India in New York - September 26, 2014

SPECIAL COMMUNITY UPENDRA CHIVUKULA TO QUIT NJ LEGISLATURE DESI-SPOTTING AT CLIMATE MARCH

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VOL. XVIII NO. 14

India in New York A GUIDE TO EVENTS AND ENTERTAINMENT FROM INDIA ABROAD FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

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INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

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Community’s longest-serving lawmaker in New Jersey ready for new job GEORGE JOSEPH

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fter serving in the state assembly since 2002, New Jersey State Representative Upendra Chivukula is moving as Commissioner, Board of Public Utilities.

The board, a quasi-judicial body, is the state agency with authority to oversee the regulated utilities, which in turn provides critical services such as natural gas, electricity, water, telecommunications and cable television. The law requires the board to ensure safe, adequate, and proper utility services at reasonable rates for customers.

“I am moving from the legislative branch to the executive branch,” Chivukula told India in New York. He said he looks forward to the position.

“I take it as a great opportunity, honor and privilege, especially because I am probably one of the first South Asians to be appointed to the Board of Public Utilities,” said Chivukula, who is currently chairman of the Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities Committee.

The five-member board functions almost like a court and each member serves for a six-year staggered term. It is a paid position.

“I’m an engineer, so I think I could bring something to the table,” Chivukula said. “I think there’s a lot of things that need to be done from an energy perspective —hardening the grid, keep rate increases down for payers, creating jobs. Some of our energy infrastructure in this state is 10, 15 years old, and needs to be replaced.”

With Chivukula’s exit, the Indian-American community loses a friend in the legislature.

New Jersey’s Republican Governor Chris Christie has selected him as commissioner from the Democratic Party. Chivukula will appear before the Senate and Assembly Judiciary Committees this week to receive confirmation.

Upendra Chivukula He told India in New York that he does not see any problem for getting the confirmation.

Once confirmed, Chivukula cannot be involved Amid some grumblings now that the board appointment in party politics, which means he has to leave the assembly would be a reward for Chivukula when he should be punished, where his term runs through next year. The Democratic Party sources say most of the players involved want to make it hapcounty leaders will decide the candidate to replace him for the pen in the interest of getting past the hurt feelings around the remaining term. primary, reports said.

Chivukula was not sure if another Indian American will be Chivukula, 64, a native of Andhra Pradesh, came to the chosen to fill up the vacancy in District 17, which comprises United States in 1974 and earned a master’s degree in electriFranklin in Somerset County and Highland Park, Milltown, cal engineering from the City College of New York.

New Brunswick, North Brunswick, and Piscataway in He served as a public member of the New Jersey Board of Middlesex County.

Social Work Examiners from 1994 to 1997. He was elected to It remains to be seen whether the appointment will pass the Franklin Township Council in 1997, deputy mayor in 1998 muster with state Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Nick and mayor in 2000.

Scutari (D-22), a close ally of state Senator Ray Lesniak (DHe was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 20), who was irritated when Chivukula contested the primary 1996, 2000 and 2008, and an alternate delegate in 2004. He for Congress from District 12 with the senator’s old antagowas a presidential elector for New Jersey in 2004. nists, local reports said. Some party leaders too were angry at He and his wife, Dayci, have two children.

Chivukula for contesting for Congress.

Community

New York pitches in for India

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INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

The community's who's who rubs shoulders at the gala for Pratham.

Photographs: Paresh Gandhi

The gala was held at the Museum of Modern Art.

Pratham, which began in 1995 as a UNICEF initiative, is one of the largest non-governmental organizations in India. It focuses on education for the underprivileged, and has 14 chapters in the US.

There was bhangra music and sumptuous food (a choice of lamb, cod or vegetarian) as the gala raised a reported $2 million.

Journalist Fareed Zakaria delivered the keynote address

Actor Manish Dayal (Hundred-Foot Journey) at the event.

Pratham co-founder Madhav Chavan

Community

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INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

Jojo John gets two years in prison for boat accident A CORRESPONDENT

J

Jojo John

ojo John has been sentenced to two years in prison for the boat accident near the Tappan Zee Bridge on the Hudson River in Westchester, New York, which killed two people July 26, 2013.

John, 36, a former Chase Bank official, was charged with vehicular manslaughter and vehicular assault.

Tests determined John had a bloodalcohol level in excess of 0.15 percent at the time of the crash, as well as

Sanjay Gupta to head OFBJP’s medical cell

Dr Sanjay Gupta

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r Sanjay Gupta of New Jersey has been appointed chief of the medical cell of the Overseas Friends of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

“My work will include coordinating medical activities internationally,” Dr Gupta said. “We are committing a sizeable amount to India for prevention strategies.”

Innovation in the health sector is needed both in India and the US, he said, adding, that he is in touch with the Gates Foundation and the Robert Wood

Foundation.

“The US has some of the best medical experts and we would work to disseminate the knowledge worldwide,” said Dr Gupta, president and chief executive officer, Atlantic Pain Institute, and president, American Pain Association.

He also runs a physician social portal with more then 18,000 practicing physicians, is the executive producer of HealthTime TV on ABC Live, and has won numerous professional honors.

cocaine metabolites in his system. He made a plea deal with the prosecution.

Under the plea agreement, John received a year for each friend killed while he piloted his boat drunk. Those will be served concurrently, ordered State Supreme Court Justice William Kelly at Rockland County Court in New City ordered.

John also received one year in jail for violating his probation in an earlier cocaine-possession conviction.

The courtroom was packed with

people of Indian origin.

The accident killed Lindsey Stewart and Mark Lennon, both 30. Stewart and Brian Bond, who was also injured, were set to marry in two weeks. Lennon was to be the best man at their wedding.

John sobbed and apologized to the families of the dead.

‘There are days when I wonder why God took two people and not me,’ he told the parents of Stewart, and Mark’s brother Ray Lennon. ‘Not a day goes by that I wish it had been me that had died, not them. I’m so sorry.’

Bangalore University honors B T Lakshman B angalore University recently conferred an honorary DLitt degree on B T Lakshman, the Delaware-based founder-chairman of the BTL Foundation Trust for Rural Development in India, and the BTL Foundation for International Services, USA. The university recognized Lakshman’s work in establishing a group of educational institutions and in providing subsidized education in rural Karnataka in India.

Lakshman, who studied at Bangalore University and the University of Delaware, has put together an endowment of Rs 15 million (about $250,000) for scholarships to needy, meritorious, students from schools and colleges across the state.

An alumnus of University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering, Lakshman had also donated a sum of Rs 2.5 million ($41,000) to Bangalore University for providing scholarships to those topping each branch of engineering at UVCE. Recognizing the lack of a health-care facility in the Chandrappa circle in Bangalore, Lakshman also started a primary health center there that later grew to a 30-bed community hospital.

B T Lakshman

Community INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

Diwali comes early to Times Square ARTHUR J PAIS PHOTOGRAPHS: PARESH GANDHI

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n what is becoming an annual tradition, hundreds of desis and their friends flocked to Times Square to mark the first of the major Diwali celebrations in New York City. The Saturday evening event had dances and cultural activities featuring not only local talent but also folk and religious groups from Maharashtra. The events were organized by the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation.

“Who would imagined that we will have this kind of celebration in the middle of the city?” said Rakesh Kumar, a student at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. “And soon we hope the state will have a holiday for Diwali and the government will issue a Diwali stamp.”

An elderly man, who was attending the event with his son and three young grandchildren, said many Hindu kids were afraid or shy of their heritage and religion, but when they see their festivals being marked in the open in busy places in the city, they will feel empowered to embrace openly their heritage.

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Snapshots from the Diwali at Times Square event

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Community

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INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

Diwali comes early to Times Square

Actors Aditya Roy Kapoor and Parineeti Chopra

f PAGE 5 “It is the question of belonging here,” he added.

The Diwali at Times Square event was attended by India’s Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, India’s Consul General in New York Dnyaneshwar Mulay, and United States Representative Joseph Crowley.

Actors Aditya Roy Kapur and Parineeti Chopra were also there, promoting their new film Daawat-e-Ishq.

Last year, actor Ranbir Kapoor came to the event; he was then promoting his film, Besharam.

Crowley, the Democrat from Queens. said the festival of Diwali symbolizes “enlightenment over ignorance” and brings people of different races and ethnicities together.

There are a large number of Sikhs in Crowley’s district who have been urging him to speak on the recent spate of attacks on Sikhs in the area. “They are under great duress recently in the US and we have to do more to enlighten our American people as to what the Sikh community is really about,” he added.

Crowley, co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans, introduced three years ago a resolution in

Congressman Joe Crowley gets into the spirit of things the House of Representatives to recognize Diwali. Three years ago he led a much applauded and appreciated effort to mark Diwali in Congress, saying it was a festival marked by more than 3 million Hindus, Sikhs and Jains in America.

“I am proud to introduce a resolution in celebration of Diwali, a holiday of great significance to millions of Indian Americans and Indians around the world,” he said. “As the representative of one of the largest Indian-American communities in the US, it is an honor to celebrate Diwali with my constituents, as well as those of Indian descent around the world.”

There were booths, and Indian martial art displays too

Diwali events around New York to look out for

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he Arsha Vidya Gurukulam in the Poconos, the Ananda Ashram in Monroe, upstate New York, and the Vivekananda Society in New York host special programs for Diwali.

Diwali celebrations are held by Hindus from Trinidad and Guyana in

the Liberty Avenue section of Queens, home to over 10,000 immigrants from the Caribbean.

The large Sikh community in Queens will also welcome Diwali with prayers, langar (community kitchen) and celebrations.

The Princeton Diwali will be held at the univer-

sity’s historic chapel (started by the university’s Hindu Chaplain Vivek Chander six years ago), besides the celebrations at Cornell, and Rutgers.

The largest Diwali celebration will undoubtedly be the festivities in lower Manhattan where the Association of Indians in America, which pioneered the public celebration of the festival of lights over two decades ago, will host the Diwali Mela at South Street Seaport, October 14.

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Community Special

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INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

PARESH GANDHI

Just before Chaumtoli Huq was arrested, she and her family had attended a pro-Palestine demonstration.

YOU ARE NOT EQUAL IN THE EYE OF THE LAW ENFORCER

Last month, human rights lawyer Chaumtoli Huq was arrested while she waited for her family at Times Square. Chaya Babu finds that the case was not so random after all.

“T

his fight speaks to them,” Chaumtoli Huq said of fellow South Asians and Muslim Americans. “And it speaks to them in terms of it being a fight that maybe they couldn’t fight, and experience with police that they felt like they just had to kind of endure and move on from. It’s almost like giving them a voice for that.”

Huq, 42, a Muslim woman of Bangladeshi descent, was speaking from Dhaka, where she is working on a research fellowship to investigate human rights abuses against garment workers there.

Her last day in her position at the office of Public Advocate Letitia James was July 18, a day before her now widely publicized arrest by the New York Police Department.

