India in New York - August 15, 2014

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India in New York A GUIDE TO EVENTS AND ENTERTAINMENT FROM INDIA ABROAD FRIDAY, AUGUST 15, 2014

Racist attacks leave Sikh Americans fuming

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INDIA IN NEW YORK AUGUST 15, 2014

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The enthusiasm is evident at the India Day parade in Edison, New Jersey.

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ndian Ambassador to the United States Dr Subrahmanyan Jaishankar, Bharatiya Janata Party leader from India Ram Madhav, and a joint secretary from the Indian Prime Minister’s Office attended the meetings of committees formed to organize the reception Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New York, September 28.

At the meeting held at the New York consulate August 10, Dr Bharat Barai, the lead organizer, explained the steps taken so far.

Leaders from the Overseas Friends of the BJP, which is not very happy that its leaders were sidelined from organizing the reception, attended the meetings.

In addition to core committees, a 38-member advisory com-

mittee comprising people from different states in India and belonging to different religions too met at the consulate.

Ambassador Jaishankar explained that the reception would not be an event organized by the embassy or the consulate, but an event of the people for the prime minister. It is above political, religious or regional considerations, he noted, and the advisory committee reflects the diversity.

The prime minister wants it as an event representative of an emerging India, Madhav said. Even though only 18,000 people can attend the event at the Madison Square Garden, it will be visible to Indians everywhere and it should be an event that shows the unified spirit of the Diaspora, he said.

Dr Barai said a Web site has been set up (www.pmvisit.org) and a new organization named the Indian American Community Foundation has been formed for the sole purpose of the visit.

The event will not be ticketed but the $1.5 million needed for the event will be raised from sponsors, the meeting was informed.

“Preparations are going on in full swing,” Dr Barai told India in New York. “We are taking care of even the minutest things.”

He said the initial misunderstandings in the community have subsided, though every one cannot be satisfied.

“The only purpose of the IACF is to organize the reception,” Dr Barai said. “Once the accounts for the reception are settled, the organization too will cease to exist.”

New Delhi, he said, did not want any of the existing organizations leading the event, even though the OFBJP is playing a major role. The 11-member IACF is a non-political, non-religious organization.

The Madison Square Garden has been booked by Bharat

SFJ petition against Modi may get 100,000 signatures A CORRESPONDENT

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he Sikhs For Justice’s petition demanding President Barack Obama cancel his invitation to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had garnered 94,726 signatures by August 11.

If the petition crosses the 100,000 signatures mark by August 20, the White House will issue a response about it.

Almost 10,000 people signed the petition in two days before August 11.

The petition was opened July 21 on the White House’s We the People Web site. It is headlined, ‘Cancel White House invitation to PM Modi — Organizer of 2002 massacre of Muslims. Ban BJP for 1984 attack on Golden Temple; In 2002, Indian PM Modi organized massacre of Muslims in Gujarat.’

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President Obama has invited Prime Minister Modi for a meeting at the White House, September 30.

Attorney Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, legal adviser the to SFJ, has indicated that the organization might file a civil case against Modi, the way it filed cases against Congress party President Sonia Gandhi and then Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh. The SFJ accused Dr Singh, as finance minister of India, of rewarding officers who attacked and killed Sikhs, while Gandhi was accused of shielding perpetrators of the attack.

The case against Gandhi was dismissed by a US district court in Manhattan; the SFJ will appeal the decision.

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INDIA IN NEW YORK AUGUST 15, 2014

Bollywood actress Esha Deol, center, was the grand marshal of the parade. Indian actors Tina Dutta, Nitu Singh, Omi Vaidya, Dr Jagdish Trivedi, and Arvind Rathod joined her.

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ak Tree Road, which runs through Edison and Iselin townships in New Jersey, was awash with the colors and sounds of India August 10 as 108 organizations joined a parade celebrating India’s Independence Day (August 15).

The Indian Business Association and the organizers claimed 38,000 people attended the parade.

Unlike the last three years, there was a single parade.

The Oak Tree Indian Business Association, which organized a rival parade at the same time on the Iselin section of the Oak Tree Road in Woodbridge Township, did not do so this year.

“It does not mean that we are supporting the IBA as they claimed, but due to other reasons we are not organizing the parade,” Peter Kothari of the OTIBA told India in New York.

Large crowds gathered on both sides of

Finally, one India day parade in Central New Jersey Reportage: George Joseph. Photographs: Paresh Gandhi the road long before the parade moved, braving the scorching sun.

The parade, which started from the Edison section of Oak Tree Road at 2 pm, included 23 floats, two marching bands, 27 walking groups, and dignitaries including United States Senator Cory Booker and US Representative Frank Pallone.

It took more than two hours for the floats to reach the grand stand at India Square in Iselin, 1.4 miles away, in the heat. Most political leaders went all the way, while the celebs hopped onto the floats.

Bollywood actress Esha Deol was the grand marshal of the parade. Indian actors Tina Dutta, Nitu Singh, Omi Vaidya, Dr Jagdish Trivedi, and Arvind Rathod joined her.

“I am amazed by the turnout, the passion, and energy,” Deol told India in New York from atop the IBA float. “I saw today a united community celebrating their culture and heritage. It makes me so proud to serve as grand marshal.”

Senator Booker said, ‘The IBA has done an amazing job organizing this event. I was here last year as well and each time I

The parade included 23 floats, two marching bands, 27 walking groups.

come I can really feel the energy on Oak Tree Road. New Jersey is lucky to have a growing Indian-American community.’

Other dignitaries included State Senator Sam Thompson, Passaic County Freeholder John Bartlett, Newark Councilwoman Gayle Chaneyfield-Jenkins, and Assemblywoman Bonnie WatsonColeman.

Woodbridge Mayor John McCormac and Edison Councilwoman Sapana Shah

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Finally, one India day parade in Central New Jersey f PAGE 3 addressed the large crowd at the parade review stand.

‘Every year the parade grows larger as more groups join us,’ said Dhiren Amin, IBA president. ‘The IBA is committed to serving our community, and making Oak Tree Road a destination location. I met people from Boston, Virginia, Baltimore, and a couple from Florida, all of whom traveled to New Jersey to see our parade.’

Local merchant Praful Vaid, a parade sponsor, said, ‘This brings attention to Oak Tree Road, the heart of New Jersey’s little India. That’s good for business.’

Viji Venkatesh, a resident of Franklin Township, said, ‘I have gone to other parades in the past, but this is much easier to get to, parking is not a problem, and I don’t have to waste money on tolls.’

IBA trustee Mahesh Shah said, ‘We want to make sure that the next generation does not forget our culture and traditions.’

Manher Shah, an accountant, said, ‘We need to remember where we came from so that we are successful in where we are going.’

Former Edison mayor Jun Choi, who marched in the parade, told India in New York that he feels very happy the community has united to organize one parade.

During his time as mayor, the IBA organized the parade. His successor Antonia Ricigliano allowed the OTIBA to organize it. Current Mayor Thomas Lankey favored the IBA. ‘It is refreshing to see a united community and such a huge crowd,’ Mayor Lankey

said. ‘We welcome the diversity in Edison and value the services of the Indian community.’

Edison Council member Dr Sudhansu Prasad said the township has made an agreement with the IBA to grant permission to it for organizing the parade for the next seven years.

Gulshan Chhabra of the Edison Hotel said he refused to attend the parades in the last three years as he did not want to see a divided community. He said he was happy at a united show this time.

Organizers said 38,000 people attended the parade.

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New York couple charged with brutally torturing daughter for years SUMAN GUHA MOZUMDER

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n Indian-American couple in New York was last week charged with physically abusing their daughter for years.

Maya Ranot, 12, suffered ‘unspeakable torture’ at the hands of her father and step-mother, including being savagely beaten up with a baseball bat, rolling pin and broken broom handle, prosecutors said.

Investigators said Maya, who weighs only 58 pounds, was even locked in a room in Rajesh and Sheetal Ranot’s Ozone Park home in Queens without food or water for extended periods of time.

The alleged abuse took place between December 2012 and July 2014.

In one instance, Queens District Attorney Richard A Brown said Maya was hit with a broken metal broom handle. Her wrist was exposed to the bone, requiring hospi-

talization and surgery.

That was when her plight came to light. Emergency medical technicians, who were called to her home, saw Maya lying in a pool of blood. At the hospital, doctors noticed injuries all over her body. The authorities ultimately took her away from her home and put her in with a relative.

When she recovered, Maya told her relative about what she had been going through. The relative notified city official, who launched an investigation.

Brown and Gladys Carrion, commissioner, New York City Administration for Children’s Services, announced that the couple faces a litany of child abuse charges, including multiple counts of assault.

‘The criminal charges allege,’ Brown said, ‘that this young victim was subjected to years of unspeakable physical abuse at the hands of her father Rajesh Ranot, 46, a cab driver who is the child’s biological father, and stepmother Sheetal Ranot, 31, including being hit, locked in her bedroom by her stepmother without food or water

Melanie Chandan threatens to sue city over subway accident

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Madison Square Garden booked, prep on in full swing for Modi visit

Six of the eight cars on the train derailed and the rail cracked in the crash, MTA officials said at the time. Of the 19 injured, four required hospital treatment.

Melanie told the local media that since the derailment, she has taken the subway only once — to get to a

elanie Chandan, 19, a student of Hunter College in New York City, has filed a notice of claim with the city controller’s office that she intends to sue the city and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority over the May 2 accident that injured 19 people and left 1,000 people stranded underground for three hours.

The notice said she remains too traumatized to take the subway. ‘I can’t bring myself to ride the train. I even get upset by the rumblings of the train,’ she said.

Melanie boarded the Manhattanbound F train around 10:30 am May 2 at the Briarwood station near the Van Wyck Expressway. Soon she felt the car ‘suddenly careened out of control and derail’ near the Woodside stop at 65th Street, according to court papers.

Then she felt the operator slam on the brakes, which ‘caused a loud and cacophonous din, followed by smoke,’ Melanie’s lawyer Rehan Nazrali told the Daily News.

She was thrown back and forth, side to side, upwards and downwards in her seat. As the subway car came to a stop, A passenger photographs a firefighter who entered their car after the F train she was violently precipitated forward derailed in Woodside, Queens, May 2. Melanie Chandan was on the train too. and her shins made contact with the seats in front of her. Her head, neck, chest, history final at Hunter, where she had a panic attack back, right forearm, right shoulder, shins and knees and couldn’t finish the test. were injured and she got medical attention for the Nazrali said that Melanie ended up withdrawing injuries as well as physical and psychiatric therapy. from two classes because of her panic attacks.

