Saying Goodbye Is Just So Hard To Do

by Priya Chhaya

I love to write. In my day job I write about history and the past, about cities and the importance of place and space in the everyday and in the identity of individual people. When I’m not writing I love to read–books, newspapers, magazines, and other blogs. So on any given day, my reader is filled with articles from history, membership marketing, tech development, and pop culture–including one of my favorites: Sepia Mutiny.

A few years ago I was hunting for information on the Sepoy Mutiny and stumbled upon this site dedicated to writing about South Asian Americans in politics, history, and culture. The site, which gave me the opportunity to see what a quality collaborative blog could be like, also introduced me to a community of creative South Asians. Probably what I appreciated the most was that they could be, at times, both serious and entertaining while also being critical and laudatory. (The site also introduced me to some excellent music).

When I write, I write from the heart–but most of the time it is about things: exhibits, books, ideas. Markers of the past that tell us a story that we can relate to.

Sepia Mutiny was more journalistic, talking about the people, those from, or descended from the subcontinent, analyzing who we were, what we’ve accomplished, and where we were going. It was a community. On April 1, 2012, Sepia Mutiny closed down for good, and with its end I thought we could learn a little bit about the blog’s journey from the site’s creator, Abhi.

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Here are some of his thoughts:

Priya: It’s been about eight years since Sepia Mutiny began, can you tell me a little bit about what inspired you to put it together?

Abhi: Sepia Mutiny began as a civilized (but irreverent) rebellion against the reality that South Asian American media, what little there was on the web in 2004, lacked interesting and incisive analysis of news and issues that people in our community were concerned about, or just wanted to hear more about. In the summer of 2004, both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions had issued press passes to a few widely-read bloggers, almost all of them white.  That was annoying to me and provided the initial inspiration for doing something.  Blogs were just getting started back then and nobody knew if they were frivolous or could make an impact, [and so] I thought the time was right to try and provide a venue for a South Asian American perspective while concurrently being entertaining.  There was (and still is) a mass of young, educated, politically aware, intellectually hungry, and somewhat mutinous “desi” that wanted something both engaging and educational to read.

Frustrated over this lack of voice and the power that comes with it, I approached several other Indian American bloggers that I regularly read and proposed that we collaborate to fill the vacuum.  Why not create a site that combined the individual efforts of some talented young voices, and then proceed to write about topics that entertained, educated, and inspired?  Manish Vij, Anna John, Vinod Vallapollili, “Ennis,” and myself, came together and worked out some technical details and a rough outline for what would become Sepia Mutiny days later.  Over the years, a number of other unique voices would join.

Priya: One of my favorite things about the blog is how tapped in it is to trends in music, theater, and politics, giving a well-rounded look at where South Asian Americans were entering into the larger American public-consciousness. How do you feel that this has changed since the blog began? What are some of the changes you’ve noticed?

Abhi: The main thing that has changed is that we can’t keep up any more.  Back then if a South Asian American appeared on television for example, that was a BIG deal.  We might have multiple posts dissecting various aspects of the appearance.  Ditto if it was a musician or politician.  Now we’re everywhere.  On some nights you can flip from one channel to another in primetime and see brown characters.  Two governors are Indian American.  Even my own cousin is running for Congress in Pennsylvania.  And all this progress in just eight years!

Priya: In a similar vein, in your post announcing the blog’s closure, you mentioned three primary reasons for shutting down: the first being technology, the second being the time to devote to managing the blog, and perhaps the most important–that you feel like the mission of Sepia Mutiny has been accomplished. Can you elaborate on how you feel Sepia Mutiny was able to contribute in part to the expansion of Desi voices in the blogosphere?

Abhi: Sepia Mutiny acted as a virtual town hall where three distinct groups came together to learn from each other.  The first group consisted of second generation South Asian Americans who were seeking a way to hold on to their ethnic roots by debating what it meant to be brown in America. Recently we have received many emails from people that said they felt they would have lost their South Asian identity completely were in not for the fact that they could explore and learn from other visitors on our site as we discussed current events that greatly impacted the South Asian community.  The emails that brought a tear to my eye were the ones written by readers that said there were no South Asians where they lived and so they used our website to help hold on to their identity.

The second major groups of readers were the first generation South Asian Americans or those still based in South Asia.  There was at first a “American Born Confused Desi (ABCD) vs. Fresh-Off-The-Boat” dynamic but our writers worked very hard to diffuse that.  A lot of South Asians new to America used our website as a way to understand differences in life experience and how to ease the path to assimilation. I like to believe that both groups learned from each other and came away better for it.