Huq, a prominent human rights lawyer, filed a civil rights lawsuit two weeks ago in Manhattan Federal Court against the City of New York for racial profiling. She was arrested July 19 afternoon,

while standing on a sidewalk at Times Square. NYPD officers told her to move, and then pushed her against a wall and handcuffed her.

According to the complaint, she was not blocking the sidewalk, impeding pedestrian traffic, or engaging in unlawful behavior. She was dressed in a kurta and wearing a gold nose stud while standing outside a Ruby Tuesday waiting for her husband and kids to use the bathroom when she was seized, detained, and arrested.

“It was a typical day,” Huq recalled, mentioning the lunch bag she was holding to take to her family’s picnic in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, their next stop.

“And so to go from there to then being arrested and in jail was completely unpredictable.”

The complaint states that she was deprived of her constitutional rights and that her ‘arrest is characteristic of a pattern and practice of the NYPD in aggressive overpolicing of people of color and persons lawfully exer-

Chaumtoli Huq

‘The NYPD treats people the way they treated Chaumtoli every day’

cising their First Amendment rights’ and ‘based on perceptions of her race, gender, religion, and political affiliation, and not on violation of law’.

Huq was charged with obstructing governmental administration, resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct; the complaint says that the officers’ unfounded actions ‘were carried out intentionally, recklessly, and with malice and gross disregard for plaintiff ’s rights.’

She and her husband and two kids had just left a pro-Palestine rally. It was wholly unexpected to be rammed against the wall, the complaint noted, have her arms twisted upward while she was getting handcuffed behind her back, and hear Officer Lathrop tell her ‘Shut your mouth,’ ‘You’re my prisoner,’ and, upon learning later that her last name is different from her husband’s, ‘In America, wives take the names of their husbands’.

Huq was also separated from her family and held in custody for nine hours — while fasting for

Ramadan — at the Midtown South Precinct until she was arraigned and charged.

The arrest took a deep physical, psychological, and emotional toll, her speech and sleep suffering and friends needing to remind her that her exhaustion and weariness are the impact of real trauma.

“I

still feel that it’s surreal; I can’t even believe I’m in this moment,” she said.

“Reading about it was very traumatic. Looking at the pictures of me being arrested so publicly is very humiliating and embarrassing… I’m still kind of dealing with that. But I think that what gives me strength is the messages (of support she has received). Not that they’re happy this happened to me, but better it happened to a lawyer who can fight than a youth of color who’s the typical, statistically most likely person to be overpoliced.”

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Community Special

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INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

YOU ARE NOT EQUAL IN THE EYE OF THE LAW ENFORCER Activist and writer Deepa Iyer, who has known Huq since the late 1990s, provided a larger picture of policing of certain communities.

“For the past 13 years, we’ve seen a range of different types of bias and discrimination against South Asians, Muslims, Sikhs, Arabs and anyone perceived to be from those communities,” Iyer said.

“So that would include hate violence, profiling at the airport, bullying in the classroom, but it also includes government action. One of the types of government action we’ve seen is surveillance and policing of people who are brown; and in particular, in New York City, we’ve seen that with the police departments in terms of their surveillance of Muslim communities, specifically in certain mosques, students’ associations, and even some restaurants where Muslim’s congregate…”

“It’s important that folks know that it’s not a random incident, it’s not a one-off incident, but that it’s really part of a pattern of bias and disc treatment of these communities, which include law enforcement being perpetrators as well,” Iyer added.

Iyer is former director of South Asian Americans Leading Together, which released a report just this month titled ‘Under Suspicion, Under Attack.’ It details the way that hate violence, xenophobic rhetoric, and continued racial profiling contribute to what has been an increasingly hostile climate in the post-9/11 era for the South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Arab, Middle Eastern communities.

Current SAALT Director Suman Raghunathan said, “We know that, particularly when we look at harassment on the part of law enforcement as well as individuals in general targeting our community, the vast majority of incidents — especially when they don’t involve people of the frankly public stature that Chaumtoli has — go unreported.”

Raghunath went on to point out that, more specifically, racial profiling aimed at low-wage South Asian workers and individuals who are sometimes undocumented runs rampant. This is based on anecdotal evidence as well some participatory research conducted by DRUM (Desis Rising Up and Moving), one of SAALT’s partner organizations in New York.

The DRUM Report, ‘In Our Own Words: Narratives of South Asian New Yorkers Affected by Racial and Religious Profiling,’ includes accounts taken from 115 reported interactions with the NYPD, 96 reported interactions with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and 40 reported interactions with the Federal Bureau of Investigation since September 11, 2001 — all without cause.

2002: A 60-year-old Pakistani restaurant worker is arrested after a work shift, subjected to five nights of questioning about the planning of the World Trade Center attacks, and then locked up in a detention center for six months after refusing to spy on his community.

2009: An 18-year-old Indian Hindu high school senior is arrested by a School Safety Agent, searched and questioned; his family thinks he is a criminal because they believe the government over their son, and his shame caused him to fail that marking period.

The Ruby Tuesday outside which Chaumtoli Huq was arrested. Her lawyer said they were looking for ‘a settlement agreement with the city where they agree to institute some new trainings for at least the precincts in question’.

2010: A 23-year-old Sikh man starts getting heckled at a movie theater with friends by strangers calling them Osama bin Laden; when the cinema staff contacted the NYPD, the turbaned men — not their harassers — were escorted out and detained by 12 cops and three undercover detectives.

In 2011, the 115th Precinct in Jackson Heights, Queens, a hub of vibrant South Asian life, had the third highest number of stop-and-frisks in New York City.

These communities have internalized their fear of being stopped on the street, while driving, at the airport. Huq said that while nothing even close to the July 19 event has ever happened to her, the years since 9/11 have created the expectation of being ‘randomly’ selected for additional searches at security checkpoints — it becomes a part of one’s psyche, and it erodes one’s sense of self.

Huq also discussed the implications on families, including her own. She said the NYPD’s disrespect for her family that day shows the lack of humanity granted to immigrants and people of color in the US.

“B

eing separated from my family, and the ease with which (Officer Lathrop) did that without any regard, and his later comment when I was in the cell and he was asking me, three times, if I was married, and that’s when he made that ‘in America wives have the same (last) name as their husbands,’ because my husband’s last name is different… all of these assumptions about my family, it almost felt like my family wasn’t legitimate,” she said. “How does injustice work? If I don’t see you as a person, a human being worthy of dignity, then I can do anything, right?”

She drew broad strokes through American history, making a distant connection between black women being separated from their children during slavery and the current situation where deportations break families apart.

“To understand some of these things, we can’t look at them in isolation,” she said.

Still, Huq said she feels like she has the strength to move forward. The photo of her being shoved up against the door of a cop car by multiple officers has her looking serene, not angry, scared, or agitated.

“I was thinking, ‘Why is this happening?’” she recalled.

PARESH GANDHI

f PAGE 8

“And because Ramadan is a reflective time for Muslim Americans — and this may sound overly spiritual — but I remember having this heart dialog, saying, ‘This is happening, there’s nothing I can do in this moment, what’s my purpose here?’”

Though her activism and work as a human rights lawyer does not inoculate her from the hurt of injustice, Huq is in a unique position to make her story heard and, as much as possible, represent the many more voices just like hers who have been silenced because of fear.

Rebecca Heinegg, Huq’s attorney, said the lawsuit is in its very preliminary stages and that the city has 21 days to respond but she expects they will request more time. She mentioned the recent Floyd versus City of New York, filed by several civil rights groups, in which the District Court found that the NYPD engages in a systemic practice of racial profiling and ordered that some reforms take place and that some oversight be instituted. These changes are yet to be fully implemented, but the lawsuit itself was seven years in the making, she pointed out.

“Change, when it comes, is hard and slow – every little bit does help but it’s important to be able to pay attention to what’s going on, that this is just so common,” Heinegg said. “The NYPD treats people the way they treated Chaumtoli every day.” Iyer was hopeful that Huq has a strong case that can serve as incentive for shaping policy. It has already garnered outrage in the media and from the public.

“This case in and of itself is not going to change the way the NYPD operates,” Heinegg said. “I don’t think either I or my client expect that. But it is possible to reach a settlement agreement with the city where they agree to institute some new trainings for at least the precincts in question.”

New York City Council Member Jumaane D Williams said Huq’s case didn’t surprise him.

“We have an issue with race and class in how we police,” Williams said. “I know that there’s been some admission, but we need to go a little bit further. We need to be honest and have an honest discussion about it. We’ve had some reforms, and we definitely need more, but we’ve got to keep talking about it… if we don’t fix the root causes, we’re always going to fall back into these patterns.”

Cover Story

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BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES

INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

Modi Live @ Madison Square Garden

Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Madisaon Square Garden

Organizers of the community reception for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are leaving no stone unturned to make the event a grand success.

Aziz Haniffa reports

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he organizers of the community reception for Indian Prime Ministare Narendra Modi, to be held at the famed Madison Square Garden in New York City September 28, have created a special rotating stage for him that will move every 15 minutes.

“We wanted to make sure,” Dr Bharat Barai, the key coordinator of the event, told India Abroad, “that he will face all the people at some point of time while he is making his remarks. This is an extra expense, but we decided that we don’t want anybody to be behind him all the time. So we are creating a special 6-foot-diameter stage. His podium will be on this diameter stage, which will be rotating.”

Dr Barai said for security reasons he could not confirm whether Modi would be in an glass-enclosed bulletproof stage, but acknowledged that security would be tight as is normal for any visiting foreign leader, and that Modi was being accorded full Secret Service protection. Each ticket holder would have to go through a magnetometer and any other search deemed necessary by the Secret Service.

Dr Barai denied earlier reports that cell phones and cash would be disallowed. Inside the arena, cell phones will have to be turned off or put on vibrate as “is usual even if you go to a movie theater,” he said.

He advised men not to bring anything besides their cell phones; no bags will be permitted.

“And for women, please inform them that they bring only a small clutch purse, which can accommodate their cell

TORU HANAI/REUTERS

phone and personal items — nothing beyond that,” he added.

Since there will be a fair number of US lawmakers, deans of leading universities like Harvard and Columbia and personalities from the worlds of art, culture, politics, medicine, science, technology — who may not be Indian American — Dr Barai said, “We have made a request to the prime minister to say something in English.”

“We have already made arrangements for simultaneous English translations and 500 people, including the Congressmen and Senators, will have headphones. But we can’t do it for everybody because of the technical limitations. So, just like the United Nations, they (the dignitaries) will be able to hear his speech on the headphones in English simultaneously. Number two, there will be live English subtitles on the MSG 360-degree screen.”

Dr Barai confirmed that agreements had been reached with the Times Square Alliance “and his speech will be beamed live at Times Square from 11.30 am to 1.30 pm, and that will be with English subtitles too. We will also announce shortly on our Web site which radio station they can tune into. So either they could dial a telephone number or they can hear it on a particular radio station.