The notice of claim blames the city and MTA for The MTA has not yet determined what caused the defective brakes and rails and negligent operation of derailment, but a broken rail has been ruled out. the cars.

CONNIE WANG/REUTERS

A CORRESPONDENT

and forced to take cold showers while her father hit her about her body with his hands and even a baseball bat.’

Brave Maya apparently endured the abuse because she was petrified her four step-siblings would be sent away to foster care. Fortunately, she found the courage to speak up.

Sheetal, who was being held in jail in lieu of a total of $60,000 in bail, faces up to seven years in prison in the first case, and up to 25 years in prison in the second case.

Rajesh, who faces up to seven years in prison, remains in jail in lieu of $25,000 bail. Their next court date was to be August 13.

Carrion thanked the child protective specialists and investigative consultants for their diligence and professionalism that ensured Maya and her siblings are safe from further abuse.

‘Without their intervention,’ Brown said, ‘it is not too hard to imagine that this case would have ended in the child’s death.’

f PAGE 2 Jotwani’s Poojanka Entertainment.

“The MSG will check the history of the organization and process a credit check before signing any agreement,” Dr Barai explained. “Since the IACF is a new organization, it has no history or credit. We needed someone who has been doing business with MSG and we found Jotwani, who came forward without demanding anything in return.”

After the agreement was signed between MSG and Poojanka, another agreement was signed between Poojanka and the IACF allowing the IACF to take charge of everything about the reception.

Dr Barai personally paid the advance of $165,000 to book the stadium and took responsibility to pay off the remaining $400,000.

He said he did not have the freedom to take all the decisions regarding raising money, but had plans. The plans will be discussed in the committees and will be submitted for approval before announcement.

“Jotwani is a perfect gentleman and he will be just a volunteer for the event,” Dr Barai said.

Meanwhile, the OFBJP said in a statement that it is leading in organizing the event and working towards the mobilization of all Indian national and ethnic organizations to organize the event.

Vijay Jolly, the BJP’s global convener of overseas affairs, is visiting the US to mobilize community leaders and Indian Diaspora for the event. He along with Chandrakant Patel, OFBJP-USA president, will tour several American cities.

Jolly will meet with business leaders, US lawmakers, and think-tank groups in preparation for the community event.

Patel, along with the OFBJP team, is facilitating this 12-day tour to motivate OFBJP members and supporters for the event day. Patel will present a report to the prime minister, describing issues faced by the Indian Diaspora in the US.

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Consul General Mulay visits Connecticut P

roposals to have sister city relations between Stamford and Pune and Norwalk and Mysore emerged during a visit by Dnyaneshwar Mulay, India’s consul general in New York, to Connecticut last month.

During the visit, Consul General Mulay called on Stamford Mayor David Martin, Norwalk Mayor Harry Rilling and United States Representative Jim Himes.

Ambassador Mulay joined a community reception and interactive meeting at the Hampton Inn and Suites in Stamford. He was accompanied by his Consuls Ajay Purswani (passport/visa) and Dhirendra Singh (OCI/PIO and community affairs).

At a reception organized by the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin’s Connecticut chapter, audience members brought to the notice of the officials problems and complaints pertaining to the previous outsourcing agency BLS and the new agency Cox and Kings.

Complaints included the problem of reaching Cox and Kings over the phone, about their tracking systems, outsourcing agencies losing passports, not sending documents back by mail or Fedex even when it was paid for, unusual waiting times, and having to wait in the street for hours. People requested the consuls to streamline these processes.

The application process itself was very cumbersome, many pointed out, with too many forms to fill up, need for several photos and several copies of affidavits with photos. Other issues discussed included rules on renunciation of old passport and particularly for those who had become American citizens long time back, reapplying for Overseas Citizen of India cards before the age of 20 and after age 50, and rules governing the OCI card if the passport is expired.

Consul General Dnyaneshwar Mulay The consul told the audience that one needs to take the old passport where the visa is stamped.

Consul Dhirendra Singh told the audience that for those holding OCI cards between the age of 20 and 50, one needs to reapply for OCI card only when the current passport expires. Consul Ajay Purswani said that in case of an emergency one could visit the consulate to get a visa.

Hundreds of people attended the 13th anniversary celebrations of the Shree Swaminarayan Temple in Secaucus, New Jersey, and participated in special pujas and public events. Attendees included Secaucus Mayor Michael Gonnelli who welcomed Purushottam Swami Maharaj, the current leader of the group, with fruits and vegetables from his personal garden.

Mayor Gonnelli carried letters from US Senator Cory Booker and Congressman Bill Pascrell wishing the spiritual leader. New Jersey Assemblywoman Angelica Jimenez presented the temple with a joint proclamation from the New Jersey state Senate and Assembly in honor of the occasion. Other attendees included Hudson County Sheriff Frank Schillari. The Shree Swaminarayan Gadi Sansthan donated $1,000 each to the Secaucus Fire Department and the Office of Emergency Management.

The three-day festival included religious discourses about peace and unity, performances by the Swamibapa Pipe Band, and a blood drive in conjunction with Community Blood Services.

Three indicted for making money off Hurricane Sandy food stamps A CORRESPONDENT

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anjeet Chadha of North Bellmore and Sajjad Rashid of Rocky Point, co-owners of the Mastic Supermarket Corporation, and store employee Haricharan Malhotra have been arrested on charges of illegally trading cash for hundreds of thousands of dollars

in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — formerly known as food stamps — distributed by the government to help those left hungry in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

‘It’s unconscionable that anyone would steal from a program designed to provide nutritional assistance to New Yorkers in need, especially those harmed by

Hurricane Sandy,’ New York Attorney General Eric T Schneiderman said while announcing a 25-count indictment against the three and seven SNAP recipients.

‘There has to be one set of rules for everyone, and that is why my office will hold these individuals accountable and attempt to recover the nearly $1 million stolen from this crucial program,’ he said.

If convicted Rashid, 43, and Malhotra, 41, each face up to 15 years in prison.

Chadha, 48, faces up to seven years in prison.

According to the indictment, instead of using their SNAP benefits for food, the cardholders received cash equaling half of the amount of these fake purchases.

Rashid, Chadha and Malhotra kept the remainder of the money for themselves.

In addition to the criminal charges, Schneiderman has filed a civil suit seeking restitution of $973,000 against Rashid, Chadha, Malhotra and the Mastic Supermarket Corp, which was also criminally charged.

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n the coffee shops, restaurants, small businesses and several houses of worship around Ozone Park — a very mixed neighborhood of families from over two dozen ethnic groups ranging from the Irish to Peruvians to Uzbeks to Indians — Sandeep Singh continues to be discussed nearly two weeks after a man rammed his pickup truck into him in an apparent hate crime July 30 Singh, 29, is still in critical condition in a Queens hospital, where his wife and two kids along with family members visit him every day.

His alleged assailant, a Caucasian man 50, 60 years old, is absconding.

The police insist the investigation is still active and continue checking with the people around the scene of the attack. But no arrest in nearly two weeks since the incident has angered and frustrated Sikh community leaders and the nearly 10,000 Sikh residents of this bustling borough.

Queens, with a population of 2.3 million including immigrants from more than 75 countries — the number goes up to 120 if you count students at

HATE and the CITY

Two racist attacks in two weeks — one in Queens and one on Long Island — leave New York’s Sikhs fuming. Arthur J Pais reports.

Sandeep Singh’s wife Prabhpreet Kaur, center, with the infant, at the press conference and protest rally.

KIND COURTESY SIKH COALITION

Queens College and other colleges and universities across the borough — is often called the most ethnically diverse district in America. It has seen dozens of racially motivated attacks in the last decade, with people often mistaken for Muslims.

The people in Queens want Singh’s assailant nabbed.

“Till now, we are all suspects,’ said one liquor shop owner who did not want to be identified, “and we are all thought to be racists. We may not all like everyone around us, but that does not mean we turn our back on history and immigration and live a life of hatred.”

On a sunny Saturday, Sikhs of all ages could be seen in parks, restaurants and a gurdwara not far away from the construction business Sandeep Singh ran near the junction where he was mowed down. Some of the men said they were concerned about unexpected and sudden racial rage.

“But we walk and work around with

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INDIA IN NEW YORK AUGUST 15, 2014

Many Sikhs said they were disappointed that the demonstration called by Sikh Coalition and addressed by Sandeep Singh’s wife had drawn only a few dozen people

KIND COURTESY SIKH COALITION

in a statement from Jamaica Hospital.

Singh, who is from India and is married to a United States-born Sikh woman, was getting out of his car in Richmond Hill around midnight when the driver of a silver GMC 1500 Series Sierra pickup was blocked by his vehicle’s door, the police said.

One version of the attack had said earlier that Singh was crossing the avenue with his friends, and the driver of the car became mad as he had to slow down.

The two men argued before the driver hit the gas and bumped Singh with his car on 99th Street near 101st Avenue.

Singh says he told the driver he was not a terrorist and sought to stop him moving while his friends were calling the police. The driver charged his car again, this time running Singh over and dragging him through the street, before taking off.

Singh’s friends say he was dragged 30 feet; the police believe the distance was lesser.

HATE AND THE CITY f PAGE 7

protests, many said.

In December 2012, Sunando Sen, a Hindu, was pushed below an oncoming train a by a woman who claimed she hated Muslims following 9/11.

“We cannot say this is a problem for Sikhs or Hindus,” Sonny Singh, musician and activist, has said. “Racism has to be confronted by vigilance by all people.”

proudly with our head upright on our shoulders,” said one man. “Of course we take precautions, We often go around with our friends. Of course there is no guarantee that this will keep bad people away.

Sandeep Singh was with his friends when he was attacked. Yet there is no fter the attack on denying there is safety in Sandeep, a second numbers.” attack on a Sikh — whose He too did not want to name has not been give his name or allow us released at his request — to photograph him. “The on Long Island, allegedly man who did this very by about dozen teenagers, bad thing is still at large,” some whites and a few he said, “and who knows, African Americans, has others may want to crefurther upset the Sikh ate copycat attacks too.” community.