The third group consisted of readers who were not South Asian but married to or dating someone that was, or just admired the culture.  One of our guest bloggers even fell into this category.

Individuals from all of these groups went on the start blogs of their own, which is always what we hoped for.

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Eight years ago, the initial writers of Sepia Mutiny came together and started something great .  Abhi, the creator, used to work for NASA and is now working for a private company that is hoping to be the next one to send American astronauts into space.  Manish Vij and Vinod Valoppillil worked at one point at Microsoft and are, as Abhi states, “always working on some cool new tech project.” Anna John, is a writer in Washington DC, and the final founder “Ennis” work in academia in the United States. Each of their voices, along with many, many other writers that drifted in and out of the blog, contributed to engaging South Asian Americans with each other.

One final question I asked Abhi was about advice to aspiring bloggers who may want to step in after Sepia Mutiny closes–through Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or one of the many online magazines that document the lives of South Asians in America. His answer was simple and succinct:

Just write.  In the end it doesn’t matter how fancy your blog is.  All that matters is that your writing is excellent and your point of view, your “voice,” is unique.

Thank You Sepia Mutiny for eight great years.

Note: While the website will no longer be posting new content after April 1, 2012 you will still be able to follow them on Twitter @sepiamutiny for a little while longer.

Priya Chhaya is a public historian that works with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. She sees history wherever she goes and believes that it is an important part of the American (and Indian American) identity.

 

Shwetak Patel: Are You Alone, and Are You Sitting Down?

by Priya Chhaya

Last fall, Shwetak Patel was in his home office when his phone rang. The voice on the other end introduced themselves, before asking him: “Are you alone, and are you sitting down?”

The call was from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and they were giving him a $500,000 genius grant as part of the MacArthur Fellows Program.

Shwetak Patel. Photo courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

It’s a prestigious award, one with no strings attached and involves years of undercover work by the Foundation before the finalists are selected, and at first Patel “thought it was a prank by my students so I checked into my website’s browser history and found that someone from the MacArthur Foundation had been looking me up pretty regularly for the last two years.”

Within a few weeks he found out he was in the company of other 2011 fellows, including: New York radio host Jad Abumrad, public historian Tiya Miles  (who is chronicling the relationships between Cherokee and African communities in colonial America), and jazz percussionist/composer Dafnis Prieto. Patel grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, and found himself drawn to computer science because he could easily create new ideas and projects that could be implied to many disciplines. His main interests focused on  human computer interaction, which looked at ways to make the link between humans and computers easier and more intuitive.

For example, the wireless router—probably the most common piece of household technology today, is not the easiest thing to figure out.  While many of us have become accustomed to troubleshooting it (unplug it, wait ten seconds, then plug it back in) we often end up having to call our internet provider anyway.  For Patel, it is “the number one returned object because it is so hard to use. [My] goal is to figure things out up front, so that it is immediately accessible.”

As described on their website, the MacArthur Foundation chose Patel because of his work on “inventing low-cost, easy-to-deploy sensor systems that leverage existing infrastructures to enable users to track household energy consumption and to make the buildings we live in more responsive to our needs.”

In essence, he’s developing an easy-to-use system that allows homeowners to track energy consumption in their own house without the need of a middle man, an idea that came to him when he “first work[ed] on new ways for sensing human activity in the home for applications related to elder care, but realized that our indirect sensing techniques could also be used for energy monitoring. I thought that was a natural application at that point.”

Shwetak Patel. Photo courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

In a Wired cover story, Harnessing the Power of the Feedback Loop (July 2011), Patel further describes how technology could help with remote home care for the elderly—for example, how can you tell a bathroom light has been switched off, or that something else out of the normal routine was running, indicating a problem. His work led to the development of algorithms that helped discern frequencies of a light switch from a blender. These algorithms, in turn, continued in his work for the development of an easy-to-use energy sensor technology for homeowners.

Pretty cool huh? Part of why this is so great is that watching how much energy you consume is currently an incredibly tedious practice. It’s mostly a guessing game—tracking how many lights you leave on, how long you run your dishwasher, washer and dryer, the heat or air conditioning. Being able to pinpoint immediately which appliance is effecting your energy bill (and pinpointing where your energy leaks are) is a great tool for any homeowner to have.

So what does Patel plan to do with the money? He has lots of ideas, two of which include investing in a home lab and starting projects where traditional funding sources aren’t available.

As our interview wound down, Patel says that his wife predicted this would happen. About a week before the infamous “call out of the blue,” they were on an airplane talking about how some of his research had shown up in the New York Times. Off hand, and almost jokingly, his wife said that he should probably get the MacArthur award. A week later the phone rang. The rest, they say, is history.