Or, there will be an application and they can even see the whole program live on their smart phone. So, in a sense, anyone anywhere in the world who wants to listen to the speech by the prime minister, has an opportunity to do so.”

“So people in the New York area who did not get a ticket, please go to Times Square and it will be on the third Fox TV screen.”

All these arrangements, he said, had been made keeping in mind the limited seating available at the MSG. Dr Barai said only at the start of the program “will the Congressmen and Senators share the stage with the prime minister during the singing of the national anthems of both countries.”

Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadive’s daughter Anjali Ranadive will sing the US national anthem.

“She was not selected because of her father. We selected her based on her merits as someone who has performed at the start of NFL games and other events,” Barai said.

Dr Barai confirmed that Miss America Nina Davuluri,

Men are advised not to bring anything besides their cell phones; no bags will be permitted. Women are advised to bring only a small clutch purse.

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INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

‘A once in a lifetime event’

Dr Bharat Barai and his wife Dr Panna Barai with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, May 21.

you received that impression?

Very much so. We have many young people who are volunteering, and even more who have registered to attend.

Can you kindly share a few anecdotes on your long relationship with the prime minister? How and when did you meet him? How has the friendship blossomed over the years?

I think trips down memory lane, no matter how pleasant, are a distraction in the light of the history-making we are to witness. So many people, of every walk of life, every background, age and gender are coming together in a way like never before, and this is because of the immense popularity of Modi.

The logistics of organizing a show, like the afternoon dedicated to Modi, are huge and require substantial finance.

How are you arranging that?

We are humbled by the show of support from the community; so many have come forward to support the Indian American Community Foundation, which has taken the financial responsibility of this entire program.

And we literally have a small army of dedicated, bright, and tech-savvy volunteers of all ages who have stepped up to the occasion to ensure that the program is a success.

What expectations does the IndianAmerican community have from the prime minister?

I cannot imagine that they are any different than what Indians in India expect — a strong and selfless leader who is going to take India forward on an agenda of good governance, inclusive and sustainable development, and security for all.

What kind of impact will the Madison Square Garden event have on US-India bilateral relations?

An audience of 18,000 — most of whom are also constituents for lawmakers, traveling from far and wide to welcome India’s prime minister — is a powerful symbol for American leaders of the hopes and expectations Indian Americans have for a strong and growing Indo-US relations.

What has been the most difficult aspect of organizing such an enormous event?

Saying no. There is so much enthusiasm to come, to help, to learn, and we are just not able to accommodate everyone in this short amount of time.

How do you think the event will be remembered?

It promises to leave a lasting memory for everyone in attendance — as a once-in-a-lifetime event.

What kind of political and cultural message will emanate from this event?

That while Indian Americans have made America their home and contributed significantly to nearly every field — art, architecture, academia, business, medicine, public service, science, technology — India and her ancient wisdom, her traditions, and her pluralist ethos, live on in our hearts.

Dr Bharat Barai, an old friend of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and president of the newly set-up Indian American Community Foundation which is organizing Modi’s mega public interaction in New York September 28, spoke exclusively to Sheela Bhatt about the “once-in-a-lifetime” event.

What inspired you to help organize such a mega event at the Madison Square Garden? What was the vision of the organizers behind the event?

I am honored to have an opportunity to show our fellow Americans and our friends and family back in India, that Indian Americans too are filled with hope for stronger relations between our countries.

A historic reception of this size is an extraordinary statement for the broad appeal of such a dynamic, action-oriented, people-first leader.

Was it difficult to convince Prime Minister Narendra Modi to allot time to address the community from this venue and in this manner?

The prime minister has the trust of not only of Indians in India, but that of so many Non-Resident Indians and People of Indian Origin who believe in the promise of his leadership in India.

An opportunity to speak to such a diverse representation of our community, at an unprecedented scale abroad, is a

historic moment.

How has the response of the Indian-American community been?

Positive, full of excitement, and absolutely overwhelming.

Is the show already sold out?

There are more people registered than there are seats available.

Is it true that many Modi fans are ready to pay hefty sums just to shake hands with their icon?

This is a free event. There are many believers in Modi’s leadership who have made it possible so that everyone in our community has an opportunity to attend this program without any charge.

This is a celebration — a welcome — of not only the prime minister by the Indian-American community, but an important moment to strengthen friendship between India and America.

Is the younger generation in the Indian-American community also interested in this special event? If so, how have

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INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

AZIZ HANIFFA

N

MODI

Narendra Modi

ew York Mayor Bill de Blasio will be the first elected American official to meet with India’s new Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he arrives in the United States September 26 afternoon to attend the United Nations General Assembly sessions in the Big Apple.

After two-and-a-half days in New York, Modi will fly down to Washington, DC, for his summit with President Barack Obama at the White House.

After India’s Ambassador to the US Dr S Jaishankar and India’s Ambassador to the United Nations Asoke Mukerji receive Modi at the John F Kennedy International Airport, and he is whisked away by motorcade to the New York Palace Hotel in Manhattan, Blasio will pay a welcoming courtesy call on him.

That evening, Nobel Laureate Harold Eliot Varmus, director, National Cancer Institute, who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine along with J Michael Bishop in 1989 for their discovery of the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes, will call on the Indian prime minister.

September 27 morning, Modi will visit Ground Zero and the 9/11 Memorial Museum recently opened to honor the victims of the worst terrorist attacks in the history of the United States.

He will then proceed to the United Nations to deliver his remarks to the United Nations General Assembly.

After that Modi will engage in some bilateral meetings, including with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, and possibly Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But Modi is unlikely to meet with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

In the afternoon, former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg wikll call on him at his hotel suite.

Discussions are likely to focus on one of the billionaire Bloomberg’s pet project of ‘smart cities,’ which Modi is very much interested in and wants to replicate in India.

The prime minister will then proceed around 6 pm to the Great Lawn in Central Park to participate in the Global Citizen Festival where he will speak along with several other heads of state. A starstudded line-up of musicians and celebrity hosts wuill also be there, including Hugh Jackman, Jessica Alba, Jay Z, No Doubt, Carrie Underwood, The Roots, and Tiesto.

The event will call for accelerated progress in poverty alleviation, health care, and sanitation for millions

MEANS BUSINESS

TORU HANAI/REUTERS

Nikki Haley

Indra Nooyi

Ajay Banga

JONATHAN ERNST/REUTERS

RUBEN SPRICH/REUTERS

around the world.

Modi, who is slated to speak for a few minutes, apparently had wanted very much to be at this event because a lot of the themes being propounded at the Global Citizen Festival were close to his heart in an sync with his own agenda.

After returning to his hotel, Prime Minister Modi will meet with a group of prominent Indian Americans — many of whom have been his ardent supporters over the years —

CHRIS KEANE/REUTERS

led by his close friend Dr Bharat Barai, the point man behind the Madison Square Garden community reception in his honor the next day.

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INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

Modi P will eat nothing

resident Barack Obama and Michelle Obama will host a private dinner for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi Monday, September 29, at the White House. All eyes will be on the body language of the two leaders and how Modi rises above the bitter past where he was

f

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eptember 28 morning, the first woman Governor of South Carolina, Nimrata ‘Nikki’ Randhawa Haley, will call on Prime Minister Modi and once again the discussion will center around Indian investments in South Carolina and reciprocal ventures in India.

No meeting has yet been scheduled with the first Indian-American Governor, Piyush ‘Bobby’ Jindal of Louisiana, who has indicated an interest to run for President in 2016, who apparently had shown no enthusiasm or inclination — like Haley did — to meet with Modi.

The prime minister will then make his way to Madison Square Garden for the community extravaganza in his honor where he is expected to address about 18,000 people from across the country for nearly an hour. His speech will also be beamed at Times Square and Web cast around the world.

At 6 pm September 28, Prime Minister Modi will attend a community reception and dinner hosted in his honor at the Taj-owned The Pierre hotel by Ambassador Jaishankar for more than 300 guests, including several US lawmakers, including the only serving Indian American in the US Congress Dr Amerish ‘Ami’ Bera, and Tulsi Gabbard, the first and only Hindu American in the US House of Representatives.

September 29 meeting will begin with a breakfast meeting with a group of eminent CEOs from Fortune 500 companies, which is likely to include the likes of Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo, Satya Nadella of Microsoft and Ajay Banga of MasterCard.

This will be followed by a meeting with former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton — the most talked about presidential

Modi Live @ Madison Square Garden

denied a US visa by the State Department.

According to sources in the Prime Minister’s Office, Modi will not eat dinner as he will be fasting. He will have only lime juice at the most.

For the last 40 years, Modi, devoted to Ma Amba, fasts during Navratras. He drinks

MODI MEANS BUSINESS

ADNAN ABIDI/REUTERS

candidate for 2016 — after which Modi will deliver a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations. There, he will be introduced by CFR President Richard Haass, who has written extensively on India and South Asia and was a senior State Department and National Security Council official.

Around 2 pm, Prime Minister Modi’s Air India One will make the one-hour flight to the Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. After being received by a senior State Department protocol officer, he will come into DC by motorcade and be put up at Blair House where visiting foreign leaders to Washington, DC are housed.

Modi will then be hosted at a private dinner at the White House by President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.

September 30, the prime minister will make quick visits to the Lincoln Memorial and the

f PAGE 10 whose reign ended September 14, and Hari Sreenivasan, who anchors PBS NewsHour Weekend, would be the emcees.

Dr Barai knocked down allegations that only those who paid big bucks as patron members would occupy the front row seats.

“The first two rows are reserved for invitees,” he said,

lukewarm water and sometime he eats a fruit a day.

He will have a working lunch on Tuesday, September 30, with Vice-President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry at the State Department. Again, he will eat nothing.

— Sheela Bhatt

recently constructed Reverend Martin Luther King Memorial, and then travel down Embassy Row on Massachusetts Avenue, Northwest to the Mahatma Gandhi statue directly opposite the Indian embassy.

He will then meet with embassy officials, who have been preparing assiduously over the past few weeks to coordinate the visit and also spruce up the embassy, which has also put up in the lobby for the first a huge portrait of Swami Vivekananda, one of Modi’s heroes.

The prime minister will then leave for the White House for the formal summit with President Obama in the East Room following a photo-op and brief remarks by both leaders in the Oval Office.

After this meeting that is expected to end a little after noon, Modi will go to the State Department for a luncheon hosted by Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John F Kerry. Besides senior administration officials, some leading US Senators are also expected to be in attendance at this lunch.

After the luncheon expected to end a little after 2 pm., the prime minister and his entourage will go up on Capitol Hill for a tea hosted by House Speaker John Boehner in his office along with the House Congressional leadership.

Modi will then return to downtown DC for his final event in the US, to the US Chamber of Commerce Building on H Street NW, where the US-India Business Council, chaired

by Banga, will welcome him.

