Escaping Flatland

I woke up today (or rather, yesterday) in an inexplicably great mood - my creative cycle coinciding with my circadian rhythm for a change.

Cut to 4 weeks ago. Fresh with a Narcissus-inspired [related post] need for artistic self-actualization, I scoured Atlanta’s share of the World Wide Web for creative outlets. Since my only redeeming imaginative skill lies in photography (other than stochastic optimization model – though those don’t tend to have as wide an audience :), I hunted down local art galleries.

One of these, Tula Art Gallery, was a few blocks away from my house, and had an exhibition coming up, for which they were seeking participation. Brimming with naïve optimism, encouraged by friends, and guided by mentors, I enthusiastically submitted two of my pictures from India [pic 1 and pic 2].

Since my photo printer at home was not working, I used a custom print shop in New York. Disappointed at the results, I got them printed again, and again. I suppose I was trying to eke out megapixels depth where none existed. These were old pics, with old cameras, and they just didn’t print that well. The submission deadline approached, so I decided to make do with my third iteration, elegantly (and expensively) framed.

I found out two days ago that my carefully had not been accepted. Today, as I went to pick up my submission from the art center, the great mood struck. I struck back. A violent struggle ensued.

The result:


I rounded out the day with chaat at Madras Sarvana Bhavan; Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride (awesome faux-claymation animation, ho-hum plot) at Regal 24; and Salsa/merengue at Loca Luna.

At three in the morning, though, sleep was a distant dream. I decided to continue my photo-perambulations at Atlantic Station on 17th street. A short drive, long walk, quick security-men dodge and lots of clicks later:

[Entire Photo set]
It has been an entertaining day.

I just read an article in the New York Times (free registration needed) written by an Indian doctor, Abraham Verghese, who helped refugees of Katrina in San Antonio. It was a very moving essay, more touching than all the waterlogged images on TV.

From the essay:
"I understood that they needed me to ask (about the past five days); to not ask was to not honor their ordeal."

"It reminded me of my previous work in field clinics in India and Ethiopia, where, with so few medical resources at hand, the careful listening, the thorough exam, the laying of hands was the therapy."

How true. He let them vent, he gave them compassion and sympathy. By being a human being first and a doctor later, Dr. Verghese must have provided so many victims their first taste of humanity in a long time.

"I prayed, as I wrote prescriptions, that their memories of particular pills were accurate. "
An interesting side-effect of the disaster that I did not realize until I read it - patients who need regular medication wouldn't have prescriptions, and overwhelmed doctors wouldn't have time to diagnose thoroughly. I just hope that each patient got the right meds - otherwise tragedy and lawsuits might follow.

"I remembered my own metaphor of strapping on armor for the night shift. The years have shown that there is no armor."
This reminds me of something I read in the NY Times after 9/11: "The price of being vulnerable to serendipity and beauty is being vulnerable to ugliness, danger and heartbreak."

I finished reading Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse recently. A few random thoughts, inspired by the book (this is not really a review, as you need to read the book first to appreciate them)...

Like Sidhartha, this book too is precious, because it has the power to move, to inspire, to force introspection. Escaping within its warm cloak helps one escape from the world, helps one be reintroduced to the world.

Narcissus and Goldmund’s relationship was enviable. Mutual admiration mixed with mutual respect. Each recognizing the other’s strengths and potentialities. One inspiring the other to realize themselves, seeing things they themselves don’t see yet. The other trusting one enough to accept the direction, even when he doesn’t fully understand. Each knowing the other more than anyone else in the world. Both were equals. And complementary.

This is the relationship I long for myself, with my soulmate. Pleasure thoughtful and thoughtless. Cerebral and Sensual. Debates, challenges, tenderness. This, to me, is what a life partner should be like.

What also struck me was the naïve wonder of Goldmund’s fascination with reality, with the peaceful passion of nature. His sense of wonder, his curiosity – they remind me to be thankful for this wonderful gift, this capacity to live, to be happy to be alive.

Quintessential Hesse – having people relate to the characters to draw them in. His mysticism is accessible. Unlike Coelho, his Catholic nirvana seems to bear Eastern roots, making it familiar.

He speaks of mentors – guardian angels, experienced kinsmen, alter-egos. They have traversed your path, know its perils and possibilities. They may see themselves in you and help you as if helping their younger self. Goldmund had Narcissus, Viktor, Niklaus. I have yet to find my mentor.

The bliss of creativity requires hard work and discipline; the joy of living in the moment, spontaneity. The fleeting pleasures of the moments can be made eternal through the creativity of art, says Hesse.

If so, what is my legacy? I wonder about that, at times. What have I achieved that will live beyond me? A few photographs, perhaps. A few essays that have since perished. I can do better.

Goldmund’s put-on self-assurance on meeting Narcissus is an interesting lesson. To lead, sometimes you need to put on a mask, even when you’re terrified yourself.