Many Sikhs said they The victim, who accordwere disappointed that ing to Sikh activists, is a Sandeep Singh the demonstration called scientist, was reportedly

by Sikh Coalition and addressed by the walking with his mother on a visit from wife of Sandeep Singh had drawn only India when the teenagers confronted a few dozen people. Hindus and him, hurled racial slurs and called him Muslims are also affected by racism Osama bin Laden. The son and mother and they should have joined the were going to dine at one of their

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A scene from the surveillance camera footage of the crime favorite restaurants. The attackers included three girls. The teens also reportedly taunted the mother, who was wearing a turban, calling her a ‘bitch with facial hair.’

The teens then repeatedly punched the man, threw a bottle at him, and ran off. The man required treatment at the hospital and his mother was emotionally distraught after the incident.

Sandeep Singh was also called Osama.

‘I was attacked because I am a Sikh and because I look like a Sikh,’ he said

The police released a photograph of the truck but have not given out more details about the man wanted for the attack. .

‘I was appalled,’ Singh’s wife, Prabhpreet Kaur, said at a press conference. ‘This is New York City. We are the mixing pot of culture, of religions. I don’t know how it still happens here

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Where diversity collides with reality ARTHUR J PAIS

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zone Park, where Sandeep Singh was attacked July 30, had seen its first big attack on a person believed to be an Indian 16 years ago.

Rishi Maharaj from Florida, then 19, who was visiting an uncle in Ozone Park, was so badly beaten up by three white men, 19 to 22 years old, that he needed treatment for over two years.

One of the defendants, Nuno Martins, 21, was convicted of assault and sentenced to eight years in prison. The other two, Luis Amorim, 24, and Peter DiMarco, 21, were acquitted.

Prosecutors said the three men set upon Maharaj one night as he walked with two female cousins along the street; they did not like to see people of color in their neighborhood.

Maharaj was born in America to Trinidadian immigrants whose ancestors came from India in the 19th century.

Queens has witnessed a lot of hate crime and sustained attack on minorities for years. Hundreds of Muslim, Hindu and Sikh children are bullied in Queens schools.

Isn’t this arguably the most diverse borough in America? Isn’t Queens’ biggest strength is its remarkable diversity? Isn’t this is the borough where in less than an hour you can pass by restaurants and street carts selling food representing over 100 countries, where the Lahori kebab has a distinct taste from the Adana kebab people of Turkish origin make and the kebabs in the Uzbek, Kazak and Moroccan restaurants vie for attention?

Isn’t this the borough where you can

debate endlessly whether the falafel at an Israeli restaurant in one corner of Queens is the best falafel in the city or the Palestinians a few doors away are offering more delicious falafel?

Among the 2.2 million people living within its 109 square miles, there are immigrants from more than 75 countries — 120, if you include students from some of the world’s smallest countries — who speak more than 138 languages.

Roosevelt Avenue, a central Queens corridor, goes through Southeast Asia, India, South America, China and Korea in a couple of miles. Queens is also a premier sporting destination, with both Citi Field (home base for the New York Mets) and Arthur Ashe Stadium (where tennis greats vie for the US Open title each year).

Flushing’s Chinatown, an increasingly

The intersection where Sandeep Singh was attacked. popular destination for foodies, is now larger than its Manhattan counterpart.

Jackson Heights offers Tibetan, Indian and Latin American food. Astoria, Long Island City and Woodside provide excellent nightlife options. LaGuardia and John F Kennedy airports are located in Queens.

The immigrants from Russia and former Soviet republics have swelled Queen’s population considerably in the last decade, increasing its diversity.

Queens College is one of the most diverse institutions of higher education in the country.

Here in Queens, my home for nearly a decade, there are temples and shrines

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Where diversity collides with reality f PAGE 9 marking large and small religions. The Holy Mass is celebrated here in more than 60 languages including Malayalam, Urdu and Korean and Portuguese. The Bangladeshis often go to a particular mosque or two, and the Paksitanis and Indians have their favorite mosques.

But then, history has shown that increasing diversity does not necessarily create a homogenous community. So there is always simmering tension between communities. And it is not anymore whites versus people of color.

Mistrust is not confined to just one or two communities.

from the Chechens,” said one, referring to the secessionist Muslims of Tatar heritage in Russia. “But you find so many Muslims here.”

Asked what made him think that an Indian or a Pakistani Muslims had to do with the Chechens, the young man said blandly, “They are all one.”

Lifestyles often clash. The Trinidadians and Guyanese have been accused often of having late night parties and loud music into the early hours of the morning during the Pagwah fes-

central Asia.

Richmond Hill has also acquired some notoriety for the large spread bullying of children.

“Many of thee children are born here, they are all American, and yet because of their religion or the nationality of their parents, they get bullied,” said Amardeep Singh.

Though bullying has come down in the past few years because of the persistent advocacy by the parents and a handful of antibullying groups, it is still an issue.

Sonny Singh, musician and interfaith activist, who has marched with Sikh parents and students asking the schools in Queens to be more proactive in countering bullying, said he has been dismayed at many attacks on Muslims and Sikhs in Queens in recent years.

When two Muslims including a

ichmond Hill and Ozone Park areas used to be largely Irish,” “R said Amardeep Singh program direc-

PARESH GANDHI

tor, Sikh Coalition, discussing the attack on Sandeep Singh. “But the demographics have been steadily changing in these pockets, as in many pockets in Queens. And certain amount of tension has followed the change. After 9/11, the tension has become more focused, and many Muslims and others who are mistaken for Muslims have been targeted.”

December 2012, Erika Menendez told police she shoved a man to his death off a subway platform because she has hated Muslims since 9/11. The man, Sunando Sen, was crushed by a 7 train in Queens.

You can feel the racial and ethnic fault lines when you look for a house to rent. I have been denied a house, mistaken for a Muslim. One landlord thought my first name was Akhtar. He reluctantly told me he did not want a Muslim tenant. Not only was he violating New York State’s housing law, but he was also a Muslim. He whispered that after 9/11 he found out that renting the house to another Muslim family made some neighbors suspicious.

New as well as old immigrants often carry the baggage of distrust from the old countries.

In Richmond Hill, which has seen hundreds of Russian families migrate in the past decade, some young people said they were shocked to see “so many Muslims around.”

“We thought we were running away

Queens is home to roughly 10,000 Sikhs and the community feels attacks on it are not dealt with seriously. tivities. Indians wonder at times loudly how the Bangladeshis came about buying properties and businesses in Jackson Heights, once the monopoly of Indians. Some of us have forgotten a lot of non Indians used to wonder about us when we began settling in Jackson Heights four decades ago.

Richmond Hill, once the bastions of the Irish, is today heavily Sikh, followed

by Guyanese and Russian, a sparkling of Polish, and pockets of Jews from

grandfather were attacked in Queens about two years ago, he wrote an article in a mainstream publication that when he read of the attacks the trauma of the Oak Creek gurdwara shooting was ‘still fresh for us Sikhs in the United States, and there is little doubt that these recent attacks on Muslim men in Queens are rooted in the same type of bigotry that has so often made Sikhs targets since 9/11. As I’ve said before, our struggles are deeply connected.’

HATE AND THE CITY f PAGE 8 and especially in Queens.’

She had waited for her husband to return home from dinner and started tot panic as hours ticked by. She could not get a response from his cell and she could not get any response from his friends too. Only around 5 am did she hear from the hospital. She rushed there in a cab with her young children.

Sing suffered abdominal and back injuries.

‘We’re tired of being targeted again and again by bigots,’ Rajdeep Singh, director of law and policy, Sikh Coalition, said in a statement, ‘but Sikh Americans are not afraid and are not going to let a small group of narrow-minded individuals get us down.’

‘Even in New York City, a place that touts itself as a progressive bastion, Sikhs have suffered a string of hate crimes,’ lawyer-turnedstandup Dean Obeidallah wrote in The Daily Beast. ‘…But attacks against Sikhs attract little media attention.

And as New York City Sikh leaders noted, these incidents merit even less of a response from the NYPD. In fact, Sikhs are even discriminated against when applying to join the NYPD because of their turbans and beards.’

Obeidallah also mentioned the ‘indignities’ Sikhs, especially young ones, suffer every day in the city: ‘Sikh teens have been bullied and harassed in New York City high schools, with some even having their turbans or facial hair forcibly removed.’

The Sikh community, held a protest rally to call attention to this hate crime and the NYPD’s lack of action. ‘But as a reporter for The Gothamist noted, even after this press conference, the NYPD is doing little in the way of investigating this incident,’ the comedian and activist said.

The NYPD, Obeidallah, has been dragging its feet in calling this a hate crime, he pointed out.

Desi View

11

INDIA IN NEW YORK AUGUST 15, 2014

New York made me open to being ready for the possibility of magic

N

RAJEEV GUPTA

ew York, New York 1**** is an address that many desire. I too did. When I would call up customer care or some other services number and conclude my address with those words, it would give me a sense of pride. Some believe it’s a state of mind. It probably was for those first few months.

After which, I would pass by the Empire State Building everyday on my way to work, but would hardly look at it.

Unlike Carrie Bradshaw, who was madly in love with the city, so much so that she would be offended if people from other towns didn’t like New York because New York City was her real boyfriend, I was never obsessed.

I came to New York almost a year ago from a small campus town of Bloomington Indiana. Even though I was from a big city of New Delhi, a year in Uttarakhand and two years in Indiana had taken away my comfort with big cities. Therefore, my first time in the city was nothing short of cultural shock. The pace of life and its people would overwhelm me.

After a while, when I got over that, I was able to see the city from a relaxed prism.

I changed zip codes three times during the one year.

Starting with Midtown west for a week, I moved to Astoria for the previous summer. What I loved about Astoria was that it was little far from the heart of madness — Midtown. So, a subway ride back home would give me a sense of transition from work to home. It was a very diverse place. I would see South Asian women wearing sari in daily life there!

Next fall, I moved to the Upper West Side with a friend

from undergrad who I had not been in strong touch with in years. I was pleasantly surprised by everything I discovered about him. No wonder many of memories in the city were shaped through him. I remember every pre game I did in his company before going out. I remember the ‘best of luck’ he would yell from the door as I would step out, all dressed up for parties!

It was a very Hispanic neighborhood, very lively.

Things were way more affordable. A gym membership would cost only $10! The riverside park was a bloc away and I would run by the Hudson everyday. Well almost.

Soon winters came. They were lovely sometimes and brutal at others. Regardless, New Yorkers survive.

The sense of commitment to work in New York is pretty strong across the white, blue or any other colored collar jobs because there is fierce competition for everything. If you don’t perform someone else will.

