After reading 'Lemon & Chili', Meghna Pant's heartbreaking fiction piece, one thing is certain - you will never think of 'Mall Rats' the same way again.

I couldn’t remember the last time my laughter had sounded like that. Or sounded at all.

I sat on the bed and looked around. Karan’s Yankees t-shirt that I had ironed for him earlier this morning lay discarded on the oak-paneled floor, as did his Nintendo console. My eyes caught the new poster that Karan had tacked on the blue wall. The man on the poster was John Cena and his muscles burst forth in angry spurts as if challenging infirmity. I contrasted his arms with mine; sixty-seven years old and creaking with jagged old irritations. I wondered if his glistening skin would ever look cratered like mine or if his eyes would ever quail under softness, as did my brown ones, jailed behind their bespectacled lenses.

A half-hour later, I heard Preeti go into the kitchen. After my wife Mary died, Preeti insisted on cooking alone, but she did so grudgingly – banging the pots and muttering under her breath. I would have preferred to help but did not dare to offer. I once made a meal before she got home from work and she refused to let anyone eat it, saying that an elderly man working in the kitchen reflected badly on the woman of the house.

I heard the cackle of mustard seeds roasting in the pan. My nose caught the whiff of cardamom and cloves. The fragrant smells brought back a memory, a long ago memory, a past beyond past. I was in my mother’s modest kitchen, where these sounds and smells had once swept through my senses like a symphony, as her caramel voice called, “Come for dinner, son.”

There were no invitations now, yet I was expected to be present precisely. I smelled fresh coriander. The meal was ready.
Pete was home. Father and son, we walked quietly to the table.
“This is delicious,” I said, as I said to Preeti every night. I knew she wouldn’t acknowledge the compliment and she didn’t.
“Yes it is, Preets. Please eat more, Dad,” said Pete, as he said every night. He pushed the dish containing lady fingers toward me and poured yellow lentils over the white rice on my plate.
I’d heard Preeti say the previous night in their bedroom, in what was clearly not a private complaint, “I make Indian food every night, not for us, but for him, because I know he doesn’t eat anything else. And yet he pushes the food around in his plate and wastes most of it.”

I knew they were both watching me, so I shoved a spoonful of rice and lentils into my mouth and swallowed, wondering how so much would go down my throat.

Jay’s voice chimed in, “Daddy, see. I beat grandpa again. Ate more than him.”

“So did I,” mimicked Karan, proudly.

Preeti dropped a tablespoon noisily on her plate and left the table.

The next morning, after walking Jay and Karan to Campbell Elementary School, I took a further twenty-minute walk to Menlo Park Mall, where I met my group of friends. All of us lived in Edison and spent the weekdays on sofas at the carpeted soft seating area outside Macy’s.

I had met this group by chance. Five years ago, after Mary’s death, I found that I had no one to really talk to. Pete worked long hours at his dental clinic in Trenton. Preeti was busy at her market research firm in Manhattan. I spent my days shuffling Jay and Karan to and from their school, but was otherwise alone at home. It left me feeling depleted to know that I’d had listeners only in the gibberish of my youth and not in the wisdom of old age.
One Monday, after dropping Jay and Karan to school, I decided that instead of going home I would get a cup of coffee at the nearby mall. It was what Jay called a “cheat treat,” since I’d have to use some of the daily twenty-dollar allowance Pete gave me for the children’s lunch. But, I hadn’t bought myself anything for months and needed to validate my worth.

As I was coming out of the Rainforest Café I noticed a group of five Indians in their sixties sitting outside Macy’s. They were playing cards and chatting. Their presence was so startling that I was unable to look away, yet – unsure of how to conduct myself around Indians – I didn’t approach them. I went back at the same time the next day, though, to see if they were still there, and continued to observe them from a distance. For three more days I did this, like a child window-shopping for the candy he wanted.

The next week, I went back to the mall with a plan. After school, I took my grandchildren to the Cold Stone Creamery for their “cheat treat.” Having bought them ice-cream I told them to sit on a bench opposite the group while I – still not confident – hovered around. It was Dave Pat – shortened from Devinder Patel – who chatted with the children and then came up to me, striking up a conversation: “We all noticed you last week. Why don’t you join us, yaar?”
Yaar – friend; a word that hadn’t been addressed to me in decades.

I sat with this group, which called itself the ‘Mall Rats,’ and sometimes, as I later found out, the ‘House Rats.’ I realized that we had a lot in common. Like me, they were lonely immigrants. Like me, most of them lived with their children – for reasons spanning from traditional to emotional to financial. Unlike me, they had kept in touch with India through an extensive social network of Indians, most of whom were now dead or infirmed. Basking in the pleasure of being heard, I realized that these people were what I needed, and so, every weekday after that, during the children’s school time, I would come to the mall.

As usual, I got to the mall before everyone else. As I walked in, I heard the familiar sounds: the cash register rang in the H&M store to my left, the hair dryer warmed up at the unisex salon where soon it would become a monotonous drone. I sat at our regular spot where, as always, the smell from The Candle Shoppe lingered as a pasty fixture. There was a light crowd – mostly teenagers and young mothers pushing baby strollers – which lend to a faint humming sound interspersed with the cantankerous cry of a baby or the guffaw of a rowdy teenager. By lunchtime, the mall would be bustling with scurrying office-goers, more teenagers, bored housewives and busy salespeople. We were lucky that being a little hard of hearing made the noise tolerable, or so we’d been sardonically told by Cindy – the security guard who manned our floor.

By the time the eateries were preparing for lunch, made obvious by the hurried clang of utensils in the food court a floor above us, most of the group had come in, one after another.

We were chatting when suddenly Mrs. Patel said, “Ah! We can have tea now. Divya is here.”

I smoothed my head as if it still had hair on it, a habit from the past.

Each week one person from the group brought us all tea. This week it was Mrs. Sen’s turn, which caused a minor inconvenience since she came only at twelve o’clock – later than all of us – after dropping her granddaughter to kindergarten.

“Hello-ji! Hello-ji!” said Mrs. Sen. She always added ‘ji’ when addressing people, saying it was a sign of respect in the Indian town from where she had come ten months ago. “Sorry I be late. Had to walk all the way to Kishore Mart to buy ginger and, as you see, roads here walk faster than me. Without ginger tea, Mr. Kumar-ji would not enjoy, no?”

She smiled at me through her dentures. She wasn’t wearing an ounce of makeup, which made her thin lips look naked and her peppery eyes vulnerable, as if unwilling to be sheathed from the brusqueness of the skin and sinew around. The only hint of color was on her patchily dyed gray-black hair, knotted at the nape of her neck.
I cleared my throat before replying, “I always enjoy your tea, Mrs. Sen.”

We took out our Styrofoam cups as Mrs. Sen rummaged through her bag and pulled out two thermos flasks.

“This is one with sugar,” she said, handing me a flask. “And this without sugar, Mr. Patel-ji,” she added, giving the second flask to Dave.

Dave took a long sip of the steaming milky tea and said, “Mrs. Sen, your tea reminds me of my mother’s. She used to make the best tea in the world.” His baritone voice enunciated on the words “best” and “mother” as if wringing the meaning out of them.

His wife, Mrs. Patel, looked up from her knitting, and said, “His diabetes has gone to his head. He never gives a compliment to anyone without mentioning his mother first.” Her sari, draped a little short around her portly frame, edged higher, and it was only thanks to the long cotton socks she wore – out of modesty, I concluded – that the skin on her legs remained hidden from view.

