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Visa dates

2012-05-27T09:51:49-07:00

This column carries priority dates and other transitional information as taken
from the U.S. State Department’s Visa Bulletin. The information below is from the Visa Bulletin for May 2012.

In the tables below, the listing of a date for any class indicates that the class is oversubscribed. “Current” means that numbers are available for all qualified applicants. “Unavailable” means no numbers are available.

FAMILY PREFERENCE VISA DATES

Preference Dates for India

1st.................................................. May 1, 2005
2A.................................................. November 15, 2009
2B.................................................. February 22, 2004
3rd..................................................March 8, 2002
4th..................................................December 1, 2000

Note: For May, 2A numbers subject to per-country limit are available to applicants with priority dates beginning October 15, 2009 and earlier than November 15, 2009.

EMPLOYMENT-BASED VISA DATES

Preference Dates for India

1st.................................................. Current
2nd.................................................. August 15, 2007
3rd.................................................. September 8, 2002
Other Workers ........................... September 8, 2002
4th.................................................. Current
Certain Religious Workers............. Current
5th.................................................. Current
Targeted Employment Areas............ Current

The Department of State has a recorded message with visa availability information at (202) 663-1541, which is updated in the middle of each month.
Source:http://travel.state.gov/visa/bulletin/bulletin_5692.html

Uncubed

2012-05-27T09:42:02-07:00

Krishna M. Sadasivam is the cartoonist behind UNcubed, a weekly online auto-bio comic, focusing on life as an Indian guy in the United States. When he’s not creating comics or working as a freelance illustrator, Krishna teaches full-time in the Media Arts and Animation department of the Art Institute of Tampa in Florida. See more of his work at http://www.uncubedthecomic.com/.

Haunted by the Past

2012-05-25T09:33:52-07:00

Many people currently in the United States could obtain lawful status if it were not for previous unhappy encounters with immigration. Too often people enter the country with lawful status but the twist and turns of life can upset that status. Once an immigration problem occurs, things can seem forever hopeless without the chance for legal relief. But this is not always true.

Let’s say you entered with a visa, met a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, fell in love and impulsively married. Your new spouse petitioned for your immigration papers. Neither of you had financial records, any family connections, and the cultural differences between you became irreconcilable. You withdrew the petition and moved on. Or you obtained a conditional green card, then divorced before the two years required to remove the conditions of residency were up and so you never filed to remove the condition. Or maybe you filed for asylum, legalization or an employment-based petition and never heard from the appropriate office.

Years later you remarry or find stable employment with a potential petitioning employer. You have children, settle down and are living happily ever after—except for the nagging feeling that your immigration status is questionable.

Your new spouse or employer is eager to file a petition on your behalf. But when your new attorney requests a copy of your file, they discover that you have a final removal order or fraud determination. You realize that not only do you not have immigration status, but you might be permanently barred from obtaining status ever! Your worry turns to fear and the question you’d like to avoid asking haunts you: What will happen if you are forever separated from your loved ones and the land you think of as your home?

Don’t give up: there is hope. Often these barriers are not as permanent as you may think. A prior marriage fraud determination may be challenged. A final order of removal can be reopened, and sometimes other seemingly hopeless immigration problems can be solved with the help of a good attorney.

Our office has successfully handled cases that seemed insoluble, discovering previously unnoticed relief was available for persons alleged to be inadmissible or removable due to fraud. We have, for example, obtained stays of removal for people who needed more time to get relief, even while the case was before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the person was in detention.

When your immigration problems seem hopeless, don’t despair and don’t lose sleep.

Instead, seek the advice of an experienced immigration attorney. Sometimes a good attorney with a fresh perspective and the creativity to try “out of the box” solutions can make all the difference.

James Root is the principal attorney at Root Law Group in Los Angeles. Email info@rootlaw.com.

First and Final Encounters

2012-05-24T09:46:36-07:00

Q I seem to be spending a lot of time on first dates, many of which don't go anywhere. I’m frustrated because it seems as though either the kind of guys I keep meeting are really just not worth my time, or in those cases where I see potential I don’t hear from the guy again. Any suggestions?

A I’m sorry to hear of your frustration. As a matchmaker and dating coach to selective and commitment-minded men and women with limited free time, I can appreciate your concern. I encourage you to continue being the kind of woman who recognizes the worth of her precious time.

That said, I’m concerned that your frustration may be detracting from your investment of time and energies in the dating process. Let’s optimize the time you’re investing in dating, beginning with your approach.

I find that commitment-minded singles who understandably don't want to waste time sometimes have a tendency to approach a first date with the goal of immediately determining then and there if their date definitively has what it takes be their future spouse.

This “fast-forward” approach can be counterproductive for a couple reasons.

First, such an approach lends itself to posing rapid-fire questions to one’s date, creating an almost “business or interview-like” exchange rather than an organically unfolding, playful interchange. This “fast-forward” approach is more likely to lead to feelings of pressure rather than a promising connection and chemistry.

Secondly, this approach reveals an unrealistic expectation with respect to the dating process, thereby enhancing the probability of disappointment, given that the vast majority of first dates statistically do not evolve into long-term relationships.

So what is a more productive approach? Dating tends to be most fruitful when viewed as an adventure. Approach each date as an opportunity to discover something life-enhancing. Be open to the possibility that you may discover things about your date, or experience a level of connection, which could lead you to believe in the potential for friendship and possibly a sustained relationship.

Even if you don’t see romantic potential, don’t shut-down and write the date off as a complete waste of time. Instead, challenge yourself to make valuable discoveries during the date. Perhaps you may discover a great new avenue to meet quality singles. Perhaps learning about your date’s interests, passions, or mindset may come in handy in interactions with other guys. Perhaps you may discover more about what’s important to you in a relationship. The dating process involves self-discovery as well as discovery of the people you date.

Jasbina is the founder and president of Intersections Match, the only personalized matchmaking and dating coaching firm serving singles of South Asian descent in the United States. She is also the host of Intersections Talk Radio, a monthly lifestyle show. www.IntersectionsMatch.com. Jasbina@intersectionsmatch.com.

SanKritiLaya Cultivates Musicians

2012-05-23T14:35:00-07:00

SanKritiLaya started organically in 2008, nestled within the homes of music lovers. “It all started with artists staying with us while they were on tour. We met several artists who couldn’t make it on their own on a tour in the United States,” explains Viji Mani, Treasurer of SanKritiLaya. Mani and her husband, Mahalingam Mani, SanKritiLaya’s President, began exploring ways to help Indian musicians arrange tour logistics, book shows, and develop publicity. “We weren’t into hosting concerts locally. We thought we would just be tour sponsors. But we found some trouble placing artists with local organizations.”

It was at that juncture that Mani and her husband developed the model that drives their non-profit today. “We wanted to focus on up-and-coming artists. But how could we make that viable?” asks Mani. The answer was to develop a concert series that focuses on both famous and up-and-coming musicians. Concerts are scheduled in twos, with a famous artist headlining one concert to attract crowds and another concert featuring promising musicians bolstered by well-known musical accompanists. Ticket holders get the benefit of both, experiencing musicians they know and love as well as watching high-caliber artists they’re unfamiliar with. The model has taken root. Starting in 2011, SanKritiLaya had their first full year of operation. “We go the extra mile to host all the artists we can bring” adds Mani. And the crowds have been showing their support.

“Our main thanks goes to Jayashree Varadarajan. She was our main supporter and instrumental in getting our membership. She’s one who quietly goes behind the scenes supporting what we do.” With Varadarajan’s support, SanKritiLaya blossomed to 250 members last year and anticipates continued growth in membership this year. “It is all spread by word of mouth. We started by recommending upcoming artists. And then the artists started calling us.” For the spring season of 2012, SanKritiLaya has a special set of concerts scheduled for the end of May and the beginning of June.

On May 26th, SanKritiLaya is co-hosting an instrumental jugalbandhi with Basant Bahar featuring Indrajit Banerjee on sitar, Vidwan Neyveli S. Radhakrishna on double violin, Subrata Bhattacharya on tabla and Somnath Roy on ghatam. Mani explains, “This is a unique program that has never been done before.” Banerjee is a famous Hindustani sitarist within the Maihar gharana. Known for his thoughtful and imaginative compositions, Banerjee is also appreciated for the sweetness of his playing. For the first time in the United States, Banerjee is playing with Radhakrishna. “Radhakrishna custom made the double violin himself. It’s like the Siamese twins of violins.”

A classically trained violinist, Radhakrishna worked for five years with a violin maker in Concord, California, to create an entirely unique double violin. His instrument includes ten strings spread across a treble and bass portion and is played with a combination of violin and cello bows. The resulting sound covers the range of violin, viola, cello, and double bass. Banerjee on sitar and Radhakrishna on a double violin promises to be a novel and electrifying performance. Mani agrees, “We do this because we love this art and we want others to be able to hear this.”

On June 3rd, SanKritiLaya is hosting the vocalist Amritha Murali, a “fabulous person as well as a great artist,” according to Mani, with Dr. Hemalatha on violin and J. Vaidhyanathan on mridangam. “She’s an incredibly promising artist. In the next ten years she will be at the same level as the other artists we feature, given the exposure. Bringing her here and featuring her in our season satisfies our mission.” Murali is currently studying with P. S. Narayanaswamy and has received an abundance of awards, including “Isai Chudar” from Kartik Fine Arts, “Yuva Kala Bharathi” from Bharat Kalachar, as well as an All India Radio National Competition Prize. Celebrated for aesthetic appeal of her voice, she’s also appreciated for her adherence to classical values.

“I grew up with art and am passionate about it. My husband and I, with Mani Subramaniyan, of SanKritiLaya, are like-minded individuals. We don’t mind putting time out of our lives to do this.” The heart and passion Mani brings to SanKritiLaya is palpable as well as contagious. SanKritiLaya is run entirely by volunteers, and all proceeds are directed back to the artists the organization supports. “We’re passionate about every single artist we support. And we encourage others to come to our concerts and support our artists as well” concludes Mani.

May 26, 5:30 p.m. Instrumental - north/south jugalbandhi Vidwan Indrajit Banerjee (sitar),
Vidwan Neyveli S. Radhakrishna (double violin)
June 3, 4 p.m. Vidushi Amritha Murali, Vidushi Dr. Hemalatha(violin), Vidwan J. Vaidhyanathan (mridangam.)
Jain Temple, 722 S. Main Street, Milpitas.
www.sankritilaya.org. Tickets: $25, $20.

Last Man Standing

2012-05-22T09:51:59-07:00

It has been an unusually fractious race for the 2012 Republican Party nominee. While former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is the presumptive nominee, his nomination wasn’t a foregone conclusion till Rick Santorum conceded the race in early April.

This primary season merits a Hollywood screenplay, rife as it was with a mix of avarice, lust, as well as edge-of-your-seat twists and turns. Televised debates, asides, chance remarks, and Super PAC-funded advertising blitzkriegs littered the airwaves adding to the drama and entertainment of the race.

The exit of some of the candidates in the pre-primary stage exposed attitudes within the party and among the Tea Party-led, evangelical Christian-dominated, conservative base with regard to gender and race equality. This was evident in the case of Michele Bachmann, the only woman in the fray and Herman Cain, the only Black candidate. While Bachmann bowed out after finding she could not muster enough support, Cain was ousted over well-timed revelations of his extra-marital affairs. “Sanctity of marriage” held up as an ideal by the conservatives, however, did not seem to apply to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose second and third marriages would have been described as “extra-marital affairs” had he been contesting some years ago.

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum—a Catholic—garnered support among the evangelical Christian vote bank in deep southern states, by positioning himself as the “real” social and religious conservative. Santorum provided the toughest challenge to Romney, whose Mormon religious background came under attack during the initial months of the campaign.

The Republican race shone the light on Obama’s policies, questioning and commenting on issues ranging from energy to healthcare reforms. Let’s consider what the candidates had to say on a few key platforms.