New York is a city where I made lots of acquaintances.

There are so many people that it is very easy to meet them. I met them at substations, on trains, in Starbucks cafés, in parks, at theaters — almost everywhere. No wonder my Facebook and LinkedIn went through a quantum expansion. But it is little hard to make close friends. Unlike Bloomington, where there are only so many places to go to, making it easy to run into same people again and make deeper friendships, New York offers way too many things to do. Therefore, like the real estate in the city, people’s time is also a premium product. Every hour of the weekend or week day evenings are planned ahead and optimized for best return. So it is hard to get on people’s calendars.

I am guilty of the crime too! But I did manage to find a few that will stay on my list of frequently contacted or be thought of as friends. Forever.

In the spring I moved to the Upper East Side. This place is completely different. There are lot more families and children here. This time I would run by the East river. It is from here I would say goodbye to the city and the country as I fly back to India in two weeks. hat I loved most about New York City was possibilities. When I would step out of my apartment in W the morning, I would have no idea who I would run into

or what the rest of the day would look like. I would start the day with certain plans for the evening, but the day would end completely differently!

I ran into my favorite film maker Mira Nair so many times that now she recognizes me and my name. I saw her and her son at an Ethiopian restaurant I went to get dinner and I had misty eyes when she made a smile of acknowledgment!

New York made me open to being ready for the possibility of magic to happen.

I never thought I would miss New York. I have been on the road for three weeks now. Miles away from New York City. But when a server in a small town of Naples in Utah talks to me about Upper East Side, I realize that I may leave New York, but New York will never leave me.

Some of the craziest, sweetest memories of my stay in America happened in that city. It was here in New York City I found first few romantic relationships and felt what it was like to be adored back.

For what it’s worth, it was worth the while.

Rajeev Gupta, a Fulbright Scholar, graduated from Indiana University. He completed his 30 in 30 American journey, to meet 30 families across the nation in 30 days, August 7.

12

Special INDIA IN NEW YORK AUGUST 15, 2014

THOUSANDS ATTEND AS BAPS TEMPLE OPENS IN ROBINSVILLE, NEW JERSEY

The ceremony was presided over by Pramukh Swami Maharaj, second from left, the spiritual head of BAPS.

Reportage: Arthur J Pais.

Photographs: Paresh Gandhi

C

At least 20.000 people, included hundreds from India and thousands from other American states, attended six-day events

lermont, Florida-based urologist Jamin Brahmbhatt is a busy man who can hardly take a few days off. But last week he arrived with his wife and three very young children at his parents’ home in New Jersey. He wasn’t there just for family. He was in fact offering his services to his greater family, BAPS, spending hours at its new temple complex that was inaugurated with special prayers and rituals over the weekend.

At least 20.000 people, included hundreds from India and thousands from other American states, attended sixday events presided over by Pramukh Swami Maharaj, the spiritual head of BAPS. Wheelchair-bound Maharaj, 92, made his first trip to America in five years. He was flown in a chartered plane with physicians and nurses, and his closest advisers and followers in the sect, not to forget a band of sadgurus. His fragile health was on many people’s mind amid the days of frenzied activities.

“We want to have him a very long time,” said one devotee. “But would he be able to travel like this and bless us here?”

Dr Brahmbhatt was among hundreds of volunteers who were offering seva (service) — some taking the visitors around, some like a young soldier in United States Army helping the flow of visitors, and many look-

ing after the logistics of smoothly conducting the prayers and rituals.

The Ahmedabad-headquartered Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, which envisions ‘a society whose joy lies in the joy of others’, was founded by Bhagwan Swaminarayan in the early 19th century. It says it has over 3,850 centers, over a million followers and over 880 sadhus spread worldwide.

The BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir was inaugurated August 10 in Robbinsville, New Jersey.

Situated about an hour and half from Manhattan amid greenery, the handsome temple is built entirely from hand-carved Italian marble. It is part of a 167-acre complex which in less than four years will have a larger temple and other facilities including a yoga school, youth center and rectory, and will promote Indian culture including dance and music. The temple stands 134 feet long and 87 feet wide, with 108 pillars and three inner sanctums.

The temple was officially inaugurated in a Vedic ceremony performed by BAPS swamis in the presence of Pramukh Swami Maharaj. It is the sixth traditional (stone) BAPS temple of its kind in North America.

There are over two dozen BAPS mandirs

PAGE 13 g

Special

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INDIA IN NEW YORK AUGUST 15, 2014

The intricately carved temple. Some of the BAPS organizers believe that the complex would be the largest Hindu religious complex when all the structures and the second temple will be ready. It will be the largest Hindu temple in the world, in terms of acreage, BAPS officials said.

f PAGE 12 across America and Canada.

Some of the BAPS organizers believe that the complex would be the largest Hindu religious complex when all the structures and the second temple will be ready. It will be the largest Hindu temple in the world, in terms of acreage, BAPS organizers said. At present, the biggest Hindu temple is the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple in Srirangam, Tamil Nadu, covering 156 acres.

The estimated cost of the land and all the structures including a sprawling reception hall could come to over $150 million for the Robbinsville temple complex, per the organizers. The temple inaugurated last week cost about

Hundreds of people volunteered for the temple inauguration events.

$18 million.

“When we have so many volunteers who have poured in thousands of hours in the past 10 years for this project,” said Lenin Joshi, who does media relations for BAPS in North America, “and who have been helping us with planning and other logistics, can we really put a price on this?”

Rohan Pandit, a devotee and volunteer, said, “This mandir has changed the community’s landscape. It is impossible to visit this temple complex and not experience a rush of love, peace, and harmony. Yes, it benefits the local congregation, but it is also a great contribution for our township and its people.”

Pandit said the temple “will increase cultural awareness amongst our community members. I for one, have come to appreciate how different religious communities celebrate their traditions and pray to God. This appreciation and par-

The temple inauguration events spanned six days.

ticipation is indicative of the pluralism that influences the community.”

The organizers said the temple ‘is a modern architectural marvel built in accordance with guidelines from ancient Hindu scriptures.’ Craftsmen in India first meticulously carved each portion of Italian marble. As the individual portions were completed, they were brought to Robbinsville ‘to be pieced together like a giant puzzle to cover every inch of the structure.’

The entire process, from the choice of stone to the completion of construction, took about six years. “If one stone was found defective, you had to wait for weeks to get a replacement from India,” said a BAPS official.

“The mandir is a tribute to the values and traditions of our faith,” said Dipal Patel, volunteer coordinator for BAPS. “Thousands of volunteers have dedicated themselves and sacrificed immensely to help create this lasting legacy. It is through the selfless service of hundreds of professional volunteers — engineers, architects, and project managers — that this mandir has come up so swiftly and at a relatively low cost.”

A large number of over 150 temples in North America are converted from warehouses or deconsecrated churches.

“This temple was created from scratch,” said Patel, “And it was built according to Indian scriptures.”

There are only five other BAPS stone temples in North America, located in suburbs near Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Toronto, Patel said.

“There are requirements with regards to what has to be in the temple and the type of ambience required,” he added.

The temple sits inside of a larger building to protect its surface from New Jersey’s harsh winter. That shield could help it last more than 1,000 years, BAPS officials say.

Some of the most detailed carvings in the temple’s surface feature peacocks and elephants — which represent purity and strength – and the lotus flower, which represents purity The temple complex was to come up in East Windsor but when it was proposed six years ago, there was little enthusiasm from the mayor and many people in town opposed the idea. The current complex is built on farmland.

Dr Brahmbhatt, whose parents are big supporters of BAPS and the relief work the organizations provides throughout the year, said his wife was also a volunteer.

“I will show the mandir to my children with special pride,” he said. “Though they are a little too young to understand the significance of something like this, we know the temple is going to be here for years to come.”

Hundreds of parents brought theirs children dressed in Indian clothes to the festivities and ceremonies.

‘I can come back 10 or 20 years from now and bring my kids here and point out that this is something you would find in India,’ Iva Patel, a volunteer, told the media. ‘And come to think of it, we don’t have to go all the way to India.’

14

India in New York August 15, 2014

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Aseem in New York

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INDIA IN NEW YORK AUGUST 15, 2014

Culture vulture L

ast week, desi culture was all over New York City. Saturday, August 9, the legendary violinist L Subramaniam joined the noted singer Pandit Jasraj in a jugalbandi at Baruch College. And Friday August 8 the iconic British band Asian Dub Foundation performed a new soundtrack with tabla and other desi percussion sounds for George Lucas’s first film, THX 1138, at Prospect Park in Brooklyn.

But a day earlier, on Thursday evening, I experienced something unique – jazz compositions with a touch of Carnatic music sounds, along with Bharata Natyam dances.

Song of the Jasmine is a set of dance performances by the Ragmala Dance company and its two choreographers, Aparna Ramaswamy and Ranee Ramaswamy, with jazz compositions of Rudresh Mahanthappa and his ensemble that includes the

DARIAL SNEED

A snapshot from Song of the Jasmine.

Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan in The Trip to Italy.

T

he Lincoln Center has such a rich art space that on any given day there are many parallel events going on. So currently the arts institution is also hosting its annual Lincoln Center Festival with a vast array of events.

On Saturday I attended what I can only call a once in lifetime event: A production of French playwright Jean Genet’s 1947 play The Maids, featuring two of the most iconic and exciting actresses of our times — double Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett, and the lovely French star Isabelle Huppert.

A production of the Sydney Theatre Company, the play is inspired by a true story of two French sisters, maids for an upper class family, who killed their employers. In the play the two sisters Claire (Blanchett) and Solange (Huppert) plot to kill their mistress as they spend the day in her apartment, trying on her dresses and using her makeup. Their plan does not succeed as the mistress refuses to drink a poisoned cup of tea.

There is a lot of madness and absurdity in the situation, but the play works like a comedy. Both the star performers are terrific in the show, but Huppert who has a heavy French accent (she speaks fluent English though), does such a fine job of using her face, her eyes and eyelashes to give a captivating performance.

The Maids plays at the City Center in midtown Manhattan until August 16. Don’t miss it!

M

Cate Blanchett and Isabelle Huppert in a scene from the Sydney Theatre Company's production of The Maids.

STEPHANIE BERGER

Pakistani-American guitarist Rez Abbasi.

The performance was presented by the Asia Society, but it was part of the free Lincoln Center Out of Doors summer events. It was a beautiful night in the Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park facing the band shell.

The evening opened with performances by a classical Chinese dance troupe. This was followed by an American modern dance performance.

