baraat and Doraiswamy are certainly on the path of adding unique dimensions to the world of Jazz. n Priya Das is an enthusiastic follower of worldmusic and avidly tracks intersecting points between folk, classical, jazz and other genres.

Check out redbaraat.com and ganavya.com.

September 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 63

VISHWA SHANTHI DANC

Photo: Bipin Thakkar Design: joe miller’s company Abhinaya’s programs are supported, in part, by a Cultural Affairs grant from the City of San Jose; the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation; an Arts Education grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Local Arts Grant from SV Creates; and individual donations and matching corporate donations.

64 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | September 2016

dance . music

BharathaKala Kutiram Artistic Director:

Jayanthi Sridharan

offers Bharathanatyam Classes in Berryessa, North San Jose

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

Private Lessons ALL AGES & LEVELS

MUSIC Lessons with Peter Block

ENGLISH Lessons with Sita

• Saxophone, Guitar, Flute, Clarinet Writing, reading & speaking skills • Classical, Jazz & Pop styles • Prepare for high school and college • Includes comprehensive program of playing, • Word choice, vocabulary, grammar, diction rhythm & ear training, theory, recitals, etc.

• Essay, academic & creative writing • Qualify for local youth symphonies, wind ensembles, jazz bands, & college music.

Peter: (408)

839-2476

1/2 or Full Hour Lessons

music_lessons@comcast.net

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253-1051

s_tyar@comcast.net

Vocal Music Classes

By DR

n Latest news n Exclusive content n Behind the scene photos

INDIA CURRENTS Celebrating 30Years of Excellence

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KALANJALI Dances of India

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(disciple of late Pandit Gyan Prakash Ghosh and Ustad Munawar Ali Khan) * Teacher of repute and artiste having numerous stage and TV shows. * Elementary lessons for beginners in Indian Classical Music (Hindusthani style) and Light Classical Music - including bhajan, ghazal, etc.

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

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September 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 65

events SEPTEMBER 2016

California’s Best Guide to Indian Events Edited by: Mona Shah List your event for FREE! OCTOBER issue deadline: Tuesday, September 20 To list your event in the Calendar, go to www.indiacurrents.com and click on List Your Event

Check us out on

special dates

Conference of Birds, multi-sensory interpretation of the timeless Sufi quest narrative, Sept 9-11

Ganesh Chaturthi

Sept. 5

Labor Day

Sept. 5

Bakri Id

Sept. 12

Onam

Sept. 13

Mahatma Gandhi’s B’day

Oct. 2

Navaratri

Oct. 1-9

Dussehra

Oct. 11

CULTURAL CALENDER

September

1 Thursday

Harmony: Wildlife and Nature Inspired Portraits. Featuring Fremont based painter, Bhavna Misra. The artwork is on display in the north wing of the library’s second floor. Ends Oct. 16. Organized by Phantom Art Gallery.

12 p.m. Milpitas Main Library, Milpitas, 160 N Main St., Milpitas. Free. (408) 586-3210. bhavna.misra@gmail.com. www.

bhavnamisra.com, www.ci.milpitas.ca.gov/ milpitas/departments/recreation-services/ cultural-arts-theater/phantom-art-gallery/.

September

2 Friday

Dance Conversations 2016—Festival of Dance/Music from India.

This two-day festival will be site specific and interactive and reflect on how artistes shape Irvine. Weaving classical and contemporary dance and music of India as a framework to think about artistic citizenship for a range of communities and this includes not just the South Asian community but the diverse communities that make up Irvine. Ends Sep. 3. Organized

by Ektaa Center and Arpana Dance Company. Part of the event is ticketed. (949) 300-8912. info@ektaacenter.org. www. ektaacenter.org.

September

3 Saturday

Carnatic Concert by Gautam Tejas

66 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | September 2016

Ganeshan. 3:30-6 p.m. Starline Social Club, 645 West Grand Ave., Oakland. $15$ 20. (510) 593-2109. info@starlinesocialclub.com. starlinegautam.eventbrite.com.

Marathi Play—Karti Kaljat Ghusali with Prashant Damle, Tejashri Pradhan. Organized by Swar Sudha.

6-9:30 p.m. Smithwick Theater, Foothill College, 12345 El Monte Road., Los Altos Hills . VVIP $100, VIP: 75, preferred: $50, general: $25. (408) 461-8390, (510) 5798211. swarsudha@swarsudha.org. www.

SwarSudha.org, www.TicketHungama.com/ SwarSudha, sganu@yahoo.com.

Bharathanatya Rangapravesha of Adithi Anand. Student of Roopa

Anand, Artistic Director of Nrityaarpana Dance Academy. Cubberley Community Center, 4000 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto.

Free. (408) 874-6214. roopa2004@gmail. com.

Carnatik Concerts—Triple Header. 2:15-3:15 p.m. Misha

Chakravarthy(vocal), accompanied by

events

What’s hot this month

THEATER

T

hirty artists representing ten dance traditions, spanning four continents feature in a vibrant, multi-sensory interpretation of the timeless Sufi quest narrative—The Conference of the Birds.

EnActe Arts and Sangam Arts present a contemporary interpretation of the 12th century Persian poet Farid Attar’s magnum opus, an inspirational parable about the painful but beautiful human journey towards understanding.

Hoopoe the wise one calls for a conference of hundreds of birds, exhorting them to embark on a perilous journey across seven treacherous valleys in search of Simorgh, their king and salvation.

The seven valleys represent challenges on the path to realizing the true nature of God—Yearning, Love, Mystical Knowledge, Detachment, Unity of God, Bewilderment and finally, Selflessness and

Oblivion in God. Each bird has its own significance – the nightingale symbolizes the lover, the peacock the “fallen soul,” the parrot seeks the fountain of immortality.

In 1971 Peter Brook, Jean-Claude Carrière and a very young Helen Mirren embarked on a journey across the Sahara from Algiers to Nigeria on their own search for the definition of universal theatre, much like the birds themselves. They engaged with villagers to devise simple, improvised pieces, using the poem as the centrepiece of their experimental repertoire and aiming to shed stale Western conventions in their quest for the universality of theater.

From this effort arose the final script. n Sept. 9-11. Mexican Heritage Plaza. 1700 Alum Rock Ave., San Jose. $25-$100. tickets@ enacte.org. www.tikkl.com/cob/ campaigns/cob-tickets.