Energy

While blaming the Obama administration for soaring gas prices, Republican candidates have generally favored petroleum resources over sustainable solutions for energy security. Perry’s famous “oops” moment on TV came when he forgot the name of one of the three federal agencies he would kill if elected president. That body was the Environment Protection Agency (EPA). Romney, Santorum and Gingrich supported the Keystone pipeline and argued that the project, aimed at bringing tar sand oil from Alberta, Canada to Texas oil refineries via pipelines through environmentally sensitive areas, would create jobs. Critics of the project said that the jobs were going to be temporary, and the environment damage permanent.

Foreign Policy

Republican candidates opposed troop withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan. In an attempt to appeal, perhaps, to the military industrial complex, the candidates aired opinions to the effect that the United States should continue to engage abroad militarily in order to maintain its global pre-eminence.

When Israel protested Iran’s alleged move to weaponize its nuclear program, Romney expressed his support for Israel and slammed Iran, while Santorum went to the extent of stating that he would bomb Iran.

Gingrich’s controversial remarks on foreign policy issues earned the sobriquet “Newtisms.” In his re-interpretation of history and international affairs, he described Palestinians as “an invented people.”

Education

Even as America’s student loan debt soared past $1 trillion to overtake credit card debt, Democrats and Republicans are promoting radically different visions on education. While Obama wants to make college-going affordable and even penalize colleges that hike fees by reducing federal aid, Republicans favor less government interference and more market intervention.

A vocal supporter of for-profit colleges, Romney as governor tried to slash higher education funding as a way to find $150 million to bridge Massachusetts’ $3 billion budget deficit. That plan was defeated by state legislature. Romney has said that if elected, he would veto the DREAM Act, which seeks to provide citizenship to children of illegal immigrants that would have helped them get a good education.

Santorum in his campaign attacked the “secularization and liberal indoctrination” of colleges as against Judeo-Christian values. He prefers to home-school his children, and wants all parents to have the choice of where to send their children, as they are the “real consumers” of education. Gingrich has said that he’d like to radically reduce the mandate of the Department of Education to “research and data collection” and cut out all federal regulations on education.

Healthcare

While healthcare reform could have been a great opportunity for Romney to criticize Obama, he is not likely to address that issue, irrespective of the Supreme Court’s June verdict on the affordable healthcare bill. Part of Obama’s legislation was modeled on Romney’s own healthcare plan for Massachusetts.

In a Time magazine article, Joe Klein explained that “the real damage this year was not caused by the candidates; it came from a segment of the Republican electorate, which all too often celebrated ignorance and bigotry and displayed a disturbing appetite for nihilism.” Politics is not merely fodder for entertainment. There is a civic and patriotic responsibility that we must keep foremost as we move into the process of electing our next President.

Vinod Janardhanan is a writer-researcher and communications professional with global news and inter-governmental organizations. His research interests intersect at global politics, mass media and the South Asian diaspora.

Tabla and Bansuri Concert

2012-05-21T14:17:03-07:00

Two of the masters of Indian music combine to present music at its purest; G.S. Sachev on bansuri and Swapan Chaudhuri on tabla, creating melody and rhythm, working together to create transcendent beauty.

G.S. Sachdev began playing the bansuri when he was 14, and has created a rare form of instant communication with audiences through his music. He has shied away from fusion, finding great pleasure within traditional pure classical Indian music.
Sachdev takes the listener with him on a highly personal and reflective journey that transcends all geographic boundaries of musical origin and style, and touches to the very core of universal musical expression.

With melody comes rhythm. Swapan Chaudhuri’s music is the spontaneous expression of his powerful emotions and his deep knowledge of tabla.

Instinctively, music lovers respond with delight as Chaudhuri arranges time and sound into myriad, magnificent, multifaceted patterns. Swapan Chaudhuri started learning tabla at the age of five. He bases his style on the intensive training he received from his guru, the late Pandit Santosh Krishna Biswas of Calcutta.n

Saturday, May 5, 8 p.m. Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon Street, San Francisco. $25, $35, $50, $65. (415) 392-4400.

The Allure of Socrates’ Land

2012-05-16T15:07:17-07:00

There are many accounts that tell us that Greek and Indian cultures have influenced each other, be it the mythological beliefs, worship of many Gods, or superstitions; there are many similarities between the two cultures. Both Hindi and Greek languages have their roots in Indo-European languages. Both the nations made incredible contributions to the field of mathematics. While India’s Aryabhatta invented the number zero, the Pythagoras Theorem was born out of Greece. Studies show that the Greek philosopher, Plato, was influenced by Indian philosophy. So it wasn’t difficult to pick Greece as a travel destination.

I had once been to Greece many years ago, with my parents. Nevertheless, the immense fascination for Greek mythology and philosophy persuaded me to revisit this ancient land and explore the similarities between India and Alexander the Great’s nation.

We flew directly from Israel into Greece, in the wee hours of the morning. Unlike Tel Aviv airport, Athens was calm, friendly, and zen-like. To a history loving, philosophy craving, culture analyzing, mythological story seeking, yoga-meditation devotee like me, the energy at Athens airport felt right.

We got to our hotel a little before 10 a.m. too early for check in; however, the hotel staff graciously checked us in and gave us a non-smoking room with a balcony. Our hotel was within five to ten minutes walking distance from all the must-see sights: Acropolis, Plaka, Syntagma Square, The Temple of Zeus, and the National Gardens.

As soon as the receptionist found out we were of Indian ancestry, he started to discuss Bollywood with me. He showed off a few dance moves, proclaimed his love for Indian actresses, and confessed that his wife and daughter never missed any Hindi movies.

Just as we headed out of the hotel, the manager’s eyes fell on my husband’s camera, the size of a telescope. In an animated tone she said, “Be careful. Christmas and New Year are good for pickpockets in Athens. Tourists are like Santa Claus to them.” I was partly amused and partly bewildered by the lady’s declaration. She continued, “But these people aren't criminals.

They just take your stuff and you don’t even feel it.” Of course, I contemplated telling her about the “chor-pockets” that every Indian girl is taught to create just to con the conmen.

Architectural Diversity

We visited the Acropolis, the most famous site in all of Athens, almost every day. It’s a large hill in the center of the city containing a cluster of ancient ruins. The view from atop the hill was magnificent, especially during sunset. The Acropolis Museum, a modern, up-to-date building at the foot of the Acropolis, houses important ancient Greek statues and much more. Near the entrance, the floor is all glass, which allows visitors to see the buried remains inside.

Aside from the Acropolis, we walked to The Temple of the Olympian Zeus, also known as the Temple of Zeus Olympios. What was once the largest temple in Greece, today only has 15 columns that remain standing. The National Gardens or Vassilikos Kipos (formerly known as the Royal Gardens), a peaceful, green15.5 hectares in the center of Athens, was like a sanctuary. I went there to write poetry. The National Gardens is located directly behind the Greek Parliament building (The Old Palace). And it isn’t too far from Panathenaiko or Kalimarmaro Olympic Stadium of the 1896 Olympic Games—another historically significant place.

Generously Garnished

The first night we went out to dinner in the Plaka area, one of the oldest, chic neighborhoods of Athens located at the base of the hill topped by the Acropolis. It was a two minute walk from our hotel. One could tell that the continuity of the Greek and Indian civilizations could be attributed to their ability to adapt to invaders and their ideas. We ordered saganaki, fried Graviera cheese, as an appetizer. It was heavenly and tasted like shallow fried paneer pakoda. We then ordered a Greek salad and clay-baked chicken pasta—the best I have ever eaten. It took time to cook the food, but it was fresh. For dessert, the manager served us semolina pudding. Though shaped in the form of a cube, it tasted nothing different from the suji halwaa Indians make. It came garnished with lots of nuts.

Over the days, our meals comprised of more saganaki and delicious tzatziki—cucumber and yoghurt sauce—with Greek pita bread as appetizers; salad, gyros, stews, fresh fish, often accompanied by live music and definitely tasteful wine. Spanakopita (spinach pie) or tiropita (cheese pie) along with cappuccino (hot chocolate for my husband) became our favorite lunch. And Greek yoghurt with their fruit toppings, our on-the-go snack. Greeks eat yoghurt like Indians—at any hour of the day with the choicest garnish: fruits, honey, sugar, nuts, or just plain. We liked light lunches and lavish dinners. We tried different restaurants in Piraeus, Plaka, and Syntagma Square. I don’t enjoy red meat, but my husband fell in love with all the lamb entrees in Greece. They were fresh, light, and served in small-portions.

At our hotel, desserts were always laid out in the main reception area. Kourabiedes—a christmas cookie made with butter, flour, and crushed roasted almonds, and then dusted with powdered sugar tasted a bit like shakkar padhe while loukoumades, honey puffs, reminded me of gulab jamuns, at least in appearance.

It was invigorating meeting people with a generous attitude. We liked the folks at the hotel so much that we canceled the rest of our travel plans within Greece and stayed put in Athens.

A Shopping Mecca

The Plaka is lined with restaurants, cafes, jewelry stores, and souvenir shops. And just like busy markets in India, storeowners and restaurant managers called out to tourists, offering them bargain values like wine or dessert on the house. While my husband was quoted high prices in Euros, I always got the “real price 25 Euros. But for you, I make five Euros.” I felt gratified. Even the Greeks could sense an Indian woman’s bargaining power.

My mother had told me that embroidered pieces and handicrafts in Greece were unparalleled. She wasn’t exaggerating. Most of the tablecloths and cushion covers looked like they were made in India—the handicrafts are another thing that is common between the two old countries.

I hunted and looked for the great philosopher, Socrates’ bust at souvenir stores, but it was sold out at most places. Romina, one of the storeowners, said, “You can buy Alexander the Great’s bust instead.” I looked at her, “No way. He plundered India.” We both laughed. It was refreshing to know that politically incorrect humor wasn’t judged in Greece. We continued to discuss how our countries were politically united by foreign conquerors.

Althought, I am not into jewelry, I wanted to pick up some sterling silver jewelry—something symbolic of Greek mythology, especially Athena. Romina showed me serpent rings. Like in Hindu mythology, Greeks, too, consider snakes sacred.

Five star hotels surround Syntagma Square, the main square in Athens. It is in front of the parliament building and boasts stores & nice restaurants. Like Times Square in New York City, Syntagma Square is where many people like to welcome the New Year on December 31.

An Admirable Outlook

Despite their terrible economy and debt crisis, we never feared for our personal safety in Athens. With money stashed safely inside our “chor pockets,” we frequently went on hikes and long walks. Storeowners often left their businesses unattended to chat with tourists and friendly neighbors. I met many people in Athens, locals who believed that ultimately it would all work out. Despite being disenchanted with their government and having had to move to other countries in search of opportunities, no one seemed scared or crazy—be it the people at the marina in Piraeus—the main port of Athens and the biggest port in Greece—cleaning their boats, eating fresh seafood, to the small deli owner in Syntagma Square, to the mom and pop souvenir stores in the Plaka. Opinionated, sure. But not in a threatening sort of way.

That said, I sensed callousness when it came to preserving their own history. In spite of the push to promote tourism in Greece to increase revenues, most government run places, including museums, closed at 2 p.m. Many historical sites looked neglected. We chanced upon Socrates’ prison, where there were hardly any signs leading to the place. It was hidden behind trees and accompanied by a small descriptive board. As if the great philosopher and his controversial end had ceased to matter. Coincidentally, during the summer of 2011, I visited Nalanda, India—home to one of the oldest universities in the world—for some research work. I cringed at the decrepit state of the place. Is it that the government in both India and Greece take their monuments and artifacts for granted?

Ever since we have returned, people have been asking me, “What was it like being in Greece, especially during the financial crisis? How were the people there?” I say to them, “It was like being in India during bad times—the Greek people show remarkable resilience and an admirable optimistic attitude.”

For the Indian in us, it was gratifying to be in a country that’s been as important to human civilization as India. Reading about places dating back to B.C. is one thing; experiencing it in person was indescribable. I guess old world has its unique charm. I can’t wait to be back!

Sweta Srivastava Vikram (www.swetavikram.com) is an award-winning author of six chapbooks of poetry and one novel. Her nonfiction book, Mouth full, will be published in October 2012. Sweta lives in New York City with her husband.

Bhagavad Gita to the Rescue

2012-05-16T14:15:38-07:00

For every human life comes a moment when mortality stares it in the face. For me it came last autumn, when I went to my hometown of Nagpur. My last visit had been three years before, when I had gone to tend to my dying mother. Now I was returning.

