Columbia University's first Hindu chaplain, Gadadhara Pandit Dasa. (Photo: Ramaa Reddy Raghavan)

Ramaa Reddy Raghavan brings us an audio slideshow portrait of Indian American Gadadhara Pandit Dasa, who tends to the spiritual life of students at Columbia University.

Gadadhara Pandit Dasa begins his day when most people are enjoying their best REM sleep.  A practicing Hindu monk at the East village ISKON temple (International Society of Krishna Consciousness), Gadadhara, 39, also known as Pandit, awakens daily at 4 a.m.  to begin his prayers and to meditate. He says this early hour free of distractions helps one contemplate on the Divine.

At 9 a.m., the 13 monks that live at ISKON, who come from a variety of countries and backgrounds, eat a simple breakfast of milk, fruit, granola and peanut butter. Gadadhara, who is vegan, enjoys his granola with almond milk. After breakfast the monks study scriptures, attend to chores or prepare for their weekly presentations. At 2 p.m., the monks share a communal lunch of Indian cuisine cooked at the temple.  “Usually there will be rice, soup or dal (lentils), shabji (vegetables) and salad. Sometimes there is bread,” said Gadadhara. The monks gather together and preface eating with a religious song. Then they sit on the floor to partake in a delicious vegetarian meal.

“The primary focus of their life is to achieve a spiritual practice that’s beyond material acquisitions. [The monks] don’t want to be part of the rat race, working 14 hour days, making little money and creating more anxiety,” Gadadhara said.

But Gadadhara has not always been a monk with that mindset. Raised in India, he immigrated to this country with his parents when he was eight years old and says he “grew up in an environment charged with materialism.” He worked in a mortgage company for a number of years, but when his parents’ jewelry business took a turn for the worse it prompted him to become introspective and read the Bhagavad Gita, the famous Indian religious and philosophical text. In 1999, Gadadhara’s curiosity let him to India and a spiritual practice. He says he did not plan to become a monk but one month led to two and now he’s been a practicing monk for 12 years.

About a decade ago the Bhakti Club at Columbia University, formed to introduce students to the culture and spirituality of India through food and discussion, invited Gadadhara to teach vegetarian cooking classes on campus. This led to weekly discussions on the Bhagavad Gita. In 2004,  Gadadhara became the first Hindu Chaplain of Columbia University where he provides weekly spiritual guidance and support to students. Originally his talks were to support Hindu students from South Asia, but today his audience is a mixed group of Americans as well as students from other countries like Mexico, Guyana, and Columbia. He also became New York University’s Hindu Chaplain in 2007. His residual time is spent lecturing to colleges and schools on spirituality and hosting interfaith groups that visit the ISKON temple.

The temple is available to the public for meditation and space is rented out to organizations involved in Eastern spirituality. Plans are in motion to open a yoga studio as well as a vegetarian cafe that will serve ‘wholesome karma-free food.’

“We want to live a simple life focused on body, mind and soul that elevates our consciousness through meditation and prayer while simultaneously spending time helping and guiding others,” Gadadhara said.

Nariv Shah outside of his restaurant. (Photo: Sarah Kate Kramer)

Jackson Heights, NY—When Nirav Shah arrived in the U.S. in 1996 to attend college, he pictured himself headed for a career on Wall Street or in the high tech industry.  But a few years later, Shah, who grew up in Mumbai, India, started working for his aunt at her Indian sweets shop and restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens.  Shah now owns the flagship store of the business his aunt started, Rajbhog Foods, a small Indian food empire with 14 locations around the country and a catering business that provides vegetarian meals to airlines flying between Newark and South Asia.

When Shah’s aunt, Lata Mody, opened Rajbhog in 1977 she was part of a wave of new immigrants who helped create ‘Little India,’ a tightly packed neighborhood near the Roosevelt Avenue subway station that served as both a commercial hub and a residential neighborhood for New York’s growing Indian population.   Today, the area might just as easily be called ‘Little Pakistan,’  ‘Little Bangladesh,’ or ‘Little Tibet.’

In recent years immigrants from across South Asia have moved in, and like Shah and his family, many have gone into the restaurant and food business.  Within just a few square blocks it is possible to taste authentic flavors from virtually every corner of South Asia, and to buy ingredients and kitchenware to make South Asian food at home.