Priya Chhaya is a public historian that works with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. She sees history wherever she goes and believes that it is an important part of the American (and Indian American) identity.

 

The Story

by Priya Chhaya

I love listening to the story.

We all have one, a narrative about how we came to America, how someone in our family made a choice to leave a home in one country and create a new one in another. While each of these stories is fleshed out with common elements, it is the details that make it unique to our personal experience.

Famin and her father at Disney World, 1970s.

A few months ago I had the opportunity to talk to the retired Dr. Momtaz Ahmed, and during the course of our conversation I heard hisstory.

In 1959, Dr. Ahmed took advantage of advertised openings through the United States Information Service exchange program and left his home in Bangladesh. He heard about the program from some of his friends and applied to different hospitals under the exchange visitors program. Much of his initial decision to train in the United States was because the country needed doctors. Dr. Ahmed was able to train here and used that income to obtain more training in the United Kingdom.

What fascinated me about Dr. Ahmed’s story was that he came to the United States (albeit temporarily, initially for about three years) well before the quotas opened up in the mid-1960s, and so I wondered, knowing that the late ’50s and ’60s were important in the civil rights movement, how a new immigrant would react to specific events.

It became fairly clear early on that while these events were occurring, they had very little impact on an exchange student at St. Mary of Nazareth Hospital in Chicago, but in the process I learned a little bit more about the different ways that South Asian Americans immigrated to the United States As Dr. Ahmed states:

“In the ‘50s and ‘60s, the United States was heaven for foreigners. The United States economy was good, jobs were plentiful, and the salaries were more than adequate for foreigners coming from foreign countries. It was easy to save money and establish yourself.”

Dr. Ahmed received his green card, and completed his residency in the United States by 1970 and spent much of his career working in Veterans Affairs hospitals across the country.  By 1971, Dr. Ahmed was married and had a daughter, Famin, who experienced much of the same elements of a proto-typical life as most Americans. When I asked her about her father, and if he told her anything about his earlier time in the U.S. she said:

“My dad didn’t tell us many stories about living here back then. He’s not much of a storytelling person. I think I asked him once who his favorite singer was and he told me it was Petula Clark, which I found very funny.”

For ten years Famin attended school here before the family moved back to Bangladesh, only to return to the United States in 1990 following her graduation.  She says that she remembers moving a lot, and looking back on her childhood in the U.S. she recalls:

“I worked hard in school and was a good student. My mom used to teach before she married my dad so she would assign me extra work when I didn’t have homework-she was definitely a Tiger Mom. Plus, she taught me how to read and write Bengali as well as surahs from the Qura’an, and all that was in addition to anything they could do to keep me ahead of the rest of the class.”

But things changed once they moved to Bangladesh where:

“Classes were much harder once we moved to Dhaka when I was in fourth grade. I’m not saying this means I got a better education in Bangladesh than I did in the United States, but it was very different and for me, in many ways, much harder. I was lucky in that I had good study habits and was a voracious reader because I read the textbooks on my own and just taught myself that way.”

And this is where I found the story to be extraordinary. To some extent, the Ahmed’s “How We Came to America” story is a tale of three separate migrations—migrations that included travel between the United States, United Kingdom, Bangladesh and India (Famin went to boarding school in India for a short time).  A family story that spans four countries and forty years.

We all have one, a narrative about how we came to America, how someone in our family made a choice to leave a home in one country and create a new one in another. Each one is unique, each one has its own connection to a personal history. Each one of us has a story to tell, to share, to reveal.

So….what is your story?

Priya Chhaya is a public historian that works with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. She sees history wherever she goes and believes that it is an important part of the American (and Indian American) identity.

 

There is Just One Rule: Be Funny, But Be Real

Comedian Vijai Nathan

by Priya Chhaya

There is a point in Vijai Nathan‘s comedy show where she imitates her South Indian grandmother describing her favorite television show….in Tamil. All around me the audience is in stitches–my friend who understands the language is grinning, while I’m responding to the familiarity of the tone and body movement.  Then as if Lucille Ball was really Lucille Ranganathan, Vijai says the only English word in sixty seconds: “Ricccckkkkkky!”

It’s this type of layered comedy that permeated Vijai Nathan’s show “Good Girls Don’t, But Indian Girls Do” at the Capital Fringe Festival earlier this year. Filled with humor that is at times racy, Nathan tells her personal story of being an Indian American with a confidence of someone unafraid to own the two countries of her heritage.