But for the first time in my life, there was no one eagerly awaiting my arrival. As the plane hovered over the green fields, I looked down at the large throng gathered on the terrace atop the airport building.

For my first visit from America, I recalled, an army of uncles, aunts, cousins, and friends had been waiting in that same spot. A total solar eclipse had been in full force that day, and scientists and astrologers alike had issued dire warnings for people not to venture out.
But as our plane landed, darkness had lifted and a sliver of sunshine had bathed it in a white glow. As I walked down the stairs of the airplane and into the terminal, my mother had exclaimed, “I said I will risk going blind; I will chance bad omens from the eclipse, but I will go to welcome my daughter.”

This time, only a cousin was waiting for me at the gate. He took me to the house of a childhood friend.

After much persuasion, my brother came to see me there the next day. Within minutes, it became clear that he felt betrayed and embittered, because I had not been there for him when he needed me the most. I had been preoccupied with the responsibilities of my own family, I tried to explain, even as, deep inside me, I felt guilty for not having done more for him and my parents. But now it was too late. Now I could never tell my parents that I loved them.

So I wanted to tell it to my brother, their surrogate. But he no longer wanted such intimacy with me; he no longer needed me.

After he was gone, my friend pointed out the back window of her house and said, “See that!” I gazed at a large apartment building standing now in place of where my childhood home had once been.

Something snapped inside me at the sight.

I went on a long walk that night, on a stroll down memory lane. Here was my friend Puppy’s house, fallen into disrepair. I had once spent so many cheerful hours here, listening to music and laughing hysterically about various neighborhood characters.

Here was the house of Nalini, in whose kitchen I had once taken kathak dance lessons.
But had it in fact been this lane?

Suddenly, I felt confused. Nothing seemed recognizable any more. I dared not walk down my own street. My heart would burst, I thought, at the realization that my parents were no longer in this world.

And yet who was I to mourn for them? For was I not to follow them soon enough? Was I not just passing through this earth, on the way to a great void?

When I returned, something had shifted inside me. I had faced my mortality. I could no longer sleep. Everything seemed blue inside. I thought of all that had gone before; all that I could have done differently. How had all my dreams gone awry? All the disappointments of a lifetime came back to haunt me in nightmares that rose and fell endlessly.

I felt as though I had failed my brother, my parents and more importantly, myself. How could I wake up and carry on in the face of so much pain?

Back in California, I felt isolated, alone. I went to a meditation group. There, we read out aloud interpretations of the Bhagvad Gita.

Suddenly, a cloud lifted from my heart. I had never been religious, yet when Krishna said, “…I am the operator in you,” I felt my burden lightened. I was only an instrument of a bigger force. I was driving the chariot in the battle of Kurukshetra, but it was Lord Krishna who was directing it.

Something about this idea was very reassuring indeed.

The trouble with analytical people like myself, I realized, is that we put too much stock in our competence. We anticipate success to come our way simply because we were born with ability. Then when things go wrong; when we have a disabled child, or a bad marriage, we blame ourselves because we wonder where we slipped.

The Bhagvad Gita talks of Karma Yoga—act but do not cling to results. For a wise man, security is unaffected by the results of his action; even while acting, he is only an instrument. He is free in action.

They live in freedom
who have gone beyond
the dualities of life, and who
never compete. They are
alike in success and failure
and content with whatever
comes to them.

According to the Gita, I had to remember that whatever happened, happened for the good; whatever is happening, is happening for the good; whatever will happen, will also happen for the good. I need not have any regrets for the past. I need not worry for the future. The present is happening.

What did I lose that I was crying about? What did I bring with me, which I thought I had lost? What did I produce, which I thought got destroyed? I did not bring anything—whatever I have, I received from here. Whatever I have given, I have given only here. I came empty handed, I will leave empty handed. What is mine today, belonged to someone else yesterday, and will belong to someone else the day after tomorrow. I am mistakenly enjoying the thought that this is mine. It is this false happiness that is the cause of my sorrows.

Change is the law of the universe. What you think of as death, is indeed life. In one instance you can be a millionaire, and in the other instance you can be steeped in poverty.

Those without attachment to the ego are free;
their minds are purified by the knowledge
that all life is one. They perform all work freely,
in the spirit of service.

When I read this famous verse from the Gita, I felt lighthearted. I was not in control. Nor did I need to be. All I needed to do was my duty. The rest was up to that eternal force of the universe that humbles us, makes us kneel in front of it, for we are but instruments, puppets in its hands.

Sarita Sarvate writes commentaries for Pacific News Service and KQED. Visit www.saritasarvate.com

Education for Life, not Jobs

2012-05-16T13:32:34-07:00

It’s May, and another batch of students has committed to the colleges where they will matriculate this fall.

Students applying to college this year have done so amidst the hypocritical politicking of would-be leaders. Rick Santorum (B.A., M.B.A., J.D.—though you wouldn’t know it) called President Obama “a snob” for suggesting that all Americans should have the right and opportunity to go to college. Mitt Romney (B.A., M.B.A., J.D.) told a working-class student in Ohio that he shouldn’t expect the government to help with his college debt; he should just choose a college with “a little lower price.”

Meanwhile, those who articulate the value of higher education typically do so on the grounds that Americans are falling behind in the study of math and science, that we are not producing enough engineers, and that we’ll only continue to be overtaken by China and India. Even President Obama, who supports higher education in the form of vocational schools, community colleges, and four-year degrees, argues for the significance of college in economic terms: “We all want those jobs of the future.”

Sure—we want young people to be qualified for the jobs of the future. But we also want them to inherit a future in which not only their work has value, but their lives are valued. We want young Americans of all ethnicities, races, genders, sexualities, classes, and religions to participate in the growth and flourishing of a country that recognizes their worth beyond their contributions to the GDP. We want Indian-Americans to counter our hyper-valuation as a “model minority” by allying with all those demeaned through contrast to our model.

We have to move beyond an instrumental concept of higher education in the defense of it. In the past few months, we have received reminder after reminder of the devaluation and precarity of the lives of Americans who do not fit the mold of Joe-the-plumber. Here’s some of what we’ve seen so far in 2012:

January 10th: The Arizona State Superintendent of Public Instruction decreed Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American Studies program unlawful under Arizona HB-2281. The bill is an attempt to purge the school curricula of all ethnic and racial identity studies.

February 12th: Just three years after assaulting Rihanna, Chris Brown performed at the Grammy Awards, where he was applauded by cheering fans. Numerous women tweeted during the show that Brown could “beat me any day,” “beat me up all he wants.” Meanwhile, the Violence Against Women Act languishes in Congress, where it is up for reauthorization and being opposed by Senate Republicans.

February 16th: The House Oversight Committee held a hearing about women’s access to contraception through employers and insurance companies but did not include a single woman on the panel. When law student Sandra Fluke offered her testimony (via YouTube) about the financial and health challenges women face when not able to access contraception, Rush Limbaugh called her a “slut” and a “prostitute.”

February 18th: At the peak of the Lin-sanity over New York Knicks player, Jeremy Lin, ESPN referred to Lin as a “chink in the armor.” The Asian American Journalists Association, among others, had to point out to ESPN its flagrant and nonchalant use of a racial epithet.

February 26th: The Help rounded off the awards season with a Best Supporting Actress nod at the Academy Awards; it was also nominated for Best Picture. The Association of Black Women Historians has said that The Help reduces “racial injustice to individual acts of meanness” and “strip[s] black women’s lives of historical accuracy for the sake of entertainment.”

February 26th: Seventeen-year-old African-American Trayvon Martin was shot by George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida. Zimmerman, a “crime watch volunteer,” pleaded self-defense under the provisions of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law and, despite a national outcry, has still not been arrested at time of this writing.

March 8th: TLC canceled the show “All-American Muslim,” saying that it did not have sufficiently high ratings. Many speculate that the series was canceled because of the activism of conservative bloggers and anti-Islamic groups like the Florida Family Association, which called the representation of moderate Muslims “propaganda” and successfully encouraged advertisers like Lowe’s to pull support from the show.

March 16th: Dharun Ravi was found guilty of bias intimidation—a hate crime—in relation to the September 2010 suicide of his former roommate and fellow-Rutgers University freshman, Tyler Clementi, who Ravi had spied on with a webcam while Clementi was intimate with a boyfriend in their dorm room.

March 22nd: Deryl Dedmon, John Rice, and Dylan Butler pleaded guilty to the June 2011 murder of James Anderson in Jackson, Mississippi. Dedmon, Rice, Butler, and four other teenagers admitted that for months they had engaged in a series of deliberate assaults on drunk and homeless blacks.

When politicians and pundits talk about higher education, they think in terms of return on investment, of international competition, of reproducing a class of Americans who can take on the labor required by our industries. As a graduate student instructor in the critical humanities and social sciences, I teach college students how to think deeply, how to ask questions of the world we live in, how to interrogate that which masquerades as “common sense,” and how to develop nuanced conceptions of their identities and lives in relation to those of others.

I urge all students going to college this fall to take the opportunity to enroll in Ethnic Studies, Women’s Studies, Cultural Studies; take classes in feminism and Marxist theory, classes that will force you to engage with the discourses produced by the media, popular culture, contemporary literature, and politics. These are not only disciplines that must be defended against attacks by the likes of Arizona’s HB-2281. They are also the spaces in which the next generation of voters and leaders will be trained to think critically about representations of race, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity so that they can counter them when necessary. This is where we decide what kind of society we want to live in and learn to make it—not just be subject to it.

Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley.

An Assimilated Cuisine

2012-05-16T09:53:20-07:00

My grand mom was a great story teller. She would narrate her childhood stories under the moonlight, on hot summer evenings in Chennai. Along with the stories, she fed us balls of rice mixed with molakuttal (vegetable stew with fresh coconut), appalam and pickle. This was the highlight of the evening for my brother, our neighborhood kids, and I. Gobbling it up quickly, we would eagerly wait for more stories.

I learnt from my grandmother that my community had migrated from the state of Tamil Nadu to Kerala, and settled in an area called Palakkad, and its surrounding villages. My ancestors had moved there upon the invitation of the rulers of Travancore, to teach Vedic scriptures and to take care of the temples.

Eventually they became land owners, restaurateurs and farmers. They brought with them a rich heritage and culinary skills. They assimilated and integrated themselves in their new land, following a ritualistic life, with great importance given to spirituality, education and learning. Their language was a blend of Tamil, Malayalam and Sanskrit. It represented their past mixed in with their present.

The Giving Tree

Life was simple and self sufficient for them back then. My parents grew up surrounded by coconut palms and paddy fields. The vegetables were from their own backyard: fruits from their groves, rice from their fields, and milk from their cows. Coconuts were in abundance, and my grand mom would always tell us “Give unconditionally, like a coconut tree, whose every part is used and serves a useful purpose.”

Just like the language, the food became an amalgamation of known and honed culinary knowledge, which merged into the existing local cuisine and ingredients. Palakkad cuisine is unique and different. It is the soul food of Palakkad Iyers all over the world.

Origins of Palakkad Cuisine

Palakkad cuisine has its origins in Ayurveda. It was originally conceived as a sattvic vegetarian diet, pure and devoid of onions and garlic, something quite hard for us to imagine in this day and age. Sattvic foods have fresh vegetables, sprouts, nuts, milk, and fruits. They are easy to digest, give nourishment and energize the mind and body.

As time went by, many Palakkad Iyers moved to Bombay and other states and cities across India, as well as globally. The cuisine has evolved from its basic sattvic roots.

But no matter where we are, Palakkad Iyers share the same love for our molakuttal, avial (vegetables in a yogurt and fresh coconut stew), puli inji (tamarind and ginger sauce), thayir pachadi (spiced yogurt with vegetables), mampazha pulisseri (ripe mangoes in a warm yogurt and coconut sauce), and mezhukku peratti (stir fried raw plantains with coconut and green chillies).

Praba Iyer teaches custom cooking classes around the SF Bay Area. She also blogs about cooking at rocketbites.com

Vegetable Molakuttal

(Beans, yam, chinese potatoes, peas, carrots and soy beans in a coconut and cumin stew)
This recipe is a vegetable version.