Feet in Two Worlds recently visited the area of 73rd and 74th Streets in Jackson Heights with Andrew Silverstein, the co-founder of Streetwise New York, a company that specializes in tours of immigrant New York.  Listen and meet some of the characters behind the food:

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Patel Brothers

A delivery in Jackson Heights

Kosher certification at Rajbhog

Sweets at Rajbhog

Box of sweets at Rajbhog

Owner Nariv Shah at Rajbhog

Dosa at Dosa Delight

Dosa at Dosa Delight

Seasons Greetings (for Eid)

Kitchen at Kebab King

Bread Oven

Mumtaz Hussain and A. Uddin at Kebab King

Kebab King

Kebab King

Street-level Henna Application

Delhi Palace Sweets

Tibetan food at Phayul Restaurant

Dalai Lama in Phayul

Entrance to Phayul Restaurant

Slideshow by Sarah Kate Kramer

If you go on your own food tour of Jackson Heights …

Rajbhog Sweet and Snacks, 72-27 37th Ave., Jackson Heights, NY 11372.  Phone: 718-458-8512. Open 7 days a week, 10AM to midnight.

Entirely vegetarian, vegan and kosher Indian desserts and savory dishes, flavors meant to evoke a home cooked meal.

Phayul Restaurant, 37-65 7th Street, 2nd Floor, Jackson Heights, NY 11372.  Phone: 718-424-1869.  Open 7 days a week, 10AM to 10PM.

Tibetans are among the newest arrivals in Jackson Heights, and Phayul Restaurant is one of the most popular places in the neighborhood to sample Tibetan cuisine.   Enjoy momos (dumplings) under the gaze of the Dali Lama’s portrait, and sip traditional butter tea (an acquired taste for many).   Many of the regulars here are from Tibet and Nepal.  One customer said that as a native of a mountainous part of the world he likes the restaurant’s location on the second floor with a view of the street below.

Kebab King Diner, 73-01 37th Road, Jackson Heights, NY 11372.  Phone 718-457-5857. 

Cab drivers on their way to pick up a fare at LaGuardia Airport are known to stop at Kebab King Diner for a savory lunch or dinner grilled on a stick.  The second floor dining room with its carved wooden chairs, tables and high ceilings transports you to another continent and another century (the middle of the last one).  The food here is hot and flavorful, and the portions are ample. From the sidewalk you can peek through a window and see nan bread being baked in a stone oven.

Dosa Delight, 35-66 73rd Street, Jackson Heights, NY 11372.  Phone 718-397-1000. Open 7 days a week, 11:30AM to 10PM.

The dosa is a South Indian specialty.  It’s a giant thin crepe made from rice and lentil flour, stuffed with a savory filling.  A number of restaurants in Jackson Heights feature dosas on their menus, but at Dosa Delight it’s the specialty.  The entire menu is vegetarian, and there are many vegan choices as well.

Patel Brothers, 37-27 74^th Street, Jackson Heights, NY 11372.  Phone 718-898-3445.

The motto of Patel Brothers Supermarket is “Celebrating Our Food … Our Culture.” At this bustling maket you’ll find families pushing strollers and Indian women in saris doing their food shopping.  Cars double parked outside often have New Jersey or Connecticut license plates, an emblem, perhaps, of the migration of successful Indian-Americans from the city to the suburbs.  The store offers an exhaustive supply of fresh vegetables, spices, flours made from beans and chickpeas, cooking utensils, and much more.

More Food in Two Worlds coverage:

Podcast: Filipino Pop-Up Restaurant in NYC Offers Menu with Attitude

Food Manufacturing Expo Helps the Hand That Feeds New York City

Feet in Two Worlds is supported by the New York Community Trust and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation with additional support from the Mertz Gilmore Foundation and the Sirus Fund.  Food in Two Worlds podcasts are supported in part by WNYC, New York Public Radio.

A Yoni Ki Baat performance in Chicago. (Photo: Tyler Core/tylercoreshootspeople.com)

In this Feet in Two Worlds Podcast, Indian-American reporter Aswini Anburajan interviews Vandana Makker, one of the founders of “Yoni Ki Baat,” on the importance of exploring women’s sexuality through a cultural and immigrant lens. 

 Subscribe to the Fi2W podcast on iTunes or  Podbean ¦ Download this episode

India may be the original home of tantric and other exotic Eastern practices but the subject of sexuality in everyday life is still taboo.  Yoni Ki Baat, a performance series conceived by South Asian immigrant women, has attempted to change that dynamic through a series of staged vignettes that are modeled after Eve Ensler’s “Vagina Monologues.” Like Ensler’s famous set of stories that tackle subjects ranging from women’s sexuality to rape and domestic violence, the stories of Yoni Ki Baat go from erotic to humorous to thought provoking.

Yoni Ki Baat, which literally translates to “a gift” in Hindi, was born out of the South Asian Sisters collective in San Francisco, a group of second generation South Asian women who were inspired by Ensler and wanted to put a specific cultural spin onto the Vagina Monologues.  The first performance occurred eight years ago and since then Yoni Ki Baat has transformed into a grassroots movement, performed by South Asian women across the country.  Other ethnic groups have also embraced the idea and created their own set of stories connected to women’s sexuality and a specific culture, be it Italian or Middle Eastern.