I ordered my "Don't Freak, I'm a Sikh" t-shirt today!

In the aftermath of the 7/7 attacks in London, as South Asian stereotyping and attacks on Hindus and Sikhs started increasing, blogs and sikh community boards have been ripe with discussion.

One faced a similar backlash (though much milder, admittedly) post 9/11. The way I handled it back then was to shrug it off as the taunter's immaturity, or to laugh at their cultural ignorance. British sikhs today have used a similar tongue-in-cheek response: they are wearing t-shirt and carrying backbacks with "Don't freak, I'm a Sikh!" emblazoned on them to fend off the mistaken identity.

Some enterprising indians have started selling these t-shirts in the US as well. To support their case, I ordered my own t-shirt today.

Some people argue that positioning myself as "non-muslim" can have the implied meaning of "don't attack me, attack the real muslims". However, I feel that raising people's awareness through provocation could itself cause them to see beyond the stereotype. They might realize that the generic label "south asian" applies to people with many different faiths, countries, ideologies. And hopefully, they will someday see that the generic label "muslim" also applies to many different faiths, countries, ideologies...

The next session was the most provocative one in the whole conference. The emergence of an American Desi Identity: Hello MTV, goodbye Apu was paneled by an MTV director, an anthropology professor, an ad man and a supermodel.

The MTV director, Nusrat Durrani – a University of Lucknow MBA with a studied look - dazzled the audience with clips from MTV Desi, a new channel targeted at South Asians in the US (auspiciously, MTV’s 101st channel). The clips seemed no different than MTV Asia or Channel V. When I found out that the channel had already started airing a few weeks ago, I was quite excited at the prospect of being able to keep up with the latest music.


Saira Mohan [personal website], a supermodel who’s appeared on the cover of Newsweek and headed three sessions at the World Economic Forum on Women’s issues, read a prepared speech. Though well written in general, an emotional moment was misinterpreted by the audience - “(during this conference) you’ve pulled me aside and shared your rather personal feelings” – to a round of laughter.


The professor - Falu Bakrania - presented next. She has been described by her students as “Not easy to follow, but provocative and fun”. I concur. And she received a rating of 4 out of 5 on the ‘Hot’ (as in looks) scale. I concur again. She presented her research on the UK music scene and cautioned that despite hype around Bally Sagoo, Malkit Singh et al in the early 1990s, Indian music and culture did not become mainstream as predicted. It only replaced one stereotype with another, leading to “corporate commoditification” of henna tattoos and Indian fabrics. Later artists like Nitin Sawhney had some crossover appeal, but they were still a niche. Her speech was right on the money, but her academic tone might have confused people, as later conversation revealed (pretty consistent with her students' feedback, actually).


Krishnan Menon [Blog], the chief strategic officer for ad agency DDB, involved in launching the iMac, the X-Box and Santana’s comeback album Supernatural followed next. His one line autobiography: “I know why people buy shit”. In Krishnan’s 30-second-ad-slot mindset, stereotypes are inescapable, reality is boring. We must accept and embrace stereotyping. The cabbie greeting (“You in computers?”) should be changed. His mission: replace the current Indian IT engineer / 7-11 owner stereotype with a truly representative, believable desi character “Anil Nair”. Breaking the North Indian stereotype, Anil is South Indian Malyalee (like Menon, coincidentally). A TV show with Anil is in the offing.

The panel built on each other points so smoothly, it almost seemed scripted. Nusrat hyping a channel that potentially perpetuates stereotypes. Falu warning against hyping and stereotyping. Krishnan pointing out that stereotypes are necessary in an attention deficit world – they just need to be managed. Nusrat then explaining that he is creating a platform, and creative kids can use it to tell their “managed” stories.

The controversies, minor and major, began with the Q&A session:

It was alleged that Bollywood shows NRIs in a bad light (which is true, I think). To which a counter-allegation was made that Bollywood does to NRIs what NRIs do to FOBs.

It was bemoaned that Indians don’t dominate media mindspace like Hispanics do, for which Menon offered two insightful reasons: One, there’s less of us (we should get in between sheets more often, he prescribes). Two, the Indian minority (unlike Hispanics) thinks like the Caucasian majority, and can be targeted through similar messages. Rajan Shah, the moderator, pointed out that for premium goods (Rolex, Mercedes), companies were doing direct marketing on high-value Indian households already.

Krishnan and Nusrat took digs at the professor for being academic and idealistic (“I’m no academic”, “I’m just selling entertainment, not out to save the world”). To her credit, she just rolled her eyes and shook her head.

Saira professed her love for India and all things Indian, especially the poonjabi (sic) culture that she is a part of (she’s part Punjabi, part French-Irish-Canadian), about 5 times.