There is another version made with leafy green vegetables like spinach, drumstick leaves and cabbage.

Ingredients
½ cup toor dal (split red gram)
3 cups vegetables (yam, winter melon, drumsticks, beans, carrots,
potatoes, peas)
1 tsp turmeric
½ tsp cayenne pepper

To grind
½ cup grated fresh coconut
1 tsp cumin seeds

To season
1 tsp oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp urad dal (split black gram)
Few curry leaves

Wash and cook the toor dal with water in a pressure cooker for approximately three whistles. Chop the vegetables into cubes and cook them with turmeric, salt, cayenne in a cup of water.

Grind fresh coconut with cumin to a smooth paste with one tablespoon of water. Add the cooked toor dal and coconut mixture to the cooked vegetables and ½ cup of water. Let it come to a boil on low heat. Add the curry leaves.

Heat the oil in a small pan and add the mustard seeds. Let it splutter and then add the urad dal. Gently mix till the urad dal is golden in color and transfer it to the stew mixture. Check the salt to taste. Serve hot with rice and pickle.

Beware! The British are Coming. Again!

2012-05-16T09:50:02-07:00

THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL. Director: John Madden. Players: Judi Dench, Dev Patel, Bill Nighy, Tena Desae, Penelope Wilton, Celia Imrie, Ronald Pickup with Tom Wilkinson and Maggie Smith. Theatrical release: Fox Searchlight.

The premise of the film is quite simple; a group of elderly English citizens go to India and discover happiness. The ensemble cast includes such acclaimed actors as Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, and Tom Wilkinson.

However, the film aims for as much complexity in imagery as Air India’s Maharaja once did. There is the young hotel manager, played by Dev Patel, of Slumdog Millionaire fame. His motto, “Everything will work out in the end, and if it has not worked out, it is not the end,” symbolizes the essence of the Indian persona, yet, the director makes him into a caricature.

There is the untouchable servant who preposterously serves food to Maggie Smith. Then there is the stereotypical Indian mother, who forbids marriage between the young lovers, Dev Patel and Tena Desae. This film has layer upon layer of contrived situations and empty promises.

The theme could have been realistic, heart-wrenching, and comical. Old age, after all, is shunned in the West. No wonder then that the aged English arrive at the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel to live and receive medical care at a fraction of the cost at home.

There are moments of lucidity in the movie, as when the hotel proprietor (Patel) quips that there are many countries where old people are not liked, creating business opportunities for young people like him. Or when Celia Imrie jokes, “I am single by choice, just not my choice.” At each such juncture, the viewer eagerly wants the movie to dive underneath the surface. Instead, the film hands us pat, syrupy solutions to the characters’ dilemmas.

Predictably, at the end of the movie, the elderly Englishmen and women come to the rescue of the hapless young Indian protagonist, who cannot manage his own hotel.
Contrast such English wishful thinking with the reality that today India is producing a highly skilled set of young workers.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel exposes colonial attitudes still entrenched in the British subconscious. Dark colonials blend into the scenery. The Indian protagonist is totally marginalized and subservient Indian characters are caricatured.

At the end, the senior citizens predictably find love, prosperity, and contentment, of course, their rewards for tolerating the heat and dust of India. The racist character played by Maggie Smith is transformed; Oscar winner Judi Dench discovers romance. And the British get to rule India once again.

If only contemporary British life were so very simple. By the time Patel assumes the pose of the Air India Maharaja in the final scene, I wondered whether the British would ever see Indians as other than Peter Sellers’ bumbling idiot in The Party. If only prejudices were not on such blatant display.

Harken Back to Films of Yore

2012-05-15T09:26:37-07:00

DELHI IN A DAY. Director: Prashant Nair. Players: Lee Williams, Lillete Dubey, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Victor Banerjee, Anjali Patil, Vidya Bhushan. Theatrical release: Nomad Productions.

Delhi in a Day starts out with great flourish. The opening shot of Delhi’s skyline, reminiscent of the documentary James Ivory filmed in India’s capital back in 1964, perks our interest. The minarets and the brick buildings contrast with the poverty and the squalor. The sounds and the rhythms transport us so that we can practically smell India.

When the camera focuses on the ritzy, middle aged couple sleeping in the lap of luxury, I am hooked. The wife wakes up complaining of broken down air conditioning and I know that this is not a typical Bollywood film. The director, Prashant Nair, hits the right note of irony in these first few scenes. The husband swats a mosquito; his purpose is not to kill the insect, but rather to strategically fall into his wife’s arms. When she subtly rejects his advances, I can sense that all is not well with this household.

The camera moves downstairs, where the servants are parodying their mistress, hinting at an Indian version of Downton Abbey. When we learn that a foreign visitor is expected, we expect the household to be shaken out of its comfort zone.

Lee Williams, as the visitor, turns out to be an odd casting choice. Perhaps he is a little too nice, a little too soft, a little too unreal. With the entrance of Williams, the film takes on the tone of a parable. He is seen counting bills and the audience is left wondering if they are pounds or rupees. Soon, Williams discovers that his money has been stolen. The servants are, of course, the usual suspects.

What follows is a drama about class. Even as the poor servant Raghu is blamed for the theft and asked to return the money within twenty-four hours, we feel sorry for him and his niece Rohini, the young and beautiful Anjali Patil. We are offered a glimpse into the deprived lives of India’s underclass. After nearly a hundred years of film-making, Bollywood is finally returning to an exploration of flaws in India’s social structures. I say returning, because India’s film industry was started by Dadasaheb Phalke in Maharashtra and came of age in the 1930s with avant garde films like Achhoot Kanya(untouchable maiden) and V Shantaram’s Kunku. Such ground breaking films, made in the wake of Gandhi’s call for social and political reform, shattered social dogma and paved the way for women’s education and liberation.

Alas, once Independence came, the need for self-examination evaporated. By the 1960s, the realistic movie with a message had all but disappeared, replaced by technicolor dance dramas. In the 70s, the new wave came, made a splash, and then petered out.

I anxiously awaited the moment of truth when the rich landlady would realize that the servants were not the culprits. For I already knew who had done it, long before the director got around to revealing it.

This is the main problem with Nair’s debut film; that at each stage, it is completely predictable. We never get so absorbed in the narrative as to be unable to figure out what comes next. This predictability, along with the one dimensional characters, undermined an otherwise viewable film.

And yet, I was rooting for Rohini and her uncle, rooting for the servants, rooting for India’s underclass, to make a statement. What I longed for, however, was the missed opportunity for exploring the characters further. On several occasions, the elder patriarch in the household hinted at his unfulfilled longings, yet, that storyline was never developed. The character of the father, a left-leaning recluse and artist, hinted at another India, but again, his character was used more as a sounding board rather than as an integral part of the story. And the young adults in the household remained shadowy figures, serving as mere plot vehicles. Instead of concentrating on the whodunit aspect of the story, Nair would have been well-served to develop the rich characters we were introduced to.

Prashant Nair has proven his flair for camera and storytelling in Delhi in a Day, no small task for a novice. I hope he will develop his craft to make further explorations into social themes.

Sarita Sarvate writes commentaries for Pacific News Service and KQED. Visit www.saritasarvate.com

Today’s Gossip is Tomorrow’s Headline

2012-05-15T09:24:14-07:00

Mark Twain once said, “A gossip is one who talks to you about others; a bore is one who talks to you about himself; and a brilliant conversationalist is one who talks to you about yourself.”
Gossip has long been dismissed as little more than background noise and blather with no useful function. But, it is absolutely necessary to society and just about unavoidable.

As often as it sullies reputations, gossip offers a foothold for newcomers in a group. A friend, Smitha Shankar, overcame the initial discomforts of her office environment by engaging in some light-hearted gossip with fellow newcomers. “It helped me laugh at a time when some people were making my life miserable. And this stopped me from quitting,” she shares. Gossip is an integral part of our lives and even though at times it has put us in a spot, one cannot challenge its “therapeutic” powers.

The word, gossip, is derived from the Anglo-Saxon English term, “godsibb,” a concatenation of “god,” short for godparent, and “sibb,” meaning relative. In the 14th century, the term connoted a close conversation between women friends invited to attend a birth. It was in the 16th century that the meaning extended to include “anyone engaging in familiar or idle talk” and then later in the 19th century to “trifling talk, groundless rumor.”

Primitive societies used negative information to discredit the reputation of their rivals and defeat them. People commonly understand gossip to mean the spread of rumour and misinformation through excited discussion of scandals. Some newspapers carry “gossip columns” which retail the social and personal lives of celebrities or of elite members of certain communities.

“Do you know what type of dress she was wearing?” “I heard that she married him not for love but only for his money and admitted that to her best friend Sheetal, who is my neighbour’s sister and I got to know of it from her.”

I watched two ladies in a garment shop, recently, cackling away. My eyes bounced from face to face as though I was watching a tennis match. It seemed as though they wanted others to overhear their “conversation,” and at the same time it appeared that they were each trying to outdo the other, in a “I know a bigger scandal than you” kind of way.

Even though what they were saying sounded absurd, it reminded me of Chinese whispers, the Asian way (with our own masala added). I’m sure we all know of people who can make a living out of selling scandals, but why would you want to rub someone else’s unfortunate affairs in their face?

It is not that men do not gossip. At a recent party, I overheard some men talk about “Narang making tons of money illegitimately.” Is it really implausible to believe that Narang worked hard to earn that money? Though, I have noticed that men tend to gossip about others’ business affairs.

Recently, I read the following interesting quote—“Gossip is the tool of the poet, the shop-talk of the scientist, and the consolation of the housewife, wit, tycoon and intellectual. It begins in the nursery and ends when speech is past.”

I am basically an introvert, but occasionally I like to have a “little chat” with my neighbors, during which I get to know the happenings in our neighborhood, location of new offices and shops, actual prices of several items and the current salaries of house help, all of which translate into useful information. It lifts my spirits, making me realize that problems are universal. I often gossip with my domestic help about life. I have peeped into her world which is so different from mine. It has been a revelation.

Gossip has been shown to strengthen relationships between friends and work colleagues, reinforce shared values, offer increased feelings of “connectedness” and community spirit, assist in controlling the poor behavior of others, particularly in an office situation, and offer a sense of status by being included in the “gossip circle” which boosts our self esteem and increases our sense of wellbeing. Gossip can even help ward off depression. Half an hour over tea listening to others’ dilemmas can make you realize that things are not that bad in your own backyard after all. Gossiping about the lives of people who seem to have it all, like Bollywood celebrities, also reinforces the idea that life is not all rosy in tinseltown, despite beauty, money, and fame. The financial and health problems of Amitabh Bachchan, the broken engagements of several film stars, and split in the Ambani family are all grist for the rumor mill, reassuring us that we are all very much human.

Before you go racing off to spread the latest tidbit, it pays to differentiate between “good” gossip and “bad” gossip. We can easily tell the difference between the kinds of gossip at either ends of the spectrum—gossip that is harmless and informative, and gossip that is toxic accumulating into false rumours and wrecking lives. Should this happen, it is best to extricate yourself quickly from the conversation.

Most people love a good chinwag. The Daily Mail reported that women spend about 298 minutes a day on gossip and about 24 minutes a day discussing “weight, diets and dress size.” As enjoyable as it may be to bond with someone through gossip, the harm to all parties is immeasurable if it is damaging. Resist the momentary temptation. Reprisals from negative gossip are definitely not good for mental health. Human dialog can be a great healer or a great destroyer. Gossip is nature’s telephone. Use it wisely.

Sudha Chandrasekaran is a writer, based in India.

TieCon 2012

2012-05-14T14:42:31-07:00

TiEcon 2012, marks its 18th year as “The World’s Largest Conference for Entrepreneurs” and has been convening since 1994. This annual meet serves to facilitate the networking of entrepreneurial eco-system, not only in the Silicon Valley, but also globally. The conference, that spans two days, includes panels that address topics which are current and relevant to entrepreneurs.

TiEcon is organized by The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), which celebrates two decades since its inception in 1992 and is inclusive of all demographics. TiE is also an acronym for Talent, Ideas and Enterprise. This certainly describes the attributes of the populace that its annual conference attracts, which made Silicon Valley a thriving hot-bed of industry and has bred successful entrepreneurs with vision and passion.