Fi2W podcasts are supported by the New York Community Trust and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundationwith additional support from the Mertz Gilmore Foundation and the Sirus Fund, and are produced in association with the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and CUNY-TV.

The dollar van that travels between Manhattan's Chinatown and Queens' Chinatown. (Photo: Sarah Kate Kramer)

When Fi2W heard about Streetwise New York, a new company offering tours of “immigrant New York,” our interest was immediately piqued. Could tour director Andrew Silverstein really tell us anything we didn’t already know?  

To find out, we sent reporter Cristina DC Pastor and  audio producer Dimple Patel on a Streetwise tour.

I couldn’t count the times I muttered to myself,  “I didn’t know that.”

It began with the dollar van. You can’t go wrong with the dollar van if you’re on the Lower East Side and need to go to Queens to satisfy an Asian buffet craving. A cab is too expensive for most and the train too stressful for some. Turns out, a dollar van from one Chinatown to the next is reasonably comfortable.

We found our van—now 2 bucks per passenger—at the corner of Elizabeth and Hester Streets in old Little Italy, where Vietnamese immigrants are slowly encroaching. (“Saigonizing,” some call it.) After a short wait time for more passengers, our tour group was on our way to New York’s largest borough.

The smiling driver regaled us with stories about where to find the best banh mi in Elmhurst, how he came to the U.S. in the 1980s after living as a refugee in the Philippines and learning English there. In that sentence, he mentioned my country of origin! This tour of Queens suddenly became more personal.

Bollywood music for sale in Jackson Heights, Queens.

Islamic wares for sale in Jackson Heights, Queens.

74th Street in Queens.

A musical staircase in Jackson Heights, Queens.

Calling cards for sale in Jackson Heights, Queens.

A botanica above a Dunkin´ Donuts in Jackson Heights, Queens.

A street vendor in Jackson Heights, Queens.

Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, Queens.

Meson Asturias in Jackson Heights, Queens

A family in Elmhurst, Queens.

In Queens, the multiple satellite dishes often indicate subdivided apartments in one-family homes.

Elmhurst, Queens.

A van that travels from Manhattan´s Chinatown to Elmhurst´s Chinatown.

In a market in Chinatown.

Mahjong players in Columbus Park.

A musician in Chinatown

A musician in Chinatown.

Tasting Welcome.

The transfiguration church in Chinatown.

Old friends.

Greetings.

DVDs for sale in Chinatown.

Man looking out of his window in Chinatown.

A strip of jerky in Chinatown.

Jerky in Chinatown.

Jerky in Chinatown.

Ramen restaurant housed in an old synagogue.

Streetwise NY

Economy Candy

El Castillo de Jagua coffee shop, on the Lower East Side.

Economy Candy

Economy Candy

Slideshow by Sarah Kate Kramer.

Queens had been my home for five years after arriving in the U.S. in late 1990s. But like many new settlers, work and other obligations prevented me from getting to know the borough intimately. Taking the train to work and back home was the routine and on weekends there was just the occasional Queens mall shopping excursion. On this five-hour Streetwise New York tour, listening to tour guide Andrew Silverstein’s fascinating factoids about my first American neighborhood, I finally began to learn and absorb Queens’ history.

Queens, after World War I, was a vast farmland with plenty of areas for potential housing. Middle-class German and Dutch families in Manhattan were drawn to the wide spaces and the borough’s looming possibilities for commerce. The 1920s and 1930s saw a building boom with rows of garden apartments rising in what we now call Jackson Heights.  At the center of each housing complex were trees that gave the residences the luxurious feel of European apartments.

“Gardens were built in the middle of the apartment buildings to attract the WASPs, the Fifth Avenue crowd,” Silverstein said. To this day, leafy garden apartments hold court on 37th Avenue and 80th Street, though they don’t house the upper echelon of the city’s wealth.

The developers of this enclave were quite snobby, with some buildings posting signs like “No Jews, no blacks, no Catholics.”

“When they said ‘No Catholics,’ they were actually referring to new immigrant Catholics like the Italians and Irish,” explained Silverstein.

Listen to Andrew Silverstein tell the story of the Eagle movie theater in Jackson Heights, Queens:

[Visit post to listen to audio]

The 1965 family-based immigration law opened the floodgates to new immigrants, many of them working-class Hispanics and Asians finding their way from California to New York and into Queens. The population growth soon put the housing stock in Jackson Heights over capacity. Silverstein brought our tour group to Elmhurst to show how many of the borough’s newest immigrants live: in cramped, subdivided one family homes.

Homes in Elmhurst, Queens, with multiple satellite dishes. (Photo: Sarah Kate Kramer)

“You can tell from the multiple mailboxes or multiple garbage cans,” he said, pointing to a house with three satellite dishes. A single-family unit, said Silverstein, can be home to a couple of quiet, middle-age university professors, or a pack of 40 immigrants sleeping in shifts.