Dave said, “Another spontaneous combustion,” and went back to sipping his tea. We smiled conspiratorially at one another. They were the only couple left among us and their outbursts reminded us of our own spouse, dead and gone.

“Is that smell of curry coming from your bag, Mrs. Sen?” Raj Sharma simpered. He tightened the brown muffler around his spindly neck and zipped his black woolen jacket. It was summer but Raj found the mall’s air-conditioning too cold.

I sniffed too and caught a familiar smell that I was unable to place.
“These are smell of some readymade curry I bought,” Mrs. Sen said, giving me a sidelong glance. Three days back, in an excited voice, she had told me that she would be making a special lunch for me today. That was probably what her big bag contained.

“Shiney used to love curry, especially shrimp curry,” said Dave quietly; adjusting the cushion he was sitting on. Due to the slow onset of rheumatoid arthritis it was becoming difficult for him to sit on the sofa the whole day. A Victorian walking stick with a gilded spire, a gift from us, lay to his right.

The prior month, a former group member – Shiney – whom I had never met, had succumbed to a stroke. He had been Dave’s neighbor when he lived with his son and daughter-in-law. For fifteen years he looked after his grandchildren. Once they grew up, Shiney was told to move out. His son wanted ‘space.’ Scared of old-age homes – which we associated with a sterilized walk to the guillotine – Shiney rented a small studio apartment where he lived alone, slept alone and ate alone. He came to the mall irregularly after that, and then not at all. In his last years he barely spoke, saying he had spent so long talking only about his children and grandchildren that he had nothing left to say.

We all shut our eyes and muttered a little prayer for Shiney, but I felt nothing. Death had become so predictable a state that I had neither the youthful reverence for it nor the middle-age fear.
Though my tears were too jaded to perform, I noticed that Raj’s eyes had filled up. He was unlocking a Ziploc bag containing pink, white and brown tablets. After having watched his wife die slowly from cancer, Raj regarded his body with dizzying alertness, like a nervous first-time parent scrutinizing their newborn. I felt sorry for him, for death did this to people: making cowards, scapegoats, preachers and mourners of the living; while the dead – ignoble or not – became objects of respect for achieving something before the rest of us.

“I told Shiney to walk out of the house with his right foot first. I reminded him that we Indians change everything about ourselves in this country, except our beliefs,” said Dave.

I listened carefully. Dave was, after all, the lucky one among us. He lived with his son, who had become grateful, attentive and respectful after Dave took him in, helping him recover from his wife’s untimely death in a car accident.

Dave continued, his breath heavy, “I told Shiney: ‘Even in Rome, do as the Americans do.’ Develop interests outside your children. Look at my American neighbors, Steve and Karen. They didn’t orbit their life and money around their children. Now in their old age, they are living in style, riding their Harley on Monday afternoons. I wish Shiney had listened. For I know it wasn’t the stroke that killed him. It was loneliness.”

Dave’s eyes became wet. Mrs. Patel wiped his fogged glasses and put them back on him.

We were all startled by a flash. We turned around to see three teenagers. One of them had a cell phone. He was using it to take a picture of us.

“Don’t stare. It will only encourage them,” Mrs. Patel hissed to Mrs. Sen. She had a point. Sitting in the mall day-after-day like mannequins on public display, we had become objects of ridicule, especially in the easy black and white judgment of the young. So we tried to stay as invisible here as we did in our homes.

At the same time, I knew it was difficult for Mrs. Sen to let go of her Indian ways. On her husband’s death anniversary, she had come to the mall early and confessed to me how miserable she was. Life in India had become difficult for her as a widow; she received no respect or rights. Her son had invited her to live with him, so she came to the US, only to end up a caretaker of her three-year-old granddaughter and the house. “I didn’t have lot in India, but here I am just a maid,” she said. She had come from a household of eleven people and was shocked at the time she was expected to spend alone at her son’s house. She cried, “I ache to hear knock of an unannounced visitor on my door.”

I felt protective of Mrs. Sen for it was not easy being part of the immigrant story, where the wins were fickle and the failures overstated. I remembered how difficult it had been for me to become a successful immigrant – a person greater than oneself.

After landing in America for the first time, fifty-years back, I’d skittishly hailed a taxi to the Illinois University campus; a ride that would cost my family half-a-month’s income. On reaching the dorm, I’d hurriedly pulled out my bags. It was only when the taxi had pulled out of the driveway that I realized I’d forgotten to take out my fifth bag. I lodged a complaint with the campus police.
“I put the bags in the dicky and left one of them there,” I said.
“You left one of your bags in the what, Sir?”
“In the dicky.”
“In the what, Sir?”
“In the back of the taxi. Where you put your bags,” I shouted, not believing their idiocy.
“You mean to say that you left a bag in the trunk of the cab, Sir?”

In India heavy steel suitcases were called trunks. “No, no. Not a trunk. It was only a bag.”

I saw the two policemen exchange a look. Then it struck me: I was making a fool of myself.

I was mortified and right there I made a vow to reinvent myself – as per the deportment of my prodigy – and become exceptional.

The first thing I did on opening my controversial bag was to throw out a lemon and chili thread that my mother had made to protect me from evil. Then I worked on my English – a matter of pride in my village – and learned to speak American English; using ‘elevator’ instead of ‘lift’ and ‘peppers’ instead of ‘capsicums.’ With a lot of practice, which included watching scores of Hollywood movies, I developed a slightly nasal twang. I went to American parties and dated American girls. It was against my religion but I ate beef in burgers and steaks. I wore jeans and t-shirts; my Indian clothes were slowly discarded, as were invitations to join the Indian chess club or go for a buffet lunch with Indians. After a few years, I married an American woman and raised our son as an American.

I became obsessed with wringing the best out of America. My cultural arduousness slipped into daily life and I began to ambition each moment to avoid mistakes; I made sure that I didn’t nick my chin while shaving, reached the office on time, presented my boss with a thoughtful Christmas gift, put my son in a private school and kissed my wife goodnight.

Life kept pushing forward like a line of tumbling dominoes; I was afraid that if I paused to look back, I’d stumble, and my future would scatter away while my past would fall upon me, suffocating me in a heap.

A heavy practicality set into my life; I slotted everything as convenient or inconvenient. If I longed for my mother’s embrace or was hit by a wave of nostalgia for India, the emotion was treated as excessive and ignored as inconvenient. My wife and son, too, pecked on the piecemeal of emotions I could afford – sudden bursts of affection, a spontaneous picnic at Hunter Mountain or a surprise trip to Disneyland.

And then, my parents died.

I hadn’t seen them since leaving India, thirty-eight years ago. My father had been the source of my ambition, and without him, I felt adrift, like a ship that sets sail to the world only to find it has nowhere to dock.

I turned to the only family I had at hand, Mary and Pete. On finding the love they’d craved at their disposition Mary was pleased while Pete was curious and confused.

I became the contradiction of my own orderly life. I stopped poker night with the guys. I turned down the promotion to President of Operations at Delta, where I worked. I sold off my stock options and gave the money to a hunger charity. When Mary made my favorite lamb roast, I asked for curry.

Mary soon grew concerned. I overheard her tell Pete, “I understand that his parents’ death has made him feel the need for family. But I don’t understand the rest. He’s lost fifteen pounds since he got back from India two years ago. He looks lost, unhappy. I’ve never seen him like this.”