MARATHI PLAY

K

arti Kaljat Ghusali is a Marathi play starring Prashant Damle, Tejashri Pradhan, Neeta Pendse, Parag Dange. The doyen of Marathi stage, Prashant Damle, plays the role of Dad. The play is based on a dad-daughter relationship that portrays different shades of love, bonding and belonging

between the two in the trademark “Prashant Damle” style that is sure to keep the audience enthralled throughout the show.n Saturday, Sept. 3. Smithwick Theater, Foothill College, 12345 El Monte Rd., Los Altos Hills. www.Tickethungama.com/SwarSudha. (408) 461-8390, (510) 579-8211.

MUSICAL Mr. India—A Grand Musical weaves the tale of a half-blind, bumbling tea-seller in Delhi who rises to become Prime Minister of India in this hilarious and hard-hitting satire on Indian democracy. Based on the 2007 novel The Peacock Throne, the play is a grand farce, starting with the 1984 anti-Sikh riots that followed the assassination of Indira Gandhi, and ending with the

election that threw up a hung parliament in 1989. Tucked amidst these momentous events is the tale of a humble and foolish teaseller, whose rise to power is the bittersweet story of India itself. n Saturday, Sep 10-Sunday, Oct 2.

Organized by Naatak. Cubberly Theater. 4000 Middlefield Rd., Palo Alto. General $22, VIP $32. tickets@naatak.org. info@naatak.org.

September 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 67

events

California’s Best Guide to Indian Events Arts. 2:30-6:30 p.m. Cubberly Community Center Theatre, 4000 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. $25, $35, $50. (408) 579-9896, (408) 892-9907. smarangroup@gmail.com. www.smaran-arts.com.

September

9 Friday

Tandava Lasya—An Exploration of the Masculine and Feminine Interpretation of Bharatanatyam. With

Vidhya Subramanian and Ganesh Vasudeva. Organized by Kala Vedika. 7:30 p.m.

14486 Leland Circle, Saratoga. $8.

The Conference of the Birds.

Celebrating Bay Area multiculturalism.

Ends Sep. 11. Organized by EnActe and Sangam Arts. Mexican Heritage Plaza, 1700 Alum Rock Ave., San Jose. $25-$100. tickets@enacte.org. www.tikkl.com/cob/campaigns/cob-tickets, enacte.org/production/theconference-of-the-birds/.

September

10 Saturday

Carnatic Music Concert. Kunnakudi

Vidhya Subramanian performs in Tandava Lasya—An Exploration of the Masculine and Feminine Interpretation of Bharatanatyam, Sept., 9

Shreyas Srinivasan (violin) and Srivatsan Tennathur (mridangam). 3:30-5: p.m.

Sahithi Shankar (vocal), accompanied by Sahana Srinivasan (violin) and Akshay Venkatesan (mridangam). 5:15-6:45 p.m.

Shruthi Aravindan (vocal), accompanied

by Keerthi Sundaramurthy (violin) and Akshay Aravindan (mridangam). Organized by SR Fine Arts. Community Of Infinite Spirit, 1540, Hick’s Ave., San Jose.

Free. (408) 569-0860. dirsrfa@gmail.com. www.srfinearts.info.

Sarod Concert. Featuring Abhisek La-

hiri accompanied by Subrata Battacharya on tabla. Organized by Sangeeet Dhwani.

ShivDurga Temple, 1770 Kern Ave., Sunnyvale. pradjoshi@gmail.com.

September

4 Sunday

Smaran Dance Festival. Aimed at en-

couraging and providing an opportunity to young adept dancers in different genres like bharatanatyam, kuchipudi, kathak, odissi and other art forms of India to perform solo and showcase their talents.

It also is a fundraiser for Aram Sei, a nonprofit organization that aims to support grassroots organizations worldwide with specific focus on education and healthcare. Organized by Smaran Performing

68 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | September 2016

Balamuralikrishna (vocal), Papanasam Gokul Kumar (violin), Vignesh Venkatraman (mridangam). Organized by South Indian Fine Arts. 4 p.m. Santa Clara Convention Center, 5001 Great America Pkwy., Santa Clara. General $20, Preferred $30, Premium $50, Sponsors, free. www.southindiafinearts.org.

Mr. India—A Musical. A half-blind, bumbling tea-seller in Delhi rises to become Prime Minister of India in this hilarious and hard-hitting satire on Indian democracy. Ends Oct. 2. Organized by Naatak. 6-4 p.m. Cubberly Theater, 4000 Middlefield Road., Palo Alto. General $22, VIP $32. Group General $18, VIP $26.

(408) 499-5692, (510) 919-3584. tickets@ naatak.org, info@naatak.org. www.naatak. com/portfolio/mr-india-2016/, www.youtube. com/watch?v=1-AK5U3i-wg.

Lecture by Ketu Katrak. Professor of Drama at the University of California, Irvine and author of Contemporary Indian

events Dance—New Creative Choreography in India and the Diaspora. All students of dance, dancers and dance teachers are invited to attend these lectures on Multiple Idioms of Indian Contemporary Dance and The Contemporary Presence of India’s Epic Stories and Powerful Goddesses.Organized

by Abhinaya Dance Company. 7 p.m.

SDK, 3102 Landess Ave., San Jose. Free. www.abhinaya.org.

September

11 Sunday

Padmabushan Ilaiyaraaja Live in Concert. Tamil concert featuring a live

symphony orchestra and popular singers.

Organized by Kalalaya. 4:25 p.m. San Jose Event Center, 290 S 7th St., San Jose. (650) 245-317, (408) 230-5210, (510) 646-7107.

Lecture by Ketu Katrak. Professor of Drama at the University of California, Irvine and author of Contemporary Indian Dance—New Creative Choreography in India and the Diaspora. All students of dance, dancers and dance teachers are invited to attend these lectures on Multiple Idioms of Indian Contemporary Dance and The Contemporary Presence of India’s Epic Stories and Powerful Goddesses.Organized

by Abhinaya Dance Company. 11:45 a.m.

CPAA, 6148 Bollinger Road., San Jose. www.abhinaya.org.

Karthikeya Kalyanam—Kuchipudi Ballet led by Sri Hari Ramamurthy.

Ramamurthy hails from the Kuchipudi village and is a disciple and principle dancer in Vempati Chinna Satyam’s ballets. With a 25 member cast the ballet brings to life the story of Karthikeya, the son of Siva and Parvathi. The episodes of birth of Karthikeya, Tarakasura Vadha and Karthikeya’s marriage to Valli and Devaena will bring out the dramatic elements of Kuchipudi. Apart from visiting artists from India, all the kuchipudi schools and independent dancers from Bay Area are participating in this ballet. Organized by Yuva Bharati. 4 p.m. Mission City Center for Performing Arts, 3250, Monroe St., Santa Clara. $20; Yuva Bharati members get 2 free tickets. (650) 565-8859. yuva_

California’s Best Guide to Indian Events bharati@yahoo.com. www.yuvabharati.org, rakagupta@gmail.com.