One would think this kind of perilous housing condition would attract regulatory attention from City Hall, but they don’t always get there in time, said Silverstein. In 2005, a fire on Denman Street in Elmhurst killed three young children and their 87-year-old grandfather. The family was one of many living in a single-family home that had become crammed full of immigrant families. When telling this story, Silverstein made a connection to the squalid tenement housing of immigrants in the early 20th century on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

“Stories like this are quite common. You don’t know how many people actually live in one house,” said Silverstein. “Affordable housing is a big problem.”

The plants grown by homeowners tell another story. Asian homeowners often plant bamboo in their tiny front and backyards. Greeks grow grape vines, and Latinos cultivate vegetable plants like hot peppers and tomatoes.

“Where I used to live in Jackson Heights, there’s still the grape vines from the Greeks who moved out over 25 years before,” said Silverstein.

Listen to a snippet of the tour in Jackson Heights, in which Silverstein talks about Orlando Tobon, the real-life travel agent who was featured in the film Maria Full of Grace:

[Visit post to listen to audio]

On reaching the commercial district, Silverstein pointed to storefront signs advertising phone cards, remittance services, immigration lawyers and notary services—or notarios.

The notary public, as we know it, is quite different from notarios outside the U.S.  In Mexico, for example, a notary public is one of the most influential types of lawyers who is involved in important legal procedures. Not so in the U.S. where their role is generally reduced to rubber stamping official documents.

“In Mexico City in 2005, there were only 243 notarios publicos in the entire city of over 9 million people,” said Silverstein.

This is why, according to him, some Latino immigrants fall victim to fradulent ‘notarios’ who pass themselves off as immigration lawyers and collect money from vulnerable people even though they’re not licensed to practice immigration law.

Again: I didn’t know that.

We talked about how food chains from immigrant countries have found a niche in Queens’ vibrant neighborhoods. “Pollos a la Brasa Mario” from Colombia, “Pollo Gus” from Ecuador, and “Jollibee” from the Philippines are among the many imported chain restaurants specializing in fried chicken. They serve immigrant communities with food that’s familiar and eases the loneliness of New York in winter.

A street vendor on Roosevelt Avenue in Queens. (Photo: Sarah Kate Kramer)

The abundance of ethnic street-food in Queens is well known, but this tour provided undercover information about the vendors. It’s common to hawk goods without a permit, but Silverstein told us it matters what side of Roosevelt Avenue you are on to avoid police attention. Roosevelt Ave. is the dividing line between two police precincts, one that hammers on vendors with no permits, and the other that just looks the other way. On the side where a women sell elotes (Mexican corn) and pinchos (kebabs), the authorities apparently think there have more important things to do, then to write summonses to people who sell food grilled over a heap of coals in a shopping cart.

Streetwise New York can be reached at 347-327-6063. Silverstein knows where the clean public toilets are – and they’re not all in McDonalds.

Fi2W is supported by the New York Community Trust and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation with additional support from the Mertz Gilmore Foundation and the Sirus Fund.

Supporters of Anna Hazare and the anti-corruption movement in India chanted in support of the Jan Lokpal Bill at the 2011 India Day Parade in NYC. (Photo: Mat McDermott/flickr)

In this Feet in Two Worlds podcast, Atul Kumar, an Indian immigrant and entrepreneur and S. Mitra Kalita, an Indian American writer and journalist, explore the growth of a new political consciousness in middle class Indians and Indian Americans. Listen:

A social movement born in India has crossed the globe.

It’s hard to imagine what could inspire NRIs (Non-Resident-Indians) in the U.S. to take to the streets to protest corruption in their native country. But since January 2011, Indian Americans in New York and other U.S. cities have gathered in large numbers to do just that.

Their inspiration is Anna Hazare, an Indian civil rights leader who has led hunger strikes and protests for the past year in India against corruption by government officials. While Hazare has been jailed for his protests, mass demonstrations by members of the Indian middle class on his behalf have caused a government turnabout and prompted the Indian parliament to pass an anti-corruption bill.

Indian Americans have helped to foster the movement through social media, street protests and drawing the attention of  Indian media in the United States. For many, this new Indian American involvement is an issue of national pride in their homeland and also crucial to the future of bi-national economic collaboration and growth.

Corruption is endemic in India and occurs everywhere, from getting to the front of a line when buying a train ticket to bribes that affect how multinational corporations do business. One guest on this podcast, Atul Kumar, tells us that professional Indian Americans like him believe it’s time for change, and they’re trying to make it happen by harnessing the power of the Indian diaspora.

Fi2W podcasts are supported by the New York Community Trust and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation with additional support from the Mertz Gilmore Foundation and the Sirus Fund, and are produced in association with the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and CUNY-TV.

An Indian student served by the Nanubhai Education Foundation.