My vulnerability enhanced the habit of capitulation in Mary. She crammed our kitchen shelves with Indian recipes and spices. She hinted but didn’t persist that I go to a doctor or psychiatrist. Learning that she had high blood pressure, she made Pete promise to look after me. When Pete married an Indian girl raised in the US like him, and I suggested we live together as a joint family – a common practice in India – Mary, though appalled, agreed, saying she knew that I wanted to revel more in family life.

Pete did not agree, making his case for independence and privacy. But I was determined. I sold my home in Long Island and bought a three-bedroom apartment on Oak Avenue in Metuchen, which was closer to Preeti and Pete’s workplace. I opened a joint bank account in all our names, where I pooled my savings and social security checks, luring the struggling newlyweds with the ‘money-for-all’ hook. When Preeti quit her job to take care of her newborn, I pitched Mary and my services as babysitters, which, if we lived together, would allow Preeti to go back to work. I promised to gift Pete my last treasure – an Audi A6 – which he could drive to work.

“You can’t buy love, Sunny,” Mary said to me gently.

But I had to speak in the language I had taught my child. I had made my son ambitious. He was ambitious for my love. He was ambitious for my generosity. So I used both.

After three years – the year I retired – we all moved in together. For Pete and Preeti it was a pragmatic short-term decision; to live rent-free for a couple of years and grow their savings.
Mary warned me, “This may not turn out as you expect.”

“I can tolerate anything as long as I’m with family,” I’d replied determinedly, unaware that the time would soon come when I would have to uphold my words.

The first year of retirement, which is tough for most, was pleasant for me. Mary pampered the grandchildren and me. Preeti and Pete were affable and appreciative.

It was only after Mary’s heart attack two years later, when the co-dependency changed into something potentially permanent, that all our attitudes shifted.

Preeti became resentful. She bristled when we crossed in the corridor. Her pinched face carried a look of bitter perseverance; so I understood why Karan pushed more and more for the lion’s portion of the queen bed we shared.

Pete honored his promise to his beloved dead mother but took the oblique approach, as would any man walking the tightrope between his wife and father. Yet, I was grateful to Pete; he was a better absentee son to me than I had been an absentee father to him.

I grew terrified, imagining that I’d have to live and die without family, like my parents did. After all, Jay and Karan were growing up fast; already ten and seven years old, and Pete’s dental practice had picked up; he would soon be able to afford his own house. I had to give them no cause for grievances.

So I took Jay and Karan to school, swim lessons and soccer practice. I made them grilled cheese sandwiches and pasta when their mother wasn’t home. I nursed them through falls and fevers. I babysat them when Preeti and Pete went to dinner and movies on Saturday nights. I did all the things I hadn’t had time to do for my own son.
I relegated myself to the background, too, like an uninvited guest in my own house. I came out of my room only at mealtimes. I showered after everyone else. On weekends I went for long walks alone. I didn’t touch a cent from the joint account, limiting my needs to whatever Pete offered. I took no offense when Pete – who had grown up seeking my advice on everything – informed me that he had bought a new couch and a bigger clinic. I didn’t fuss that Preeti wore a diamond ring instead of a mangalsutra, the mark of an Indian married woman; its status reduced to lying among Mary’s other jewelry in Preeti’s dresser drawer. I didn’t balk when my grandchildren called me ‘grandpa’ instead of Dadaji, a father’s father according to Hindu custom, even though I felt that without this distinction, they would forget me after I died, just as they had their ‘grandma.’

I quietly watched Pete’s daily failures as he had once watched mine. I saw him make the same mistakes with his sons as I had made with him – already smothering them with his ambition.

Remember son, was all I said to Pete, every man ends in his own family.

The tea in my cup had gone cold.

Mrs. Sen rubbed her nose and said, “I’m going to the toilet.”
Mrs. Patel corrected her, “Divya, you must say, ‘I’m going to the ladies room, please excuse me.’”

“Yes; please excuse,” said Mrs. Sen.

I watched as Mrs. Sen tentatively stepped on to the escalator, where her bag covered half the stair while she covered the other half, and realized that she was the closest thing to India I had.

The owner of the jewelry kiosk in front of us packed away her wares and locked them up. It must be lunchtime. I waved to her. She gave me a tight smile. I had never bought anything from her.

Seeing her was a cue for everyone else to go home for lunch; being frugal we never ate at the mall. My house was a forty-minute walk from the mall so I skipped lunch altogether. Mrs. Sen didn’t approve of this habit which is why she wanted to make today different.

After the group left, I went to the food court; an extra precaution Mrs. Sen had thought of, since no one we knew went there. If anyone from the group suspected anything they didn’t ask. Friendship was deliberate and measured at our age, for its deceptions, intrusions and judgments only fooled the young, not the old.

Mrs. Sen sat at the edge of a chair opening a steel tiffin carrier stacked with four boxes – a contraption I hadn’t seen in half a century. People carrying food trays chose to sit away from her table.
“Thank you, Mrs. Sen. You really didn’t have to do all this,” I said as I approached her.

“Please, no formal,” she said. Her face was flushed; this was only the second time we were alone. She added, “I didn’t got chance to say thank you. You so very kindly listen to me last time. It is difficult, no, to talk openly in front of so much people.”

She took out the boxes one by one.

“This is food from your region in India. You from Haral village, no, in Punjab? I have friend of friend’s sister, from Haral, who gave me recipe on phone.”
She opened a box containing yogurt-based kidney beans. “I hope this reminding you of your mummy-ji’s cooking. Maybe, if I am so lucky, your wife-ji’s cooking. I think how sweet, probably since wife-ji die he has not eat properly. So I thought this make you feel good hunger.”

This time I identified the sweet and sour smell before she opened the next box. It used to be my favorite dish – khatta – made of jaggery and tamarind. The dessert box, holding sweet rice mixed with raisins, pistachios and saffron, presented itself shortly. The smell and sight of this food seemed to embalm me, taking me slowly away to my past.

“It took much time. Each dish have twenty spices, but I think it taste okay,” she was saying.

There was a rumble of sounds in the food court yet I heard one after another become distinct. A baby cried in the distance. Someone ordered a chicken burrito. A cash register clanged.

“Why you are staring at food? It is not looking good?”

Voices from the past grew louder as Mrs. Sen’s became distant.

“I will cut open my stomach if I have to, but my son will go to America,” said father grimly.

Earlier that morning mother’s voice rang through the fields informing father and me that I had been accepted to study at “Ill-o-no” university. After I had topped the state and nationwide exams, my high school principal had put my name on a government program that doled out full scholarships to students to attend college in the US.

“I don’t want to go,” I said quietly, placing an old plastic bucket below the leak on the hay roof. There was so much for me to do in my village in North India. The dung patties would be crisp next week, ready to be taken to sell for fuel in the market. I had to tutor my sister, Sarita, about Gandhi’s assassination for her upcoming history exam and I had promised to help mother in the harvest season. But my voice did not rise above the bleating rain.
I didn’t get too concerned though and even slept deeply, knowing that father did not have the twenty-thousand-rupees needed for my airline ticket, clothes and books.

The next morning when I woke up, as usual at 4 a.m. to plough the fields, father was still sitting on the straw mat in the lotus position, looking at me.