September

17 Saturday

Armaan Malik Live in Concert.

Accompanied by Shirley Setia. 8 p.m. City National Civic Center, 135 W San Carlos St., San Jose. $99-$199. (408) 643-2870, (510) 468-5060. www.armaanmalikusa. com.

Bharatanatyam Arangetram of Supriya Ravishankar. Student of Niru-

pama Vaidhyanathan, Artistic Director, Sankalpa School of Dance. Accompanied

by Asha Ramesh, N. Narayan and Shanthi Narayan. 3 p.m. Ohlone College, 43600 Mission Blvd., Fremont.

Dance Recital by Anushree Akella and Avantika Panchapakesan. Stu-

Bharatanatyam Arangetram of Supriya Ravis-

dents of Mathura Vijay, Artistic Director hankar, Sept., 17 of Krishnageetham Performing Arts. 3-5 p.m. Community Of Infinite Spirit, 1540, Carnatik Vocal Concert. Anirudh Hick’s Ave., San Jose. Free. (408) 569-0860.

Raja (vocal), accompanied by Shreyas dirsrfa@gmail.com. www.krishnageethamSrinivasan (violin) and Santhosh Ravinperformingarts.com. drabharathy mridangam). Organized by SR Fine Arts. 6:15-7:15 p.m. Community Sarod Concert by Arnab ChakrabOf Infinite Spirit, 1540, Hick’s Ave. Free. arty. He has received his taleem from (408) 569-0860. dirsrfa@gmail.com. www.

Budhaditya Das Gupta and Brij Narayan. srfinearts.info.

Organized by Basant Bahar. 5 p.m. Sai Temple Auditorium, 1221 California Circle, Milpitas. $30, Free for Basant Bahar memSeptember Sunday bers. surinderc@gmail.com.

18

Vocal Concert with Ranjani and

September 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 69

Sponsored Content Sponsored Content

70 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | September 2016

September 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 71

God's Unfailing Love……

Do you have the real Joy, Peace and happiness in your life? Have you ever asked this question What is the purpose of my

existence in this world? What is a person profited, if he/she shall gain the whole world, and lose his/her own soul? (Or) What shall a person give in exchange for his/her own soul? Is there anyone in this world who can truly love me? Many times we are lost and finally end up asking these questions. There is no one in this world, who can truly love us, except God. Initially, God created human kind (both man and woman) in HIS own image. The purpose of creating mankind was to be with God. But human kind sinned against God and lost the greatest gift of being with HIM. God is Holy. A person with sin cannot dwell or exist with God. Also with sin, human kind earned curses from God. The result of sin was death & curses.

What is sin?

Anything we do that separates us from God’s presence is called SIN. We cannot hide anything from God. God knows our troubles, problems & everything. What the World can offer us is the Lust of flesh, the Lust of eyes & the Pride of life.

Anyone who takes what the World offers ends up committing sin against God.

What is the result of committing sin?

The result of committing sin is a broken heart & soul,having guilt which makes us weak before God, with sadness, no peace, sickness, curses and separation from God. The Bible says, when we were born, we were born with sin because our parents brought us into this world with a sinful nature. For all have sinned, and come short of the Glory of God. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. The wages of sin is death.

No one in this world including our parents or spouse or kids or friends or relatives can love us more than God. The Bible says, God is Love and HE manifested HIS love by sending God's only Holy SON Jesus Christ into this world to save us from all our sins and redeem us from this sinful world. For God so loved the world, that HE gave HIS only begotten Son Jesus Christ, that whosoever believeth in Jesus should not perish, but have everlasting life, the life after death with God in Heaven.

Jesus came to this earth only to die for us and shed HIS blood so that we can be saved by HIS grace and then receive HIS gift of Salvation. Without HIS shedding of blood there is no redemption from sins. So God sent Jesus Christ to this world to die for you and me. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sins. If we confess our sins to Jesus, HE is faithful and just to forgive us from our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Jesus said "Come unto ME, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

For every sin we commit, we need to pay the penalty individually. However, Jesus took all our sins upon himself, when HE died for us. By giving HIS every drop of blood, we are saved and free from the penalty of sin & death. Jesus

72 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | September 2016

died for our sins and on the third day, HE rose again from death and became victorious over death, hell and sins. Jesus is a living God. HE is the same yesterday, today & forever. In the Name of Jesus there is Victory, Deliverance from sins & curses and there is Healing from sickness & Miracles in our life.

Jesus Christ is the ONLY WAY to God the Father, HE is the Truth and HE is the Life. No one can go to God the Father & Heaven, except through Jesus Christ.

Our family or friends, our caste or creed, our education or position, our money or riches or status, or by doing charity or by doing yoga or by doing fasting will not take us to God or to Heaven. When we accept & ask Jesus Christ to come into our heart & cleanse our sins with HIS precious blood, Jesus comes into our heart and makes us a new creature, by giving us HIS Love, Joy, HIS Peace, Hope & eternal Life with HIM. This is the TRUTH and the truth shall set you free.

Now how can I redeem HIS gift of Salvation in my life?

All we have to do is to believe Jesus, accept HIM into our heart & ask him to cleanse our sins by HIS blood by repeating this simple prayer. (Prayer means talking to God in your heart)

Lord Jesus, Thank you for coming into this world for me and my sins. I truly accept you just as I am.

Come into my heart; cleanse me and my sins with your precious Blood. Be in my heart forever and help me to live and lead a Holy life like you. I also invite YOU & Your Holy Spirit to come into my heart and give me the Joy, Peace, Happiness, Deliverance from sins, bondages and sickness forever. Thank you for giving me the assurance of being with me forever. In Jesus name I pray Amen.

If you have truly meant this prayer, then you have accepted Jesus into your heart. HE will be with you forever. HE will not leave you nor forsake you. If you need prayers or would like to know more about Jesus, then you can visit nearby Churches or email us at info@christforworld.org

September 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 73

74 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | August 2016

events

California’s Best Guide to Indian Events Community Theater. 2-8 p.m. Curtis Theater, 1 Civic Center Circle, Brea . $20.

(714) 203-8671, (714) 213-3288. iactheater@hotmail.com.