Summer is finally here, and while schools are letting out for summer vacation, a group of Americans are going back to school for one year—in rural India. Every year, the Nanubhai Education Foundation sends English-speakers from the U.S. to teach in rural high schools in the western state of Gujarat in India. Their role is to mentor Indian teachers in the English language and skills to help improve education in village schools. In the past five years, the teaching program has sent 25 fellows to schools in India, with another 4 New Yorkers about to enter their first Indian classroom this month.

India has the second fastest growing economy in the world, second only to China. But it’s a country with wide disparities – around 70% of India’s 1.2 billion people still live in small villages, with little access to economic and educational opportunities. This is where Nanubhai comes in. The organization is trying to keep children in rural India – who often attend under-funded public high schools – from being left behind.

NEF Executive Director Nita Nehru, explains:

“India is booming, but only for the educated English-speaking strata. People who are farmers, shop keepers, taxi drivers; their wages are not going up. They can not afford the advertising they see everywhere. 950,000 people are without running water and 3 meals a day. Two of the most important things right now are technology and English language skills which they need to be part of the middle class.”

Through its program, NFE has already reached 10,000 students in Gujarat. The first school that Nanubhai worked with was Kadod High School, the school attended by NEF founder Raj Shah’s father. On a trip to India, Shah saw how the village school which educated his father had fallen into disrepair. Founded on the principal that everyone deserves equal access to education, Shah developed NEF to give back the opportunities he felt he was lucky to have had growing up as an Indian American.

Nehru also feels a strong connection to India from many family trips and she still has a lot of family there.  ”I associated it with fun, food and all those great things, but the negative side was the poverty; mounds of people sleeping outside the airport,” she said. “The poor are just being left behind as gap is getting bigger. I wanted to do something.”

For many Indian Americans, the Nanubhai Foundation is a way to give back and support the country where they or their parents emigrated from. This year’s Nanubhai annual gala,  a major fundraiser, attracted over 300 people from the Indian diaspora community in New York. For the older generation, a sense of nostalgia for their home country encourages support through donations. For first and second generation Indians born in the U.S, the popularity of Indian culture in recent years has helped younger people celebrate their heritage.

But while much of the donations may come from the Indian American community, many of the fellows who travel to India on the NEF program are not Indian themselves.  All of this year’s fellows are non-Indian. Although the founders assumed that more Indian Americans would apply, the program was not designed with particular demographics in mind and NEF says the applicants are chosen on the basis of their teaching experience .

Lindy Milton and Pamela Colon spent last year in India as fellows, teaching kids aged 7 – 17. They were the only white people most of the students had ever met. At first they found some parents were skeptical about how they were going to teach their children without speaking Gujarati, but ultimately Milton and Colon said the language barrier wasn’t a hinderance. By the end of the year, the students were speaking conversational English.

“I was touched by how my teenage female students just wanted to talk to me about life. They had been exposed to another part of the world. They only know Americans from the stereotypes they see on TV, so spending time with fellows from different backgrounds helps to open their eyes,” Milton said.

Nehru describes the relationship between fellows and students as a beautiful exchange. “The excitement of having western tutors really engages students, whether its because of seeing ‘white auntie in sari’ or because the teacher and student are forced to speak English; it gives them an opportunity to meet people they wouldn’t normally,” she said.

Nehru said she hopes more Indian Americans will apply for the fellowship in the future, but the goal is to help as many students as possible, irrespective of the nationality of the teachers. “Seeing the excitement on the child’s face is the most amazing feeling, knowing that you played a part in that,” she said.  “The kids are excited to learn and hungry for knowledge.”

Narinder at the family’s store in Lindenhurst, NY. (Photo: Long Island Wins)

This story comes to us from Long Island Wins.

For 38-year-old Punjab native Narinder Kaur, providing a life for his family means shouldering an intense responsibility: From eight in the morning until eight at a night, seven days a week, Kaur must be at his Lindenhurst convenience store, even on days he’s sick or when it’s a holiday.

His wife Gurpreet, who goes by the nickname Dolly, and his 3-year-old son Armaan miss him, but Narinder can’t close for a day or even an hour. He’s afraid that his loyal lotto clientele, who provide him with 75 percent of his business, buying small gifts, cigarettes, and beverages along with their tickets, will go elsewhere.

While the convenience store provides the Kaurs with a good living, the earnings can be unreliable, and as Dolly, 31, makes Indian spiced tea in their comfortable two-bedroom condo in West Babylon, she talks about the family’s hope that Narinder can shift into the wholesale business.

“Narinder could never work a regular job,” Dolly laughs. “He was born to be a businessman, but right now he’s not spending enough time with his family.”