“I will take a loan against the land,” he declared in a thin voice, as if the weight of the decision had sapped him of all strength. Our one-acre farmland was pawned that very day to the local moneylender, as was, I deemed, my life.

I left India at the age of seventeen, begrudging father for always pushing me to be the man of the house; the man of the school; the man of the farms; and now, without his hand on my back, the man of the world.

I felt orphaned and exiled.

My anger frothed with humiliation on my first day in America. It coalesced into ambition; I would prove myself to America and my father. I festered with this duality of love and ego, where ego scorns the very love its seeking and then despairs in its absence.

My experiences became mine to keep, undeserving of father’s rustic analysis. I switched my degree from agricultural to aeronautical engineering, abandoning the original plan to go back to India to expand our farming business. The monthly letters from my parents took me months to answer. Because of the expense, we didn’t speak on the phone, and later, when I could afford it, I called them only once or twice a year, the surprise of it taking all depth out of our conversations. I didn’t seek their blessings before getting married or after having a son.

Over the years, excuses to avoid moving back or visit flew forth from me – expensive tickets, demanding boss, son’s exams or wife’s sinus operation. I didn’t invite my parents or sister to visit, ashamed of how they would look to my American wife, half-American child, American neighbors and American friends. I didn’t take my wife or son to India, in spite of their willingness, ashamed of the squalor I came from.

My parents did not persist either, as though my memory was enough. They told me that the farm was doing well – they bought buffaloes every few years and an automated tilling machine. When I offered to pay back the loan, father refused, saying it had already been repaid, and declined my offers to send home money, insisting it was of no use to them.

“The God of Creation does not forgive the father who takes from his son,” he wrote.

Nothing that they did made me feel needed, and so I needed them less.

In the little correspondence I had with them, I exaggerated my life’s grandeur and pace. I kept waiting for my award that I had paid my dues and proved my worth; but never did father say that he was proud of me.

And he never would; for he died, and a few weeks later, so did mother. Sarita called – for the very first time – and begged me to come. I almost didn’t go, canceling my ticket twice, compelled by this premonition of dread and foreboding. But, then I went, alone, as if I’d left nothing behind in America.

On reaching my childhood home, I saw thirty-eight years of change in one moment. I felt as if I’d walked from one dream into another, retaining that abrasive element of both realism and evasiveness. It loomed before me; this house of hay, rope, mud and hope. How had my memory shrunk it to non-existence? I inhaled deeply, like I used to as a child, hoping to garner the familiar smell of animal manure and compost, but it was hot and airless, scathing my nostrils.

An old lemon and chili thread hung on the porch. I remembered how mother used to make a new one every week, running her threaded needle through three green chilies, a juicy lemon, and three more chilies. I used to watch the thread cavort in the wind, keeping the evil spirits out of our lives. But this one was beaten and withered, as if it had fought spirits for years, only to be martyred like a soldier on the battlefield. I touched it. It disintegrated in my hand.

The house seemed to be empty. The front door stood open. I stepped inside. My home had aged more than I had. While it had never been well-furnished, now it was threadbare, with a rope bed, a kerosene stove, a broken plastic chair and some utensils. The paint on the wall was peeling. Nothing adorned these walls save for a tattered poster of god and a photo of me with Mary and Pete, which I had sent to my parents – the only one – almost fifteen years back. The photo was wrapped in cellophane, probably to preserve it.

The heat in the house stifled me; I 'unknotted' my tie and wished I hadn’t worn a suit.

I heard a soft voice behind me say in the local dialect, “Welcome home, brother.”

I turned around slowly, taking a moment to let the words form. It was my sister, Sarita; wizened and unsmiling. She had always carried the air of consumed sensibility, plagued but contained; now she carried the former without the crutch of the latter.
“What happened to you?” I asked, shocked.
“I am unable to smile, brother, but I am happy to see you,” she replied in rasps, tears forming in her eyes. I went over and hugged her, needing just one arm to wrap around her body.

“I called you here to show you and tell you the truth,” she said.
I saw it, before she even told me. Yet, I listened to the price my family paid for my education.

Father didn’t anticipate that I’d not return or that the errant monsoons would yield low crops for years. The high-interest loan accumulated, forcing him to forfeit our farmland to the moneylender. Left with no livelihood, he took up odd jobs – carpentry, labor, plumbing – while mother sold their belongings, one-by-one. They took to eating one meal a day, feasting on wild grains, and later in their lives – when father became too old to work – they ate boiled seeds of wild grass and fungus-ridden mango kernel. Sarita’s facial muscles became weak and she was unable to marry well; her husband, now dead, had been a poor widower, three times her age, with children older than her. The marriage had saved her from starvation but nothing could save my parents. Father developed an acute digestive problem and couldn’t eat for weeks before his death, while mother died of dysentery.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me all this? I could have helped. I could have come back,” I cried out; my guilt lay open like a corpse.
“Great pain cannot be expressed in the simple economy of words, brother. Father was a proud man. He thought you’ll be ashamed of him. He could not let you know. He would not let anyone tell you. He knew you’d come back if we told you this, come back to nothing. I feel that he wanted to protect you, and maybe himself, from what he had become. A proud man’s poverty is his bane, isn’t it? Father was so proud that till the very end he refused to even acknowledge that he was starving.”

“I was such a bad son. You all must hate me,” I said, more as a conclusion, than a statement.

“You are father’s wish come true. How can we hate you?”

“So father” – I took a sharp breath in – “was proud of me?”
“More and more, every day.”

I cried out, in spite of myself. She walked up to me and laid her head against my heart.

“You will have to learn to forgive yourself.”

I never did.

I came back to the US and searched the attic for my family’s old letters: they smelled earthy and full of love, and I lay among them, as if they were my family’s last embrace. An embrace I had never been able to relay; such was my love, pickled with achievement and pride. How foolish I had been, how petty and selfish, to have let my family go.

My shame became a vantage point from which I looked down upon my life. The success that fawned my house, car and pantry, seemed like a sham. Every bite of food I tried to take reminded me of what I’d deprived my parents. I thought of the sunken shoulder blades that held my sister’s body together, and searched desperately, unsuccessfully, in the mirror for my own.

I took four-hundred-dollars – equivalent to the loan father had taken – and burnt the bills. I put the remains in a copper urn. I dispersed them in the Hudson; the ashes of family, of strife and of tallying up your life’s score and realizing you came to naught.

I looked down at the food Mrs. Sen had laid in front of me now, reminiscent of the last meal I’d had with my parents; a feast in my honor, fed to me with mother’s hands, with father sitting beside me – not eating – a white cotton cloth slung across his shoulder, with which he alternatively dabbed his tears and covered his laughing mouth, “Can you believe a poor farmer’s son is going to America? I can’t explain how happy I am, for great joy cannot be expressed in the simple economy of words, can it, son?”

Mrs. Sen’s voice wailed through my reverie, “See this. I made it myself. Heard everyone has this in your village, no?”

I looked at her hand. In it was a lemon and chili thread.

About the Author: Meghna Pant is an Indian business journalist and freelance writer currently based in New York City. She writes regularly about Indian American life for magazines across the trans-Atlantic. Her nonfiction articles have appeared in publications including Little India, The South Asian Times, MiD-Day, Man’s World and Hindustan Times. She is currently working on her first novel, One-And-A-Half Wife, which was selected as a Top Ten Finalist in WordHustler's Literary Storm Novel Contest.