The youngest daughter of three, Nathan grew up in Potomac, Maryland, a suburb of Washington D.C. She majored in English literature at McGill University (which, she adds was “OK with my dad, because he considered it “Pre-Law”) and ended up working as a journalist first for Newsday in New York, followed by The Baltimore Sun. After three years of being in “the wrong job, the wrong place, with the wrong fiancé” she found herself needing to find an outlet for just herself and took a course the art of stand-up comedy in D.C.

During our interview, I asked Vijai how her coworkers reacted when she put on her two weeks’ notice (almost 14 years ago) to do stand up full time. Her reply: “speechless,” but she recognized that while she was taking a  ”slightly foolish” risk, it was a choice that allowed her to confront her identity issues as an “ABCD [American Born Confused Desi].”

When she first started, Vijai said her jokes were much of the standard fare—made up boyfriends, airplane food, anecdotes that any other comedian could do—because she simply wanted to prove she was an “American.” But, she realized she wasn’t being honest with herself—she wasn’t just “American” she was an “Indian American” and so Good Girls was born. With jokes that I would blush at if my mother was sitting next to me, Nathan gives an open portrayal of growing up Indian in the USA. For example, one of the segments in her show is about the time her father confronted the three sisters about losing their virginity. As she walks us through the conversation (complete with impressions of her father and older sisters), it becomes apparent that her dad is really asking her because of some “supposedly” discovered contraband in Vijai’s bedroom. It’s funny because of how realistic and honest it is, poignant because she has to decide if she is going to “tell the truth” and potentially lose her place in the family.

Making the switch to less conservative material was hard, since she knew that she might lose audience members before she gained new ones. But Vijai also knew that with any job—especially when it is something you are passionate about—takes hard work, especially since comedy is often about trying to convince others to engage with material that may be foreign to them.

This is evident when we talk about giving shows to audiences that may not be ready for her humor and honesty about herself, such as the more socially conservative South Asians. As we talked about a recent performance for an older South Asian audience, she made a discovery: even her choice of clothing can have an impact on how the audience will react.

 
“I usually wear salwars and kurtas when I perform at large Indian events, but this time I decided to wear an American cocktail dress and their reaction to some of my racier material was much more open. I think there was something about me in a salwar talking about dating or sex that made the audience think ‘I can’t laugh at this. She looks like my daughter, or my wife, or my mom…’” It was almost as if psychologically the way she dressed created a distance between her Indianess and some of the innuendo in her sketch.

Her advice for someone thinking about going into comedy:

• Say yes to everything (just be careful that you are not being taken advantage of.)
• When you start out you want everything to be perfect. You think you need the right clothes, the perfect venue, but you really don’t. Growth happens during imperfect situations.
• The first few shows are like magic. They build up your confidence, and give you the energy to do the hard work that comes next.

Want to see Vijai Nathan live? More information can be found on Facebook, but when not traveling the country, Vijai hosts a regular monthly show in DC bringing together comics from a variety of places for a themed night of hilarity. The one rule? Be Funny, But Be Real.

Priya Chhaya is a public historian that works with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. She sees history wherever she goes and believes that it is an important part of the American (and Indian American) identity.

 

You Can Take It With You

by Priya Chhaya

Moving.

A room once full of books, electronics, posters, and photographs now bare. Each item packed away into cardboard boxes that all look the same. Boxes, filled with nearly everything you own in two cars.

Moving Out.

Two words that mean so much more than just the act of packing up your belongings and transporting them into a new living situation. Here in the United States the traditional path is that kids leave home after college (or even earlier, after high school) either because a parent wants the kids to learn responsibility, and other times because the kid wants some independence. To feel more like an adult.

For Indian American children moving out, while more commonplace than years past, is connected to jobs and opportunities that are in areas not close to where they grew up. And having said that, for many female Indian American’s moving out is an even tougher decision—and much of that has to do with the belief that the daughter stays in her father’s house until marriage.

It’s hard to tell how many girls today are bound by that belief, in my case the rationalization for staying at home had a lot to do with saving up rather than any restrictions by my parents, but as I took that leap from home to apartment a few weeks ago I found myself wondering: How much of my “Indianness” is based on where I lived? I know for some Indian American kids that tug of war can be strong and combative, while for others remains a gentle pull. And as a friend recently reminded me, where you stand depends on how much of the ritual, the traditions, you actually understand.

In my case, after five years post-graduate school, I wanted to try to live a version of the American dream. I wanted to take care of myself, to be independent, to make a space my own. So as I put my books, clothes and posters in boxes, as I bought furniture, and cooking supplies, and took an inventory of clothes to take, and what to give to the Salvation Army, I also began to pack up my life lessons from my parents: doing aarthi before going on a long trip, actually making roti and daal on my own, calling India to talk to my grandmother—instead of waiting for my turn when my parents called. Habits and ways of life that I wanted to take with me without the prompting and encouragement of my mom.