The Kaurs aren’t the only Indian family on Long Island dealing with the demands of a start-up business: Indians account for 7 percent of all immigration to Nassau and Suffolk counties, according to a report published by Hofstra University’s Center for the Study of Labor and Democracy, and Indian-owned businesses tend to be among the most successful in the United States. The US Census Bureau’s 2007 Survey of Business Owners reported that Indian-owned businesses generated the highest revenue out of all ethnic groups surveyed.

Read the rest of the story on Long Island Wins.

The South Asian population in New York showed rapid growth over the last decade. (Photo: Sarah Kate Kramer)

The Asian population in the five boroughs spiked 32 percent in the last decade, and New Yorkers of South Asian descent had a lot to do with it. Numbers from the Census Bureau show that Indian American numbers alone skyrocketed 77 percent in Manhattan to reach 25,857, and in the city over all there are now 192,209 people who identify as Asian Indian. In the next few weeks we’ll have numbers on the Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Nepali and Indo-Caribbean communities which have also been steadily rising. All of which raises an interesting question.

“It’s kind of mysterious to me that we don’t have a South Asian elected offical in New York. I find it puzzling because one could argue that all the factors are there,” said Sayu Bhojwani, founding director of the New American Leaders Project, an organization that trains immigrants to run for elected office.

There are segments of the South Asian community–particularly those in Manhattan–who are affluent and vote. Reshma Saujani, an Indian American with Wall Street experience who unsuccessfully challenged Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney for Congressional District 14 in the 2010 midterm elections last fall, represented that constituency.

Listen to Sarah Kate Kramer discuss this issue on PRI’s The Takeway:

Other segments of the South Asian population, particularly in the outer boroughs, tend to be less politically active and more economically diverse. But with this spring’s redistricting opportunity, there’s a growing movement in Queens to redraw district lines in hopes that the South Asian population can increase its political power.

“There’s an incredible awakening that’s happening in the community right now. They don’t care if it’s an indian, Sikh, Bangladeshi, they just want to get someone elected who looks like them,” Saujani, the former candidate, said.

Part of that momentum is “Taking our seat,” a new group applying for non-profit status. The organization is focused on redrawing the lines of the 31st Assembly district in South Eastern Queens to create a ‘brown district.’ Their analysis of Census Bureau data showed that two of the highest density South Asian American census tracts lie within that district and four other high density tracts–which are split between four other Assembly districts–are located just blocks away. John Prakash Albert, the founder of the organization, maintains that shifting the district boundary six blocks north would not shift the political power balance in Queens, yet it would add almost 6000 South Asian Voters to the 31st–condensing the population.

“The intent is not to displace someone or to have a naked power grab–it’s just an identification of where people have naturally chosen to live, to make their homes. Ultimately it would give folks from our community a real choice at the polls,” said Albert.

For the rest of the article, go to It’s A Free Country.

A traditional Sikh sword, called a Kirpan. (Photo: Jasleen Kaur/flickr)

The photograph of a policeman in the New York Post holding two swords and a cricket bat was surreal: the swords springing like shears from one unseen hand, a cricket bat in another, held casually as if they were objects bought at a yard sale or he was a batsman walking dejected to the pavilion, head hung low. They looked innocuous; not the deadly weapons they have been used as, to scythe and hack, maul and kill.

But to anybody from South Asia who saw the photograph that appeared on April 25th, the implications were clear, helped by a psyche shaped by Bollywood gangster noir films where the popular weapons of choice are swords, knives, iron rods, cricket bats and hockey sticks, not guns.

Police said that three people were reported injured in the fight. The headline made it all too apparent: Violent clash at Queens Sikh temple. The subheading substantiating it: Sword-wielding Sikhs attack praying rivals.

Wearing the sword, called a kirpan is one of five articles of religious faith for the Sikh community.  The clash between two groups of Sikh worshippers at a gurudwara (a place of worship for Sikhs) in Richmond Hills, Queens, last week, where policemen confiscated several swords and cricket bats, and where several people were injured, was shocking and confounding to many. But there are plenty of past precedents for such heated fights, especially in Canada, where almost to the day a year ago a violent struggle broke out between two factions in a gurudwara in Brampton.

Machetes, knives and swords were used at that fight; several people were seriously injured. The reasons then and now are identical: tensions boiling over control of the management of the gurudwara.

For the Sikh community though, violence in a gurudwara is like a scarlet letter; a shameful, dreadful, scary evocation of the horrors of the past.

It stokes afresh the memories of Operation Blue Star, four days of warfare in June 1984 by the Indian military to root out radical militants hiding at the Sikhs’ Mecca of worship, the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

Official accounts say hundreds perished, the unofficial count was in the thousands, including civilians, army officers and militants. Tanks and heavy artillery were used by the Army.  Weapons confiscated from the premises included bombs and Ak-47 machine guns. In those four days, the swords kept inside the Golden Temple by the militants became puny objects, rendered useless, except perhaps to commit hara-kiri.

But four months later that year, after then-Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her two Sikh bodyguards on October 31st, the gurudwara became the target of infuriated mobs.