But the best was to come after sunset with sounds of the saxophone, guitar, mridangam, violin and flute, working with a group of young Bharata Natyam dancers. It was a beautiful fusion of old Indian traditions, layered with newer, at times Western sounds. It all blended rather well.

ichael Winterbottom is one of the most prolific filmmakers directing practically a film every year, and sometimes more. His talent lies in the fact that most of his films do not have a script.

He gives his actors the freedom to improvise, and usually the films work really well.

In 2010 Winterbottom made a film based on his six-part BBC series, The Trip, where his two regular actors Steven Coogan and Rob Brydon travel through the English countryside eating at classic restaurants. All the while the two friends with a hilarious competitor streak also spend time impersonating well known actors, from Michael Caine to Al Pacino.

The Trip was a lot of fun and now Winterbottom has made a sequel, The Trip To Italy, where we have more of the same,

but with the beautiful Italian countryside.

Plus now there’s a range of pasta, seafood, complimented by Italian wines.

I attended a press screening of the film last week. There is more of Caine imitation and a hilarious sequence where Brydon impersonates both Christian Bale and Tom Hardy (most of the time he mumbles their dialogues) in The Dark Knight Rises. And of course since we are in Italy where Godfather 2 begins, we hear a lot of Robert De Nero, Al Pacino and Marlon Brando.

In the midst of all of eating and movie talk, The Trip to Italy also examines the two actors’ mid-life angsts and the realization that they are getting older. While the film is very funny, it is also quite introspective and very real.

The Trip to Italy opens August 15. I had a blast watching it.

Bollywood

17

INDIA IN NEW YORK AUGUST 15, 2014

ÂFILMS DONÊT FAIL, BUDGETS FAILÊ Ajay Devgn chats about Singham Returns.

Sonil Dedhia listens in

A

jay Devgn is back with Singham Returns.

The actor-producer promises that they have raised the bar, that the action will be ‘quite real,’ and tells us what to expect from the new film.

Do you look at Singham as a brand?

Singham has become a character that can go on and on. Like in Hollywood, we had Rambo.

Singham can combat at the age of 50 or 60 also.

It has become a cult character. I have come across people who call cops Singham because of the good work they did for the society.

How different is Singham Returns from the Ajay Devgn Tamil film Singham 2?

We heard the script of the Tamil film and felt it was necessary to change it completely to suit the taste of our audience. new film.

Singham was a big hit and we had to raise the bar.

Is it difficult to do high octane action sequences at this There was pressure to deliver another good film. That is age? why we did not blindly copy the Tamil film.

If you keep yourself fit, it’s manageable. But you do have Our film is not a remake. Technically, my character is to take care of injuries. Doing action has become safer. the same, but has moved from living in a small village to a Action sequences in Bollywood have evolved a lot. big city like Mumbai. The drama, the scale and the probAbsolutely. It is getting bigger and better. The budgets lems have become bigger in the film. are higher and with the help of new technology, action has How distinct is Singham Returns from the first part? become easier. I still do my own action sequences as much With audiences changing, the way you treat your story as I can. has become very important. It needs realism.

In certain action scenes in Singham Returns, I have not In the previous film, Singham never got hurt, but this used cables or any harness. It’s pretty raw and real.

Singham can. It’s like Iron Man. Iron Man 3 showed the Your father Veeru Devgan was stunt and action choreogIron Man without the suit and it was the man, who was rapher. What does he have to say about today’s action fighting and not a superhero. You can’t show the hero taksequences? ing over all the time. He also has his pressures and gets He likes the progress. He feels that there are a lot of beaten up. safety precautions taken today that help in doing better From the promos, it looks like there are a lot of changes stunts. in the action sequences.

After working with Rohit Shetty in so many films, do you We have consciously decided to keep the action have a blind faith in him and would you accept any film he sequences more real. We had got bored of seeing people offers you? and cars flying and that whole style of action. As I said, We have been working together for 25 years, so we do you can’t show that the hero wins all the time. share an amazing rapport. There is faith in each other, but Women and kids have loved Singham more than men. we do discuss the script and the story before working on a That is why we made sure there is a no blood bath in the

project. He knows me and he knows how to use me as an actor.

Tell us about your chemistry with Kareena Kapoor.

I don’t know what ‘chemistry’ means. I think if the characters work then chemistry works.

We share a great rapport.

We have known each other for many years. So there is a comfort zone and that shows on screen.

Kareena says one bad habit that you have is your smoking. What are her good and bad qualities?

She has a lot of good qualities. She is a very simple and naive girl and is a good actress. She tries to portray that she is very smart but she is not.

She loves to gossip, which I would call entertaining rather than a bad quality.

Do you succumb to the pressure of starring in only commercial films?

Box office excites me but that doesn’t have anything to do with my choice of films. I want to hear a script that excites me. Like Mahesh Bhatt’s Zakham excited me; it took me just 30 seconds to decide about that film.

I also feel that films don’t fail, budgets fail.

You are also one of the producers of Singham Returns. Have you personally set some benchmark for the film’s box-office performance?

No, we have not decided on figures or talked about it. You can make an estimate when you watch some other film, but about your own film you can’t.

I don’t even want to discuss numbers. As an actor and a producer, I want to surpass my own box office record, which is important to me.

Shah Rukh Khan had come on the sets of Singham Returns...

(Interrupts) He was shooting so he just dropped in.

But there was news that Rohit Shetty played the mediator between Shah Rukh and you.

Rohit didn’t play mediator. I don’t know why there are stories that we have patched up.

When there is no issue, where does the question of patch up arise?

I never said that there is no equation with SRK. I had said that there is no friendship and I still maintain that. But that does not mean that we are enemies.

Maybe there was something 20 years ago, when we were both rash and brash, but he’s never spoken out against me or vice versa. We also don’t remember what we said about each other so many years ago. We may not meet for a drink every day, but that doesn’t mean we are at war. You don’t have to be best friends with everyone. We are colleagues and we are there for each other as we are part of the same industry.

I am sure if I need some support tomorrow, he will be there for me and I will be there for him too.

Do you miss those days when you worked on multiple projects?

No, not at all. We used to do 18 films at a time, so a rule was made of not signing more than 11 films. I am too tired now (laughs). I can’t do more than one film at a time.

How do your kids react to your films?

My son loves me doing action and my daughter prefers comedy. They are eager to watch Singham Returns.

Kajol is making a comeback in films…

Yes. I cannot reveal the subject as it’s too early. It is a woman-centric film. We are looking for a hero. I will only be producing the film. I won’t be acting. Ram Madhavani will direct it.

18

Bollywood INDIA IN NEW YORK AUGUST 15, 2014

Comedian Sunil Grover, who made a comeback as Gutthi.

COURTESY: TWITTER.COM/NEETISIMOES

Comedian Kapil Sharma celebrates the success of his hit television show Comedy Nights With Kapil with actress Roshni Chopra, right, who makes guest appearances on the show, and crestive director Preeti Simoes, left, and her sister Neeti.

PHOTOGRAPHS: PRADEEP BANDEKAR

ALL THAT GLITTERS

A PEEK INTO THE WEEK’S GLITZIEST TINSEL TOWN EVENTS

Actor Aamir Khan with actor Makrand Deshpande at a screening of the Marathi film Saturday Sunday.

Actor Varun Dhawan with directors Sajid-Farhad at the screening of their film Entertainment.

Kiku Sharda, who plays Palak on the show.

Sargun Mehta, Vicky Tejwani, Sumona Mukherjee and Rashmi Desai.

Bollywood

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INDIA IN NEW YORK AUGUST 15, 2014

Brothers & Sisters

Legendary singer Lata Mangeshkar, left, with her brother Hridaynath Mangeshkar.

COURTESY: TWITTER.COM/MANGESHKARLATA

COURTESY: TWITTER.COM/SHREYASTALPADE

Actress Priyanka Chopra celebrates Rakshabandhan with her brother Siddharth.

Bollywood celebrates Rakshabandhan

Actor Shreyas Talpade with his sisters.

COURTESY: TWITTER.COM/FARAHKHANALI

Sussanne Roshan’s elder sister Farah Khan shared a picture with Hrithik Roshan. Hrithik later tweeted, ‘Rakhee binge! Is der a dentist dat cn extract my sweet tooth? Think I ws born wth 30 of them!Irony of a fitness freak.Ab kal dekhenge.’

COURTESY: TWITTER.COM/BIPSLUVURSELF

Bipasha Basu celebrated Raksha Bandhan with her Rakhi brother, filmmaker Sohum Shah. She shared a picture of them together and tweeted, ‘Recieved sweetest cupcakes from my bro Soham for Rakhi:) Sweet tooth!

Phewwww!’

Siddhanth and Shraddha Kapoor.

COURTESY: TWITTER.COM/SIDDHANTHKAPOOR

COURTESY: TWITTER.COM/PRIYANKACHOPRA

Bollywood

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INDIA IN NEW YORK AUGUST 15, 2014

For the cause of the documentary

The ultimate Got Talent

F

ilmmaker Vikramaditya Motwane, who has put his weight behind National award-winning documentary Katiyabaaz as a presenter, feels the genre is not getting its due despite dealing with interesting issues.

Katiyabaaz, jointly directed by Deepti Kakkar and Fahad Mustafa, is a story of the rampant electricity theft in Kanpur and has been told through the eyes of two protagonists.

“It is sad that the Indian audience is not watching such brilliant documentaries on a regular basis as compared to the Western countries. Documentaries are under performing in India. I feel filmmakers should come forward and support such documentaries, which are more identifiable,” A scene from Katiyabaaz.

Motwane told the Press Trust of India.

After traveling to over 50 international film festivals, including the Tribeca Film Festival, the London Melbourne International Film Festival, Katiyabaaz will Open Docs Fest, Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin, the released in India August 22.

ot Talent World Stage Live, a first-of-its kind global on-ground extension of the G Got Talent franchise, will premiere in

Mumbai December 6, providing a platform for contestants from all parts of the world to present their talent.

Actor Shah Rukh Khan, who will host it, said, “We have enough talent here in India to

WEDDING BELLS IN TINSEL TOWN hat Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone are a T couple is evident. But now a

director, who has worked with both, claims they are heading for the altar.

“They’re very serious about one another. When they’re in public, they pretend to be just friends. But away from prying eyes, they don’t care to hide their feelings for one another,” says the director.