As for things I’ll leave behind? I think dependency is one of them.  Living at home was never terrible—but I think it unconsciously limited me from taking risks and being spontaneous—staying in the city to meet up with friends for example. Sometimes being comfortable means that there isn’t room to grow, room to stretch, room to become what you want to be.

While it has only been two weeks, I’m not entirely sure what I’ve taken and what I’ve left behind, but I know that it has been a definite learning experience. Not to mention moments when you miss the two people who have given you all the encouragement and support in the world.

For those intrepid Indian Americans thinking of moving out here are a few things to add to the “To Do” list: Check to make sure you are within an auspicious month. Then if you are Hindu like me, be armed with statues of Ganesh (I now have at least three in my bedroom) to bless the house. My roommate who is from Chennai boiled some milk (a ceremony known as pal kachal, which is symbolic of the first domestic act in the house/literally a house warming), while my mother (we are from Gujarat) did a short prayer and left a booklet of prayers in the house so it would be there before I actually spent the night. Finally, when setting up your furniture bring a compass to make sure your bed is facing in the right direction—North/South is best.

Remember, while moving out is for all a way of “cutting the chord” that tethers you to where you grew up, not everything has to stay behind. That culture, that history, those lessons are parts of your identity that you can take with you into the future.

Priya Chhaya is a public historian that works with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. She sees history wherever she goes and believes that it is an important part of the American (and Indian American) identity.

 

Preserving the Past in India and the United States

by Priya Chhaya

My day job (when I’m not thinking about blog posts for HomeSpun) is working as an employee for the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP). We’re a non-profit organization that works to preserve and protect the places that matter to all Americans—through advocacy work, education, and community development. Most recently we released our annual list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places list which spotlights places across America that are threatened by neglect, insufficient funds, inappropriate development, or insensitive public policy. This year’s list included Prentice Women’s Hospital in Chicago, the John Coltrane Home in New York, and China Alley in San Francisco, California.

While most of our work is focused on saving places within the United States, we are also a member of the International National Trusts Organisation (INTO), an international network of National Trusts and similar non-governmental organizations that are committed to conserving and sustaining our shared heritage. One of the other members is The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), and about a month ago I attended a week long training program and got to spend some time with an employee of INTACH, Suresh Sethuraman—who for nine months is working in Washington, DC at NTHP.

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The Indian National Trust For Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) is a non-profit organization set up in 1984 to involve its members in protecting and conserving India’s vast natural, built and cultural heritage. For more information visit http://www.intach.org.

 

Interview with Suresh Sethuraman, Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH)

Priya: Tell me a little bit about your background, and what brings you to the United States?
Suresh: I am basically an archaeologist with a Ph.D in Classical Archaeology. I am here as a Fulbright Senior Research Fellow affiliated to the NTHP and the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation of the University of Maryland. Under this Fulbright fellowship, I am working on the American system—laws, policies and problems—of the preservation of heritage buildings and sites and comparing it with the system in India.

Priya: Tell me about INTACH and how it works.
Suresh: INTACH is the NTHP’s counterpart in India. It is, of course, much smaller and younger than NTHP. It was started in 1984. It is modeled more on the English National Trust than on the NTHP. It is supplementing the role of the Government of India in the arena of heritage preservation. It has small offices in almost every part of India. I am the Tamil Nadu State Convener for the Tamil Nadu (South India) Regional office.

Priya: Can you give me an example of the educational and recruitment programs of INTACH, and how they try to pull in young people?
Suresh: INTACH, since its inception in 1984, was, for many years, a small group of volunteers interested in heritage preservation. Slowly, it has now expanded to be a major voluntary organization, in fact, the largest cultural voluntary organization in South Asia. The headquarters of INTACH is located in New Delhi. They have initiated a major program for the restoration of old buildings and historical artifacts not protected by the government. They have also started a special program aimed at school students with a view to inculcate the ideas of heritage preservation in them. Through children’s books, group discussions and competitions, the students learn more of our heritage and the need to preserve it. Presently, this is one of the major activities of INTACH.

Priya: As the Tamil Nadu State Convener are there any specific projects that you’ve worked on that might be of interest to the readers?
Suresh: INTACH has small offices or chapters in different parts of India. The Tamil Nadu State office in South India is one of the oldest regional offices started a few months after INTACH was inaugurated. It is also one of the most active chapters of INTACH. We do many activities in schools and colleges. We have helped establish Heritage Clubs in over 50 schools in South India. These Clubs are manned by the students, with academic and technical guidance by INTACH. They do a variety of activities including tours to historical places.