At this point, an audience member announced “How can you sit up there and sell MTV to us? MTV is a crappy channel! It is the crappiest channel on TV today!” Pin-drop silence followed. The panel members looked at each other dumbfounded. The audience looked at the panel, then the dissenter, then back at the panel.

Finally, Saira spoke up “I hear you. I’d like to understand your point of view. Tell me, are you gay?”

It was the dissenter’s turn to be dumbfounded. He just stared, shocked, at Saira. Finally, “I’m not gay. I think that MTV shows Snoop Dogg and rap artists and they are crappy”.

The panel now understood where the dissenter was coming from, and each member felt obliged to offer a polite “I respect your point of view” statement. All except Menon. The ad man clearly has a penchant for showmanship; starting with “I don’t respect your point of view”, he went on to describe the importance of MTV to human society.

The moderator suggested discussing the topic later, in person with Nusrat. The poor dissenter's initial rush of adrenaline had worn off, no match for all the hostility directed at him. Shaking visibly, he accepted this compromise and sat down quietly.

When the Q&A ended, I went up to the professor to provide some moral support and talk to her about her upcoming book. In the meantime, the dissenter had another vocal confrontation with Saira, the details of which I missed.

Overall, the session was quite enlightening and amusing, and was the topic of conversation for many mixers and meals thereafter.

After a healthy breakfast of fruits and eggs at the ungodly hour of 8:30, we filed into the Peachtree Ballroom for the plenary keynote session with Mohini Bhardwaj.

Mohini, an Indian-Russian, was the 2004 US Olympic gymnastics team captain and silver medalist. The session was organized like a talk show, complete with pre-scripted questions, large projection screens, perpendicular sofas and riveted audience.

What I learnt from the talk: China and Russia have a competitive edge in gymnastics, with their state-sponsored training centers, rigorous team-oriented approach to training and assured financial support for parents of successful athletes. In the capitalistic US, would-be Olympians have to fend for their own corporate sponsorships, usually train in isolation and make money off talks and training gigs post-victory. Mohini was (partly) sponsored by Pamela Anderson (the Pamela Anderson), who auctioned her car to give Mohini 50K for her training (apparently, the two had a lot in common, including a drive for the unconventional, vegetarianism and tattoos).

Mohini tried for the Olympics in 1996 and did not make it. Eight years later, she tried again, and went on to head the team and win the silver medal.

In response to the predictable question of India’s low involvement in the Olympics (“a billion people with such few medals”), Mohini postulated predictable reasons: low parental encouragement for a seemingly unviable career option, and dearth of college sports scholarships.

The keynote ended, and we moved on to the breakout sessions. Many party-aficiandos missed the entire morning session, waking from their bacchanalian stupor at noon.

At 11:30, there were breakouts on globalization, racial profiling and AIDS. I chose the one on racial profiling; globalization of the Indian economy has been overexposed to death in magazines and books before, and little reliable information exists about AIDS in India.

The Guilt by Association: How Profiling Impacts Desis in the US panel was attended by lawyers, civil rights activists, and victims. It opened with a NASABA representative showing some very disturbing footage: immediately after 9/11, a major news channel conducted an experiment in Ohio – they asked two sikh boys to attend a baseball game in their full turbans. A hidden camera recorded hidden glances, angry looks, taunts and even overt threats that these boys received as they were minding their own business. Though I have not faced such strong racism personally, the video did bring back unpleasant memories.

The NASABA representative presented compelling arguments to show that profiling does not work in deterring terrorism-related crimes. Also, almost all immigrants profiled and detained by the government have been for other crimes, not terrorism. Just reinforcing my belief that the Patriot Act is just a step away from the infamous Indian Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), which has also faced similar criticism until it was replaced by POTO, a slightly diluted version.

Two antipodal profiling views I gathered from conversations with single women during the convention (all part of research for this blog, I assure you): one set of women (the majority, unfortunately) was very particular that they wanted to marry someone from their own community (religion, geographic affiliation, caste – choose your clique). One (overt) look at your name tag and they would not even bother to talk to you. Most of these women hailed from a state in the north-western region of the motherland.

The other set of women admitted that their own community would be the last place they would look for a partner. A few failed hookup attempts with insular, chauvinistic, or uninspiring men convinced them that the holy grail lay outside their comfort zone. This was true across the geographical board: Gujratis, Punjabis, Bhaktas, Mathurs, and Tamilians concurred.

Registration began at the Westin Peachtree in Downtown Atlanta at 3 PM, where attendees were given Home Depot jholas, name tags and bright orange arm tags. If the ID tags were lost, they would be replaced in exchange for 10 buffaloes, 5 sheep and selling your soul to Anu Malik for $400.