The unit of Zoya Akhtar’s Dil Dhadakne Do is aware of how close the couple is. One of the actors on location says, “Ranveer was shooting with us in Istanbul. I had no clue about his closeness to Deepika. When she suddenly showed up on location, I was like... is she doing a guest appearance?

When I asked Zoya, she gave me a funny look. It was only then that we came to know Deepika was there to meet Ranveer. I have heard from the other actors that they are thinking of tying the knot next year.”

Says a reliable source, “They will be spending a lot of time together during the shooting of Bajirao Mastani — close to

150 days. That’s when they will take a call on their marriage.”

— Subhash K Jha

W

hile the buzz about Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone is followed by a giant question mark, it’s confirmed that it will be an October wedding for Dia Mirza and her fiancé Sahil Sangha.

“We have finally zeroed in on a date for our wedding. It’s October 18,” Dia says.

The wedding will be held in Delhi, as Sahil’s family is largely based there. It will be an intimate affair, attended only by close relatives and friends of the couple.

Dia is likely to host a reception in Mumbai later.

— Subhash K Jha

Like Imtiaz, like brother fter Imtiaz Ali’s brother Arif made his directorial debut in Lekar Hum Deewana Dil, it’s now the turn A of their youngest brother Sajid.

The Ali brothers — from left, Sajid, Arif and Imtiaz at the premiere of Lekar Hum Deewana Dil.

Sajid will make his directorial debut with Bananas, produced by John Abraham.

According to a source, “Bananas is a film about friendship, loyalty and love, set in Jamshedpur (the town where the Ali brothers grew up). The protagonists are 17 year olds... It’s about the ups and downs of school life.”

— Subhash K Jha

PRADEEP BANDEKAR

Shah Rukh Khan at the launch of Got Talent.

show to the world and also get to see the best talent from all over the world. It’s a great platform and opportunity for people to showcase their talent. Besides music, and dance, there will be other talents.”

“Performing art is a pure act of passion and love,” SRK said. “Whether it is a five-minute act or a film, a performer can bring a smile to anyone’s face in seconds. During my appearance on India’s Got Talent, I saw great performances. This platform is perfect to explore young talent.”

The event will feature performances by 10 Indian and international talents each.

“I used to do mimicry and shayari on stage,” SRK said. “To showcase your talent in front of 100 or 1,000 people, you need a platform to enhance it more and it will come true through this show Got Talent World Stage Live. The day you feel you are talented and have done everything, it’s the end. One should remain ordinary. I still get nervous doing my first scene for any film.”

Inevitably, Shah Rukh was asked questions about his relations with other stars. What did he think about Salman Khan gifting him a sketch he had done himself?

“These questions are old. I am bored (of them). Now we meet... hug each other. There is love, friendship and everything else between us,” he replied.

— Rajul Hegde

Food

21

INDIA IN NEW YORK AUGUST 15, 2014

SREERAM SELVARAJ

This 75 year old has a cooking app to her name

Chitra Vishwanathan

Y

ou don’t expect a 75 year old to be so tech savvy as to use her iPad to make her points, shoot pictures on her mobile phone when she goes for a walk on the beach, or talk about storing stuff on the cloud when her hard disk kept failing.

But Chitra Viswanathan is not any 75 year old.

She’s Chitvish, columnist and head of the cookery section of a Web site, and a wellknown food blogger who shares her recipes and culinary expertise on the Internet. But she vehemently denies she is different.

“I am just a matronly, grey-haired Mylapore mami (aunty) who is passionate about cooking,” she says. “People think Chitvish is a flashy, smart lady, but no, there is nothing extraordinary about what I do. I am a housewife like any other, I just happen to be interested in technology.

Yeah, I guess my hobby is different.”

She welcomed us into her home with a baked dish and a sweet drink, saying, “I have made these two for you. Let me know how they taste. Only if you like them will I upload them on my Facebook page. I always try new recipes on guests.”

Needless to say, they were both yummy.

Chitra’s love of cooking started when she was a child. Whenever her mother’s side of the family got together in Trivandrum, the ladies did all the cooking.

“Even though I was but a chit of a girl, I used to wait for the stove to be lit so as to join in the fun,” she says. “We only cooked traditional South Indian food at home, and never really partook of any North Indian food. That is why, to this day, I retain a fascination for traditionally cooked South Indian food.”

Chitra Vishwanathan tells Shobha Warrier about her journey from homemaker to culinary expert She moved to Chennai after she got married, in 1960.

“In 1964, cooking gas and the pressure cooker made their way into our lives. I can’t tell you how much easier those innovations made cooking,” she recalls.

When she read an advertisement in the newspapers for a training course in juice and jam making offered by the Government Catering Institute, she decided to join: “Back then — this is 1964 we’re talking about — going to classes to learn cooking was a new concept. But I’ve always loved to do different things.”

Chitra started making juices, ketchup and jams at home. And whenever she heard of a cookery class, she joined up.

But what opened her horizons was a course in baking: “Baking was totally alien, not just to me, but to most women in Chennai who were otherwise passionate about cooking. We learnt to bake bread, pastries and so many other things in three months. After that, I was ready to bake anything.”

Each day, after sending the children off to school, she would rush to the British Council library to pore over recipes for baked dishes from magazines.

Soon after, she got a tin oven from Mumbai and started baking a variety of things for her children.

She says, “When I first made all those dishes, I thought I was the most creative person on earth! I still remember this one

time I was baking a dish when a cousin walked in and asked, ‘Chitra Akka, what are you making? It smells like a bakery in here.’

When people say that, I feel so thrilled.”

But she never lost her interest in traditional cooking: “I want to preserve all the traditional recipes as people are more interested in Italian and Mexican cuisine these days. I do not want the next generation to forget great dishes that are part of our traditional cuisine — Athirasam (a fried donut), Kai Murukku (a salty snack), the list goes on.”

In 2004, Chitra’s daughter gifted her a computer and an Internet connection.

“I asked my daughter, am I not a bit too old to learn new things at 65? What if I am not able to learn? She told me that I would be able to, dumped a lot of computing books on me, and headed home. She felt it would help me to explore a new world of baking and cooking. As I generally feel depressed if I fail to learn something, I tried hard to learn to use the computer.”

The broadband connection opened a whole new culinary world.

“When I searched for traditional recipes of various Kuzhambus and Koottus, I found that the recipes were all wrong.

Every recipe had onion and garlic whereas the traditional ones have neither,” she says.

“When I went to Indiatastes.com, a recipe discussion forum, I found that no one had answered a query on how to make Poosanika Koottu. I answered the

query and gave her the proper recipe.

From the moment I posted it, people started bombarding me with more queries.

They understood that somebody who actually knew how to cook had answered.”

“I still think my entry into the world of the Internet began when I told a lady from Nigeria how to make Veppila Katti (a spicy chutney powder).”

Then Chitra came across Indusladies.com, started by a woman named Malathi in the US in 2005. Malathi sent her an e-mail asking her to head its cookery section. Though she was initially hesitant, wondering how she would answer questions on recipes unknown to her, she took up the offer.

Malathi named the column ‘Ask Chitvish.’

“It was a new identity and a new beginning for me,” Chitra says. “She gave me full freedom to run the column the way I wanted. I covered almost everything that young women wanted to know, from making a meal in a jiffy to elaborate dishes.”

When a Kashmiri woman asked her what Kozhukattai (a traditional rice dumpling) looked like, Chitra realised that pictures were an essential part of a recipe column. She bought a camera and started posting pictures of all the dishes she cooked. She says, “It was a big challenge for me to upload the pictures from the camera. But in no time, I mastered the art.

Google was my teacher, helping me to do these things.”

From cooking, Chitra then moved to spirituality, quite organically. Many young women started asking her questions of a religious and spiritual nature, leading to another column on many aspects of Indian culture.

Then came the mobile app Ask Chitvish, $4 for Android and $5 for iOS, where she has uploaded more than 2,300 recipes, with many more on their way.

Vishwanathan’s days are jam packed. She spends almost seven to eight hours in front of the computer. A typical day begins at 6 am and a walk to the kitchen with her iPad and camera.

“I run between the kitchen and my computer, as that’s when people in the US ask me questions on my Facebook page. If I cook something interesting for breakfast, I immediately put it up on my page.”

In the evenings she walks down Chennai’s Marina beach. Using her camera phone, she takes candid pictures and puts them up on her Facebook page: “I even got an award once, from a radio station, for a candid photo I took.”

She adds, “Whatever I try, I post on Facebook. After my husband’s death recently, I wanted to make sure I didn’t wallow in loneliness. I have so many ‘cyber-friends’ who consider me a part of their family. I also blog a lot on many aspects of life that take my fancy.”

Her ambition is to now document all the recipes she knows. She says, “There are hundreds of versions of each recipe. I want to note down for posterity the versions I learnt from my grandmother.”

22

Special INDIA IN NEW YORK AUGUST 15, 2014

Chaya Babu attends the screening of Sold at the Asian American International Film Festival

never seen a human being in such a state of animal terror like I have when I’ve seen a kid who has just been rescued from being trafficked,” Brown explained.

“Basically when a girl has been rescued from a brothel, they put her on a threemonth suicide watch. They often cut themselves or try to hang themselves or try to run away. They’re truly shellshocked.”

Lakshmi learns firsthand that runaway attempts result in violent beatings, and she glimpses the grave consequence of repeated attempts or other infractions as she peers over the rooftop walls to catch a child being lowered into a shallow rectangular hole in the earth. And when one of the other girls leaves to return to her family, she is knocking at the door of Happiness House once again just days later. Few children who have been trafficked are accepted back into their homes.

But Lakshmi’s tale is not one of despair; the darkness depicted is necessary to understand the search for light, as Charles put it, making SOLD a story of hope and resilience.

With all the horror the film holds — the early scene where Lakshmi is drugged and raped by her first client as well subsequent ones where her brothel sisters are subject to the sigFilm Festival, which concluded August 2. nature punishment of crushed chilies smeared into their “The reason that I went to India and Nepal was not privates or, worse still, diagnosed with “the disease,” AIDS, because the problem was worse there than it is anywhere are heart wrenching — it also provides brief, but vivid and else. The truth is that I went there because work had believable snapshots of the strength and support between already begun on fighting trafficking.”

It is touchy to have a film about a brutal human rights vio- the victims and how this leads them to becoming survivors.