Priya: What differences do you see in the way American’s think about preserving their cultural heritage, and the way Indians approach the same issues?
Suresh: India is very rich in cultural heritage. But the sensitivity to preserve it is not as much as one observes in U.K. or U.S. INTACH, through its educational and awareness programs, aims to create this sensitivity amongst students and others in rural and urban areas. It is a slow process. But the trend is catching on. People today are more particular to save old buildings than they were twenty years ago. But we have a long way to go. We can learn a lot from the NTHP experiences—their Main Street Program and other programs.

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And vice versa. One of the things I find fascinating about INTACH is their commitment to preserving the intangible heritage of India—including dying languages, traditional knowledge and cultural practices (such as dance). Their work with Heritage Clubs also demonstrates how important it is to start at the student level—investing time and effort in educating the younger generation about their heritage, in order to create a greater number of stewards as they grow older.

For more information on INTACH visit them on the web at www.intach.org. For more information about the National Trust for Historic Preservation visit www.preservationnation.org.

Priya Chhaya is a public historian that works with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. She sees history wherever she goes and believes that it is an important part of the American (and Indian American) identity.

 

Witnessing the Dream, Searching for Stories

by Priya Chhaya

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.

–Martin Luther King, Jr.

Earlier this month I attended a sneak peek of the new memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr. located in Washington, D.C. next to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. The quotation at the top of the blog frames the memorial—we walk through a split granite boulder (symbolizing the mountains of despair) before reaching the 30 foot granite sculpture-a solid figure who symbolized hope for many. Situated between Jefferson and Lincoln along the Tidal Basin, the memorial represents not just MLK’s work during the Civil Rights movement, but also his broader struggle for worldwide human rights. One of the members of the internationally composed jury for this new memorial was Charles Correa known for his work on the Mahatma Gandhi memorial in Ahmadabad and the design for Navi Mumbai—a new section of Mumbai that is best described as a planned city. Gandhi influences Martin Luther King, and so it is fitting that one of the judges for a monument—one that is meant to be international in scope—is someone with an understanding of Gandhi.

As a high school student I looked to the Civil Rights movement as a moment to question my own gumption. Would I be able to stand up and protest injustice? Could I practice civil disobedience or the Indian counterpart satyagraha (the peaceful demonstrations inspired by the words and actions of Gandhi) if needed?

I also wondered about that first wave of South Asian immigrants in the 1950s. Those that came amidst this intense transformation of American identity. How did they feel? What did they think? What stories can they tell about becoming Americans?

So—this is my charge for the readers of HomeSpun. I would like to interview someone who emigrated from South Asia in the 1950s, or their descendant, that can speak to life during the Civil Rights movement. The interview(s) will be incorporated in a blog post later this summer. Please let us know if you are interested in the comments below.

Seeing the MLK memorial reminded me once again that history does have something to teach us—and that gaining equality is a constant struggle, something to be fought for and affirmed—so that the dream continues to be realized.

Note: The dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial will be on August 28, 2011.

Priya Chhaya is a public historian that works with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. She sees history wherever she goes and believes that it is an important part of the American (and Indian American) identity.

 

Come As You Are: Maximum India

by Priya Chhaya

Suspended from the ceiling
A map filled with arts
Culture
Symbols
Dancing over a wheel, a chakra
Calling for virtue from the people.

And at the crowded, energetic stage
Sounds of Rajasthan flow into the melody of the violin

Embrace the dance styling of Punjabi rhythm
Din. Dinaka. Din Din. Dinaka. Din Din.

The art, the dance, the music, the film
All merge together amidst the written word
Imagining the city, embracing the politics
Tagore debates Gandhi
Margins and Majority on the silver screen

India is more than just the sum of its arts
More than a saffron-colored sari, or an exotic smell
But for a short while there is a glimpse,
An attempt to encompass, to gather, to embrace
India at the Max.
Maximum India.

Part of the Kaleidoscope exhibition, this map of India comprised of traditional crafts floats above the chakra, a prominent symbol in the Indian flag.

For the last twenty days, I attended a variety of shows at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.  From March 1-20, the festival known as Maximum India strove to reveal India to audiences from a variety of perspectives including art, literature, film, dance, song, and comedy. These performances piece together a vision of complexity and variety.  My mission for the festival was to enjoy as many of the free performances as I could. What I couldn’t attend in person, I streamed the recording at home as a live webcast or watched an archived performance.