TiEcon provides a meeting ground for entrepreneurs and professionals, who get an opportunity to network, forge ties (pun unintended) with other like-minded individuals and are exposed to the growing trends in businesses.

“TiE’s charter is to foster entrepreneurship”, says R. Paul Singh, Marketing Chair for TiEcon 2012 and a TiE Board Member. “Entrepreneurship and innovation are really complementary. We hope to create that spark and with some great keynotes, inspire the entrepreneur in everyone to innovate.”

Keynote speakers are luminaries selected by TiE’s Keynote Committee, for not only being innovative but also inspirational and out-of the box thinkers with a recognized name. Eminent and august, each is an icon in his own industry with a list of accomplishments so great that it is humbling.

Here is a list of keynote speakers slated to speak at this year’s conference.
• Sam Pitroda: An inventor, thinker, policy-maker, Pitroda is currently Adviser to the Prime Minister of India on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations, charged with the task of providing a plan for creating digital infrastructure in India. He is also the Chairman of the National Innovation Council (NInC) which is working on several initiatives to boost innovation performance in the country.

• Deepak Chopra: As the founder of the Chopra Foundation, Senior Scientist in The Gallup Organization and author of New York Times best-sellers, Deepak Chopra needs no introduction. This spiritual guru’s contributions to mind-body medicine have gained him national and international fame. He has authored over sixty books, 19 of which are on the New York Times bestsellers list.

• Anant Agarwal: Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at M.I.T., Director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), Guinness World Record holder for the largest microphone array based on Raw, his accomplishments do not end there. He is also founder of Tilera Corporation, Virtual Machine Works and author of the textbook “Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronic Circuits”.

•Carlos Dominguez: In his talk at TiEcon, “New World, New Rules - Surviving, Leading & Thriving in Our New World,” Senior Vice President at Cisco and publisher of The Tech Nowist Daily, Carlos Dominguez will examine how we can leverage the present while preparing for the future and share survival tips for all entrepreneurs.

This year, TiEcon will also have breakthrough thinkers in addition to the keynote speakers. Jai Rawat, charter member and Convener of TiEcon explains, “Breakthrough thinkers are meant to jolt the audience out of their comfort-zone. They talk about research work that may sound like science fiction but is actually being carried out.”

In addition to talks by these stellar speakers, TiEcon has panels which will focus on emerging trends and issues that are relevant to today’s market and has set up tracks for addressing hot topics such as Cloud, Mobile, Social Media, Life Sciences/Healthcare and Energy and Cleantech.

When asked if TiE has added anything new to this year’s conference, Kiran Malhotra, Executive Director at TiE, says, “We will have a TiE Student Track for the next generation of entrepreneurs. In the last three years we added many new things which we are perfecting this year, such as TiE50, Mentor Connect, Startup Connect, and the TiEcon Innovation Expo which will feature over 120 companies showcasing their latest and greatest technologies and products.”

Track will examine what it takes to be an entrepreneur, to how to create a micro- and multi-national and build leadership teams which are crucial to the success of start-ups and the Women’s Forum Panel will address the challenges faced by women as entrepreneurs.
“TiEcon always strives to be inspirational, relevant and forward–looking,” says Vish Mishra, current President of TiE. “We believe that TiEcon is the only conference in the world to inspire, educate, prepare and fund the entrepreneurs in opportunity areas.”

Friday, May 18 and Saturday, May 19. 2-day pass $295 (members), $395 (non-members) Santa Clara Convention Center, 5101 Great America Pkwy,. Santa Clara www.tiecon.org.

Global Spotlight on Jayashree Varadarajan

2012-05-14T13:33:36-07:00

Sangeeta Vidushi Jayashree Varadarajan, Founder of the Sri Rama Lalitha Kala Mandir (SRKLM) School of Fine Arts, received global attention on April 7 when she was granted the 2012 “Best Teacher of the Year Award” at the 35^th Annual Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana. Varadarajan received the award for her extensive contributions in the field of Carnatic music and music education. She is well known for her work as a composer, performer, recording artist, director, and instructor. The Aradhana committee, which has international stature, specifically cited Varadarajan’s huge impact in training record numbers of students while still adhering to the strict rigor and practices demanded by the South Indian Classical music tradition.

Jayashree Varadarajan, Teacher of the Year, Receives Prestigious Tanpura from V. V. Sundaram

For over 25 years Jayashree Varadarajan’s school has been a fixture in Bay Area music circles as the pre-eminent institution for Carnatic music instruction. Teachers, critics, and audiences alike are universally drawn to Varadarajan’s pioneering and epic music productions such as “Syananduresvara”, “Prince of Ayodhya”, and “Planet Prayers” which manage to break new ground while staying authentic to the Carnatic music medium. Additionally, she has shepherded countless individuals through the transformation from novice to full- fledged performing artist. Varadarajan’s students emphasize that she is much more than a music instructor. As one individual put it “Jayashree Aunty doesn’t just teach us about Ragas. She teaches us about ourselves.”

SRLKM was also invited to give a showcase concert performance at the Aradhana to commence the week’s festivities. Varadarajan designed an unprecedented program in Aradhana history which consisted of a five song-cycle of Dikshitar Krithis all dedicated to Ganesha with a Raga selection that precisely paralleled Thyagaraja’s popular and well known Pancharathna Krithis. Her students were accompanied by Rangashree Varadarajan on the violin, Arjun Haran on the Mridangam, and Cleveland Sri. R. Balasubramaniam on the Kanjira.

SRLKM Students Render Innovative Dikshitar Ganesha Song Cycle. Students who performed were Sandesh Rallapalli, Apoorva Rangan, Maithri Knoda, Sravya Rallapalli, Samhita Kadiyala, Megha Ranganathan, Nandita Sriram, Sruthi Ramaswamy, Shruthi Tirumale, Manasa Vemuri Sandhya Vijapurapu, Sahana Narayanan, and Sushmita Srikanth. The vocalists were accompanied by Rangashree Varadarajan on the violin, Arjun Haran on the mridangam, and Cleveland Sri. R.Balasubramaniam on Kanjira”

V. V. Sundaram, the Aradhana Committee Head, noted the difficulty and challenges in rendering these particular Dikshitar Krithis and emphasized that the Varadarajan and her students “set the bar” with their flawless renditions. Sundaram also highlighted the fact that the sixteen performers on staged maintained “exact synchronization” without compromising any of the microtonal aspects of the music. Well known Carnatic music luminaries such as Flute Vidwan N. Ramani were present in the audience and enthusiastically praised the performers and the performance.

As a fitting coda to Varadarajan’s Award, after the student concert the Aradhana committee was inspired to publically invite the school to present additional performances both at the Cleveland Aradhana and venues abroad.

ifood.tv Debuts Indian Food Channel on Connected TV

2012-05-14T12:16:39-07:00

ifood.tv announces the launch of Indian Food channel on Connected TV platforms.

The Indian Food Channel provides home cooks with access to an extensive on-demand library of Indian video recipes and cooking shows. The entire Indian food video catalogue is organized in easy-to-navigate categories based on course, regional cuisines, ingredient, healthy, vegetarian, occasion etc., which can be effortlessly browsed and searched. The channel has sections dedicated to Gujarati, Punjabi, North Indian, and South Indian food to serve the needs of special communities. Sections dedicated to kids’ foods and low calorie diets are very popular. The Indian Food Channel also comes with smart recommendation technology that builds a taste profile of viewers based on their browsing history and recommends great recipes matching to their taste. Social experience is currently available via companion site ifood.tv, but is expected to come to the TV screen soon.

“We wanted to provide Indian food lovers and Indian diaspora all over the world a food channel dedicated to Indian food, where they can watch non-stop video recipes and cooking shows just about Indian food. Ever since I installed a beta version of the Indian Food Channel in my home for testing, it has become the center of attraction in my family room. This one is a gift to my family, friends and all Indian food lovers out there.” said Alok Ranjan, CEO of ifood.tv and a person of Indian origin. “The best part of our Indian Food Channel is that it is available throughout the world, anytime, on-demand and across a variety of platforms – over the web, mobile devices, and Connected TVs – making it super simple to find tasteful and practical Indian recipes,” he further added.

The Indian Food Channel shows are hosted by top chefs and expert home cooks and are filled with practical, easy to follow tips and instructions. “Simply with Vikas,” show is hosted by Michelin star chef Vikas Khanna and is aimed at simplifying the cooking process to help people make restaurant quality meals at home. “Fusion Food with Hari” hosted by restaurateur and Culinary Institute of America graduate, Chef Hari Nayak, showcases innovative fusion of Indian and Western foods and focuses on modern ways of entertaining. “ShowMeTheCurry” is hosted by two busy Indian American moms who share quick and handy techniques to save time and energy in the kitchen. Their stories of personal goof-ups and successful experiences brings alive the joy of cooking. If you have ever said “I love Indian food, but I don’t know how to cook it,” then “TheEasyIndian” is the show made for you. Home-cook and host Pallavi, is a corporate junkie turned entrepreneur who will advise you on everything from cooking to work-life balance.

“Indian food has become main stream in the U.K and is rapidly rising in popularity in the U.S. Advertisers want to target this high earning community with highest disposable income. With the launch of our Indian Food Channel on Connected TVs, we will provide brands with the ability to connect with this target audience within the context of a Television user-experience that we know is most impactful,” said Mr. Vikrant Mathur, co-founder of the company.

Mother's Day Tribute

2012-05-13T09:43:34-07:00

Everyone says I resemble my mother. I used to look at myself in the mirror, and try to find her. I could see how true that was. I was an image of her. Today, I realize, I can never resemble her completely.

While every mother is special and does the best for her child, I have always felt that my mom was different from others. At an age when girls had crushes on celebrities she would ask her mother if Rajendra Kumar could be her brother!

Ever the perfectionist, she would pour her heart and soul into everything she did—be it cooking the perfect tasting dish, or finding the most unique dress within her means. My mom was my best friend. I had fun with her, shopping for that elusive outfit, eating the food we relished. There was comfort in knowing that she knew me deep inside, flaws, weaknesses and strengths.

Today as I live life, making choices and siezing opportunities, I take solace in knowing that I still preserve a part of her in me. Be it trying to cook the same food she did, using the samer recipes she taught me, going to the the gurudwara, looking for perfection in simple tasks, I will always be my mother’s daughter. Happy Mother's Day!

Wind Beneath Our Wings

2012-05-13T09:04:11-07:00

Reflection

On Mother’s Day this year, like the Mother’s Days of the past seven years, I am reminded of a woman who was once the guiding light of my life. My mother passed away on April 29, 2005, leaving my father, brother, sister, and me with little to hold on to but the memories. At the time I did not understand the significance of what had occurred and how could I? At the age of nine I was much more concerned with getting up for Saturday cartoons than I was about her frequent visits to the Stanford University Medical Center. I tried to act as if nothing was happening. But before I knew it, the walls of my life had come crashing down. On that day, a part of my childhood passed on along with her. Her cooking. Her hugs and smiles. Our late night watching of the Food Network together.

It would never be the same again.

With time the wounds healed. Friends, family, uncles and aunties came and went and sometimes it was hard to know who to trust. Thanks to the love and care of the kind hearted individuals close to our family, we were able to keep it together. It was hard on my father. Even today it is hard. He has endured things that no man ever should so early in his lifetime. Often times I was unsure of what was going to happen. The move back to India always loomed over the heads of my siblings and me. As a whole I experienced a major loss of faith. I wondered, if there was a God how could he let this happen? How could he take my mother from me? But on the days we did pray, in the dark as I stared into the lamp light, my thoughts always moved to her.

When I was in 6th grade, my father decided to remarry. A new woman? How could he ever think to replace my mother? She had brought with her a son whom she loved dearly, as any mother would. Although she and I did get along, it quickly became evident that she could never love us as much as she loved him and this led to problems. Fights. Arguments.

Shouting. Before I knew it they were on a plane back to India. Just another woman in and out of my life.