Depicting the Beloved: Exploring Text and Image in Sixteenth-Century Persian Painting by Visiting Scholar Naciem Nikkhah. Using

seven single-page folios produced in Iran and India, this paper focuses on Safavid and Mughal paintings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and argues for a direct relationship between text and image.

Organized by SACHI, Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India and American Friends of SOAS, School of Oriental and African Studies (London), in collaboration with Palo Alto Art Center. 2-4 p.m.

Palo Alto Art Center, 1313 Newell Road, Palo Alto. Free. (650) 918-6335. info@ sachi.org, bkansara@yahoo.com.

Bring your dad/brother to “Workshop” Day. Sept., 25

Gayathri. Accompanied by Charumathi

Raghuraman (violin) and Delhi Sairam (mridangam). Organized by South Indian Fine Arts. 4 p.m. Santa Clara Convention Center, 5001 Great America Pkwy., Santa Clara. General $35, Preferred $50, Premium $100, Sponsors, free. www.southindiafinearts.org.

Meera Bai Music Festival. Featuring

Rita Sahai and the Vasundara Choir with narration of Meera Bai’s life by Suman and Sargam Shah. Meera was a Rajput princess who renounced her privileged life and royal family to live as a mendicant—wandering , dancing, and singing

the praises of God. A devotee of Krishna, she was part of an influential religious movement (bhakti) that rejected distinctions of caste and creed, shunned the stultifying rituals and inaccessible scripture of conservative religion, and believed that direct union with God was possible for all—men and women, highborn and lowborn. 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Badarikashrama, 15602 Maubert Ave., San Leandro. Free.

(510) 278-2444. badarik@pacbell.net. www. badarikashrama.org.

Annual Singing Competition.

Hindustani classical vocal, light vocal and karaoke. Organized by Indo American

Bharatanatyam Arangetram of Anjali Santhosh. Student of Mythili

Kumar, Artistic Director of Abhinaya Dance Company. Accompanied by: Mythili Kumar and Malavika Kumar Walia (nattuvangam), Asha Ramesh (vocal), N. Narayan (mridangam), and Shanthi Narayan (violin). Organized by Abhinaya Dance Company. 4-7 p.m. Mission City Center for Performing Arts, 3250 Monroe St., Santa Clara. Free. (408) 871-5959. abdanceco@gmail.com. abhinaya.org.

HAF’s Annual Northern California Gala Dinner. The evening will include a

social hour, a gourmet Indian dinner with Keynote speaker: comedian Rajiv Satyal.

Speakers: Barbara McGraw, Saint Mary’s

Comprehensive Cultural and Spiritual Calendars Online The India Currents Spiritual and Yoga Calendar is available online at: https://www.indiacurrents.com/events/selections/northern-california/spiritual-events/ The India Currents Cultural Calendar is available online at: https://www.indiacurrents.com/events/selections/northern-california/cultural-events/ August 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 75

events College; Murali Balaji, HAF Director of Education & Curriculum Reform. Organized by Hindu American Foundation.

4-8 p.m. India Community Center, 525 Los Coches St., Milpitas. $75. udairaj@gmail. com. bit.ly/HAFNCalGala.

Sonu Nigam and Atif Aslam—Live in Concert. Organized by Stage Paint

Productions. 6 p.m. The Long Beach Arena, 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach. $49-$99. events.sulekha.com/sonu-nigam-and-atifaslam-live-in-concert_event-in_long-beachca_308201.

September

24 Saturday

Sonu Nigam and Atif Aslam—Live in Concert. 7:30 p.m. Oakland Arena,

7000 Coliseum Way, Oakland. $59-$2500. www.tickethungama.com/order/2749/sonunigam-and-atif-aslam-live-in-concert-bayarea.

Holistic Arts Fair. Discover today’s

leading trends in visionary arts, holistic health, human potential, spiritual and psychic awareness, and future alternatives.

Receive readings, healing and guidance on the path to health and wholeness. Speakers include Meir Schneider (Yoga for Your Eyes), and holistic nutritionist Bernd Friedlander. Ends Sep. 25. Organized by Holistic Arts Fair Association. 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Community of Infinite Spirit, 1540 Hicks Ave,. San Jose. Free. (408) 448-6726. philosopherswheel.com/haf.htm.

Hindustani Classical Music Concert. Featuring Dayita Datta, founder,

director of Shruti Music Academy along with her students performing Hindustani vocal. Featuring guest artist, vocalist Sandip Ghosh accompanied by Jyoti Prakas on tabla and Indradeep Ghosh on violin.

The concert will also include students of Dhwani Academy of Percussion music performing group tabla. Organized by Shruti Music Academy. 10 a.m. Pasadena Conservatory of Music, 100 N. Hill Ave., Pasadena. $15. (626) 788-2553. shrutimusic@hotmail.com. www.dayitadatta.com/ event.html.

76 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | August 2016

California’s Best Guide to Indian Events Hope Abides—Annual Fundraiser.

Dinner, music, silent auction. Hope Abides is a Sacramento based organization whose mission is to provide help and hope to orphaned and destitute children in India. Organized by Hope Abides.

5:30-8:30 p.m. Sacramento Waldorf School, 3750 Bannister Road, Fair Oaks . $35.

(916) 690-4289. brent.adams@hopeabides. org. www.hopeabides.org/fundraising-dinner. php, www.hopeabides.org.

Divine Vibrations of India: Melody, Rhythm and Dance. Uniting North-

ern and Southern India on one stage, Divine Vibrations will feature santoor artist Tarun Bhattacharya of North India and violinist Aishu Venkataraman of South India in a jugalbandi, a duet performed by musicians of different instruments or styles. Part of a yearlong festival of music in India celebrating the 100th birth anniversary of the “Nightingale of Indian music,” MS Subbalakshmi, this concert will also feature a percussion ensemble (made up of a mridangam, tabla, ghatam and moorsing) and an improvised santoor and dance piece. Organized by The Music Circle. 7 p.m. Ford Theatres, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. E, Los Angeles. $100 VIP tickets with lecture, dinner, General $50, $35, $25.

(626) 449-6987. MusicCircle@aol.com. www.musiccircle.org, FordTheatres.org.

Swapan Chaudhuri and Ramesh Misra in Concert. A fundraising gala

with a solo by both artists. Includes an Indian vegetarian dinner. All ticket holders will be entered into a drawing for a chance to win a special pair of tablas autographed by Zakir Hussain. 7:30 p.m. Ali Akbar College of Music, 215 West End Ave., San Rafael. $100. (415) 454-6372. office@ aacm.org. www.aacm.org, office@aacm.org.