Dozens of gurudwaras were vandalized and razed to the ground in many cities in India, especially in Delhi. Sikhs hiding in gurudwaras were burnt alive, set afire with kerosene. In the four days of pogrom that followed, thousands of Sikhs were butchered. Entire neighborhoods of Sikhs were wiped out.

On November 1, 1984, I witnessed one of those riots, shameless looting and pillaging. I’m writing about it for the first time. The memory of that incident is indelible. Over the years I have rationalized the incident like a pointillist would do, tracing it from one point to the other, trying to maintain a pattern. But often I try to fill the blank space between the spots with my own imagination.

I was a teen then, living with my parents in Mayur Vihar in East Delhi, close to Trilokpuri, where one of the worst massacres of Sikhs took place. I had rushed out from home when I saw people running in the streets below our apartment. There was smoke billowing into the sky from a nearby gurudwara on the outskirts of the neighborhood, bordering Trilokpuri, known for its slum clusters.

Groups of men everywhere on the streets in Mayur Vihar. They walked about with a strange combination of animated and glazed eyes. Most looked like strangers, seeming as if they had come from other neighborhoods.

Near the gurudwara, from which thin plumes of smoke rose —like the factories near the River Yamuna a few kilometers away—in a neighborhood that was off bounds to me, I saw a group of men running after a man, his turban undone, the headdress billowing as he ran.

One of the men in the group was holding a burning object held on a stick, perhaps a bicycle tire. The man who was running away, swerved and fell into a ditch at the side of a road. I saw the group of pursuers reach the ditch, looking down. The man with the burning object reached the front of the mob and jumped into the ditch with the mob hollering at his back. That was the last thing I saw before I walked rapidly away with a fear I had never before felt so acutely in my life.

A few days before that incident, a boy at school had taken a large stone and hit a stray dog who had entered the playground at lunchtime. The stone hit the dog square on his front leg. It yelped and buckled to the ground, before limping away howling, one leg in the air, clearly broken. The boy and several others around couldn’t stop laughing.

Somehow those two incidents of cruelty are intertwined for me now, my memory playing them in loops every now and again.

On that first day of November I saw mobs breaking into shops owned by Sikhs, looting and carrying away whatever they could get. One electronics shop was owned by a Sikh family who lived in Mayur Vihar; a couple with small children. I now imagine them at home those four days, their doors locked, fearful of everybody, not opening the door even to their neighbors and friends.

Over the years, as a journalist, I have visited several gurudwaras, in Delhi, Punjab, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, and the one in Richmond Hills, Queens, where the fight broke out last week;

The biggest paradox for me is that despite the presence of many Sikhs who carry kirpans, or swords, inside the premises of the gurudwara, it’s a tranquil place of worship, where people of every faith and color are welcomed and respected, and offered langar, free food, made daily in kitchens there.

Some of the Sikhs in the U.S. have deep resentment towards India, and towards non-Sikhs from India. The clamor for Khalistan, a separate state for Sikhs, which was what led to Operation Blue Star, never died down. It found roots in the U.S., the UK and Canada.

But despite some animosity I have encountered when doing interviews with certain Sikhs, who can barely conceal their disgust for India, I have never encountered any hostility in a gurudwara; only a sense of deep devotion and peace.

I feel bad for the Sikh community, who are generous, warm, and kind hearted people. They have faced enough discrimination and misunderstanding in the United States after the terrorist attacks of 9/11; young Sikhs face continuous harassment, bullying and intimidation in schools for wearing turbans, a religious article of faith.

The last thing the Sikhs need is to turn against their own.

Sujeet Rajan is a Feet in Two Worlds education reporting fellow.  His work, and the work of other Fi2W fellows, is supported by the New York Community Trust and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation with additional support from the Mertz Gilmore Foundation.

A bridesmaid adjusts the bride's veil in a traditional Indian wedding. (Photo: Barani Krishnan)

Prince William and Kate Middleton’s royal wedding this week is spinning the globe into a tizzy, but in New York, a 46-year-old Indian man is looking to get married on his own terms.

“I’m looking, but not rushing,” shrugged Shomik Chaudhuri, chief-operating-officer of Parikh Wordwide Media.

As is common in traditional Indian marriages, he’s not the only one looking. So is his family.

“Indian people are pretty serious about marriage,” said the Calcutta-born Chaudhuri.

In Indian society, the family – not the wedding planner – plays an essential role. The family gives its blessing to a wedding and conversely, it can decree that no wedding will take place if they see foreboding signs. Chaudhuri said both bride and groom generally respect the family’s vetting powers because Indian tradition holds family as the objective eye that can see whether a marriage is for keeps or not.

“The couple may be in love, but the families can see it from a different angle,” said Chaudhuri. “They can see if it’s just youthful infatuation and that the marriage will not last.”