I wish the organizers had chosen a venue other than downtown – the nightlife in that area leaves a lot to be desired, not to mention safety and irritant issues (panhandlers, derelicts, muggers). Buckhead has enough hotels, shops, nightlife, and safety to be a better ambassador of Atlanta. Midtown would be even better, but there aren’t any good hotels here.

The Welcome Reception began at 8 PM, with a formal speech by the NetIP North America president, who seemed to be taking herself too seriously.


This was followed by a motivational lecture by Mr. Vijay Uncle, who delighted the audience with his platitudes and choked them with his emotional plea. An Assistant Professor of Surgery at Texas A&M, he was recruiting volunteers for Bone Marrow donation. His jokes were well received (“don’t worry, we won’t inform your parents about your blood alcohol level”), as was his message – about 120 people pledged to donate their marrow by giving a syringe-ful to Uncle-ji’s hilarious exhortions of “I need your blood!”. In the last 5 years, this was the highest level of donation from a NetIP event (typical numbers ranged from 10-20).

A fashion show from a pretty promising (pretty and promising, that is) Atlanta-based designer Nina Arora came next. She had a line of contemporary Indian-western wear, with very comfortable/wearable, clean and attractive designs. If the price was right, I could see myself buying her stuff for a significant other.

The final performance was a session of improv comedy by the Whole World Theatre group. I think they are the best Atlanta-based comedy group (much better than Dad’s Garage and Laughing Matters), so I was quite excited to show off our local talent. They even had a desi on their improve troupe! Sadly, a chunk of the audience (backbenchers, as we used to call them in school) were more interested in chatting with their newly-acquired friends than watching the show, so there was a constant distracting murmur throughout the performance. This affected the unscripted actors’ performance as well, but multiple entreaties for silence fell on oblivious ears. The show ended with bad tastes in many mouths.

At 10 PM, the venue shifted to America’s Mart, for an evening of dancing and drinking to Tigerstyle’s grooves. I stayed till midnight, and when the party had still not picked up, I took off to sleep in my own sweet bed for the night. As a consultant, one cherishes any time one gets to spend at home!

The Network of Indian Professionals (NetIP) is a subscription-based affiliation of (mostly) singles in cities across North America. Every month, these singles meet in hip venues and ‘network’ with other singles, hoping to find 'the one'. This is not what the founders had in mind when they created NetIP: they organize community involvement events, book clubs, professional events - but what sells the most is the monthly mixer.

So when I told my friends that I shall be attending the NetIP North America 2005 National Conference, they were understandably concerned. To squander $300 and my labor day weekend seemed a heavy price to pay for meet singles who weren’t even from Atlanta.

But they were missing the point. A quick glance at the conference agenda and panel attendees told me that there was more substance (meat!) behind the meet. Where else would I meet Indians with the diversity, intellect and success of the panel members? I dissented, and have not been disappointed.

(Updated)
NetIP 2005 was extremely well organized. At the risk of giving a back handed compliment, I’d say it was the best organized desi-event of this scale that I have attended in the US. Sure, there were a few late starts, rude murmuring audiences, bars without water. But these were trifles compared to the professionalism and precision of the overall conference.

A majority of the 700+ attendees were of North Indian descent, about 95% (my estimation) of whom were attending their first such conference. 52% were male, 48% female. Age groups varied from 23 through 39, averaging at 29. Almost everyone was impressive – well educated, successful, driven, articulate and dressed to kill. There were Indians, Indian-Americans and quasi-Indian-Americans (e.g. Uzbek-Indian, Canadian-Indian, Japanese-Indian, British-Indian).

The women - sporting the latest fashion from Devon Street to Chandni Chowk to Fifth Avenue - were always more impressively dressed than the men, who could be seen in t-shirts, shorts, chappals, unshaved at times. Most women in their 30s were PhDs, doctors, or successful professionals - a fact consistent with my previous dating experiences! And like any gathering of Indians, there was a profusion of long, straight, immaculately maintained hair.

A majority of the attendees seemed to be American Born or American Raised. This ABAR undertone permeated throughout the conference, the panels topics, the discussions. There were FOB jokes, tales of growing-up-desi-in-the-US, maintaining desi culture in the second generation, and Indians (i.e. American citizens) in the electorate.

Why the bias? General NetIP membership is a mixed-bag - the mix of FOBs and ABARs is representative of the city's overall population (atleast in the Pittsburgh and Altanta chapters). For some reason (maybe self-selection), more ABARs showed up for this event than FOBs.

It's not that there is a dearth of FOB topics for discussion: the challenges of rapid cultural assimilation, the pull of the motherland in light of its recent economic success, a how-to on raising children with little grandparental influence (a rarity for most who grew up in India). A controvertial one: who's got it easier - ABARs bearing the lofty expectations of their successful parents or FOBs trying to prove themselves with limited employment opportunities (h1b jobs only), parental support (economic, emotional at times) or existing social network (unless all one's friends move to the US)?