At every performance, I kept in mind one essential question, “If this festival is about Maximum India, what India are we seeing?” I believe that an Indian identity cannot be deciphered through words alone. That identity comes from the collective culture across class, geography, and race. Or, as Nayantara Sahgal stated in the last session I attended: “Identity is something you want it to be, not what others decide for you.”

Tiffin boxes from the Kaleidoscope exhibition.

So, what did I find? I learned that music is a universal language. The rock beats of Raghu Dixit included watching an older couple, dancing cheek to cheek, while waiting to go to the opera. A few yards away, a father and daughter bounced up and down while a smallish mosh pit crowded together near the stage.  During a Rajasthani music performance, where a female dancer moved with tiers of pots upon her head, a little boy crawled over my foot to get a better view.

During a literature panel discussing the depiction of Delhi, Mumbai, and Calcutta in novels, I listened to how authors struggle to portray India beyond the exotic stereotype (spice smelling air and flashes of color). I also visited the exhibit Kaleidoscope: Mapping India’s Crafts.  My experience walking through the exhibit was enhanced by video reels, installed at either end, of an individual navigating through an Indian city. Between the two films, various bicycles were on display holding tiffin boxes, pots, ice machines, and other mainstays of crowded urban markets.

Two of the 20-30 saris, each either stretched out to view the fabric in its entirety or draped.

As for the other paid performances? I talked to one non-Indian who experienced the Henrik Ibsen play, When We The Dead Awaken, where all lines were read in Manipuri. Even with subtitles, she found it difficult to understand (and screaming of the lines also became a little jarring). I also checked in with my mother who excitedly described her itch to stand up and dance in the back of the theater during the The Manganiyar Seduction where a group of musicians brought in the sounds of the desert while sitting in a series of boxes as high as the theater ceiling. One of my uncles talked about sitting on stage for the maestro Zakir Hussain, and another friend watched in awe as two classical dance forms from different areas of the country came together.

Perhaps that is one of the great things about having festivals such as Maximum India. Even when there is something different for everyone to go to—no two individuals experience the same show in the same way. We all bring our own perspectives to the world around us, and while some may jump up and down at a rock concert, others like to hang back and take in the sounds. The emotional connection that resonates from hearing and seeing is an individual experience.

From Reena Saini Kallat: Falling Fables. Made out of hundreds of rubber stamps, this pillar represented many of the architectural ruins that are slowly falling apart and disintegrating.

My last event involved listening with rapt attention as the niece of Nehru and award winning author Salman Rushdie talked about religion, politics and the Indian narrative—marking the changes in India since independence—and showing how the nation changes with every generation. The lecture even stepped outside of India talking about the influence of Tagore in South America, and Gandhi in movements on the other side of the world. Their conversations about how the written word equals resistance and that literature and politics go hand in hand in defining the Indian identity, and that perhaps this festival, and all that we write about it can continue to explore India to the max.

One final note, as I write this from home, I am listening to Panjabi MC (on the webcast) close out the festival. As the song winds down with familiar tones from his 2002 hit with rapper Jay-Z, he calls out over a crowded room for hands to be raised in the air like a pair of drummers hammer out a beat: Din. Dinaka. Din Din. Dinaka. Din Din. I can see that even as this festival becomes a memory—mixing all the conversations I’ve had and images I’ve seen—this festival was also, above all else, a whole lot of fun.

Priya Chhaya is a public historian that works with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. She sees history wherever she goes and believes that it is an important part of the American (and Indian American) identity.

 

One Country, Different Cultures

by Priya Chhaya

This design is a form of rangoli, colorful artwork that can be drawn with paint or sand, and is a decorative element during celebratory occasions. This particular set is ready made and may be used during one of the pre-wedding events for its splash of color. All photos by Priya C.

Everyone always tells you how complicated planning a wedding is, but I never actually understood until I found myself knee deep in working on address labels for invitations, multiple tastings for Indian food (not necessarily a bad thing) and trying to figure out what to say during my sister-of-the-bride speech.

Then there’s what all the wedding books say is the toughest part of planning—figuring out how to make the experience be both for the bride and the groom.  I am a Gujarati whose extended family lives in Maharastra. My future brother-in-law is South Indian—more specifically he is a Telugu from Hydrabaad. So much like planning a wedding between two different American cultures, planning a Hindu wedding for a Gujarati bride and a Telugu groom has been a learning experience.