The film will be shown Sunday, June 20th, at 3 p.m., at the Queens Museum of Art as part of the Seventh Annual LGBT Cultural Celebration QUEERIN’ QUEENS, co-presented by CINEMAROSA, the South Asian Party Mixer Desilicious/Sholay Productions and the International Human Rights Organization Breakthrough.

This piece comes to EGO by way of "The Ajnabee" - (www.theajnabee.com)

It is exactly within the understanding of this dilemma that ‘Desigirls!’ - a short film by talented filmmaker Ishita Srivastava - takes shape. It’s a poignant insight into the lives of two very separate and different women, the openly gay Priyanka and the hidden ‘A’. Both incredible individuals, both intelligent women, but dealing with their sexuality and sexual preference in very distinct ways.

The film will be shown this coming Sunday, June 20th, starting at 3 p.m., at the Queens Museum of Art as part of the Seventh Annual LGBT Cultural Celebration QUEERIN’ QUEENS, co-presented by CINEMAROSA, the South Asian Party Mixer Desilicious/Sholay Productions and the International Human Rights Organization Breakthrough.

The story has a personal angle for me since I attended Priyanka’s wedding party early this year, when she wed her partner Lisa under the auspicious eye of the Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office. It was obvious to me all the love in the room that night, starting with the happy couple and all the way to the guests and well-wishers at the event.

It was indeed a night to remember and this film ‘Desigirls!’ is one NOT to be forgotten. Its message will feel poignant and true to anyone who has ever struggled for anything in their lives, yet still found the energy to love and shine through it all. See you at the screening everyone!

About the author: E. Nina Rothe ran her own column at Chic Today for over a year and a half where she interviewed Sooni Taraporevala, Zoya Akhtar and Liz Mermin among many others. She currently writes for AVS TV. She has just been published in Tehelka Magazine and Bespoke as well. You can find her personal writing on her blog The Ajnabee Websites: (http://theajnabee.com/)

A co-presentation of Human Rights Watch and The Film Society of Lincoln Center, the festival will run from June 10 to 24 at the Film Society’s Walter Reade Theater. Thirty extraordinary works from 25 countries will be screened, 28 of which are New York premieres. A majority of the filmmakers will be on hand after the screenings to discuss their films with the audience.

“The Human Rights Watch Film Festival reflects the condition of the world we live in, including the top news events around the world,” said John Biaggi, the festival director. “No one is immune to the rippling effects when human rights are violated, whether here in our country or far away. It affects us all.”

“There may be no better time to champion the mission of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival than right now,” said Mara Manus, Executive Director, The Film Society of Lincoln Center. “With distribution and exhibition platforms for independent films diminishing around us, and competition for the limited available space increasing, being able to host this festival year after year, shining a spotlight on important films, filmmakers and causes, is a highlight within our annual programming calendar.”

This year the festival’s Benefit Night on June 10 will focus on East Timor with the outstanding drama The Balibo Conspiracy, which was banned in Indonesia, featuring a stellar performance from Anthony LaPaglia. Filmmaker Robert Connolly, along with special guests, will attend the discussion and reception following the film’s screening.

The festival launches on June 11 with its Opening Night presentation of HBO's 12th & Delaware, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s (The Boys of Baraka, Jesus Camp) haunting portrayal of the abortion divide—one of America’s most intractable conflicts.

The Human Rights Watch Film Festival has championed the work of Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck and is delighted to present as this year’s Festival Centerpiece, his latest film, Moloch Tropical. Peck will introduce and discuss this evocative drama, set in his home country.

On Closing Night, the spotlight will be on Mexico with Presumed Guilty, an astonishing documentary that takes viewers on a three-year journey into the dysfunctional heart of the Mexican justice system.

This year’s festival is organized around three themes, beginning with Accountability and Justice. The revelatory Enemies of the People (winner of the 2010 Nestor Almendros Award for courage in filmmaking), a study of the Khmer Rouge massacres in Cambodia, explores an individual survivor’s quest for justice and truth, while the intimate Out in the Silence delves into aspects of this theme by following three Americans caught up in a same-sex marriage controversy as they confront three of society’s most formidable forces—the church, the school system, and prevailing social norms. A trio of films on this theme focus on large formal structures—from the U.S. prison system in the startling In the Land of the Free..., to the Mexican police system in the haunting drama Backyard, to the complexities of the Special Court for Sierra Leone in the exceptional War Don Don.

Development and Migration forms the second major theme in this year’s program. The searing Nero’s Guests examines economic development and disparity in India by looking at the recent epidemic of farmer suicides. Two films look at migration due to war. Pushing the Elephant tells the moving story of a Congolese family resettled in the U.S. and their experience of being reunited with a missing daughter, The Unreturned vividly portrays the struggles of five displaced Iraqis from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds. Acclaimed filmmaker Goran Paskaljevic (Cabaret Balkan, A Midwinter Night’s Dream) will return to the festival with Honeymoons, a beautifully rendered drama highlighting economic migration within Europe. The veteran filmmakers Michael Camerini and Shari Robertson (Well-Founded Fear) will be represented with the absorbing films Last Best Chance and Mountains and Clouds, part of their remarkable documentary series How Democracy Works Now: Twelve Stories, a project nine years in the making. These two films take viewers inside the halls of the U.S. Congress, revealing the epic battle over comprehensive immigration reform.

The third theme features a timely look at Societies in Conflict: Afghanistan and Iran. The festival’s special focus on Afghanistan consists of films highlighting various aspects of U.S. military involvement in that country. Camp Victory, Afghanistan intimately examines the reality of building a functioning Afghan military, while the Sundance Grand Prize-winning documentary Restrepo takes viewers into the deployment of a U.S. marine platoon in a remote and deadly Afghan valley. Iran: Voices of the Unheard beautifully illuminates the largely untold story of Iranian secularists.

Young people are on the frontlines of many of the world’s human rights crises, but we all too rarely get to hear their point of view. The third edition of Youth Producing Change, presented by Adobe Youth Voices, will feature 11 short films from teen filmmakers from across the globe as they turn the camera on their own lives and invite audiences to experience the world as they do. Several of these young media-makers—from Kenya to Texas—will make the trip to New York to present their work.

In conjunction with this year’s film program, renowned photographer Susan Meiselas will present In Silence, her powerful photo essay on maternal mortality in India. The exhibit will be featured in the Frieda and Roy Furman Gallery at the Walter Reade Theater for the duration of the festival.

All films are screened at the The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th Street, upper level (between Broadway and Amsterdam Ave.)

TICKET INFORMATION: Single screening tickets for the 2010 Human Rights Watch Film Festival are $12 general public, $8 students and seniors (62+), $7 for Film Society members. Five Film Pass: $50 general public, $35 students and seniors, $30 for Film Society members. Special Two Film Package: $20 General Public, $14 students and seniors, $12 members for the screenings of Mountains and Clouds (Sat., June 19) and Last Best Chance (Wed., June 23).

Purchase options: www.FilmLinc.com or in person at the Walter Reade Theater box office. Hours: Mon.-Fri. opens at 12:30pm, Sat./Sun. opens 1/2 hr before first public screening; closes 15 minutes after last public screening, at 6pm when there are no public screenings. For more information visit www.FilmLinc.com, www.hrw.org/iff or call 212-875-5601.

Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is one of the world’s leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Our rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world. To learn more about our work or to make a donation, visit www.hrw.org

The Film Society of Lincoln Center
Under the leadership of Mara Manus, Executive Director, and Richard Peña, Program Director, The Film Society of Lincoln Center offers the best in international, classic and cutting-edge independent cinema. The Film Society presents two film festivals that attract global attention: the New York Film Festival, currently planning its 48th edition, and New Directors/New Films which, since its founding in 1972, has been produced in collaboration with MoMA. The Film Society also publishes the award-winning Film Comment Magazine, and for over three decades has given an annual award—now named “The Chaplin Award”—to a major figure in world cinema. Past recipients of this award include Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Meryl Streep, and Tom Hanks. The Film Society receives generous year-round support from 42BELOW, American Airlines, GRAFF, Stella Artois, The New York State Council on the Arts, and The National Endowment for the Arts. For more information, visit

PROGRAM DETAILS

Benefit Screening & Reception

Thursday, June 10
6:00pm doors open; 6:30pm screening and panel discussion with:
Carlito Caminha, journalist and co-founder/director of Timor-Leste Photographers’ Association (TiLPA); Robert Connolly, filmmaker; Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now! (a public television/radio news hour) and survivor of the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre in East Timor. Moderated by Carroll Bogert, Associate Director, Human Rights Watch.

9:00pm Reception

Ticket prices begin at $500. Tickets can be purchased online, http://hrw.kintera.org/filmfestivalbenefit2010

THE BALIBO CONSPIRACY (NY premiere)
Robert Connolly—Australia—2009—111m—drama

The Balibo Conspiracy dramatizes the importance of bearing witness, no matter the risk. Set in 1975 East Timor, as Indonesia prepares to invade, it tells the true story of crimes that have been covered up for over 30 years. On a quest to investigate the fate of five missing Australian journalists, foreign correspondent Roger East (Anthony LaPaglia) uncovers deeper truths about the conflict—and forges a remarkable friendship with the man who will become president.

Human Rights Watch has covered human rights issues in East Timor for some two decades. In December 2009 in reaction to the Indonesian government’s move to censor this film, Human Rights Watch issued a news release calling for the Indonesian government to protect freedom of expression, and not censor controversial films. www.hrw.org/en/asia/east-timor

Opening Night Film & Reception

Friday, June 11
7:00pm, Screening followed by discussion with Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, reception to follow

12th & DELAWARE (NY premiere)
Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady—US—2010—80m—doc

On an unassuming corner in Fort Pierce, Florida, it is easy to miss the insidious war that is raging. But on each side of 12th & Delaware, people with opposing views stand locked in a heated battle. On one side of the street sits an abortion clinic. On the other side, a pro-life center often mistaken for the clinic it seeks to shut down. Using a skillful and haunting cinema vérité style that allows viewers to draw their own conclusions, 12th & Delaware examines the daily battles of one of America’s most intractable conflicts.

This HBO Documentary Film premieres on HBO on Monday, August 2

For 20 years Human Rights Watch has worked extensively on women’s issues. To learn more about our work http://www.hrw.org/en/category/topic/women

Closing Night Film & Reception

Thursday, June 24
7:00pm, Screening followed by discussion with Roberto Hernández and Geoffrey Smith, reception to follow

PRESUMED GUILTY (NY premiere)
Roberto Hernández and Geoffrey Smith—Mexico—2009—88m—doc—In English and Spanish with English subtitles

In December 2005 Toño Zuniga was picked up off the street in Mexico City and sentenced to 20 years for a murder he knew nothing about. A friend of Toño’s contacted two young lawyers, Roberto Hernández and Layda Negrete, who gained prominence in Mexico when they helped bring about the release of another innocent man from prison. Looking into Toño’s case, Roberto and Layda managed to get a retrial—on camera—and enlisted the help of filmmaker Geoffrey Smith (The English Surgeon) to chronicle the saga. Shot over three years with unprecedented access to the Mexican courts and prisons, this dramatic story is a searing indictment of a justice system that presumes guilt.

Presumed Guilty will have its national broadcast premiere on the POV (Point of View) series on PBS on Tuesday, July 27 at 10pm (Check local listings.)

Human Rights Watch’s most recent reports on Mexico relate to issues of military impunity and the work of the National Human Rights Commission. http://www.hrw.org/americas/mexico

Presented in association with Cinema Tropical, www.cinematropical.com and El Museo del Barrio, www.elmuseo.org

Festival Centerpiece

Sunday, June 20
7:00pm, Screening followed by discussion with filmmaker Raoul Peck and Kent Jones, film critic and Executive Director of the World Cinema Foundation

MOLOCH TROPICAL
Raoul Peck—France/Haiti—2009—107m—drama—In English and Creole and French with English subtitles

Master filmmaker Raoul Peck (Lumumba, Sometimes in April) returns with a haunting drama on his home country—Haiti. Peck takes us to a hilltop fortress where the nation’s president is falling apart, buckling under the pressure of civil unrest and the international community’s increasing disapproval. Crafting an almost Shakespearean tragedy in the confines of this isolated citadel, Peck delivers a searing critique of a government corrupted by power and an individual driven mad by it. Completed just months before the devastating January 12, 2010, earthquake, Moloch Tropical explores the ruinous costs of political dysfunction in Haiti.

If Haiti is to chart a new course as it rebuilds from the earthquake, addressing the political and human rights themes raised in this bracing film will be critical. Human Rights Watch sent a team to Haiti in February 2010 to look at issues of sexual and gender-based violence as well as human rights issues more generally in the delivery of humanitarian aid. Integrating human rights concerns into the relief operations is essential to protecting the well-being of Haitian victims, especially women, children, and other vulnerable groups. http://www.hrw.org/americas/haiti

Presented in association with Tribeca Film Festival, www.tribecafilm.com and the African Film Festival, Inc., www.africanfilmny.org

Accountability and Justice:

BACKYARD (NY premiere)
Carlos Carrera—Mexico—2009—122m—drama—In English and Spanish with English subtitles

Tuesday, June 22, 6:15pm / Wednesday, June 23, 9:00pm

Actors Jimmy Smits and Ana de la Reguera deliver commanding performances in this astonishing fictional account of the unending series of murders of young women in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, which began in 1996. Most of the victims are low-paid laborers who have been drawn to the town by the possibility of work at American-owned factories. In the film Mexican police officer Blanca Bravo (de la Reguera) is sent to Ciudad Juarez to investigate and comes to learn the realities of these women’s lives, as well as the truth about a police force and local power structure embodied by entrepreneur Mickey Santos (Smits) that has ceased to care.

*Note: this film contains scenes of graphic violence and may be disturbing to some viewers.

Human Rights Watch’s most recent reports on Mexico relate to issues of military impunity and the work of the National Human Rights Commission¬—including its investigations of the killings of women in Ciudad Juárez over the past decade. http://www.hrw.org/americas/mexico

Presented in association with Cinema Tropical, www.cinematropical.com and WITNESS, www.witness.org

ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE (NY premiere) + Q&A with filmmakers
Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath—Cambodia/UK¬—2009—94m—doc—In English and Khmer with English subtitles

Friday, June 18, 4:00pm / Saturday, June 19, 6:30pm / Sunday, June 20, 1:30pm

Winner of the 2010 Sundance World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Prize, Enemies of the People follows Thet Sambath, whose parents were among the approximately two million people who perished under the Khmer Rouge regime in the late 1970s. With unprecedented access and groundbreaking confessions from the notorious “Brother Number Two,” Nuon Chea, and from numerous grassroots killers, he uncovers terrifying personal explanations for the genocide by allowing the perpetrators to speak for themselves.