In his classic book “The Wonder That was India,” A. L. Basham writes that marriage has three main purposes in Indian society, in order of importance: 1) promotion of religion, 2) progeny and 3) sexual pleasure.

Rashida Begum, 26, a Bangladeshi-American physical therapy aide who got married last year in her home country, said Bangladeshi matrimony is no different. Families form a big part of the tradition and not just because they pick up the tab. But as a young “modern” woman, she said she made it clear to her family she was getting married for herself and not for her parents.

“I told them the match is for me, not for them,” said Rashida, who began as a phone pal to then-boyfriend Sikder, an MBA student in England. Turns out, their fathers have known each other for years, which paved the way for a seamless coming together for both families.

“It turned out well. I guess I’m lucky,” she said.

Hands decorated with henna for a wedding. (Photo: Zahrah Habibullah/flickr)

When an Indian American, like Chaudhuri, has made the decision to get married, he may be checking out profiles on “matrimonial service” websites like Jeevansathi or Saadhi, and his family is likely doing its own search with the help of friends, co-workers, and community and religious leaders. Others focus on newspaper matrimonial ads to boost their chances of finding a betrothed for their child. Marriage advertisements are commonly found in the back of Indian newspapers, along with ads for housing rentals and legal notices. A typical ad looks nothing like a profile on Match.com, but nothing quite so timid either:

Dr. (Col.) invites compatible Medico / High professional match from defence or otherwise status Brahmin families for his foreign MD, NBE pass daughter. Family has national & International relationships. Visit and Correspond using E-mail…

Delhi based Hindu Punjabi parents invite suitable match for their professionally educated (MS in IT from U.S.) handsome son. Working with top MNC in U.S. on H-1bvisa. Visiting India in April. Email…

The ads are direct and to the point. They tend to seek potential partners within the same socioeconomic and professional background. A university professor, for instance, would prefer to marry another scholar, a surgeon a fellow doctor. “Why?” asked Pennsylvania-based, Indian American humorist Melvin Durai. “Do they want to open a clinic?”

Chaudhuri said information about education and jobs are important because many parents want to make sure their daughters will be taken care of. His own standards are quite simple: A woman who respects Indian traditions, comes from a good family, is educated and can present herself in a dignified manner whenever he is traveling to international conferences. Aside from his work as COO, Chaudhuri sits on the board of the non-profit Institute of International Social Development which supports welfare projects in rural India and works closely with the United Nations.

Manhattan wedding planner Sonal Shah said Indian families are involved every step of the way, from giving their blessings to organizing the ceremony.

“Once a couple hires us to meet the families, we know what our roles are going to be,” said Shah, who is of Indian ethnicity. “The mother and I will usually work on the menu, the father and I on the invitations.”

Even in a cosmopolitan city like New York where people lead busy, frenetic lives, some Indian families observe the traditional rituals lasting several days, said Shah. There is Sangeet night, usually on a Thursday, where female guests toast the bride, sing songs and dance to Bollywood music. There is a Friday rehearsal dinner similar to American weddings. The religious ceremony, where bride and groom vow to respect and love one another by exchanging garlands and tying a knot is usually held on a Saturday. Finally, a Sunday brunch is where the newlyweds are introduced to one another’s families.

“The Indian wedding is just day after day of festivities,” said Shah. “We have done weddings of anywhere from 45 people to 1,500.”

An Indian wedding, with all its rituals, can last anywhere from three days to two weeks, depending on which region of India the bride or groom comes from, the customs they observe and how elaborate and diverse those practices are, said Amu Krishnan, an Indian wedding planner based in Malaysia.

“For my daughter’s wedding last month, the pre-nuptials went on for nearly two weeks with the bride’s family holding four different ceremonies and the groom’s side three. Then came the wedding itself, and after that, a grand finale banquet, hosted a week later by the groom,” Krishnan recalled.

For marriages between an Indian and a western partner, the Indian tradition usually prevails, she said.

“More often than not, foreigners who marry the Indian way are fascinated with the colors, the traditions, the customs,” said Krishnan, who dressed Indian brides whose suitors were from New Orleans and Florida many years ago. “Many have never experienced such culture and are extremely delighted to have the opportunity through their wedding.”

Chaudhuri may be looking, but maintained he is not dating.

“Many Indians might date, and if they like each other and they feel they can take it forward, they bring in their families. When the two families feel the couple is compatible, they give the go-ahead,” he explained.

And while Durai, the comic, has declared his mother would “never come between me and a potential bride,” Chaudhuri feels the traditional way of involving families is ideal.

“It’s just easier for everyone to get along.”

Cristina Pastor is a Feet in Two Worlds business and economics reporting fellow.  Her work, and the work of other Fi2W fellows, is supported by the New York Community Trust and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation with additional support from the Mertz Gilmore Foundation.