September

25 Sunday

Raju, Raja, Ram Aur Main—A Comedy in Hindi. Featuring Sharman

Joshi. Organized by Tisha Entertainment and Shah Foundation. 6:30 p.m. Servite High School Auditorium, 1952 West La Palma Ave., Anaheim. (562) 860-1135,

Semi Classical Concert by Raghunandan Panshikar, Oct. 2

(909) 861-7074, (714) 612-6436.

CRY San Diego Walk/Run for Childrens Rights. Millions of children

are deprived of what we believe are their basic rights—to survival, to development, to protection, and to participation. Walk/ run, food, games, yoga, face painting, balloon animals. Medals for winners. Organized by CRY San Diego Walk/Run for Child Rights in association with Soft HQ 2016. 8 a.m. 4S Ranch Community Park, 16118 Ranch Pkwy., San Diego. (732) 3257553. pooja.thomre@gmail.com. crysandiego. wixsite.com/cry-san-diego.

Bring Your Dad/Brother to “Workshop” Day. Learn about and recognize

the heroes portrayed in Abhinaya’s 2016 fall concert, Vaanara Leela - The extraordinary role of Hanuman and his monkey army in the Ramayana. Organized

by Abhinaya Dance Company. 12 p.m.

CPAA, 6148 Bollinger Road., San Jose. www.abhinaya.org.

Sitar and Tabla Concert. Featuring Arjun Verma on sitar and Nilan Choudhari on tabla. Proceeds from the concert will benefit local non-profit Ecology Action based in Santa Cruz. Organized by Santa Cruz Ayurveda and Mangala Production. 7-10 p.m. Pacific Cultural Center, 1307 Seabright Ave,. Santa Cruz. $20.

(831) 334-4236. manish@santacruzayurveda.com. bit.ly/Arjun2016-IndiaCurrent.

events

California’s Best Guide to Indian Events Hindustani Semi Classical Concert

by Raghunandan Panshikar. Disciple of Kishori Amonkar. Accompanied by Bharat Kamat (tabla) and Niranjan Lele (harmonium). Organized by Swar Sudha.

6-9:30 p.m. Jain Temple Auditorium, 722 S. Main St., Milpitas . $20, $30. (408) 461-8390, (510) 579-8211. swarsudha@ swarsudha.org. www.SwarSudha.org, www.

Sulekha.com/SwarSudha, www.TicketHungama.com/SwarSudha.

October

Arjun Verma in concert, Sept., 25

Carnatic Music Concert—Sangeetha Upanyasam. Featuring Du-

shyanth Sridhar. Topic: Little Superstars - Nachiketa, Dhruva and Prahlada. Organized by South Indian Fine Arts. 4 p.m.

CET - Soto Theater, 701 Vine St., San Jose.

General $25, Preferred $35, Premium $50, Sponsors, free. www.southindiafinearts.org.

October

1 Saturday

Shanti—A Journey of Peace. Shanti

represents the meeting of Western and Eastern cultures. Featuring over 250 musicians, the Santa Clara Chorale and a string orchestra along with dancers on stage, from the Bay Area. Organized by Dharma Civilization Foundation. 3-5 p.m. Oakland Mormon Temple Interstake Center Auditorium, 4770 Lincoln Ave., Oakland. (614) 668-1668. www.purplepass. com/#135706/Dharma_Civilization_Foundation-Shanti_-_A_Journey_of_Peace-Interstake_Center_Auditorium,_Oakland_Mormon_Temple,_California-October-01-2016. html.

October

2 Sunday

2 Sunday

McDonald’s Education Expo. Understand the College admissions process, get insider knowledge on improving your admittance rate, financial aid and scholarship guidance. Featured speakers Jason Ma, Anjali Vaswani, Roseanna Montgomery, Steven Ma. Organized by India West and Flex College Prep. 12-6 p.m. Fremont Marriott Silicon Valley—Grand Ballroom, 46100 Landing Pkwy., Fremont. Free. www. indiawest.com/collegefair.

October

5 Wednesday

October

Rishikesh Armstrong on tabla. Organized

by UC Berkeley Music Dept. 12-1 p.m.

UC Berkeley, Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley. Free.

(408) 394-5337. suj108@hotmail.com.

7 Friday

Subterranean Ghosts: India’s Vanishing Stepwells. Discussion with

Chicago journalist and arts and culture specialist Victoria Lautman. While Indian palaces, forts and temples receive muchdeserved attention, one of the most significant architectural wonders, stepwells are often overlooked. Several stories deep, these primarily functioned to store water during the monsoons, but also served as civic retreats, respite for traveling caravans from the brutal heat, and spiritual destinations. Organized by SACHI, Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India and

8 Saturday

Passport to India. Discover the deli-

cious flavors of India with specialty food and spice vendors, live cooking demos and more. Live music, beer garden with local craft brews and boutique wines available for purchase. Fresh farm produce and artisan food including specialty Food Trucks. 2-5 p.m. Facebook Farmers Market, 1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park.

Amitesh Mishra Live in Concert.

Listen to Bollywood hits and originals with Manesh Judge, Kush Khanna, Mike Nathaniel and guest artists: Anisha Bakshi, Vikas Singh. Organized by Amitesh Mishra Music. 7:30 p.m. Studio 8 (SJSLive) Night Club, 8 South 1st St., San Jose. $30. (510) 589-3505. events.sulekha.com/ amitesh-mishra-concert_event-in_san-joseca_307689.

October

Hindustani Vocal Concert by Sujata Ghanekar. Accompanied by

October

Palo Alto Art Center. 7 p.m. Palo Alto Art Center, 1313 Newell Road, Palo Alto. Free.

(650) 918-6335. info@sachi.org. www. eventbrite.com/e/subterranean-ghosts-indiasvanishing-stepwells-by-victoria-lautmantickets-26708647283.

9 Sunday

Vivah 2016 Bridal Expo. South Asian Wedding Expo. 11 a.m. Santa Clara Convention Center, 5001 Great America Pkwy., Santa Clara. www.facebook.com/ events/1150325638341387/.

October

15 Saturday

Annual Free Health Fair. Health advice from doctors. Diabetes, blood pressure testing. Flu shots, nutrition advice. Organized by Hindu Community and Cultural Center. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Shiva Vishnu Temple, Akella Hall, 1232 Arrowhead Ave., Livermore. Free. (925) 449-6255, (925) 895-3659. anand_gundu@yahoo. com. www.livermoretemple.org/hints/content/ html/2016/annual-health-fair.pdf. © Copyright 201 India Currents. All rights reserved. Reproduction for commercial use strictly prohibited.