More time passed. I am now 16 years old, a junior at Mission San Jose High School. I am studying hard and enjoying the high school experience. All around me are friends who support and share my likes and interests. But only my closest companions know why there is no Mrs. Menon to greet them every time they come over.

This year I became a staff writer for the school newspaper, The Smoke Signal, and began to express my thoughts on paper. The thought had crossed my mind before to write about my mother, but it just never happened.

I was scared. Scared that I wouldn’t remember enough. Ashamed that I had forgotten the woman who raised me.

I was wrong.

I will never forget.

My mother would be proud of who I am today, a strong, intelligent, hardworking individual with integrity. I know that I will never see her again on this Earth. I know that no woman will ever take her place. But on this Mother’s Day, I have come to terms with these facts, and I am okay with it. Somewhere my Amma is looking down at me with her infectious smile. And someday we will meet again and I will smile right back.

Vishak Menon is a junior at Mission San Jose High School.

My Greatest Strength

On a clear California morning, I sat down with a cup of tea in a home I’d recently moved into, wondering if my mom would have liked the house. For the past several years, mom was a part of every major decision we had made. She would have said, “It’s very spacious, like our tharavadu (ancestral) house, I like it.” Being with her, I had learnt to read between the lines at a very early age. Like the word “spacious” meant “do you really need this big space? You will have to clean it. It’s more work for you.”

During my teenage years in India, I discovered her dream, during our daily walks to the market, “I would have been a writer,” she once admitted, in her faint soft voice. These walks were therapeutic for both of us. We debated authors and politics and discussed general knowledge, family history, movies, while carrying bags of fresh vegetables and groceries. I learnt that her favorite flower was the rose, she really enjoyed playing chess, Humphrey Bogart was the second most handsome man after my dad, and even back then, her views on life were too liberal for her society to handle. She was a minimalist, in words and in her personal needs.

We were polar opposites. She was the epitome of silence, I was the chatterbox, constantly questioning her and she always had answers. She would say, “I want you to be different from me. I do not want you to be tied down by society’s strings. I want you to be free and be able to speak your mind.” She was subtle and simple, I was brash and blunt. She was extremely organized and clean, and I lived for the moment. But we did share a few things in common, our love for reading, cooking, nature and, yes, our stubbornness.

When she decided to live with me, I was impressed at how very quickly mom adapted to life in America. The clean roads made her smile. She felt Americans have the biggest of hearts and yet couldn’t grasp why they would settle for the blandest of foods. Her favorite hangout was the Farmer’s Market. She loved Julia Roberts. She religiously watched Oprah and General Hospital. Once hearing a neighbor complain about the bank she said, “He just needs to step out of this country, he will appreciate this system so much more.”

Mom came back after one of her India vacations, seeing all the places she wanted to see and meeting every relative she wanted to meet and hinting to them that it was her last trip back. Ten days after she got back to California, she had a stroke. During one of our many ER visits, she said, “ I have my one way ticket here, all I need to do is wait for my train and I hope it is much sooner than later”. Mom never feared death. In fact she welcomed it. She said, “Once you have become a burden to your loved ones and a burden to society, it’s not worth the time left, society needs to help people like me, who have had a good run, and are ready to retire from life with a happy face.”

My son asked me who the strongest person I knew was; I said “Your Thathi (grandma).” My relationship with mom was clean, simple and honest. It had no expectations, no restrictions and was extremely freeing. I guess that’s why it is harder to let go. I have learnt to accept this state of mind. It is a journey that all of us, who have loved so deeply, will have to endure. As time goes by, I will go about my life, with the same spirit and energy as ever, but with her memories framed to my heart and her voice recorded in my soul.

Praba Iyer blogs about cooking at rocketbites.com

This One’s For You

A forgotten memory came to me recently as I waved goodbye to my daughter. She was headed for a weeklong jaunt away from my vigilance. It was a memory that had to be dusted free of cobwebs, yet inexplicably it retained its original emotional shading. I remember standing clutching my mother’s hand tightly, painfully, as she was preparing to hand me over to the Dormitory Supervisor at Bishop Westcott in Ranchi. I was four years old and I remember my mother’s eyes being abnormally swollen. That night was the first night I spent apart from her, and as time went by and numerous such separations occurred I accumulated these memories and buried them under the detritus of a childhood spent in boarding schools.

My mother and I grew up in completely different worlds. She grew up in ManKombu, a place I’ve only encountered in her childhood memories. During my youth, I seemed as alien to her as she seemed to me, with my father attempting to bridge the gap between us. Now, as I settle into maturity and with my father long gone, the gap between my mother and me no longer seems as deep as I had once imagined. For one, she is as avid a reader as I am and as passionate about music as I’d like to be. She is a Sudoku maniac, alive with interest in local politics, impatient with religious fanatics and more broadminded than many of my peers.

In a few short years, after moving to the US, she reconstructed her reality in a manner that made sense to her; creatively, resourcefully. So when once the fire department personnel arrived after the fire alarm had triggered, my mother explained to them in broken English and in thorough detail how she had forgotten to turn the exhaust on when she was cooking dal for the sambhar. I have no idea what the fire department employees understood from what was said that day, but we still haven’t received the bill, so I assume all is forgiven. On another occasion, when she was alone at home, the police arrived and threatened to take our obnoxious pet away for barking too much. She stood her ground fiercely and wrested the mutt from their clutches. They were no match for her.

Throughout my childhood, numerous well-meaning aunts, uncles and cousins have declared very categorically, “you’re not as close to your parents because you never grew up with them.” Indeed, the last part is true, my brother and I didn’t grow up at home, or in our parents' company, spending just three out of twelve months with them. However, I felt then as I do now, it’s not the frequency but the intensity of a relationship that really matters, and it is my parents' love that sustained me through those long months apart. It was an affection compacted by the brevity of our interactions and yet lengthened by the longing for our moments together.

Don’t be under any illusions that it is always sunny in our multigenerational home. We fight, we bicker, we quarrel, we argue and we criticize. But at the end of the day I know that my mother is there, just a shout away, watching out for me, caring about what I ate for lunch, urging me to slow down once in a while.

“I have a riddle for you,” my mother said, one recent morning, as I was packing lunch boxes, preparing breakfast and prepping for dinner, before heading to work. “Not now, Amma,” I said impatiently but relented when I saw her face. “Name two things that cannot be turned or taken back,” she asked. I gave it a perfunctory mental glance before I saw her waiting look. “What?” I asked. “Time and the spoken word. Isn’t it true?” she asked excitedly. “Words once uttered, the chollu, can never be retracted,” she added.

These are my spoken words for you, Amma. Thank you.

Jaya Padmanabhan is an award winning writer.

Things My Mother Taught Me

My mother died in 1997 on May 17, six days after Mothers’ Day. I remember being caught in a paroxysm of grief and asking my oldest daughter, “Will I ever get over this?” We Indians do not celebrate Mothers’ Day, yet the proximity of the two dates makes it difficult for me not to think of her this month, every year.

Memories of her crowd my mind … of running up and down the veranda in our bungalow in Machlipatnam, while she fed me balls of rice with a triangle of pappadam stuck on one side to emulate a kuruvi (sparrow); her cool hands on my forehead soothing a fever; her hands holding me while I went through labor pains; of teaching me to make dosas with a dollop of butter in the center, smoothing the batter evenly in concentric circles on the griddle.

One memory stands out; the pain in her voice when she told me how at 19, while still in her final year at college, her marriage was “fixed.” She only had a year left to finish college. Her father, who was actually a progressive man for his time, decided arbitrarily, as parents sometimes do, that she did not need that degree. But she only married a year later, and always regretted that she hadn’t completed the course, “ ... and I would have been able to say that I, too, am a college graduate.” But she just stayed home that year. Meanwhile, her two older sisters graduated; her oldest sister received a Masters in English Literature and her other sister became a doctor, much loved and revered. She voiced her feelings to her mother, but they were overlooked. It was an injustice she never forgot. So she lived vicariously through her children, helping us with our homework, encouraging us, supporting whatever we wanted. She let us take part in dramatics, sports, run for office at college, anything she thought would give us an advantage or build our confidence. She taught herself Hindi when it was introduced into our school and instructed my younger siblings. She would have made a wonderful teacher.

Years later, when my six-year old daughter was grappling with multiplication problems and my husband gave up in despair, my mother came to our rescue. She asked for two weeks. I sent my daughter to her in Chennai and by the end of that fortnight, my daughter was chirping away, her multiplication tables firmly in place.

My mother also taught herself chess so she could play with my brother. She was highly competitive and hated to lose. In our riotous games of rummy, her delight when the loser had to bray like a donkey was infectious. She could on occasion, be obstinate when playing the board games she loved. I remember a vehement argument during a game of Scrabble about the existence of the word “dood” as the past tense of “do.” She sulked throughout the game when I emphatically said she could not use it.

In her mid-thirties she hitched up her sari, tucked it around her waist, donned a pair of tennis shoes and attacked the tennis courts. And won a district championship! According to my brother who went on to become a university cricket player himself, she understood the nuances of cricket and tennis better than my father could. Often, when they watched a match she would yell “viddhi” (idiot) when a player did not do what she thought they ought to.

We understood that education was important. When my future father-in-law wanted me to marry his son three months before my final exams at university, my mother lobbied for a later date; but my father wavered. So she suggested that I write to my husband-to-be, who, fortunately for me, understood my wish. He told his extremely stubborn father that he could not get a leave of absence (a bare-faced lie); our wedding was postponed and I got my Masters degree!

Three years ago when I turned 67, and she would have turned 87 (we share a birthday), I passed a written exam for which I’d worked hard for two years. The subject and qualification matters little—it was a test of faith; and I passed, the oldest in my class.

When I received the e-mail from my examiner in Australia, I thought to myself, “This is for you Amma, and for all the women who are denied their right to study. I celebrate your life.”

Maya Jayapal describes herself as a writer, a teacher, a counselor and a dreamer. She is a regular contributor to Deccan Herald, The Hindu and various other magazines. This article was first published in Talkingcranes.com.

A Retro-Metro Agent!

2012-05-12T09:53:26-07:00

AGENT VINOD. Director: Sriram Raghavan. Players: Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Ravi
Kishan, Prem Chopra, Ram Kapoor, Adil Hussain. Music: Pritam. Theatrical release: Illuminati Films.

Expectations were high from Sriram Raghavan, the director who gave us the slick and gripping Ek Haseena Thi and the edge-of-the-seat Johnny Gaddaar. Both the films had tight scripts with satisfactory twists and turns and gratifying climaxes. Agent Vinod scores on twists and turns but lets the viewer down on a well-crafted plot which could well have made AV a classic among spy thrillers.

The story is typically cliched and involves a nuclear bomb hurtling across the world, which Agent Vinod must intercept and disable before it can harm his country. The rest is all padding—which is stylish, full of references to old Bollywood hits and racy enough to keep you in your seats. The treatment is so slick, and the film so neat that questions occur much later!

With bated breath, we, along with Agent Vinod, follow the nuclear suitcase bomb as it changes hands with bewildering speed among baddies all over the world. Our desi Bond streaks across Russia, Morocco, Latvia, Pakistan and does the needful only after criss-crossing half the world, meeting a beautiful Dr. Iram Parveen Khan aka Ruby (Kapoor) who could be a baddie or a goodie and dispensing with a dozen or so other more clear-cut villains in the process. And, of course, Delhi is saved.

The film can very well be called a tribute to old spy-thrillers starting with the title itself, as the original Agent Vinod first hit the screen in 1977, giving the small time actor, Mahendra Sandhu the single hit of his entire career.Here, in one particular scene, Vinod (Khan) gives his name as Mahendra Sandhu.

There are overt references to Amar Akbar Anthony, Baazigar, the original Bond himself with a lady emerging from the ocean in a bikini, a la Ursula Andress, the larger than life stylized villains like Ram Kapoor as the Hagrid-like Russian, Prem Chopra in resplendent kaftans complete with a pet camel, the menacing Adil Hussain as Colonel and Gulshan Grover in white, the “mujra” in the villain’s den—all spell 70s—the golden era of kitsch! One does wish that there were fewer villains in the movie, so that the average viewer could focus on the traveling bomb.