Ambassador Susan Esserman, former deputy US trade representative in the Clinton administration, and a senior board member of USIBC, said, “We have never before seen an Indian prime minister’s visit to the United States so heavily business-oriented and so packed with meetings with the US business community.”

“Even the guys who are paying $50,000 or $1,000, they are not sitting right up in front.

Invitees such as Congressmen, Senators, deans of various universities and colleges and leading personalities from the world of arts, culture, and various other fields will be seated in these reserved rows.”

“It’s the embassy who has chosen them,” he added, “It’s behind them that the patron members will be seated, and there are only 700 people out

of 18,000 who belong to that category.”

“It’s my guesstimate that about 30, 40 Congressmen, Senators will attend,” Dr Barai said. He added a caveat, that this depends if they can get away from their constituencies, particularly since they will be campaigning for re-election.

“And you bet, if there are fundraisers organized for them, they are not going to leave that and come to New York,” he said.

New coalition vows to protest at MSG new coalition that calls itself the Alliance for A Justice and Accountability

has announced that it will hold a protest against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi near the Madison Square Garden when he speaks there September 28.

The protest with black flags will start at 9:30 am and will end at 2 pm on 7th Avenue, between 31st and 32nd Street.

The main entrance of the MSG is on 6th Avenue.

The protest, the organizers said in their announcement, will voice concerns about increased communal attacks after Modi came to power and oppose increased privatization that relies on the disenfranchisement of the poor and the marginalized.

By celebrating Narendra Modi, the Alliance claimed, the Indian-American community will disregard the memories of the 2002 Gujarat riot victims.

‘We cannot join the chorus of the blind and shameless praise that Narendra Modi and the BJP has received,’ it said.

Dr Shaik Ubaid, president, Indian Minorities Advocacy Network, dismissed as forced Prime Minister Modi’s statement — made in his CNN interview with Fareed Zakaria — that Indian Muslims are patriotic Indians.

‘Mr Modi was forced to give his very first interview to a US media outlet and try to show that he has reformed,’ Ubaid was quoted as saying, ‘because he carries the stigma of being the first politician whose visa was revoked under the US law barring those who are involved in crimes against humanity.’

Special

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INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

South Asian groups who came out to stand up for environmental justice included Brown & Green, South Asian Americans for Climate Justice, EcoSikh, Bangladesh Environment Network, Chhaya CDC, Adhikaar, Indo-Caribbean Alliance, DRUM, Alliance for a Secular and Democratic South Asia, Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, Association for India’s Development, NYC, and Indian Youth Climate Network.

Voices from the climate march I

Chaya Babu and photographer Paresh Gandhi go desi-spotting at the biggest rally for the environment

n what was billed as the largest ever march of its kind, nearly 350,000 people took to the streets of New York City Sunday, calling for global political action against climate change.

Well-planned and funded, the event shut down large parts of the Manhattan while activists, organizers, community groups, politicians, and average citizens came out to show their participation in and solidarity with the environmental justice movement.

Starting at Columbus Circle, the march had indigenous communities leading, their contingent ‘Frontlines of Crisis, Forefront of Change’ including those most directly impacted by climate change. The desi folks took their spot in this block, loud and proud.

“We’re working to raise the visibility of South Asians as a community that cares about climate change,” said Barnali Ghosh of South Asians for Climate Justice. “We recognize

that we live in a country that’s historically one of the largest polluters and is still one of the most powerful countries in the world and is not taking leadership on climate change. And even as we live here, it is our homelands that are being the most impacted and recognizing that we want to use our power and privilege that we have here, living in the US, to represent the global front line and ask President Obama to take action on climate change. Action, not words… What are we going to do about the fact that we live in America and we’re complicit with the policies that tend to be more capitalistic? There

are first world companies that are going and building mines – basically they’re importing technology that has failed in the US to places like India. What that’s doing is destroying our homes. We want to defend our homes here and we want to defend our homelands. We’re hoping that people are moved by the fact that even as they live here and emit they may not have a homeland to go back to.”

South Asian Americans for Climate Justice joined groups like the Adhikaar, EcoSikh, the Bangladesh Environment Network, and more in the march. Signs held high read ‘decolonize the climate’ and ‘defend our homes, defend our homelands’; bhangra moves pulsed through

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INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

Snapshots from the march.

Voices from the climate march f PAGE 14 the crowd to the beat of the dhol, joined by a trumpet.

South Asian groups also met at a parallel event in San Francisco, and marches popped up in big cities over the weekend in New Delhi, Islamabad, Dhaka, Kathmandu, Colombo, and Malé.

B

andana Kaur, program ambassador of EcoSikh, said Punjab, “our land of five rivers, has no water. We have water shortages in 75 percent of our land, our soils are lacking nutrients, and the biodiversity of Punjab is completely gone… We want to send a strong public message to all governments, the US government included, that we need strong fast action on climate change.”

Alok-Vaid Menon, member of the spoken word duo Darkmatter, saw racial divides in the march.

“I feel like the People’s Climate March was a white, wealthy march, I think that was pretty evident from the fact that the police weren’t on our tails and it was so easy to move around, there was so much press and funding for it, and by no means

was that march there for my people,” Menon said.

“It was totally there to make white liberals feel good about themselves. But I think the South Asian contingent was really different and actually tried to think really politically and conscientiously about how to bring people together from different backgrounds and build meaningful coalitions around environmental justice.”

Vaishali Patil, convener, Forum Against Disastrous Projects in Konkan, saw in India’s march towards ‘development’ death knells for the environment.

“The presence of our prime minister in the UN Summit might have given the message to the world that our new government cares about climate change,” Patil said.

“When people ask me, ‘How is the climate change movement in India?’ I see in each and every corner of the country that people are fighting against a big dam, people are fighting against land acquisition for a nuclear power project, people are fighting against the environmental clearance that’s been giving to mining projects — this is the climate change movement in India. So I feel that this movement is basically of the marginalized section of society…”

“India is third in the world in carbon emissions, but in spite of that, our government is denial. So when the government is in denial, and when there’s a global movement that’s taking place in a historical way, by joining this solidarity action, we want to strengthen our movement.

And I feel a great hope. This really has brought great hope,” Patil added.

Kartikeya Singh, founder, Indian Youth Climate Network, felt India’s haves must take the blame and pick up the tab.

“As the Greenpeace report pointed out in 2009,” Singh said, “there’s a class of Indians that has a very wealthy plush lifestyle in India who are consuming at rates equal to if not above those in the developed world and therefore that class of citizenry could pay for climate change mitigation adaptation. I don’t think that India needs money from the green climate fund. India’s not a poor country; it’s poorly managed.”

Among the marchers were United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, French Sustainable Development Minister Ségolène Royal, Indian anti genetically modified crop activist Vandana Shiva, and former Vice President Al Gore.

“The UN secretary-general’s participation in this march is significantly important,” said Rasel K Rahman, a senior community organizer from Chhaya CDC that participated in the march. “He clearly stands on the people’s side and now the world leaders’ job is to think wisely for the future generations and the Earth.”

Additional reporting: Suman Guha Mozumder

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India in New York September 26, 2014

WATCH LIVE! Community reception for The Honorable Prime Minister of India

Shri Narendra Modi

@ Madison Square Garden, New York September 28, 2014 11.00 am – 1.30 pm EST

Log in: www.rediff.ly/3jrlh

India in New York September 26, 2014

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Bollywood INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

Parineeti Chopra speaks to Patcy N and Sonil Dedhia about being a big foodie, and denies she has any rivavlry with cousin Priyanka

‘I can’t make anything, not even tea’

P

arineeti Chopra’s film Daawat-e-Ishq is all about food. Chopra discusses her gastronomic experiences, and insists she is not competing with her cousin Priyanka Chopra.

Were you on a binging spree when on location in Lucknow?

Oh yes, totally! I am a big foodie. If you keep food in front of me, it is very hard for me not to eat it.

It was crazy shooting the food scenes. Apart from breakfast, lunch and dinner, we had to have food on the sets at any given time. So we were all constantly eating. There were so many retakes and we would end up eating the whole day!

I am a big foodie. If I close my eyes and you give me something, I can tell the flavor and what country the food belongs to.

In this film, we have dealt with Indian food, mainly Hyderabadi and Lucknowi. Every day we had something new to eat.

It takes a whole day to shoot a scene so you are eating the same thing again and again. And, for the sake of continuity, you have to remember which hand you ate with, the number of bites you took.

You go mad and by lunch and dinner time you don’t feel like eating!

Were you familiar with Lucknow since you had also shot Ishaqzaade there?

Yes, I knew the best places to eat. Anupam Kher has lived in Lucknow for years and knew all about the food there. Anupam Sir and I used to order food for Aditya (Roy Kapur, co-star) from a new place every day.

The first day we ordered Tunde ke Kabab. The owner of the restaurant is a good friend of Anupam Sir, so from the next day he started sending us free kebabs (laughs).

Are you a good cook?

I am a very bad cook. I can’t make anything, not even tea. I just don’t enjoy cooking. I don’t have the patience for it. When I reach home, I want the food to be ready.

There were rumors that the release of Daawat-e-Ishq was postponed because you didn’t want to compete with your cousin Priyanka Chopra’s film Mary Kom. That’s absolutely rubbish. The marketing team at Yash Raj Films came up with a brilliant marketing idea and they needed time to execute it, so Adi (Aditya Chopra), who is the producer of the film, decided to postpone the film by two weeks.

When it comes to Priyanka, I have no plans to fight with her or compete with her. She is a senior actress and much ahead of me. I hope Priyanka does well because she has worked so hard for Mary Kom. It’s a very important film for her.

As people, we are different. We are not insecure about each other. If her films work, I am happy and she is happy for me when I fare well in my work.

What is the one thing you want to change about your lifestyle?

I would want to include more hours of sleep. I feel I am always short on sleep.

Do you have a secret crush on a Bollywood actor?

(Laughs) My secret crush is no longer a secret. Everyone knows that I have a huge crush on Saif Ali Khan.

What qualities do you seek in your life partner?

I need a strong man to fall in love with. I also want my man to have a great sense of humor. He should be sensible, mature and I don’t care if he is 20 years older than me.

You speak a very different kind of Hindi in this movie.

You learnt it from Elahe Hiptoola (producer of Nagesh Kukunoor’s films). How difficult was that?

It was not difficult. I love languages. I enjoy understanding how people talk. Even in real life, when people talk differently, I catch it.

Dakhaani (the way Hindi is spoken in Hyderabad) is not difficult to understand. And Elahe is a very good teacher. Everything just gelled.

Anupam Sir plays my father in the film, so we both had to learn Dakhaani. It took me 15 days to learn.

What do you look for in a role?

It has to be something that makes a difference to the story. In many films where the director says this is a typical heroine role, you don’t have to do anything. You just have to look good, dance, and it’s a love story. That doesn’t excite me.

Directors offer me strong roles and characters because they feel I may be able to pull it off.

I don’t want to only run around trees because that is not going to make any difference to my audience.