August 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 77

Om Sri Mathre Namaha SRI LAKSHMI GANAPATHI TEMPLE

(408) 226-3600

32B Rancho Drive, San Jose, CA 95111

(Capitol Expressway West and Montrey Road Junction, Opposite and 1 Block from Capitol Cal Train Station)

www.vvgc.org or siliconvalleyhindutemple.com

Sunday September 4 : At 8.00 AM Sam Veda upakarma samopakarma, only one batch.

Please contact the temple for further details.

pushpa.

th

Wednesday September 14 : Evening at 6.00 PM Pradosham Shiva Sri Rudra abhisheka aarati and manthra pushpa. th

At 7.00 PM Swarna gowri vratham. Please contact the temple for further details.

Thursday September 15 : Sri Anantha Chathurdasi vratham. th

Subramanaya abhisheka aarati and manthra pushpa.

Friday September 23 : Madhya ashtami, Mahavyadeeya padam. rd

Saturday September 24 : Avidhava Navami. th

Wednesday September 28th: At 6.00 PM, Pradosham Shiva Sri Rudra abhisheka aarati and manthra pushpa.

Please Make A Note:: Temple Address:: 32 Rancho Drive, San Jose CA 95111 Temple Timings: Week Days Morning 10.00 Am To 12 Noon, Evening At 6.00 pm To 8.00 pm Week Ends And Holidays 10.00 am To 8.00 pm

FOR BHAJAN'S RELIGIOUS DISCOURSES, MUSIC AND DANCE PERFORMANCES, PRIVATE POOJAS PLEASE CONTACT TEMPLE FOR FURTHER DETAILS MANGALANI BHAVANTHU,SUBHAM BHUYATH,LOKA SAMASTHA SUKINO BHAVANTHU, LOVE ALL SERVE ALL LOVE IS ALL For Pujas & Rituals Contact: PANDIT GANESH SHASTHRY 880 East Fremont Ave #302, Cupertino Villas, Sunnyvale, CA 94087

(408) 245-5443 / Cell: (925) 209-7637 E-mail: srikalahatheeswara@yahoo.com

Home:

78 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | August 2016

INDIA CURRENTS GRAPHICS (408) 324-0488

Friday September 16 : At 4.00 PM sri lalitha devi/sri bhuwaneswari abhihseka continued with sri lalitha sahasra th nama chanting aarati and manthra Friday September 30 : Sarva mahalaya Amavasya, Pitru paksha pushpa. ends, keeping of golu, golu set up.

At 6.00 PM sri pournami vratha Continued with Sri Lakshmi samoohika sri sathya narayana Ganapathi homa / Sri Lakshmi 7.00 AM 1st batch nd swamy pooja aarati and manthra Ganapathi abhisheka, Sri Shiva 8.00 AM 2 batch rd pushpa. abhisheka, Sri Valli deva sena 9.00 AM 3 batch sametha, Sri Subramanya 10.00 AM 4th batch th abhisheka, continued with Sri 11.00 AM 5 batch Saturday September 17th: Sri Siddhi Vinayka pooja aarati and 12.00 PM (Noon) 6th batch Mahalaya paksha begins, pitru manthra pushpa. paksha begins.

Please bring following items for Continuous archana night at 10.15 Monday September 19th: Sri mahalaya amavasya pitru paksha PM, sukh karta dukh hartha aarati, Sankata hara chathurthi evening tarpanas: rice, dhall, jagerry, beetel jai jagadeesha hare aarati for at 5.00 PM Sri Lakshmi Ganapathi leaves 4 nos, beetle nuts 2 nos, balaji ekantha seva temple closes. homa / Sri Lakshmi Ganapathi black sesame seeds (black ellu, nalla nuvulu, black till) fruits, abhisheka, aarati and manthra flowers, and prasadam. pushpa.

Tuesday September 6th: Rishi Panchami.

Saturday October 1st: Navarathri Tuesday September 20th: Sri th begins from Saturday October 1st Wednesday September 7 : Sukla Maha Bharani. th to Monday October 10 daily night sashti night at 8.30 PM Sri Valli st at 8.00 PM, Sri lalitha sahasra Wednesday September 21 : deva sena sametha, Sri Kritika vratha evening at 6.30 PM, nama archana by devottees.

Subramanya sahasra nama Sri Valli deva sena sametha, Sri archana aarati and manthra Monday September 5 : Labor day weekend timings, Ganesh Chathurthi - Vinayka Chathurthi festival, temple opens at morning 7.00 AM, Sri Venkateswara Suprabhatam.

th

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August 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 81

On Inglish

A Thug Among Us

By Kalpana Mohan

thug noun. a violent person, especially a criminal. a member of a religious organization of robbers and assassins in India. Thugs waylaid and strangled their victims, usually travelers, in a ritually prescribed manner. They were suppressed by the British in the 1830s.

O

n my neighbor’s driveway, several men were sawing enormous wooden boards in the midday sun. One of them sported a baggy red t-shirt over a sub-zero refrigerator frame. His black hair was swept away from his forehead and pulled back in a long pony-tail. The mustache and beard on his round and large face added to the menacing stance of a don’s sidekick. He looked like a thug.

The word “thug” has its origin in the Hindi and Urdu thag.

It means, literally, “thief ” and is believed to have derived from the Sanskrit verb sthagati meaning “to hide or conceal.” While “thug” suggests brute force, in recent times, it has taken on the broader meaning of “ruffian,” implying the sociopathic swagger of someone who manipulates others to his end. In 2016, I noticed how the word “thug” has been bandied around a lot in the media.

For instance, Donald Trump, one of the two aspiring to the highest office in the United States has been called “a thug” by many publications. The New Yorker called him “a ham-fisted thug.” As if “thug” was not in itself a pejorative term, the adjective further qualified what manner of thug he may be: incompetent, bumbling, and maladroit.

In the mid 19th century, thuggee (thagi) was a form of brigandage native to India. This band of thieves befriended wayfarers and offered to share a journey with them. These thuggees were so skilled in deception that they quickly earned the confidence of the wary travelers and then, when the time was right, they garroted, robbed, and buried them.