Khan excels as the dashing secret-agent with his funny-bone intact. It is a marvel what a long way he has come from his slightly feminine looks in the beginning of his career to this macho man who thinks nothing of bashing up an army of armed goons bare-handed and making it look credible. One particularly funny scene has him breaking into a ridiculous jig when he discovers that he’s being watched through a hidden camera!

Kapoor looks lovely and thankfully, no longer her size-zero self. Hers is the character which keeps the viewers guessing till the very end. She wiffles and waffles from one side to the other changing her expressions with a chameleon-like swiftness from sly to lost and keeps the smart agent and us on our toes as to her true identity and allegiance. A word for the host of supporting stars—Ram Kapoor, Adil Hussain as Colonel and the veteran Prem Chopra are excellent and remind you of the good old days of “Mogambo khush hua” and “Shakal”—the black as devil villains with no shades of grey.

The background music complements the movie and its moods well but the noisy soundtracks by Pritam leave a lot to be desired, which unintentionally though, is also a throwback to one of the worst phases of Hindi films as far as music was concerned.
At the same time, the treatment of the movie is super slick with superb chase sequences, great action, wry comedy and wonderful cinematography by Muraleedharan which brings alive the heat and dust of Afghanistan, the beauty of Riga and the hustle-bustle of Connaught Place in New Delhi.

And finally we doff our hats to Raghavan, not only does he tell the story—or what there is of it —well, and extracts credible performances, but also manages to pour the old wine of spies-villains-dens et al into a shiny new bottle of slickness worthy of a Hollywood thriller.
All in all, Agent Vinod, who, very well might be said to be doubling as travel agent Vinod—if you look at the number of countries the movie has been shot in—is definitely worth a watch.

Synchronicity: Intention to Manifestation

2012-05-10T09:37:22-07:00

Small is truly beautiful. A single email winged its way from the Dalai Lama’s office to my Google colleagues in India and then on to the United States followed by Korea before landing finally in my inbox. It expressed an interest that the Office of the Dalai Lama had in the product I am working on—Google+—and it started me noodling some ideas on a piece of paper. One of them was to put together The Dalai Lama with Archbishop Desmond Tutu in a Google+ Hangout and allow thousands of people to view it live on the Internet. I told a few colleagues about this random and crazy idea and left it at that.

Five days later, a Googler from South Africa, Jonathan, called me at home at one in the morning. I had never met him before and yet he made the following request: “The Arch’s (Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s) birthday is coming up this Saturday and his friend the Dalai Lama was to be the main guest, delivering a talk on peace and compassion. He has applied for a visa but hasn’t been granted one yet, so the Arch’s office has asked if we could use technology to find a solution?”

Jonathan had found me pretty much at random by searching the internal directory and deciding based on pure intuition that I was the person to call. He apologized profusely for calling so late out of the blue, but I told him it was moments like this that make working at Google so truly special. Jonathan has since told me that my actual words in that conversation were: “Around here, the impossible takes one or two days. The miracles take a little longer—like maybe three.”

So, a mere seven days after I put my original intention down on paper, The Dalai Lama stepped in front of a Google+ Hangout window on a computer in his house in Dharamsala, India. Half a world away, Archbishop Desmond Tutu stepped in front of another Google+ Hangout window on a computer at The University of the Western Cape, in Cape Town, South Africa. He waved at his dear friend and spiritual brother and chuckled, “I can see you clearly.” The rest is now history.

Why those two independent requests, originating from the offices of two Nobel Peace Laureates 6,000 miles apart, ended up in my inbox is a great mystery. What emerged from this is a marvelous event on a global scale, but the back story to my involvement is also mystical to me.

Thirteen years ago, I wrote a list of goals for my life that included a desire to meet the Dalai Lama in person. Over the years, things started coming together. I walked into the back of a bookstore and saw a poster announcing that he was speaking nearby the following week. I then heard him speak several times—almost by chance—in places as far apart as Sydney and San Francisco, and at Stanford University. But as I returned to the Google office from that talk, it struck me that I had not done much about my goal to meet him in person and did not know where to start. Perhaps a good first step would be simply to ask someone?

The first person I ran into was Meng, a Google engineer with some affiliation with meditation research and projects that I know are of interest to the Dalai Lama. I told him that I wanted to meet the Dalai Lama in person. Deadpan, he replied, “Sure, that can be arranged, what are you doing two weeks from now? Can you be in Dharamsala in India? My friend Lama Tenzin is setting up a meeting for some others and I can ask him … ” Two weeks later I was on a plane to Dharamsala. Sometimes when you ask the universe, it opens a door and you must walk through it.

Right up until a few hours before the meeting, I did not know if it would happen; I had not heard from Lama Tenzin, who was also traveling from the United States to Dharamsala and was out of contact. But this is exactly the kind of thing I am willing to travel 36 hours half way around the world for: just to show up and knock on a door in the hope that it might open.

After three days of hanging around the Dalai Lama’s monastery in Dharamsala, I received confirmation that he would meet me. I was fortunate to experience a 45-minute audience with His Holiness, during which he discussed a wide-ranging set of topics from compassion to human values to happiness to neuroplasticity and mental training. It will always be one of the most cherished memories of my life.

It was so moving and his humanity so touching that when I said good-bye there were tears in my eyes. He gave me a “Katta” (a white cloth with Tibetan chants inscribed) as a blessing that I brought back with me and hung above my desk so that it would rain blessings on the entire Google+ team. It worked.

Zooming forward to October 5, 2011, the morning after my phone call from Jonathan in South Africa, I sat discussing a possible solution with Loren, the Product Manager for Google+ Hangouts, in our usual place under the Katta. Five hours later, Loren was on a 33-hour journey to South Africa. What was remarkable, I found out later, was that Loren had never before traveled outside the country. He got a passport just a few months earlier, thinking it may be a good idea to start traveling internationally. A dozen of us from Google in four different countries around the world swung into action—we had just 60 hours to make it happen.

As Jonathan described it, “It wasn’t even a full day since the initial discussion with the Archbishop’s office and the project plan was in place. Googlers were moving around the globe to make this happen. Dan from the Stockholm office was traveling to join Loren in Cape Town. In New Delhi, Guneet Singh had mobilized the India team, and Ashish had driven 12 hours across India to the Dalai Lama’s house in the Himalayas. The velocity of this team was astonishing. I was already getting a strong sense of what is possible when a group of passionate Googlers put their minds to something.”

The best part for me was seeing how these were just two old friends who really wanted to spend a birthday together. We allowed them to reminisce about old times, poke fun at each other, and share a good hearty laugh. Directly after the event, I spoke to the Archbishop and with great emotion in his voice he looked at me said, “Thank you so much for making this happen; it was so very special to me.”

Similarly, in India my colleague Ashish relayed to us: “In my very brief chat with The Dalai Lama, I found him really pleased to see his friend over the hangout. For me, the Google moment was when he bowed down and said, ‘Thank you very much for all your help.’ I felt really great and proud to be representing Google there.”

Leading up to the event was high pressure for everyone as unexpected problems cropped up. There was a power failure 15 minutes before the Hangout, after which a South African Secret Service Agent was dispatched to guard the site’s switchboard. As it happened, the main undersea Internet cable to South Africa was cut just 20 minutes after the event had finished.

But the Hangout itself was flawless. From their offices, living rooms, and bedrooms, thousands of people on Google+ watched this historic dialogue unfold live. The previous thirteen Dalai Lama’s had hardly traveled beyond Tibet. And now here was the 14th Dalai Lama chatting with Desmond Tutu, and it felt like it was happening in your house.

In a mere seven days, a crazy idea I put on a piece of paper had transformed itself from intention to manifestation. It makes me think: what else might be achieved?

Gopi Kallayil works for Google, but the opinions expressed here are his own and not Google’s. Highlights of the Dalai Lama-Archbishop Desmond Tutu Hangout can be watched at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97bZu-tXLq4

Incentivizing Math and Science Education

2012-05-09T09:43:03-07:00

Ever since Craig Barrett retired as Intel’s CEO, he has made it his life’s mission to improve U.S. competitiveness. He believes that the way to do this is to teach more math and science.

And he believes we need to graduate more Ph.D.s in science and engineering.

I wholeheartedly support improvements in education and know the value that math and science skills provide. But the problems I see in U.S. competitiveness aren’t related to the numbers of engineering Ph.D.s or scientists that we graduate. American companies are shifting R&D abroad because it makes economic sense for them to be near growth markets, and they can hire talented workers at a lower cost. It isn’t about deficiencies in American workers or a weakness of U.S. math and science education.

We are graduating enough Ph.D.s in science and engineering. The problem is that the majority of these graduates are foreign nationals (who are now increasingly returning home).

American’s don’t consider it worthwhile to complete advanced science and engineering degrees because it doesn’t make financial sense for them to do so. Research by Harvard economist Richard Freeman showed that because salaries for scientists and engineers are lower than for other professions, the investment that students have to make in higher degrees isn’t cost-justified. Doctoral graduate students typically spend seven to eight years earning a Ph.D., during which time they are paid stipends. These stipends are usually less than what a bachelor’s degree-holder makes. Some students never make up for this financial loss.

Foreign students typically have fewer opportunities and see a U.S. education as their ticket to the U.S. job market and citizenship. Hence, 60% of U.S. engineering Ph.D. graduates are foreigners.

Today, few young Ph.D.s can get started on the career for which their graduate education purportedly trained them, namely, as faculty members in academic research institutions.

Instead, scores of thousands of them spend the years after they earn their doctorates toiling in low-paying, dead-end postdoctoral “training” appointments (called postdocs) in the laboratories of professors, where they ostensibly hone skills they would need to start labs of their own when they become professors. In fact, however, only about 25 percent of those earning American science Ph.D.s will ever land a faculty job that enables them to apply for the competitive grants that support academic research. And even fewer—15 percent by some estimates—will get a post at the kind of research university where the nation’s significant scientific work takes place.

So, if we create incentives for American children to study math and science and to complete advanced degrees, the magic will happen. In addition to math and science, we should teach our children about world culture, geography, and global markets. In the era of globalization, these subjects are equally important. And while we fix the incentives for Americans, let’s do all we can to keep the best foreign students who come to the United States to study, here, so they are competing on our side.

I wholeheartedly agree that we need to improve K-12 education and I agree about the importance of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education. The question is, how do you motivate American children to enter fields like science and engineering that are harder than others to learn, don’t provide the economic rewards, and aren’t considered “cool?” We can’t force our children to do Ph.D.s in math.

When American children choose to study science or engineering, their friends call them geeks or nerds—they are made to feel inferior. Their Indian and Chinese counterparts are held in high regard by society and end up at the top of the social ladder. Indian and Chinese engineers and scientists are often national heroes. Here, our kids idolize football players and rock stars.

We can’t also just tell our children that the nation’s competitiveness and standard of living depends on them making sacrifice and completing advanced degrees in math and science. They won’t care. We should definitely improve the K-12 education system. Our corporations should also invest in workforce development, provide tax breaks for research, and we should fix our university research system.

The problem of American children not being motivated to become scientists and engineers is very real. My top students at the Masters of Engineering Management Program at Duke University still vie for high-paying investment banking jobs; they don’t become engineers. It is the same with our top Ph.D.s in math; they become quants at investment banks. Their talents end up being used by investment banks to find new ways of bilking the financial system.

We need to create excitement about science and engineering at the national level and motivate our best and brightest to become engineers and scientists. And we need to make it worthwhile financially for them to help our country stay competitive and to solve the problems facing our planet. This is as much a marketing problem as it is an investment problem.

Vivek Wadhwa is an entrepreneur turned academic. You can follow him on Twitter at @vwadhwa and find his research at www.wadhwa.com. Originally published in TechCrunch.

Alankar

2012-05-08T15:00:02-07:00

Continuing its long standing tradition of giving, SoCal based Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT KGP) alums will host Alankar 2012, a charity social filled with a memorable evening of food, dance and music featuring the legendary Snehashish Mozumdar and his SOM Jazz Band.

President Alok Chatterjee of IIT KGP will welcome guests and guest of honor Mohnish Pabrai, founder of Irvine based, Dakshana, who “is an individual whose organization has done great service to India by providing training and world class education opportunities at no cost to gifted, impoverished children to get into the IITs and empower them to change the societies they come from,” says Chatterjee.