Because Indian weddings are an amazing mix of tradition—through dress, food, and ceremony—we’ve taken the care to stop and think about what elements can incorporate both sides of the family.  For instance, the baraat—the portion of the ceremony where the groom’s side arrives at the wedding venue usually includes a horse (or at rare moments an elephant) and some engaging music. Most weddings I have attended use recorded Bollywood music, or a live dhol (drum) player.  In trying to bring in the more southern element, we realized that the dhol‘s Telugu counterpart was a mridangam, which gives a slightly higher pitch drum beat than the dhol—so now for the baraat my future brother-in-law will be dancing to the sounds of both regions of India.

One-Two-Three-Four! A few sets of daandiyas, a pair sticks used in a traditional Gujarati folk dance. These particular daandiyas are for one of the pre-wedding events.

That being said, this post is not about melding the details between two distinct and separate cultures, it’s about understanding and acknowledging the nuances of the same nationality.  For instance, during a Hindu ceremony one of the most important moments is when the couple takes seven steps around the fire, making their vows to each other and their respective families. For the Telugu there is an earlier moment in the ceremony, when my sister and her soon-to-be husband see each other for the first time, that is just as important. During the Jeelakarra-Bellam the groom places jaggary (a sugary substance) and some cumin on the bride’s head. This is a symbolic moment when two seemingly different items (one sweet, the other bitter) comes together forever—that is two people coming together through the good and the bad times. To some extent, this is also representative of two different parts of Indian culture finding common ground in bringing the two families together. For planning sake though—I didn’t understand the importance of this particular ceremony until the groom’s family put it in the draft to the ceremony program (which will explain the rites to those not familiar with Hindu weddings).  What this process demonstrates on a micro-level is the work needed to bring people together across any cultural divide, Indian or otherwise. It takes open communication, honesty and recognition that in some cases compromise is the best path to take.

Tiny statues of Ganesh, the Indian elephant god who is the remover of obstacles and an important deity for auspicious occasions. These Ganesh are meant to be a gift to guests when the the formal wedding invitations are delivered.

Of course this is all in the context of planning a wedding and doesn’t include other aspects of Telugu culture—the food, the very different dance and art forms – all just as an important part of the Indian experience as Gujarati culture. In fact—going through this process has allowed me to have some great conversations about what aspects of Indian culture have dominated the American worldview of India. Some argue that the “Indian” in America vision that we see is often more of a Punjabi Indian world view—with bhangra exercise classes, and hip hop remixes at night clubs.

Which prompts me to ask readers the following questions:

• What are some surprising places that you’ve seen Indian influences on American society?
• What region of India is that influence from?

Priya Chhaya is a public historian that works with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. She sees history wherever she goes and believes that it is an important part of the American (and Indian American) identity.

 

…And that’s the Beauty of the Open Mic

by Priya Chhaya

It is a chilly Monday evening and I step inside a room on the second floor of a building along U Street in Washington, DC.  I am, as usual, casually late, thirty minutes to be specific which is really on time, if you think about Indian Standard Time (IST). As I walk up the stage the strumming of the guitar fills the air and I realize that the audience inside is rapt and at attention. The silent observance is for a few seconds a tad unnerving. Where am I? I am at my very first Subcontinental Drift, an open mic event directed towards South Asians of every persuasion.
 

In the next two hours I heard a cross-section of a very creative group. Some sang, some spoke–some made me laugh, and others made me (if it wasn’t a public place) want to cry.  At one point a flautist played a melody in a minor key that resonated, vibrations giving me that awesome creepy crawly feeling from a song that, while sung in English, felt like a haunting foreign language.

There was one performer who sang Tagore (the infamous Bengali poet) in Bengali–and I couldn’t help be impressed. Open mics take guts, they take gumption–and to stand up in front of a bunch of your peers and sing in a different language–that is courage. I’m a bit handicapped in this area–while I understand Hindi and Gujarati, I don’t speak either fluently (one of my yearly resolutions that is never fully realized), and so I am always really proud and impressed when someone else shows mastery beyond a conversation.

The mission of Sub Drift on their webpage is “to foster and provide a supportive and collaborative South Asian American community for creative expression, encourage the sharing and involvement of community events, and expose ourselves to new mind food.” And everyone is beyond encouraging–at one point, one performer named Sundeep gave us a little spoken word that included call and response–  the response being, of course “and that’s the beauty of the open mic.”

…and it’s true. The beauty of the open mic, especially at Subcontinental Drift, is to bring together a community who has so much in common to listen, to hear, to see, and to feel the myriad of opinions that make up our South Asian cultural mosaic. Since every piece counts, we’ll see if I can find a way to add to the conversation.

Check out the link above for information on Subcontinental Drift.