Not surprisingly, the film draws obvious comparisons to lation so pervasive and vast in its global reach take place the controversial Slumdog Millionaire in its portrayal of the across the borders of neighboring South Asian countries, underbelly of Indian society, but it is also reminiscent in particularly in the context of what some feel has been unfair ways of the more recent 12 Years A Slave. While perhaps not media coverage of India’s treatment of women in the past quite as raw or rife with revolting detail as Steve McQueen’s few years. A lot of the labor and sex slaves in the world are testimony to the depravity of chattel slavery of black in this region, but SOLD runs the risk of obscuring the fact Americans in the US, SOLD is just as honest in its telling of that this is not a problem unique to the global south or of the inhumanity and suffering occurring daily, everywhere, populations that need to be ‘saved’ from their barbaric attias part of the fabric of our social and economic systems. tudes toward women. That reading of the story is not only The human trafficking industry is a trite but is false. $150 billion business. It is no small mat“A lot of Americans who ter. see the film are unaware of And integral to the overall success of this issue being so extensive the film, which has been widely in their backyards,” SOLD embraced despite its potentially director Jeffrey Brown told provocative content, is its impact on India in New York. “I always audiences to want to do something. bring it home and say, ‘Well, SOLD is art, for sure: the cinematograwhere do you live? Guess phy is rich with complex techniques and what? There is trafficking the imagery is an eyeful of the bare and sexual slavery right vibrant vitality of urban India. But the where you live, wherever message is one to spark the human that is. It’s in pretty much desire for justice. every city and country in the Jeffrey Brown, the director of Sold, which stars Gillian “What you see (in these NGOs dedicated world.”

Anderson and David Arquette. to ending trafficking) is that the older The brunt of the narrative girls help victims come back, help them trust again, and it’s — after Lakshmi is taken under false pretenses by a woman an incredible process watching these older girls talking quinamed Bimla (Tillotama Shome) from her parents for etly, bringing clothes to the kids who have just come in, and whom she wants to earn enough money to buy a tin roof — I think I can speak for the both of us when I say that our takes place in Sonagachi, in West Bengal, which is among hearts were really broken multiple times in the research the largest red-light districts in the world. phase of making the film,” Brown said. “Now after the film In Brown’s words, “It is literally a city of brothels.” has been made, we want to use it as a vehicle to create It was here that he and producer Jane Charles witnessed change in India and Nepal and the US.” the tragic and heartbreaking aftermath of being the victim Brown and Charles are partnered with Childreach of forced prostitution, the psychological and emotional toll International, Stolen Youth, and other organizations doing it takes. Watching a girl get rescued by an NGO called work on the issue of human trafficking. Visit Sanlaap revealed the deep unending fear and cruelty that Soldthemovie.com to learn more about how to contribute to sex slaves experience. the movement.

“I’ve been to several wars as a filmmaker and I’ve just

A horrific yet hopeful narrative

L

akshmi (Niyar Saikia) is 13. Her usually soft, clean face has been assaulted with bright lipstick, sweeps of blush, and harsh kohl. Her vision is muddled and hazy, and her limbs are heavy. Not that it matters because she is tied to the bedposts when Varun (Ankur Vikal) — a man of 35, youngest, with a hard, weathered face and deep-set eyes — enters the dim room, the beat of the music from outside pulsing through the space. She is draped in a sari that only makes her look more like a child, and within moments the pleats are shoved to the side. But before that, Varun asks her, ‘Have you been thinking of me? I’ve been thinking of you.’

He has come to see Lakshmi previously. He requested her specifically — she’s young, pretty, a virgin. But she fought her way free. And he ended up with a bloodied cheek, she with a price to pay. This time, though, Varun faces no struggle as Lakshmi lies limp, her expression blank, as he pounds his body over hers. We catch blurred, bumpy bits of this scene, the bass still pumping hard in the background. And then it’s over.

Lakshmi sees 10 or so more men before morning.

SOLD, an independent film that’s making the festival circuit currently, tells the story of one girl, Lakshmi, but intimates at the behemoth that is the global sex slave trade.

Based on the novel by Patricia McCormick that was published in 2006, the film turns the issue of young people getting trafficked into prostitution into a single, personal, horrific yet hopeful narrative about one survivor’s journey from her home in rural Nepal to Happiness House, a brothel in Kolkata’s teeming red light district.

Here, Lakshmi’s expectations to do domestic work are shattered as she learns her new reality of selling her body against her will for the profit of Mumtaz, a plumpish, roughshod woman whose lair is adorned, ironically, with representations of Kali. The two meet briefly there, Mumtaz (Sushmita Mukherjee), all motherly, offering Lakshmi sweets and a sparkling toe ring mere minutes before Lakshmi is locked in a cell with a small, solitary barred window letting in a square of white light from the colorful, dusty alley below.

“I remember thinking ‘Has someone told the story from the girls’ point of view?’” McCormick said about the broader injustice of human trafficking at a New York screening of SOLD, which was part of the Asian American International

23

India in New York August 15, 2014

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The Week That Was INDIA IN NEW YORK AUGUST 15, 2014

Smriti Irani’s mysterious Yale degree

Hagel visits India

The controversy over Indian Human Resources and Development Minister Smriti Irani’s educational qualifications — she had made contradictory declarations when contesting parliamentary elections in 2004 and 2014 — took a new turn with her claim that she had a degree from Yale University.

The Connecticut-based Ivy League university clarified in a statement that she had attended the six-day 7th India-Yale Parliamentary Leadership Program and was awarded ‘a certificate of participation.’ There was no mention of a degree.

With 247 incidents of communal violence, Uttar Pradesh topped the list of states that witnessed riots in 2013 and the situation is no different in 2014, according to the Indian home ministry statistics. The other states with maximum communal violence instances include Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Gujarat.

Meanwhile, Following communal tension in Saharanpur, Moradabad and Meerut, among other places in UP, the state’s bureaucracy and police department underwent a major reshuffle.

Cabinet clears Juvenile Justice Act amendments A proposal empowering the Juvenile Justice Board to decide if a juvenile above 16 years involved in heinous crimes like rape is to be sent to a observation home or tried in a regular court, was cleared by the Indian Cabinet, August 6. However, a juvenile won’t be sentenced to death or life imprisonment.

Governor who clashed with Modi sacked Kamla Beniwal, who had a running battle with Narendra Modi when he was Gujarat chief minister, was sacked as governor of Mizoram two months before her tenure ended.

Beniwal is the second governor to be sacked. Soon after the Modi government assumed office, some governors were forced to resign while a few resisted and are still in office.

ANINDITO MUKHERJEE/REUTERS

UP tops list for most riots in India

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel pays his respects to fallen Indian soldiers at the India Gate war memorial, in New Delhi August 8.

Ban on ‘vesthi’ to become cognizable offence in Tamil Nadu To put an end to the ‘colonial mindset’ of elite clubs and others banning entry of people wearing traditional attire, the Tamil Nadu government introduced a bill seeking to make such practices a cognizable offence.

BSF jawan drifts in Chenab current, captured by Pakistan An Indian Border Severity Force jawan was captured by Pakistani forces August 6 after he was swept away by a strong current of the Chenab river in Jammu and Kashmir.

A villager in a flooded area of Kendrapara district of Odisha, August 9. The flood fury of rivers in Odisha was grim, claiming 45 lives and affecting around 3.29 million people.

Satyasheel Yadav, who was soon released, said August 8 that his boat strayed into Pakistan after it went out of control in strong river currents: ‘My colleagues swam out, but I did not know swimming. The boat took me into Pakistani territory. I jumped into water near a Pakistan post and was rescued by jawans of the Pakistan Rangers. They took my introduction. They helped me to the extent they could. They kept me better than what I had thought. I have no complaints.’

Jaswant Singh in coma

Former defense minister Jaswant Singh is in a critical condition after being operated upon for a head injury at the Army Research and Referral Hospital in New Delhi following a fall at his residence. Doctors at the hospital said he was in a state of coma.

70 students hospitalized after gas leak Seventy children were hospitalized August 7 as they took ill after allegedly inhaling ‘smoke’ emanating from a plant of the Kerala Minerals and Metals Limited near Kollam in Kerala, prompting the authorities to temporarily shut it down.

Want to live in India: Taslima Nasreen

Creator of Chacha Chaudhury dies Pran Kumar Sharma, who gave life to lovable comic charREUTERS

Odisha floods affect 3.29 million people

Controversial Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen has said that even if Bangladesh allows her to enter, she wants to spend the rest of her life in her second home — India.

‘I am a citizen of Europe and a permanent resident of the United States, but I chose India to live because of cultural connections,’ she told the Press Trust of India.

Taslima, who received a resident permit for two months beginning August 1, is hopeful of getting a long-term permit.

PAGE 25

g

The Week That Was

25

INDIA IN NEW YORK AUGUST 15, 2014

f PAGE 24 acters like Chacha Chaudhury succumbed to cancer early August 6 at a hospital in Gurgaon, according to his publisher Diamond Comics. He was 75.

Mumbai court framing charges against him for assaulting a Non Resident Indian businessman in 2012.

Bling alert

Ire over Nirbhaya-inspired photoshoot A fashion shoot named ‘The Wrong Turn,’ seemingly inspired by the gang-rape of a 23-year-old paramedic student in a bus in Delhi in 2012, enraged many. Photographer Raj Sheyte told Buzzfeed, ‘It is not based on Nirbhaya. But being a part of society and being a photographer, that topic moves me from inside. This is in no way meant to glamorize the act... It’s just a way of throwing light on it.’

Sachin, Rekha’s absence from Parliament questioned The Rajya Sabha, the Indian Parliament’s Upper House, questioned the absence of Sachin Tendulkar and Rekha. Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman P J Kurien said the cricketer and the actress had not crossed the 60-day mark.

‘Seats can be declared vacant if members are absent for at least 60 days,’ he said.

Tendulkar’s reaction was to apply for leave for the entire Budget session, which was granted amid strong opposition.

First PM visit to Kargil since 1999 war On his second visit to Jammu and Kashmir as prime minister, Narendra Modi visited Kargil. This was the first prime ministerial visit after the 1999 war.

Body found at politician’s house

Only one man’s voice counts, says all new Rahul

Controversy over Saif ’s Padma Shri The Indian home ministry denied any move to strip actor Saif Ali Khan of his Padma Shri, in the wake of a

RSS chief under attack for ‘Hindustan’ comment REUTERS

Congress party Vice President Rahul Gandhi took the lead as the Opposition created an uproar in the Lok Sabha August 6, demanding a discussion on the communal situation in the country, which was denied by Speaker Sumitra Mahajan.