From 1829 to 1841, after sixty mutilated corpses were discovered in wells and ditches scattered along the highway of the turbulent frontier district of Etawah, the East India Company ran the Anti-Thuggee Campaign (ATC) for over a decade. It commissioned William Sleeman, a soldier turned magistrate, to head a campaign to rid the country of these bandits. By 1836, Sleeman had captured and tried a total of 3,266 thags out of which several hundred more were in prison awaiting trial and 1,400 were either hanged in the company gallows or transported for life to the Andamans. A judge who presided over a major trial of these alleged thuggees was appalled by their depravity: “In all my experience in the judicial line for upwards of twenty years I have never heard of such atrocities or presided over such trials, such cold-blooded murder, such heart-rending scenes of distress and misery, a such base ingratitude, such total abandonment of every principle which binds man to man, which softens the heart and elevates mankind above the brute creation.”

82 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | September 2016

The Anti-Thuggee Campaign brought order to northwestern parts of India. It also served another purpose—to justify rule under the British crown. In his paper “Thuggee, marginality and the state effect in colonial India,” Tom Lloyd of the University of Edinburgh implies that the ATC furthered Britain’s strategies for assuming colonial sovereignty: “Through this policing, this defining and controlling, they characterized (and indeed caricatured) not only those individuals who would henceforth be considered non-subjects to which the ordinary procedures of British administration could not apply—dacoits and thugs—but also those who would be afforded protection of its laws, the supposed benefits of the rule imagined and enforced by this exception.” As the trials wore on, many miscreants were locked up in prison—mendicants, highway robbers, hermits, gamblers, child-traffickers—adding to the vagueness of the Anti-Thuggee legislation. It became unclear as to who were in fact the most depraved of all the thugs.

Two hundred years later, even in these United States, thuggery continues to manifest itself in different ways even among people born into the best circumstances in life. “Once a thug, always a thug,” was the title of an April 2016 Salon magazine article discussing Donald Trump’s lack of restraint and deliberation.

In an election year rapidly devolving into vitriol, one man uncoiled the worst fears in others in the nation. For me, the words in the preamble to the United States Constitution elucidated what we owed future generations: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

We owed ourselves and our descendants people in office who were upright, well-intentioned and introspective, men and women who would not suggest or resort to thuggery to drive an agenda. I was saddened by the new normal in the nation that I now called home. The coarseness in public. The disrespect for another human being and for the office of the President itself.

Decency was no more a virtue or an ideal—even for those aspiring for the loftiest office of these Untied States.n

Kalpana Mohan writes from California’s Silicon Valley. To read more about her, go to http://kalpanamohan.com.

September 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 83

84 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | September 2016

September 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 85

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healthy life

Mitigating the Risk of Heart Disease For South Asians living in America

By Prakash Narayan

A

t the outset I should mention that I am a software engineer, far removed from the medical profession. Recently I was at a FinTech (Financial Technology) conference in San Jose, where the panelists were talking about the importance of KYC (Know Your Customer). They were lamenting on how hard it is to get reliable data about customers. Since this conference was packed with back-to-back sessions, the only way for the audience to participate was on Twitter – using the hash tag NBSV16. My tweet, “For customer acquisition, I think the panelists are missing a key point: incentives – people are willing to provide data in exchange for them”, resonated well with others (judging from the number of “retweets” and “favorites” that it received).

It was one such incentive that led me to respond to a request from UCSF six years ago to participate in a study on factors leading to heart disease in South Asians. The incentive provided in the email (that called for volunteers to the study) was that they would conduct tests to determine CAC (Coronary Artery Calcium) levels. They went on to say even though monitoring CAC periodically could significantly reduce the risk to heart disease, this is not covered by insurance in normal “Well Care” checks.

I met Alka Kanaya, Professor of Medicine at UCSF, on a beautiful Saturday morning in May 2011 (a weekend

was the only time I had available for a 3-4 hr. appointment). I remember being impressed with how thorough they were in their questionnaire—asking me questions ranging from my food habits, to exercise routine to social life. They even probed my participation in online social networks and my awareness of the physical activities among my friends.

Kanaya completed follow up tests in Nov. 2015—which allowed her to compare against the baseline. In May 2016, she went on a “road show” around the various cities in the Bay Area to present her findings at the conclusion of Phase 1 of her study.

I attended the presentation in the Milpitas library. The study (called MASALA – acronym for Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America) was funded by the NIH and had a total of 906 participants from the Bay Area and Chicago. The motivation for conducting the study is that while heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, South Asians account for greater than half of the

world’s cardiac patients. In fact, South Asian immigrants to the United States have higher death rates to heart disease than any other major ethnic group, and we don’t know why. One theory is the “Thrifty gene hypothesis” proposed by James V. Neel, a geneticist, in 1962. According to this, South Asian genes are programmed for famine. So when we switch over to Western-styled diet, the number of calories we consume increases—which, in turn, increases chances of heart ailments.

Our ancestors had the perfect solution for maintaining a stable diet – fasts, whether it is for “Ekadashi”, Lent or Ramzan.

Most of us are aware that the major risk factors to heart disease are high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, physical inactivity, poor diet, obesity and stress. The father of modern medicine, Hippocrates, said in 400 BC, “Let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food.” We are reminded often that our health is largely in our control. The choices that we make everyday can lead to vibrant health or to a never-ending struggle with

For every one person increase in the number of:

Participant’s exercise changes by:

People in your network that exercise daily People in your network that never exercise People in your network that you exercise with

UP 54 MET minutes / week DOWN 276 MET Minutes / week UP 518 MET Minutes / week

88 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | September 2016

Prakash Narayan is a Software Engineer living in Fremont. His Twitter handle is @ kpn320.

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diseases and conditions. While we purportedly know all of this, Kanaya’s study attempts to comprehensively understand why South Asians have increased propensity to heart disease and how it can be prevented.

It is not possible to do justice to all the findings from her study in this article. You are encouraged to visit their website http:// www.masalastudy.org for more information.

There is sufficient data compiled on Caucasians, African Americans, Latinos and Chinese—with sample sizes in the thousands. This allows for portals that provide a risk assessment of Cardiovascular Disease for people of those ethnicities based on answers to a few simple questions. Dr. Kanaya’s study is a step in this direction for South Asians. Hopefully, at the conclusion of Phase 2 of her study (which has been approved by the NIH), we will have similar engines and risk models for South Asians as well.

One interesting preliminary finding from this study is to understand how social relationships and community involvement affect cardiovascular health. The average network size (defined as people, outside work, that you interact with multiple times a week) for South Asians is 6.

Of this, 70% is kin. The conclusion of the study is in the chart.