Pabrai will speak about his successful efforts in helping talented kids with limited resources to prepare and pass IIT entrance examinations.

The evening festivities will feature 45 local artists including a local music program tribute to Dev Anand, Bhupen Hazarika and Jagjit Singh, fusion dances and what is sure to be a commanding performance from Pandit Chitresh Das’ long hailed Chhandam School, one of the largest schools of classical Indian dance in the United States.
Southern California’s music enthusiasts should not miss the opportunity to witness master mandolinist Snehasish Mazumder and the SOM Ensemble from New York. Mazumder and his Indo-Jazz fusion music group will showcase his unique invention, the hybrid double-neck mandolin, and enthrall audiences with Hindustani music, bhangra, Bollywood, jazz and world music.

Mazumder has performed in many music festivals in India and has toured numerous countries. In 2002, he was invited by Pandit Ravi Shankar to perform for the George Harrison Memorial Concert held in Royal Albert Hall, London. In 2009, he performed at the Lincoln Center.

Mazumder will be joined by a renowned team of artist such as bassist Daniel Asher, Nick Gianni (saxophone), Vin Scialla (drums), Deep Singh (tabla) and Lars Potteiger (keyboard).
A lifetime achievement award will be presented to the chief guest, 1958 alum Mani Lal Bhaumik.

Bhaumik is a well known physicist from India who helped develop the first excimer laser at the University of the California’s famous Northrop Corporation Research and Technology Center.

This class of laser would eventually eliminate eye glasses or contact lenses in lieu of a speedy vision correction. Bhaumik was recently presented with India’s prestigious civilian award Padma Shri in 2011.

IIT system was founded in 1951, the first one being in Kharagpur, West Bengal in a jail where the British imprisoned freedom fighters and hanged some of them.
Since the wary days of yore, IIT KGP has mass produced distinct alums such as Dr K. Radhakrishnan, the current Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization in Bangalore. Arun Sarin, a former CEO of Vodafone in United Kingdom, Rono Dutta, former president of United Airlines and Ajit Singh the current Civil Aviation minister in the Indian central government just to name a few according to Chatterjee.

An estimated 200 members of IIT KGP SoCal are involved in the professional networking group and maintain connections with other professional groups for the benefit of its members, support their alma mater’s development and donate to community enhancing projects.

The group also provides support and social connectivity to new graduates in the Southern California area.

Alankar is the cultural wing of IIT KGP SoCal which seeks to “bring together IITians as well as the community at large to participate and enjoy the cultural bond which is shared,” says Chatterjee. Its aim is to bring the festival spirit modeled after the famous IIT KGP spring festival to the immediate community in Southern California.

The 10 day, Spring Festival in IIT KGP is a popular yearly event on the campus where non-IIT organizations are invited to participate in the fields of music, dance, drama and debates from all colleges around India. This festival completely transforms the campus allowing the students to mix with other community members and showcase their cultural and organizational side to others.

Saturday, May 12. 6 p.m.–9 p.m. Merage Jewish Community Center, 1 Federation Way, Irvine. $30 (includes dinner and snacks), $15 students, seniors. For tickets and information visit www.iitkgpsocal.org.

IC Celebrates 25th Anniversary

2012-05-08T13:01:25-07:00

Naveen Chandra Gupta of San Francisco has died, leaving behind an unusual request in his will. As his friends struggle to honor his last wish with some suggesting that it be ignored, they learn a little about him, a little about themselves, and a lot about what it means for an Indian to die in America.

Keeping with its tradition of being “different,” India Currents (IC) magazine collaborates with local theater company Naatak, to present the premiere of “Death in San Francisco” in celebration of its 25th anniversary. “Death in San Francisco,” a play in English, is a dark comedy written and directed by Sujit Saraf, and performed by Naatak.
Two community organizations, Naatak and Narika, deeply rooted in the community, are partners in this celebration. Naatak, a theater company founded to bring relevant, thought-provoking and responsible Indian drama to residents of the San Francisco Bay Area, have produced several cutting-edge plays over the years, including “Kamala” and one of the most controversial yet popular plays to come out of India, “Sakharam Binder.” Narika is a local non-profit organization that empowers South Asian women to confront and overcome cycles of violence and exploitation.

Founded in 1987, IC quickly became a community resource, a mainstay in most Indian homes. IC began as a small black-and-white newsletter covering Indian cultural events in the SF Bay Area. Rooted in the classical arts of India, IC’s initial focus was on dance and music events in the Bay Area. Interviews with notables in the music and dance world were the main focus of the publication.

In the years that followed, the magazine became a leading source of information pertinent and relevant to a fast growing South Asian diaspora. (Today IC is a two-edition print publication with over 125,000 readers, its arc following that of the community it serves). As the community grew so did the magazine’s editorial content. From featuring only events stories, IC evolved into telling stories of the growing diaspora. Our editors and writers tackled issues such as domestic violence, homophobia, interracial relationships, and assimilation vs. acculturation. The magazine emphasized courage and honesty in its editorial content, despite two death threats along the way.

This journalistic intrepidity has won several awards from South Asian Journalists Association, New California Media, New America Media, Best American Essays, as well as recognition from Arts Council of Santa Clara County and Utne Reader. Run by a small team of dedicated professionals, including an all-female publishing and editorial staff, IC has adapted to a changing media landscape.

After 25 years, the voice of India Currents remains—a monthly reflection of life in California’s South Asian community, a printed product that has never lost its focus: the community it serves, remaining firmly connected with the information he or she needs most, consistently delivered.

We invite the community to meet the India Currents team—the faces and voices behind the magazine, past and present, at special receptions on all three days. Enjoy compliemntary pre-show h’ordeuvres and drinks as you mingle with the IC team.

On Friday, Sandy Close, Executive Director of New America Media and winner of the 1995 MacArthur “Genius Award,” will join us as the guest of honor. On Saturday our Chief Guest is the Consul General of India, N. Parthasarathy. Suhas Patil, Chairman Emeritus of Cirrus Logic, will join us as our Chief Guest on Sunday.

Proceeds from the shows will benefit Narika.

Friday, June 8 at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, June 9 at 6 p.m., and Sunday, June 10 at 5p.m.
VIP: $40 ($45 after May 27), General: $30 ($35 after May 27)
Snacks and drinks will be served on all three days.
Theater at San Pedro Square, San Pedro Square, 29 N. San Pedro St., San Jose. www.naatak.com/ic/, email: tickets@naatak.com, Ashok: (408) 905-6831.

Perils and Pleasures of Living Alone in India

2012-05-08T09:30:47-07:00

Just come back any time with madam to approve the kitchen design,” the beaming modular kitchen consultant told me.

I explained patiently, again, that there was no madam available and that I would be approving my own modular kitchen, cabinet colours and all.

He nodded and said, “But we can wait few days if needed for madam.”

When it finally dawned on him that there was no madam at all, he was aghast. I don’t know what shocked him more—that a man might approve a kitchen design, or that I lived alone or that a man who lived alone wanted a kitchen.

Living solo

A recent story in The Guardian about the global rise in living solo says while countries like Sweden have the most number of singletons (47%), the countries where single person households are growing the fastest are Brazil, China and India.

Apparently that statistic has not percolated its way down to the kitchen design store at our furniture mall in Kolkata.

Living solo has usually been regarded as something profoundly abnormal, especially in a culture where a parent’s job is not done until the children are “settled,” ergo married. We like to think we were designed to live communally even if it’s in shared misery. Our saas-bahu television soaps with their feuding extended families hammer that point home endlessly. Living solo carries with it the pathos of abandonment—the lonely widow sitting alone in front of a flickering television watching those soaps of great bickering families, her own children long gone to America and Australia, leaving her easy prey for robbers and thieves.

But as Eric Klinenberg, the author of Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone, points out, “Living alone, and being alone are hardly the same, yet the two are routinely conflated.”

In fact, who is truly more alone here? The couple sitting across each other at the dinner table, completely wordless, each engrossed in their own BlackBerry or the single person, alone at home, juggling four chats on Facebook and MSN messenger?

Klinenberg spells out all the reasons why so many more of us are living on our own today. More of us can afford it. We have better internet. But most importantly we are viewing it not as a sign that we are losers but as “an investment in the self.” “Today, young solitaires actively reframe living alone as a mark of distinction and success,” he writes. This is the natural progression of what Emile Durkheim, the late 19th century sociologist, called the “cult of the individual” which was marked by the transition from the tight-knit rural community to a more anonymous urban one.

When I first moved to America as a graduate student, I could not wait to live alone. It signified freedom, independence, and a sense of my own space—something I’d never known in India. The feeling of liberation of a town where no one knew your name was utterly enthralling. Not having to answer to where you were going and when you were coming back (even to a roommate) was exhilarating. Of course it also meant no more hot meals ready when you came home exhausted, bathrooms that didn’t clean themselves, and laundry that kept piling up in the corner.

Yet as a society, the West is still geared towards singletons. In the United States you can do almost everything online. Dishwashers and vacuum cleaners are commonplace. You are apt to be far more isolated if you don’t drive rather than if you live alone.

How alone is alone?

In India, first, you have to rejigger the very definition of living alone. My uncle, a bachelor, lived alone after my grandmother died. In our family lore, he was always held up as the cautionary tale of what happens if you do not get married. The fact is he lived “alone” with a cook and a maid and a mixed breed dog, not to mention the washerwoman next door whose children ran around the house all day and his electrician friend from across the street who visited every day. It is also a fact that he outsourced the management of the household to my mother who took hisaab every day from the cook about how much oil he had bought and how much fish.

If you do try to live truly alone in India, society seems to actively conspire to thwart you.
The postman doesn’t deliver anything anymore. Everything from magazines to bills to checks comes by courier. Make that a wide assortment of couriers. Unless someone is around to sign for you, nothing will ever reach you. Unless someone is at home, nothing will get repaired, nothing will get painted.

The doorbell rings all day long and it always tolls for thee. There’s the cable guy, the electric meter check guy, the water filter guy, the inverter battery servicing guy, the furniture delivery guy, the ironing guy and the you-are-screwed-if-you-miss-him gas cylinder delivery guy. “Sir, I am standing outside your door and ringing the bell for a long time,” says the air conditioning service man plaintively. “But I am in a temple in Chidambaram,” I tell him. “I told you to call before you came.”

“ I know. But there is no one else at home, sir, to let me in?” he asks.

Even the traffic signals are against single living. “Please cross the road carefully. Remember someone is waiting for you at home,” intones a mournful female voice all day long in various languages at the traffic light near my apartment. As if one should immediately fling oneself into the path of an oncoming minibus if one was going home to an empty apartment.
Perhaps the only thing that is singleton-friendly are our sabzi markets. You can still buy a few potatoes, a handful of onions, loose spices, two eggs and even a single cigarette. You don’t need to get a shrink-wrapped value pack of a dozen apples and watch them slowly molder in your refrigerator.

Do you cook?

But the biggest hurdle to living on your own is that we are a culture that actually thrives on this sense of dependency. We need this sense of interdependency to function, to feel alive. In a country of a billion-plus, we both crave to get away and at the same time are addicted to the warmth of a human body. An Indian friend who broke up with his partner in America said he could not bear the thought of coming home to a dark house. He put out an ad for a roommate not because he needed the money but because he needed someone, anyone to be there.

That could be spouse, roommate, mother or maid. Anytime I talk about living alone, the first amazed question is always the same. “But what do you do about food? Do you cook?”
Yes, I do when I need to. But it’s also true that try as I might, I am only a part-time soloist. I spend a chunk of the week at my mother and sister’s place because it’s incomprehensible that after years abroad on my own I’d now live in the same city as the family and still not physically be with the family. When I come back after three days, it’s almost the same as when I came back after a year abroad.

American friends would tell me that living with someone was such hard work, so much adjustment, all that divvying up of kitchen cabinets and bathroom shelves. But it’s really not half as tough as trying to live alone in India. Now that you have to really work hard at.

Sandip Roy is the host of New America Now, a news magazine show on KALW 91.7 FM, produced by New America Media. This article was first published in First Post.