Gandhi later said, ‘We are not being allowed to speak in Parliament. We are asking for a discussion. There is a mentality in the government that discussion is not acceptable...

There is a mood in Parliament that only one man’s voice counts for anything in this country.

A 42-year-old man was found dead at former federal minister and Congress party leader Kumari Selja’s bungalow in New Delhi August 11, police said. The deceased was the husband of a domestic help working at Selja’s residence.

Pankaj Parakh, a municipal corporator from Maharashtra, wears a shirt made of gold to his birthday celebrations, August 8. He said the shirt made of 18 to 22 carat gold cost him $228,870.

India’s Border Security Force patrol the India-Bangladesh border in Tripura, August 11, ahead of India’s Independence Day celebrations August 15.

On guard

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat came in for flak for his suggestion that all Hindustanis are Hindus. He had asked if inhabitants of England are English, of Germany are Germans and of the USA are Americans then why were all inhabitants of Hindustan not Hindus.

India has no clue about kidnapped workers in Mosul The Indian government has gone silent over the fate of 39 Indians kidnapped in Mosul. A source privy to the negotiations said the mediators had gone silent: ‘I suppose we can’t say our brothers (kidnapped Indians) are dead, but we can’t confidently say that they are alive.’

Bill to scrap judiciary collegium system Keen to scrap the collegium system of appointment of judges, the Indian government introduced a Constitution Amendment Bill in Lok Sabha August 11 to establish a body for appointment of judges to the Supreme and high courts.

Reshamlal Jangade, member of first Lok Sabha, dead Reshamlal Jangade, a member of India’s first Parliament, died August 11. He was 90. Jangade was elected to the first Lok Sabha in 1952 from Bilaspur on a Congress ticket.

Modi Sarkar to repeal 36 obsolete laws Seeking to clear the statute books of antiquated laws, a bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha August 11 to repeal 36 acts, including one that amends marriage laws.

Netaji’s kin don’t want Bharat Ratna

JAYANTA DEY/REUTERS

Amidst speculation that India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna, may be conferred on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, his family members disapproved of the idea and instead demanded that the mystery of his disappearance be solved first.

26

Sports INDIA IN NEW YORK AUGUST 15, 2014

England's Moeen Ali celebrates after dismissing India's Mahendra Singh Dhoni during the fourth Test at the Old Trafford cricket ground in Manchester, August 9

HUMILIATION India lose to England by an innings and 54 runs in fourth Test at Old Trafford India versus England 4th Test

India 152-10

PHILIP BROWN/REUTERS

A

listless India capitulated to a humiliating innings and 54 runs defeat in the fourth cricket Test against England after a horrendous batting display that allowed the hosts to take a 2-1 lead in the five-match series.

It was abject surrender by the Indian batsmen as they were skittled out for a paltry 161 in 43 overs in the second, after scoring 152 in their first innings — after recovering from eight for four at one time — and conceding a 215-run lead to England, who wrapped the match within three days.

England scored 367-9 in their first innings.

It was again off-spinner Moeen Ali (439) who plotted India’s downfall in the second innings, the visitors losing nine wickets in the final session of play on the third day.

Stuart Broad, who took 6-25 in India’s first innings to win the man of the match award, retired injured while batting after being struck in the face. His departure was more than covered for by England’s other bowlers.

Moeen, with 19 wickets in the series so far, is just two wickets behind James Anderson (21), who is the leading wickettaker after the four Tests.

‘As though Moeen Ali was bowling hand grenades’ A pathetic India paid the price for focusing more on James Anderson incident than on their game, former England

captain Michael Vaughan said, while the British media termed India’s display in the fourth Test as ‘spineless’.

‘India were simply embarrassing,’ Vaughan wrote in his column for the Daily Telegraph.

‘They have been brought up facing orthodox off spin but they made it look as though Moeen Ali was bowling hand grenades and folded abysmally,’ he wrote.

‘They just gave up under pressure, they threw in the towel. For the past two weeks it looks to me as if India have been fighting too many battles off the pitch and have forgotten to fight on it. They got embroiled in the James Anderson case and were so bent on getting him banned that they took their eye off the cricket.

England did not produce magic deliveries; it was poor batting, with India lacking the mental strength or character to fight through the situation.’

The ICC appointed judicial commissioner had found Anderson not guilty in the alleged incident in the first Test at Nottingham last month.

Vaughan said Virat Kohli’s poor run with the bat in the four matches has hurt India badly.

‘India are battling many problems now,’ he wrote. ‘Look at Virat Kohli. His technique is all over the place. James Anderson has bowled 30 balls at him, he has scored seven runs and lost his wicket four times. That is remarkable. It is not easy being touted as the next Sachin Tendulkar. Clearly for him to become a world-renowned player he has to score

more runs overseas, but I have been amazed at how fragile he looks going to the crease.’

Legendary British allrounder Ian Botham said the hosts were a dominant side all through the match.

‘On every day, in every session and in every department England were stronger than India, Botham wrote in his column for the Daily Mirror, ‘because at no stage did India ever look like overtaking England in this match. And I expect to see them pull away further over the rest of the series.’

Botham was all praise for England’s transformation after their loss in the second Test at Lord’s.

‘From what was one of the worst performances I’ve ever seen from an England team at Lord’s to one of the best in recent memory. The win at the Ageas Bowl was simply superb right from the off.’

The tabloid Daily Mail was equally scathing in its criticism of India’s performance.

‘And what a spineless, pathetic display from an India side who have imploded since their historic victory at Lord’s under the leadership of a captain in M S Dhoni who just did not look interested,’ the paper wrote.

The Guardian expressed surprise at India’s abject surrender at Old Trafford.

‘England defied the loss of Stuart Broad with a broken nose to romp to a second consecutive victory over an India team whose spirit appears to have been fractured,’ the newspaper wrote.

Murali Vijay c Cook b Anderson 0 Gautam Gambhir c Root b Broad 4 Cheteshwar Pujara c Jordan b Broad 0 Virat Kohli c Cook b Anderson 0 Ajinkya Rahane c Bell b Jordan 24 *MS Dhoni c Jordan b Broad 71 Ravindra Jadeja lbw b Anderson 0 Ravichandran Ashwin c Robson b Broad 40 Bhuvneshwar Kumar b Broad 0 Varun Aaron not out 1 Pankaj Singh b Broad 0 Extras: 12 byes:10 leg byes:1 no balls:0 wides:1 Total: 152-10 (46.4) England: James Anderson, 14-3-46-3 Stuart Broad 13.4-6-25-6, Chris Woakes 10-1-43-0, Chris Jordan 9-4-27-1.

England 367-9 dec

*Alastair Cook c Pankaj b Aaron 17 Sam Robson b Bhuvneshwar 6 Gary Ballance lbw b Aaron 37 Ian Bell c Dhoni b Bhuvneshwar 58 Chris Jordan c Aaron b Bhuvneshwar 13 Joe Root c Dhoni b Pankaj 77 Moeen Ali b Aaron 13 Jos Buttler c Pujara b Pankaj 70 Chris Woakes not out 26 Stuart Broad retired hurt 12 James Anderson lbw b Jadeja 9 Extras: 29 b:5 lb:12 nb:6 w:6 Total: 367-9 (105.3) India: Bhuvneshwar Kumar 24-7-75-3, Pankaj Singh 28-5-113-2, Varun Aaron 26-4-97-3, Ravichandran Ashwin 14-1-29-0, Ravindra Jadeja 13.3-1-36-1.

India 161-10

Murali Vijay lbw b Woakes Gautam Gambhir c Buttler b Anderson Cheteshwar Pujara lbw b Ali Virat Kohli c Bell b Anderson Ajinkya Rahane c and b Ali *MS Dhoni c Ballance b Ali Ravindra Jadeja c Jordan b Ali Ravichandran Ashwin not out Bhuvneshwar Kumar run out (Ali) Varun Aaron c Buttler b Jordan Pankaj Singh b Jordan Extras: 4 b:1 lb:1 nb:1 w:1 Total: 161-10 (43) England: James Anderson 9-4-18-2, Chris Woakes 9-2-37-1, Chris Jordan 12-1-65-2, Moeen Ali 13-3-39-4. *Captain

18 18 17 7 1 27 4 46 10 9 0

27

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forMichael Bloomberg York Mayor of America When New into the Sports Museum dream transform mally inaugurated Ahuja saw a May 7, Sameer multivibrant reality. first and only interactive, proved an The nation's museum experience before its media all-sports people lining the street from across the street instant hit, with entrance, just get in. The building to 26, Broadway Liberty ferry, Company, the Statue of Standard Oil housed the had earlier D Rockefeller. the street, so he on founded by John spent all night be the first visitor "One person could museum," to enter the Ahuja, the Delhi-born Chief the museum's and its Operating Officer Philip with co-founder Schwalb, said. cele"The museum sports. all brates sports, millions of There are sports. fans for various houses The museum is no them all. There anythis place like Ahuja where," a proud lives said. The museum he gives up to the billing more than Sameer Ahuja it: It houses movies and 20 original variAZIZ HANIFFA 1,100 photos, experience 600 artifacts, Visitors get to through áå t~ëÜáåÖíçåI a` within 19 galleries.related memorabilia, end up and and week showous sports, Security last presentations, histories of memof Homeland detailed interactive multimedia six foreign-born The Department studying the soldier, one of ceremony spending hours events. cased an India-born at a special naturalization out big-ticket sportsis unmissable: Tourists coming States. bers of the military, to Lady in the US of the United The museum after paying obeisance for new citizens Sandeep Singh, 23, a soldier Team, by 24-foot phoColor Guard of Battery Park Ludhiana-born in their tracks athInfantry Continentalto serve his adopted Liberty are stopped legend Babe Ruth, stories the Army's 3rd US his desire from baseball of names "followed had iconic tographs of 9/11." said he and other 21 countries terrorist attacks lete Jesse Owens sport. nation after the 26 men and women from Allegiance by square feet museum annals of American He was among the Oath of range of the 100,000 and Immigration The interior sports fan; seminal exhibits report who were administered US Citizenship the Sandeep Singh Mall.

King's school is manna for director of the icon Billie Jean celebrating historic Scharfen, acting in the ceremony at the Nationaltaken place on these from tennis had Jonathan 'Jock' memorabilia of the DHS, such an event part of varicard through Page A8 US history that museums; the event was Service, an appendage third time in Recognition Week.

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