Normally it’s a hero’s film but when they talk about me they say your character was so awesome, you were so good. That is a great thing for me.

You have to make a statement. You have to impress

your audience.

You never wanted to be an actress.

For years the film industry never affected me. Not even after my sister became an actress. In fact, I would tell her that acting is the easiest job and she would get very angry.

I thought actors wear good clothes, they are so rich, they make so much money, they travel everywhere and they only have to do hair and make-up.

When we watch a film, we see amazing, beautiful things like snowy mountains and the heroine dancing on top. But that is not easy.

If you are on that snowy mountain all day in scanty clothes, dancing within the focus mark and at the same time, you have to think about light, have to act differently for different camera angles and lenses.

It requires learning and understanding technical things. It requires intelligence. I came to know about all this when I was at Yash Raj Films.

Our day starts early in the morning and finishes at midnight. We don’t get time to sleep and we are constantly judged because of what we do. Our films are in your hands and there is a lot of insecurity in this job.

That is why we are paid so much money.

Did you find it difficult?

Yes. My personal life was very important for me, the people I am with, my friends, where I go — all this was very important and it’s gone now. But I am enjoying my profession a lot. I enjoy acting. I have started taking days off. After two months, I want a one day break just to be at home.

I have started scuba diving. There are things that I am doing apart from films, to keep me normal, otherwise emotionally it is very draining.

What’s a day like in your life?

Every day is different. If I am shooting a show, then it lasts for eight or 10 hours. I have to do three to four hours of dubbing. There are costume trials of some other film.

When I am doing interviews, there will be six hours of interviews. If there is narration, then three to four hours for that. So in a day, there is at least 14 to 15 hours of work. There is two hours of hair and make-up in the morning to get ready for all this.

That’s why actors say 24 hours are not enough. When you reach home you have to sleep because you have to be up at 4 am again.

If I am shooting for a film then the shift is from 6 am to 6 pm, for which I have to get up at 4 am to be on the sets by 5 am. We start shooting at 6 am because the light is best at that time.

You had a three-film contract with Yash Raj and it’s over now.

People misunderstand the contract. I have to do a minimum of three films with YRF in any time — it could be spread over 20 years. I can work with YRF after the contract too. This is my fifth film with YRF. I am getting better scripts with them; my next film is with Illuminati Films.

You have said you don’t mind being the typical heroine if it means acting in a film that has any of the Khans.

Yes, I will even be a tree I had said. I was joking. I just meant that I would love to work with them. I have been offered in the past but I didn’t have much to do in those films. I would love to do a film with Shah Rukh Khan or Salman Khan where I also have a great role.

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INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

‘I just had to look comfortable in the kitchen’

Leaving his drunken characters behind, Aditya Roy Kapoor plays a chef in his latest and says it wasn’t difficult for him. Patcy N listens in ditya Roy Kapoor tasted success by drinking on set:) After Aashiqui 2 and A Yeh Jaawani Hai Deewani, Aditya wants to move on to

‘something different and challenging’. In Daawat-e-Ishq, a romantic comedy opposite Parineeti Chopra, he plays a chef from Hyderabad.

You have lost some weight after Daawat-e-Ishq.

I went on a diet after Daawat-e-Ishq. It was tough to resist eating because we were in Lucknow and Hyderabad and the food over there is amazing. Tundey ke kebabs became our favorite and as the film progressed, we gradually put on weight and continuity went for a toss.

I am preparing for my next film and so have to lose some weight for it.

I heard you are not a very good cook yet you play a chef in the film.

I am not a cook at all. It wasn’t difficult to play a chef because it was not about knowing recipes. I just had to look comfortable in the kitchen.

I had to know how to handle a kadhai, and your hands have to know how to do that kind of work. So I went into the kitchen with my dad. Both my parents are wonderful cooks — my father looks like he has been in the kitchen his whole life.

I started helping him around the kitchen. He cuts really fast, so I learnt how to chop from him as that was going to be in the film.

I haven’t learnt to cook anything. But I learnt how to make roomali roti — the way they throw it in the air, flip it and make it big. I learnt that in Lucknow.

Has life changed after two consecutive hits (Aashiqui 2 and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani)?

Aashiqui 2 changed my life completely. Once you get a film as a solo hero, you get the opportunity to work with

more people. As an actor, that is all you can ask for — options to choose from.

Earlier I had just two options. Now I am getting a chance to work with good directors, good scripts and I can choose my future to an extent.

I am a recognizable face and that also changes so many things in your life.

You played an alcoholic in both those films.

It was a coincidence. I had finished two schedules of YJHD when I was called for Aashiqui 2 and it felt like it was an extension of YJHD. They were different kinds of films — in one I was a selfdestructive, suicidal guy (Aashiqui 2) and in the other, a guy in denial, who didn’t even know that he was drunk.

So you wanted to break that image with Daawat-e-Ishq?

I wanted to do something different, something challenging. When I got the script, I was very interested in experimenting.

Habib Faisal is a wonderful director. He knew the film very well. If you go wrong, he is very clear and he will guide you.

What was it like working with Parineeti Chopra?

We have a similar sense of humor, and it’s one that normally people don’t find funny.

Filming is a bonding process where you have to wait for three hours for a light to be put up.

It is a blessing if your co-star is just like you. We had a good time. The best thing we both got to do on this film was to meet Anupam Kher. He is so amazing. He has a very important role in the film. The three of us shared a lot of time together. We ate our meals together and he influenced us in a good way.

Did you go through a low phase when your earlier films like London Dreams, Action Replayy and Guzaarish were not working?

I hadn’t tasted success, so I wouldn’t know what a low phase was. I discovered I liked acting after I started acting.

By the time I finished Guzaarish (his third film), I realised I want to do only this.

I did not have any great expectations. I was doing supporting roles in films with Akshay Kumar, Hrithik Roshan, Salman Khan and Ajay Devgn, and I was in the background. So when the films failed, I did not feel bad as the film’s responsibility was not on me.

If Aashiqui 2 had not done well, I would have felt very bad.

How did director Mohit Suri choose you for Aashiqui 2?

Mohit Suri has given hit after hit and for him to give me a break is a testament of his faith not only in me, but also in himself and his talent.

The amazing thing about Mohit is that he stands up for people when they are down. Mohit said he knew I could pull off the role. He saw something in me that I couldn’t see in myself.

Are you dating Shraddha Kapoor?

I am bored of answering this question. Every interview that I give has a headline saying ‘I am single’ or ‘We are friends.’ It makes me wonder if this is all I talk about.

The fact is that I am single, but now I don’t want to answer it.

What is the equation between you three brothers (Siddharth, Kunal and Aditya)?

It is very interesting that we are all into movies. We have all come through different routes to reach this place.

Siddharth was in Star TV in Hong Kong, came back and joined UTV about nine years ago. I started off as a veejay (video jockey) and Kunal was doing theater and the television series Just Mohabbat.

Now we are all in the same place, but we didn’t plan it or speak to each other about it, or help out each other.

All three of us have grown up talking about films and are film buffs.

Our age gaps are very huge. Siddharth is 12 years older to me and Kunal is six years older to me. We never had the same circle of friends. I could never be pals with Siddharth’s friends — they are like parents to me!

We never had fights. We are warm and understanding.

We know what is happening in each other’s lives and we take advice and opinions from one another. Now there is Vidya (Balan, Siddharth Roy Kapur’s wife) also. We all sit and have conversations about films.

What next after Daawat-E-Ishq?

My next film is Fitoor. I am very excited about working with Rekhaji. The shooting will start after a month.

I am completely kicked about the cast. I am romantically paired opposite Katrina Kaif.

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Bollywood INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

ALL THAT GLITTERS

Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur and Supriya Pathak with producer Dinesh Vijan at Finding Fanny’s success bash.

Deepika Padukone pouts for Arjun Kapoor while Ranveer Singh grabs Dinesh Vijan.

A PEEK INTO THE WEEK’S GLITZIEST TINSEL TOWN EVENTS

Alia Bhatt shared pictures of her latest photoshoot. She tweeted, ‘Only for you micks !!!! One of my favvvvvsss.’

Hrithik Roshan was also spotted.

Ileana D'Cruz in an all-black outfit.

Bollywood

21

INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

Rajinikanth and Arnold Schwarzenegger attend the music launch of filmmaker Shankar's new project.

ALL THAT GLITTERS

A PEEK INTO THE WEEK’S GLITZIEST TINSEL TOWN EVENTS

Rajini's nephew, composer Anirudh Balachandar.

Rajinikanth, Shankar, composer A R Rahman, center, with the film's team, as they launch the music.

The film's lead actor Vikram with actress Amala Paul.

Bollywood

22

INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

Sonu Sood, Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, rapper Yo Yo Honey Singh and Abhishek Bachchan during the show.

A STAR-STUDDED AFFAIR Ahead of the release of Happy New Year, Shah Rukh Khan takes his film’s team on the Slam! world tour.

Arthur J Pais and photographer Paresh Gandhi attend the New Jersey event.

Farah Khan lifts Boman Irani.

T

he next time Shah Rukh Khan asks you in public — and in the presence of thousands of people in the audience — if he can take a ‘few liberties’ with you and your attractive wife, you might want to think twice. Even if you think you might get to take home a Harley Davidson.

On Saturday, in the last quarter of his live extravaganza, Slam!, which more than anything else served as promos for his upcoming film Happy New Year, he asked for volunteers from the audience.

They would have a chat with him, he said, asking for a boyfriend and girlfriend or husband-wife. As hundreds volunteered, he quickly settled on an attractive desi and his American wife. Both were in their 30s. (Some in the audience wondered if the choice was scripted).

For about the first 5 minutes, he had seemingly innocent questions and a quiz on his movies, prompting the answers with open clues. When the woman could not guess the title of a film, Shah Rukh said several times, ‘Main Hoon Naa,’ with increasing urgency. She got it then.

He found out the woman’s pet name was Ballu, and that she called her husband Dimple.

Then he coaxed the admission that Dimple was a ‘bit possessive’ of his wife.

As the viewers howled with laughter, Shah Rukh made the man sit on a chair and had

it hosted up in the air. More laughter followed as he began ‘romancing’ her with snatches of the popular soundtrack from his movies, like Yeh Kale Kale Aankhen from Baazigar, playing in the background.

As Dimple squirmed in his seat — or at least it looked so from far below — Shah Rukh ripped his jacket off and pulled Ballu under it.

Two young girls, who each had paid $1,500 for their second-row seats, almost swooned. “How about me?” said one of them. “Here, here, look here. I will come there with my sister.”

Dimple and Ballu not only got the Harley Davidson but also a large Shah Rukh Khan picture with his autograph for their baby daughter. “A future investment,” he declared.