Nestor Almendros Award
Renowned cinematographer and filmmaker Nestor Almendros (1930–1992) was a founder of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, actively involved in the selection of films and the promotion of human rights filmmaking. Even while deeply immersed in his own projects, he took the time to call the Festival team to mention a strong documentary or promote a work-in-progress. Believing in the power of human rights filmmaking, Nestor devoted himself to becoming a mentor to many young filmmakers. It is in the Festival’s loving memory of Nestor and our desire to celebrate his vision that we proudly bestow this award to filmmakers for their exceptional commitment to human rights.

The Festival is delighted to present Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath—filmmakers of Enemies of the People—with the 2010 Nestor Almendros Award for courage in filmmaking.

Human Rights Watch has worked on Cambodia for nearly 20 years, including efforts to improve the structure and performance of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia, established as a mixed national-international court within the Cambodian justice system to try “senior leaders” and “those most responsible” for crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge in 1975-79. http://www.hrw.org/en/asia/cambodia

Presented in association with International Center for Transitional Justice, www.ictj.org

IN THE LAND OF THE FREE... (NY premiere) + Q&A with filmmaker and film subject
Vadim Jean—UK/US—2009—84m—doc

Wednesday, June, 16, 6:30pm / Thursday, June 17, 9:00pm

Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox and Robert King—the Angola 3—have spent a combined century in solitary confinement in Angola, the Louisiana State Penitentiary. Targeted by prison officials for being members of the Black Panther Party and for fighting against terrible prison conditions, they were convicted of the murder of a prison guard, a verdict they continue to challenge and for which new evidence continues to emerge. In the Land of the Free... presents their ongoing story as dramatic events continue to unfold. Narrated by Samuel L. Jackson.

Human Rights Watch has published many reports on prison and detention facilities in the United States. Prisoners too often confront conditions that are abusive, degrading and dangerous in violation of international human rights law. http://www.hrw.org/en/united-states/us-program/prison-and-detention-conditions

Presented in association with Correctional Association, www.correctionalassociation.org, Drop the Rock, www.droptherock.org and New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), www.nyclu.org

OUT IN THE SILENCE (World premiere) + Q&A with filmmakers
Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer—US—2009—66m—doc

Monday, June 21, 6:30pm *reception to follow screening and discussion
Tuesday, June 22, 9:00pm / Wednesday, June 23, 4:00pm

Out in the Silence captures the controversy that ensues when filmmaker Joe Wilson's same-sex wedding announcement is published in the newspaper of the small Pennsylvania hometown he left long ago. Drawn back by a plea for help from the mother of a gay teen being tormented at school, Wilson's journey dramatically illustrates the challenges of negotiating the morally charged issue of sexual orientation and the potential for building bridges when people with differing opinions approach each other with openness and respect.

Human Rights Watch exposes and combats abuses based on people’s sexual orientation and gender identity. Our groundbreaking 2001 report “Hatred in the Hallways: Violence and Discrimination Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Students in U.S. Schools” examines some of the issues portrayed in the film through numerous testimonies by students who faced abuse on a daily basis from peers and teachers. http://www.hrw.org/en/category/topic/lgbt-rights

Presented in association with New York Civil Liberties Union, www.nyclu.org and Parents and Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) of New York City, www.pflagnyc.org

WAR DON DON (NY premiere) + Q&A with filmmaker
Rebecca Richman Cohen—Sierra Leone/US—2010—83m—doc—In English and Krio and Mende with English subtitles

Saturday, June 12, 6:45pm *panel discussion and reception to follow screening
Sunday, June 13, 2:00pm / Wednesday, June 16, 4:00pm

In the heart of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, United Nations soldiers guard a heavily fortified building known as the “special court.” Inside, Issa Sesay awaits his trial. Prosecutors argue that Sesay is a war criminal, guilty of crimes against humanity. His defenders insist that he is a reluctant fighter who protected civilians and played a crucial role in forging the peace. War Don Don tells the story of his sensational trial with unprecedented access to prosecutors, defense attorneys, victims and, from behind bars, Sesay himself. Can the trial of one man uncover the truth of a traumatic past?

*Panel discussion on Saturday June 12 with Sareta Ashraph, Co-Counsel, Issa Sesay Defense; Binta Mansaray, Registrar, Special Court for Sierra Leone; and Stephen Rapp, Prosecutor, Special Court for Sierra Leone (2006-2009) and Ambassador-at-Large War Crimes. Discussion moderated by Elise Keppler, Senior Counsel, International Justice Program, Human Rights Watch.

Winner of the 2010 Cinereach Award presented by Cinereach, a not-for-profit film foundation that funds and produces films at the intersection of engaging storytelling, visual artistry, and vital subject matter. To learn about Cinereach, visit cinereach.org

Human Rights Watch has worked extensively on issues of accountability, justice and peace, including efforts to monitor the work of the Special Court for Sierra Leone. http://www.hrw.org/en/category/topic/international-justice

Presented in association with Facing History and Ourselves, www.facinghistory.org and Open Society Justice Initiative, www.justiceinitiative.org

Development and Migration:

HONEYMOONS (NY premiere) + Q&A with filmmaker
Goran Paskaljevic—Albania/Serbia—2009—95m—drama—In Albanian, Hungarian, Italian, and Serbian with English subtitles

Saturday, June 19, 9:15pm / Monday, June 21, 9:00pm / Tuesday, June 22, 3:30pm

Brilliantly crafted by master filmmaker Goran Paskaljevic (Cabaret Balkan, Midwinter Night’s Dream), with stunning performances from a multinational cast, Honeymoons shows us that the distance between Eastern and Western Europe is more than a question of kilometers. The film follows two couples—one in Albania, one in Serbia—who, in the midst of wedding celebrations, decide to leave their respective countries to realize their dreams in Western Europe. They soon find themselves trapped between their countries’ past and their future lives together. In creating this superb film, Paskaljevic also managed to bridge the gap between two hostile countries with the first Albanian-Serbian film co-production.

Human Rights Watch has published numerous reports on migration in Europe http://www.hrw.org/en/topic/migrants as well as on human rights in Albania and Serbia http://www.hrw.org/en/europe/central-asia

Presented in association with Reconciliation and Culture Cooperative Network (RACCOON), www.balkansnet.org/raccoon

MOUNTAINS AND CLOUDS (NY premiere) + Q&A with filmmakers
Michael Camerini and Shari Robertson—US—2010—93m—doc

Saturday, June 19, 3:30pm *reception to follow screening and discussion

With unprecedented access to some of the most powerful members of the U.S. Congress, Mountains and Clouds revisits a seminal moment in the push for immigration reform, with implications for the immigration battle currently brewing for the Obama administration and Congress.

August 2001 was the most electrifying time in decades for immigration advocates, with Washington on the cusp of realizing comprehensive reform. Two weeks later, the 9/11 attacks shifted the Capitol's focus completely to national security issues. In response, Senator Ted Kennedy and his unexpected Senate partner, conservative evangelical Republican Sam Brownback, have every intention of passing the security legislation in order to return to immigration. But fate throws up a roadblock.

Elder statesman Senator Robert Byrd has a star turn holding up the business of the nation; young Senator Brownback begins to have doubts; and the future of immigration reform hangs in the balance.