Certainly, exercising with another person is more effective than doing it alone.

The MASALA study has only scratched the surface in helping us understand how South Asians can prevent heart disease. n

n Latest news n Exclusive content n Behind the scene photos Image Source: Adobe Stock. All rights on image belong to Adobe

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dear doctor

Dealing With Shame and Loneliness

By Alzak Amlani

Q

I am a 43-year-old man trying to make a change in my career. My brother and some of my friends are successful professionals. I am a slow starter and haven’t had the best of luck getting my new career going. Recently I applied for a new position in a company, but didn’t get it. I knew some of the other employees and found their goals and vision to exactly match what I was looking for.

I was very anxious while attending the interview and then when I didn’t get the position, I felt like a failure. I woke up with dreams of being in some rural area and I felt as if my tribe had moved on without me. I felt very sad.

I don’t know how to deal with these feelings of shame and loneliness.

A

The new position did indeed mean a lot to you, and it seems to have symbolized some deep needs for you. Having friends and relatives who are doing well in their professions can be in-

spiring and burdensome. Most of us start comparing ourselves to others and end up in a kind of trap. If you come out on top, you feel afraid that you’ll lose your edge soon. If you are not doing as well, you feel like a loser and criticize yourself a lot. It’s easy to use work to bolster one’s sense of self. Without this, one might feel empty, worthless and lost. Do you identify with any of these conditions or feelings?

Your dreams are relevant. I am glad you’re writing about them here. Historically, humans have lived and worked in groups. Whether gathering, growing, hunting or cooking food, building homes or raising children, it was all done within a community setting. This was quite intimate and at times people desperately needed each other to survive and raise families. Is there a hunger in you to have a tight-knit community or family? If so, you might want to make that a priority in

90 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | September 2016

your life. This is not easy, as people are so mobile today, and more individualistic and less group-oriented. You may need to seek connection in other parts of your life. You can try to foster a closer relationship with family, with a spiritual group, by playing a sport, or by pursuing volunteer opportunities. This way, you can get out of a competitive setting and enter a meaningful or playful one. It might take away the pressure and with that, the anxiety and loneliness will slowly disappear. This kind of meaningful engagement can also put your career interests in perspective.n

Alzak Amlani, Ph.D., is a counseling psychologist of Indian descent in the Bay Area. 650-325-8393. Visit www.wholenesstherapy.com

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the last word

We Will Always Have Bhopal

By Sarita Sarvate

A

lect. He tells me he has been searching for me mainly to verify my n email pops into my inbox. I open it idly, thinking it’s welfare, and that he has no ulterior motives. probably a reader. At first, I can’t place the person at all.

For a moment, I consider what could have been.

But like a photograph that slowly takes shape when But much to my surprise, I discover that at a you insert the print into the hypo solution, a memory certain stage in life, could- have- beens lose stirs. A face, a figure, a voice appears, haunting and their meaning. It couldn’t-have-been is melancholy. It triggers a yearning so powerful all one can think of. It wouldn’t have that nothing can quench it. It is as if the mesI want someone to have been possible for us to meet in colsenger has held up an antique mirror, and the kind of feeling he has lege, I realize. For I grew up in Mapeering into its half-opaque surface, I have seen myself across the decades—a young, for me. Can we call it love? Ro- harashtra, he in Madhya Pradesh.

I was a science student, he studied slim, bony woman with eyes so big, they mance? A crush? Lust? I don’t business, economics, and law. If I dare to see outsized dreams. had not moved to Bhopal after my Perusing the message, tears stream think so. The feeling remains as marriage, our paths would never down my face. From my window, I gaze bewideringly indefinable, un- have crossed. forlornly at the white, translucent, proAfter so many decades, he prolonged twilight of the Nordic night. I am labeled, and esoteric as poses speaking on Facetime. I hesitate. in Iceland at the moment, where, in the sumever.

I have never liked Facetime anyway, I am mertime, darkness never comes—and I long for the not sure why. When it stopped working on my distant past. The surreal light, the purple and orange sky, phone, I thought—“Good riddance.” Besides, it seems the glow of that magical hour, makes me want to grab on to that to be a very intimate way of reconnecting with someone. Am I bygone image and never let go of it. I see the messenger in the up to it? Would such an interaction destroy what we had before? mirror too—a tall, dark man with dreamy eyes who would listen We could be friends of course. But what kind of friends? I to old songs sung by Mukesh with me, seeking a life unlived. cannot envision going to visit his family in India. Nor can I imagThere is something about the construction of his missive, the ine us meeting in America where his daughters live. It seems to phrasing of the idiom, and the tone of the sentences. The writer be a complicated situation. has said more with less—he has kept the heart of the matter And yet I want someone like this man in my corner. I want unsaid, he has conveyed deep meaning through ordinary words. someone to have the kind of feeling he has for me. Can we call The man who wrote the message has been searching for me it love? Romance? A crush? Lust? I don’t think so. The feeling for decades, it turns out. We only knew one another for a couple remains as bewilderingly indefinable, unlabeled, and esoteric as of years in Bhopal, but the connection has left upon both of us a ever. powerful imprint. I was married at the time, and so was he. His Quantum mechanics predicts the existence of parallel universformal role in my life was nothing more than that of a family es in which dinosaurs didn’t become extinct or Germany won the friend. The feelings we had for one another were never expressed, Second World War. Is it possible then that he and I are together nor were they acted upon. We simply lived the life of the soul, in some parallel universe? That instead of being separated by the unrequited, unfulfilled, unvalidated, marveling that such a feeling distance of decades and oceans, we are living as soul mates in could even exist. That two people could be in such harmony with some distant galaxy? one another.

Perhaps. But does it really matter?

What we felt was not some youthful infatuation; it was a What matters, I realize, is this indescribable feeling, this life of recognition that had we met at another time and place, we could the soul, and this intensely deep capacity for human connection. have had a lasting relationship.

And the fact that we will always have Bhopal. n But it was not to be.

So looking out through my bedroom window at the green hills bathed in the ethereal light of an Icelandic summer evening, I wonder what to do. I write to him, mainly to confirm that he is Sarita Sarvate (www.saritasarvate.com) has pubin fact who I think he is. And I thank him for holding the mirror lished commentaries for New America Media, up to me.

KQED FM, San Jose Mercury News, the OakIt turns out that he is one of those rare men who admires my land Tribune, and many nationwide publications. untraditional life choices, my daring, courage, strength, and intel94 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | September 2016

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Happy Labor Day!