The show, the second of the half a dozen city tours in America and Canada, featured major artists from Happy New Year — Deepika Padukone who was described in the recorded announcement as a Czarina (and Shah Rukh as the badshah), Abhishek Bachchan, Vivan Shah — who opened the three-hour-long Slam! show — and Sonu Sood who provoked a few sighs when he chucked off his shirt.

There were also Boman Irani and director Farah Khan who often played a hapless, misfit, couple. Malaika Arora Khan added a bit of sex appeal.

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Bollywood INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

A STAR-STUDDED AFFAIR

f PAGE 22

While most of the music from hit movies including Chennai Express was pre-recorded, Yo Yo Honey Singh enlivened the show with a handful of songs. He was joined by Kanika Kapoor whose new song Lovely from Happy New Year was preceded by a few sizzling shots from the movie featuring Deepika.

T

he heavy promotion for Happy New Year might have led to big expectations and curiosity, but the trailers and the music from the film did not really get an explosive reception from the audience.

Boman Irani was made to suffer — to the delight of many viewers — many sex jokes inflicted by Farah, particularly when he pretended (per the act) to be Shah Rukh Khan.

What are some of the differences between you and Shah Rukh, Farah asked, and quickly went on to answer herself. For one thing, she said, Shah Rukh has more hair on his head. ‘But I have more on my chest,’ Boman said. Further

humiliation followed as Farah compared Sonu’s abs to (the nonexistent) abs on Boman.

This was the first major star show in five years to tour half a dozen cities in North America. Organizers said that the economic meltdown and the refusal of the stars to cut down their fees had led to the cancelation of many projects. Promoters like Kanu Chauhan, who has had many big shows in New York, sought to change the scene and held Slam! in one of the biggest sports arenas in New Jersey.

Among the well received comedy scenes, Shah Rukh and Abhishek began dancing to a Dhoom tune but a couple of minutes later, Shah Rukh stopped, wondering aloud what he was doing.

He wasn’t in Dhoom 3, he said. Deadpan, Abhishek said something like, ‘You have been wondering about Dhoom 3 for a few minutes.

But I have been thinking for 10 years what I have been doing in all three Dhoom movies.’

Shah Rukh is a concert veteran. And so is Abhishek. But for Vivan Shah, Farah and Deepika, Slam! was a big deal. ‘This is my first world tour,’ gushed Deepika.

Kanika Kapoor performed a track.

Shah Rukh Khan and Malaika Arora-Khan

Abhishek Bachchan works his charm on the crowd.

23

24

Bollywood INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

Margarita, with a Straw wins at TIFF

S

honali Bose’s Margarita with a Straw won the best prize for an Asian film at the Toronto International Film Festival. Over 30 films from China, Japan, Iran, Turkey and the Priyanka Chopra starrer Mary Kom were competing for the honor.

The film stars Kalki Koechlin and Revathy in the lead roles. This is Koechlin’s second film at TIFF, following the sexually-loaded That Girl In Yellow Boots.

‘Kalki Koechlin, a member of India’s new wave of actors and filmmakers who defy Bollywood conventions, stars as an independent and sexually curious student,’ wrote the Toronto Star newspaper about Margarita.

Koechlin, 30, readily admitted her new film is ‘certainly pushing boundaries’. ‘Nobody has made a film on disability and sexuality in India,’ she

Anushka goes super glam at LFW

T

he Indian actress, who has been mysteriously absent from the Bollywood party circuit for a while now, surfaced in London, at a Burberry show September 15.

Anushka Sharma attended the famous fashion line’s finale show at the London Fashion week in the city. The Bombay Velvet actress sported a chic layered look with a Burberry Prorsum dress with a slit, a printed scarf and peep-toed booties.

The Spring-Summer 2015 collection launch had the actress as an invited guest. Anushka’s upcoming films, besides Bombay Velvet, are Zoya Akhtar’s Dil Dhadakne Do and Rajkumar Hirani’s Aamir Khan starrer PK.

told the Toronto Star. ‘This has never happened. It is really something And not to mention the bisexual angle as well. It is new. You hope that it’ll speak to people because what I loved about the script was that after a while you forget about the disability and you look at the person and that’s the point of the film.’

Kalki is braced for any hostile reaction in India, but she feels the film’s ultimate theme of finding one’s voice and striking an understanding with one’s parents will prevail.

She added she was daunted by the prospects of playing a woman with cerebral palsy and had asked the director to give her time to prepare for the role.

Malini Chib, Bose’s cousin who suffers from cerebral palsy, helped Kalki play a disabled woman.

‘Malini just welcomed me with open arms,’ Kalki said at TIFF. ‘I followed her around everywhere, I lived with her, we went out drinking together, we watched movies together, we did everything together. I really got to see the world of somebody with CP in real detail. And that’s a privilege, a person’s private space.’

H

rithik Roshan is one of the best dancers in Bollywood. But even he was at his wit’s end when Bang Bang director Siddharth Anand told him to emulate King of Pop Michael Jackson’s moves for the title track of his latest film, the Press Trust of India reported.

Hrithik said he refused initially because he thought it would be impossible to dance like MJ without rehearsing for months.

‘When Sid told me to do the steps of Michael Jackson, I retorted saying, ‘are you mad?’ This in an impossible task because I need months to rehearse to match up to his steps,’ Roshan said during the launch of the title track in Mumbai.

‘Initially, I thought it was a bad idea.

Then I thought MJ is the God of dance and has been someone whom I have idolized all my life. I have to do this for my love and respect for him. It doesn’t matter how I dance or how I match up the steps but I have to do this for the man I love. He was responsible for my career in dance,’ Roshan said.

‘I have done this in my own style. The steps are his and the style is mine. When you do something for love, you set yourself free,’ the actor added.

Produced by Fox Star Studios, Bang Bang costars Katrina Kaif and will release October 2.

Hrithik Roshan does an MJ in Bang Bang

U

nable to shake off Bollywood’s gender-unfairness, Rekha has been consigned to grandmotherly roles these days, but she kicks things up a notch with Super Nani.

Nope, she’s not playing granny to a superhero, but instead — in Indra Kumar’s latest film — the actress is playing an old neglected grandmother, preparing herself up for a new innings in life, one as a glamorous star.

Rekha, playing an old woman who does her own make-up is to be considered highly glam? It’s so meta, the head hurts.

The only fun thing about the loud, hammy trailer seems to be Randhir Kapoor. He’s as loud and hammy, but we haven’t

Rekha becomes Super Nani? seen him in a while, and it’s nice to see him do that vintage clown-face.

Nobody expects subtlety from Indra Kumar — the maker of Grand Masti, Pyare Mohan, Mann and Raja — but for a film to

take a risk with an older actress as a grandmother, one would have hoped for at least a bolder script, instead of jokes that creak under their own weight.

Super Nani hits theaters October 24.

25

India in New York September 26, 2014

IMMIGRATION NEWS THE FAMILY THAT IS COUNTED TOGETHER STAYS TOGETHER: HOW TO ELIMINATE IMMIGRANT VISA BACKLOGS – PART I

By Gary Endelman* and Cyrus D. Mehta** There is nothing in the Immigration and Nationality Act that requires each derivative family member to be counted on an individual basis against the worldwide and country caps. That being so, President Obama tomorrow can issue an executive order providing that this long-established practice be stopped. That single stroke of the pen would revolutionize United States immigration policy and, at long last, restore balance and fairness to a dysfunctional immigration system badly in need of both. If all members of a family are counted together as one unit, rather than as separate and distinct individuals, systemic visa retrogression will quickly become a thing of the past.

We proposed this idea in our 2010 article The Tyranny of Priority Dates (http://www.scribd.com/doc/45650253/The-Tyranny-of-Priority-Dates-by-Gary-Endelman-andCyrus-D-Mehta-3-25-10) long before it achieved the intellectual acceptance in many quarters that it now enjoys.. We are pleased to now find that President Obama is considering this proposal as part of the package of administrative reform measures he will unveil before the end of this year. That this is so suggests the broad possibilities for change when the vigorous and disciplined exercise of executive initiative allows genuine progress to overcome the paralysis of political stalemate.

We know of no explicit authorization for derivative family members to be counted under either the Employment Based or Family Based preference in the Immigration and Nationality Act. The treatment of family members is covered by an explicit section of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), Section 203(d). Let us examine what INA §203(d) says: A spouse of child defined in subparagraphs (A), (B), (C), (D), or (E) of section 1101(b) of this title shall, if not otherwise entitled to an immigrant status and the immediate issuance of a visa under subsection (a), (b), or (c) of this section, be entitled to the same status, and the same order of consideration provided in the respective subsection, if accompanying or following to join, the spouse or parent.

The EB and FB numbers ought not to be held hostage to the number of family members each principal beneficiary brings with him or her. Nor should family members be held hostage to the quotas.

We have often seen the principal beneficiary being granted permanent residency, but the derivative family members being left out, when there were not sufficient visa numbers under the preference category during that given year. If all family members are counted as one unit, such needless separation of family members will never happen again. Should only the principal become an LPR while everyone else waits till next year? What if visa retrogression sets in and the family has to wait, maybe for years? This does not make sense. Is there not sufficient ambiguity in INA §203(d) to argue that family members should not be counted against the cap? We do not contend that they should be completely exempted from being counted. As stated in INA §203 (d), family members should be given the “same status and the same order of consideration” as the principal. Hence, if there is no visa number for the principal, the rest of the family does not get in. If, on the other hand, there is a single remaining visa number for the principal, the family members, however many there are, ought to be “entitled to the same status, and the same order of consideration as the principal.” Viewed in this way, INA 203(d) operates in harmony with all other limits on permanent migration found in INA both on an overall and a per country basis.

There is no regulation in 8 CFR that truly interprets INA § 203(d). Even the Department of State’s regulation at 22 CFR Section 42.32 fails to illuminate the scope or purpose of INA 203(d). It does nothing more than parrot INA § 203(d). The authors recall the Supreme Court’s decision in Gonzales v Oregon, 546 US 243, 257 (2006) reminding us that a parroting regulation does not deserve deference: Simply put, the existence of a parroting regulation does not change the fact that the question here is not the meaning of the regulation but the meaning of the statute. An agency does not acquire special authority to interpret its own words when, instead of using its expertise and experience to formulate a regulation, it has elected merely to paraphrase the statutory language.

It is certainly true that family members are not exempted from being counted under INA § 201(b) as are immediate relatives of US citizens, special immigrants, or those fortunate enough to merit cancellation of their removal. Yet, we note that the title in INA §201(b) refers to “Aliens Not Subject to Direct Numerical Limitations.” What does this curious phrase mean? Each of the listed exemptions in INA § 201(b) are outside the normal preference categories. That is why they are not subject to direct counting. By contrast, the INA § 203(d) derivatives are wholly within the preference system, bound fast by its stubborn limitations. They are not independent of all numerical constraints, only from direct ones. It is the principal alien through whom they derive their claim who is and has been counted. When viewed from this perspective, there is nothing inconsistent between saying in INA § 203(d) that derivatives should not be independently assessed against the EB or FB cap despite their omission from INA § 201(b) that lists only non-preference category exemptions. (to be continued) * The views expressed by guest author, Gary Endelman, are his own and not of his firm, FosterQuan, LLP. ** Cyrus D. Mehta, a graduate of Cambridge University and Columbia Law School, is the Managing Member of Cyrus D. Mehta & Associates, PLLC in New York City. He is the current Chair of AILA’s Ethics Committee and former Chair of AILA’s Pro Bono Committee. He is also the former Chair of the Board of Trustees of the American Immigration Council (2004–06) and Chair of the Committee on Immigration and Nationality Law (2000–03) of the New York City Bar Association. He is a frequent speaker and writer on various immigration-related issues, including on administrative remedies and ethics, and is also an adjunct associate professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, where he teaches a course entitled “Immigration and Work.” Mr. Mehta received the AILA 2011 Michael Maggio Memorial Award for his outstanding efforts in providing pro bono representation in the immigration field.

The Law Firm of Cyrus D. Mehta & Associates, PLLC

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• Lawful Permanent Residency • H-1B Visas • Intracompany Transferee Visas • J-1 Waivers • Entertainers • Family-Based Immigration • Asylum • Citizenship • Battered Spouse Waivers • Removal and Federal Court Litigation

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Aseem in New York

26

INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

Bollywood razzmatazz, human bonding I

have a confession to make. I spend much of my professional time criticizing Bollywood, but I am also a closet fan of the Indian Hindi film industry.

So I was thrilled to learn that the stars of Farah Khan’s Diwali release Happy New Year, including the hit pair Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone, were coming to North America for the Slam tour.

I am a big fan of Farah’s larger than life productions Main Hoon Naa and Om Shanti Om, and I could easily spend a Saturday evening revisiting songs from some of my favorite Bollywood films.

There was a time when Bollywood stars would come in big numbers to perform on stage across America. The actual performance involved the stars dancing and lip-syncing to songs from their hit Bollywood films.

But then the shows suddenly stopped.

The last time there was a big show like that was in 2008 when Amitabh Bachchan led a team of hot celebrities including his daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai and Madhuri Dixit for the Unforgettable event.

But some of the segments of the Unforgettable tour were canceled and the word was that the economics of mounting such an expensive spectacle had made it impossible to take it across North America.

A R Rahman’s musical journey through North America, the Jai Ho show, was canceled midway because of a staging accident.

I am happy to report that the Slam show at the Izod Center in Secaucus was a lot of fun, even though it started an hour-and-ahalf late (why cannot desi shows start on time and this Indian Standard Time joke really does not hold?), and I took public transportation (NJ Transit) to get to the

Snapshots from the Slam event.

ASEEM CHHABRA

show, which can be a pain for a New York City resident!

In addition to Shah Rukh and Padukone, the show also featured Abhishek Bachchan, Boman Irani, two lesser stars Sonu Sood and Vivan Shah, and dancer Malaika Arora Khan.

Oh and yes, there was Bollywood’s newest celebrity: Yo Yo Honey Singh. Two years ago around the time of the Delhi gang-rape case, Honey Singh was much criticized for his song Balatkari. After an online signature campaign, his New Year’s Eve show was canceled in Gurgaon. Clearly all of that was forgotten when he sang Lungi Dance for Chennai Express. And at the Slam show Shah Rukh thanked Honey Singh for giving him one of the biggest hit songs in his career.

Shah Rukh and Abhishek made grand entrances from the back of the theater, much to the excitement of fans spread across the theater. There were segments of humor between Farah and Boman. But it was so much fun to watch the stars dance and perform to old songs from a range of films — Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Baazigar, Om Shanti Om, Bunty Aur Babli and Dhoom.

Perhaps the most thrilling moments were when Shah Rukh danced with Padukone to the song Satrangi Re from Dil Se, followed by a Chaiya Chaiya dance act with Malaika Arora.

Since the Slam show was organized to promote Happy New Year, we were shown the trailer and songs from the film a few times. And the closing act was the India Waale song from the film. Clearly, there was enough enthusiasm for the film among the audience.

E

arlier in the week I attended the press screening of a heartbreakingly beautiful British film, Lilting, the story of a young gay man coping with the loss of his partner. In the process he reaches out to his dead partner’s Chinese-Cambodian mother, who is living in an old people’s home and does not speak any English.

The story of Lilting is somewhat similar to the Bengali-Hindi film Memories In March with Rituparno Ghosh and Deepti Naval. But that 2010 film had many overthe-top melodramatic moments, including when the mother learned that her son was gay. The same situation in Lilting is handled with a lot more restraint, leaving enough room for quiet tears.

Beautifully directed by Cambodian director Hong Khaou, Lilting stars the British actor Ben Whishaw and a lovely Chinese actress, Pei-pei Cheng. The film won the best cinematography award at the Sundance Film Festival. It opens in New York City September 26.

Pei-pei Cheng and Ben Whishaw in a scene from Lilting.

American Desi

27

INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

R

ahul Kulkarni, whose family is from Pune, was already working at the Mumbai special effect production house Famous Studios when his parents decided that he should go to the United States for studies.

His résumé included working with producer-director Ketan Mehta and his wife, actress Deepa Sahi. He had also worked on the animation for Captain Vyom, a television sitcom based on Star Wars.

But Rahul decided to listen to his parents.

He chose the Savannah College of Art and Design, Georgia, where he took admission in the masters in computer art in 1999. It was a big risk.

“SCAD was a private, and very expensive, school,” he says. “I had taken a loan in India that would pay for my tuition for three quarters but I had no idea how I would fund my education after that, or pay for my living expenses.”

He got a job at the school that paid $400 a month. He soon got another job, at a fast-food restaurant owned by a Gujarati.

“I had gone to the mall with a few friends,” Rahul recalls. “We chatted for a while and he offered me a parttime job. He just wanted to help me.”

Rahul’s job was to make fries to go with Gyros. “It was hard work,” he says. “During weekends and Christmas, I worked 12 hours a day and cut hundreds of pounds of potatoes.”

The owner soon became Rahul’s surrogate family in Savannah. “He introduced me to his family and friends and took me home to feed me home-cooked food.”

Rahul still needed money for his fees. The restaurant owner introduced him to a motel owner friend, Mahendra Patel who offered Rahul a night shift job, so that he could continue working at the restaurant during the day. The two became such good friends that Patel would pitch in with the night shift as Rahul caught some sleep.

Rahul had found yet another surrogate family.

“Mahendra Patel asked me why I was working so hard instead of focusing on my studies,” he remembers. “He recommended that I take a loan. He even provided all the necessary financial papers and co-signed the loan.”

That was not all.

“Since it was going to take a couple of months to get the funds, he went to SCAD and paid my summer quarter fees. He even bought me a computer. This, in 1999, was a very expensive gift,” says Rahul, still sounding overwhelmed. “It was amazing to see these people go out of their way to help me. They were not just here to make money. They wanted to help all Indians, not just their relatives or people coming from their region.”

Meanwhile, his parents had found a girl for Rahul. His father introduced them over e-mail. Rahul was reluctant.

His father insisted he at least talk to her over the phone.

“I decided to call her. We ended up speaking for an hour,” Rahul remembers.

They exchanged photographs, and within three weeks decided to get married.

“I had informed her about my financial situation but it didn’t bother her. She promised me to support me in every way once she was here with me,” Rahul says.

‘Remade in America’

‘Indian Americans make a special effort to preserve our culture and religion,’ says Rahul Kulkarni.

Text and photograph: Paresh Gandhi Chat services were blocked in the school labs, but the lab monitors allowed Rahul to chat with Pournima.

Patel bought a webcam so the love birds could see each other.

“It was our first experience with this new technology,” laughs Rahul, “and the whole family was excited to witness us meeting for the first time.”

Three weeks before their wedding, Rahul and Pournima finally met each other for the first time. They were married in 2000; Rahul was still doing his master’s degree.

“Within a couple of months, she found a job in an Indian restaurant where she worked extensive hours to support me,” Rahul remembers.

Meanwhile, he had gotten into the subject of information architecture and decided to become an information architect. Fate was waiting with another challenge.

“Soon after I graduated, September 11 happened. The economy collapsed, jobs weren’t available and very few companies were willing to sponsor H1B visas,” Rahul says.

The University of Baltimore was offering a doctoral degree in human computer interaction.

“I got into the doctoral program with a full fellowship from the National Science Foundation to research on children’s psychology and how the new generation that’s growing with technology has different behavior patterns and attitudes towards at the world,” Rahul says.

He helped build the world’s largest digital library (http://en.childrenslibrary.org).

After graduation, Rahul found work as a user interaction/experience designer, a cool new field. Over the years, he has worked companies like Time Inc, SmithBarney, Standard and Poor’s, and Liquidnet.

“At present, I manage TD Ameritrade’s mobile user

experience group which looks after the vision and strategy for its mobile platforms,” he says.

Pournima and Rahul believe it is their duty to expose their children, Ruhi, 8, and Arjun, 4, to the best of both cultures. They speak in Marathi at home.

“Many Indians here told us that after the children start going to school, they stop talking in their mother tongue,” Rahul says.

Both children are fluent in Marathi.

The Kulkarnis make it a point to participate in Indian programs.

“We also have a lot of non-Indian friends and we go to some of their religious ceremonies to know about their cultures. We often find some similarities between various cultures,” he says.

Ruhi is passionate about sports and has won plaudits.

“My son looks up to her,” he says.

As parents, they want to expose their children to as many experiences as possible. “We discuss poverty in Africa and calamities across the world,” Rahul says. “We teach them how it is our responsibility to help the needy.

We discuss what is not socially acceptable behavior. We talk about our past struggles in interesting ways.”

Rahul is proud to be part of a vibrant community.

“I always feel inspired by the fact that Indian Americans here make a special effort to preserve our culture and religion as compared to Indians living in India,” he says. “We want to make sure we pass on our Indian values and beliefs to our next generation and want our kids to grow in an environment which helps them understand our roots. Coming to America was a dream. But I never fully understood what it takes to live the American dream until I landed in this country.”

The Week That Was

28

INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

Muslims will live and die for India: Modi India Prime Minister Narendra Modi granted his first interview since assuming office to Fareed Zakaria. In the interview for CNN, Modi said Indian Muslims’ patriotism could not be questioned. He asserted that Indian Muslims would live and die for India, and will not want anything bad for India.

India’s Mars mission on track India’s Mars Orbiter Mission September 22 successfully completed the crucial fourth trajectory correction maneuver and the test firing of the main liquid engine on the spacecraft, Mangalyaan. It has put the probe on track to enter the red planet’s orbit September 24. If the mission is successful, India will become the first country to make it to Mars on first attempt.

As Maharashtra readies for elections October 15, the major political alliances in the state have run into problems. Both the ruling Congress party-Nationalist Congress Party alliance and the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena alliance were on the rocks over seat sharing, and hectic negotiations are on.

Kolkata: Students protesting sexual assault thrashed Students at Kolkata’s Jadavpur University, who were protesting what they called the university authorities’ apathy over the sexual assault on a student on campus August 28, were brutally beaten up by the police, Rapid Action

Chinese troops camp inside India as leaders talk in Delhi As Chinese President Xi Jinping visited India and held talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, nearly 1,000 People Liberation Army soldiers intruded into Indian territory in eastern Ladakh’s Chumur area, and remained there for over 12 days. India retaliated by sending a large number of troops, and flag meetings were being held between the two armies. Reports at press time said India had canceled visas of Chinese journalists who were set to visit India for a routine annual media dialogue.

Force troopers, and plain-clothed goons in a post-midnight operation.

Girls were molested, assaulted, kicked, hit with batons by the all-male police force called in by the university authorities.

The police and the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress party leaders claimed the police did not use force but video footage and photographs shot by students and the media nailed their lies.

Kolkata saw massive student protests following the incident. The Trinamul took out a counter rally, where the father of the student who was molested August 28 joined in.

Minister’s suitcase lost and found

Mandolin maestro Shrinivas passes away

SREERAM SELVARAJ

Uppalapu Shrinivas, responsible for popularizing the mandolin in Carnatic music, passed away in a Chennai hospital September 19 of complications arising from a liver transplant. He was 45. A recipient of various awards and accolades, including the Padma Shri, Shrinivas was a child prodigy who grew into a much sought after artist with age, collaborating with global artistes like jazz guitarist John McLaughlin.

Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s minister of state for finance, lost her luggage on an Air India flight while traveling to Australia for a G-20 meeting. ‘On board my connecting flight to Cairns. All my formal wear in the lost suitcase! Not sure I can buy Saris in Cairns! Situation precarious!’ she tweeted. Luckily for her, India’s national carrier found her luggage on time.

Gymnast, coach booked for harassing woman player An Indian gymnast and a gymnastics coach have been booked for allegedly passing obscene comments and making vulgar gestures at a woman player. The duo are part of the Indian delegation that departed for the Incheon Asian Games, September 16. In a complaint lodged with the Delhi police, the trainee woman gymnast alleged that the incident occurred September 2 during a practice session at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium. The duo will be questioned on their return to India.

REUTERS/AMIT DAVE

Maharashtra: Alliances on shaky ground

Mid-day meal lands children in Bengaluru in hospital Many children of the Government Urdu School in DJ Halli, Bengaluru fell ill after having a government-sponsored mid-day meal September 19. They complained of nausea and vomited soon after lunch.

Politician refuses to vacate bungalow Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh attacked the government September 19 for rejecting his demand for converting the bungalow occupied by him into a memorial to his father, former prime minister Charan Singh. Ajit Singh refused to vacate his father’s bungalow in New Delhi and his followers clashed with the police.

USAID pledges $4.8 million to fight child marriages in South Asia, Africa The United States Agency for International Development — which is headed by Indian-American Raj Shah — has announced $4.8 million to fund projects in over half a dozen countries, including India, to end child and forced marriages. Other countries include Nepal, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Yemen.

Human ‘excretion’ caused Uttarakhand floods: Minister Uma Bharti, India’s water resources minister, believes the ‘underlying’ cause of the devastating Uttarakhand

PAGE 29

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The Week That Was

29

INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

f PAGE 28 floods last year was defecation near Kedarnath by nonbelievers. While interacting with experts of the Dehradunbased Himalayan Institute of Glaciology and Forest Research Institute, the minister also mentioned cloudburst and excessive rains in the state as the primary cause of the floods, but claimed, the ‘underlying reason was human excretion.’

Actor-turned-member of Parliament Hema Malini doesn’t want widows from West Bengal and Bihar to crowd Vrindavan, which is considered a holy city and is home to thousands of destitute women.

During a visit to her parliamentary constituency Mathura September 15, Malini was quoted as saying, ‘Vrindavan widows have a bank balance, good income, nice beds, but they beg out of habit. There are 40,000 widows in Vrindavan. I think there is no more place in the city. A large population is coming from Bengal... that’s not right. Why don’t they stay in Bengal?

There are nice temples there. The same is true for those from Bihar.’

Kashmir death toll rises The death toll due to the Jammu and Kashmir floods climbed to 277 per government figures even as the state machinery began to limp back to life. After remaining closed for 11 days, the Civil Secretariat reopened September 18. However, less than 10 percent employees reported to work.

Let the Festival Season begin!

RUPAK DE CHOWDHURI/REUTERS

Widows from outside should not crowd Vrindavan: Hema Malini

An artist works on the clay face of an idol of Goddess Durga at a workshop in Kolkata, September 18. Durga Puja begins September 30.

Will take all of Kashmir from India: Bilawal Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the ‘Gen-Next’ politician of Pakistan, has said that his Pakistan People’s Party will wrest Kashmir from India, the Press Trust of India reported. Bilawal, the late Benazir Bhutto’s only son, was addressing the party workers in Multan region in Pakistan’s Punjab province, September 19.

Assam reels from flood

India gets first transgender news anchor A Tamil Nadu television channel has recruited India’s first transgender news anchor, five months after a court ruled that transgender people should be recognized as a legal third gender. Padmini Prakash, 31, who works at Lotus News, said that she had faced a lot of discrimination throughout her life, including from her own family, which disowned her.

Prashant Bhushan won’t reveal whistleblower’s name Lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan told India’s Supreme Court he couldn’t reveal the name of the person who gave

Women at garba dance rehearsals in Ahmedabad, ahead of the Navratri festival, September 21.

him access to details of a list of visitors to Central Bureau of Investigation Director Ranjit Sinha’s home. Bhushan said he feared for the person’s life. Bhushan, a member of the Aam Aadmi Party, has accused Sinha of compromising investigations into some of the biggest financial scams in India.

AMIT DAVE/REUTERS

Around 40 hours of incessant rain has resulted in flooding in low-lying areas of Guwahati in Assam. Massive power cuts are also being reported across the city. The government has ordered all schools to remain shut till further notice.

Some other districts in the state, including Goalpara and Dhubri, have also been flooded due to torrential rain.

Al Qaeda eyeing Assam?

Days after Al Qaeda issued a video threatening to carry out its campaign in India, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said the terror group is trying to set up base in the state and had a ‘tacit understanding’ with United Liberation Front of Asom.

30

Sports INDIA IN NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 26, 2014

India gets its first gold in the 17th Asian Games, thanks to shooter Jitu Rai I

ndia’s in-form shooter Jitu Rai gave the country its first gold medal in the 17th Asian Games, cutting through a tough field to finish on top in the 50m pistol event in Incheon September 20.

The World No 5 showed tremendous grit and concentration to beat back the challenge from strong contenders like Wang Zhiwei of China and South Korea’s two-time Olympic champion and reigning world champion Jongoh to win the gold.

It needed the last set of shots to decide the issue in favor of Rai. He shot 8.4 after the nervous Vietnamese was way off the mark to fire a poor 5.8 to win the gold.

Fresh from his 50m Pistol silver in the World Championships, the Lucknow-based marksman completed a grand double as he had won a gold in the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow earlier this year.

‘I wanted to win this gold badly and was under a lot of pressure.

The competition here was even more than in the Commonwealth Games or the World Championship. I am happy that I could fulfill my wish,’ Rai said.

Having qualified for the 8-woman finals with a total score of 383 even as her more fancied teammate Heena Sidhu was eliminated after notching up 378, Shweta, 28, showed exemplary poise to fight her way back in the finals.

Indian women badminton team lose to hosts Korea, claim bronze

CHUNG SUNG-JUN/GETTY IMAGES

IOC President Thomas Bach presents Jitu Rai of India with his gold medal in the 50m Pistol Men’s event at the Ongnyeon International Shooting Range during the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea, September 21.

Dipika wins bronze, Ghoshal gets silver

The Indian badminton team went down fighting against hosts South Korea in the women’s team badminton semi-finals to settle for their maiden bronze medal at the Asian Games in Incheon on September 21.

This was India’s first medal in badminton since the bronze won by the men’s team in Seoul, 1986.

The country’s women had to be satisfied with their first-ever medal in Asian Games history after seven bronze medals won by men.

India’s No. 1 shuttler, Saina Nehwal pulled off a great victory in three tough games against Korean world no. 4 Sung Jihyun 21-12, 1021, 21-9 in the opening match that lasted for 56 minutes.

But thereafter, the Indians lost their next three matches to go down to their formidable opponents.

P V Sindhu fought hard before losing in a 79-minute thriller to the host country’s left-handed world No. 6 Bae Yeonju 21-14, 18-21, 21-13 that leveled the tie 1-1.

Indian squash player Dipika Pallikal could not better the color of her assured bronze as she lost to World No 1 Nicol Ann David in the women’s singles semifinals of the 17th Asian Games in Incheon September 22. The 23-year-old Indian was Shooting ace Abhinav Bindra bid CHUNG SUNG-JUN/GETTY IMAGES outplayed 4-11, 4-11, 5-11 by adieu to the Asian Games after STANLEY CHOU/GETTY IMAGES David, who took merely 25 minclinching an individual bronze Gold Medalist Mengyuan Zhang of China, center, Silver Medalist Jung Jee-Hae of South Korea, left, and Bronze utes to storm into the final. medal in men’s 10 meters air rifle Medalist Shweta Chaudhry of India celebrate on the podium after winning their medals in the 10m Air Pistol Women's India’s top seed Saurav Ghosal event. event. Dipika Pallikal, right, in action.

Saurav squandered a two-game Bindra guided India to a third advantage to narrowly miss out place finish in the team event on becoming the first Indian squash player to win a gold proved decisive.

September 23. medal at the Asian Games September 23.

Before winning the individual bronze, Bindra teamed up He led by two games in the men’s singles final before with Sanjeev Rajput and Ravi Kumar to finish third on the Kuwait’s Abdullah Almezayen staged a dramatic fight back podium and help India swell their medal tally to eight in the and won the next three to clinch the top prize.

Earlier, shooting star Shweta Chaudhry, stayed true to 17th edition of the mega event.

Almezayen prevailed 10-12, 2-11, 14-12, 11-8, 11-9 at the her billing, winning bronze in the 10m air pistol event.

He finished third in 10m air rifle men’s final, behind Yeorumul Squash Courts.

China’s Zhang Mengyan won the gold with 202.2 while China’s Haoran Yang and Yifei Cao, aggregating 187.1 points.

Ghosal missed out on a gold medal point with the score host country South Korea’s Jung Jee-Hae secured the sil- His Chinese opponents, 18-year-old Haoran won gold, line reading 12-11 in the third game, and that eventually ver with 201.3. scoring 209.6 points while Yifei won silver with 208.9.

Bindra exits with two bronze medals

Bronze for super-shooter Shweta

31

India in New York September 26, 2014

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32

India in New York September 26, 2014