Presented in association with El Museo del Barrio, www.elmuseo.org and the New York Immigration Coalition,www.thenyic.org

LAST BEST CHANCE (NY premiere) + Q&A with filmmakers
Michael Camerini and Shari Robertson—US—2010—100m—doc

Wednesday, June 23, 6:15pm

Last Best Chance brilliantly presents a political legend, Senator Edward Kennedy, in his final battle for comprehensive immigration reform in the U.S.. Seeking legislation that he believes would best serve U.S. interests and provide greater security and dignity to many of the 20 million people currently living in the shadows, Senator Kennedy joins forces with talented allies on the outside to marshal fellow Senators Obama, Clinton, Menendez, Kyl and McCain toward a “Grand Bargain.”

But deep at the heart of this fast-moving story, below the level of strategy and protocol, we find a moral tale of modern American politics. Ted Kennedy, one of a handful of people who through his personal efforts changed the face of America, is forced to decide how much he wants this deal and what he is willing to trade for his greatest legacy.

Presented in association with the New York Immigration Coalition, www.thenyic.org and International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, www.sitesofconscience.org

Mountains and Clouds (story two) and Last Best Chance (story twelve - finale) are two films from the groundbreaking documentary film series, How Democracy Works Now: Twelve Stories, a series nine years in the making by award-winning filmmakers Michael Camerini and Shari Robertson.

Courtesy of HBO Documentary Films

Human Rights Watch has done extensive work on U.S. immigration policies and practices, including on violations of the rights of immigrants to fair treatment, freedom from arbitrary detention, respect for family unity, and protection from being returned to countries where they face persecution. http://www.hrw.org/en/united-states/us-program/unfair-immigration-policies

NERO’S GUESTS (US premiere)
Deepa Bhatia—India—2009—56m—doc—In English and Marathi and Hindi with English subtitles

Monday, June 14, 6:30pm / Tuesday, June 15, 9:00pm / Thursday, June 24, 4:00pm

“Is it a sin to be a farmer? No one cares about us. No one notices. No one hears our cries.” –Vidarbah farmer

In this fluidly edited and moving documentary, we follow committed activist and journalist P. Sainath as he speaks and writes about the thousands of farmers in India who commit suicide each year due to poverty and the inability to repay debts. P. Sainath’s energy and sense of outrage are contagious. As he visits the affected families and works every media angle at his disposal to get politicians to act, we see a society in denial, a lack of social justice for the poor and gaping wealth disparities in the country.

Preceded by:
WAGAH
Supriyo Sen—Germany/India/Pakistan—2009—13m—doc—In Farsi, Hindi and Urdu with English subtitles

Wagah is the only checkpoint along the 2,000-mile border between India and Pakistan. Patriotic crowds on either side cheer their country's soldiers as they perform official exercises with formal precision and colorful dynamism, revealing more similarities than differences between the two nations.

Human Rights Watch has published a number of reports on education and health in India as they relate to economic, social and cultural rights and the economic disparities there. http://www.hrw.org/en/asia/india

Presented in association with Breakthrough, www.breakthrough.tv and Indo-American Arts Council, www.iaac.us

PUSHING THE ELEPHANT (NY premiere) + Q&A with filmmakers and film subject Rose Mapendo
Beth Davenport and Elizabeth Mandel—US—2010—84m—doc—In English and Kinyamulenge and Swahili with English subtitles

Saturday, June 12, 1:45pm / Sunday, June 13, 4:30pm *reception to follow screening and discussion Monday, June 14, 4:00pm

An intimate family drama set against the backdrop of the 1998 conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pushing the Elephant tells the story of Rose Mapendo, who was separated during the conflict from her 5-year-old daughter, Nangabire. Rose survived the atrocities of those years and was eventually resettled in Phoenix, Arizona, with her other children. Now, after 12 years apart, Rose and her daughter are reunited in the U.S.. Through the story of their reunion, we come to understand the excruciating decisions Rose made in order to survive and the complex difficulties Nangabire faces as a refugee in the U.S.—torn between her painful past and a hopeful future.

Human Rights Watch has published extensively on armed conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The most recent report—“Trail of Death: LRA Atrocities in Northeastern Congo”—provides the first detailed documentation of the Makombo massacre and other atrocities by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Congo in 2009 and early 2010. http://www.hrw.org/africa/democratic-republic-congo

Presented in association with Mapendo International, www.mapendo.org and the African Film Festival, Inc., www.africanfilmny.org

THE UNRETURNED (NY premiere) + Q&A with filmmaker
Nathan Fisher—Canada/US—2010—75m—doc—In English and Arabic with English subtitles

Tuesday, June 15, 6:30pm / Wednesday, June 16, 9:00pm

With an unflinching eye, powerfully candid dialogue and a touch of humor, The Unreturned brings us into the lives of five Iraqis from diverse ethnicities and religions displaced by the ongoing war in their country. Caught in the midst of violence, endless bureaucracy, dwindling life savings, and forced idleness, these Iraqis nevertheless radiate vitality, warmth and hope. The Unreturned intercuts between the daily struggles of these refugees and their recollections of life in Iraq before and after the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 to provide a glimpse through the eyes of the individuals most affected by the conflict.

Human Rights Watch has published numerous reports on Iraq, including several on the U.S.-led invasion and its aftermath. The most recent work on Iraqi refugees relates to their situation in Lebanon. The December 2007 report “Rot Here or Die There” documents the Lebanese government’s failure to provide a legal status for Iraqi refugees and details the impact of this policy on refugees’ lives. http://www.rw.org/en/middle-eastn-africa/lebanon

Presented in association with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), www.theirc.org

Societies In Conflict: Afghanistan and Iran:

CAMP VICTORY, AFGHANISTAN (NY premiere) + Q&A with filmmaker and film subject Colonel (R) Michael Shute
Carol Dysinger—Afghanistan/US—2010—84m—doc—In English and Dari with English subtitles

Saturday, June 12, 9:30 pm *filmmaker joined by film subject Col. (Ret) Michael Shute for Q&A
Sunday, June 13, 7:30 pm *filmmaker joined by film subject Col. (Ret) Michael Shute for Q&A
Thursday, June 17, 4:00pm

Drawing from nearly 300 hours of vérité footage shot between 2005 and 2008, Camp Victory, Afghanistan skillfully explores the reality of building a functioning Afghan military. Filmmaker Carol Dysinger achieves a remarkable intimacy in telling the story of several U.S. National Guardsmen stationed in Herat, Afghanistan, and the Afghan officers they are assigned to mentor. Although the United States has poured military aid into Afghanistan, money alone does not produce security—people do. Frustrations are evident as are moments of humor as the film vividly exposes the difficulties faced by men from two very different worlds as they attempt to understand and work effectively together in this monumental endeavor.

Human Rights Watch’s work on Afghanistan focuses on accountability, women’s rights, issues related to security, and civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict. Its most recent in-depth study is the December 2009 report “We Have the Promises of the World: Women’s Rights in Afghanistan.” http://www.hrw.org/asia/afghanistan

Presented in association with Overseas Press Club, www.opcofamerica.org

IRAN: VOICES OF THE UNHEARD (US premiere) + Q&A with filmmaker
Davoud Geramifard—Canada—2009—68m—doc—In Farsi with English subtitles

Saturday, June 12, 4:30pm / Monday, June 14, 8:30pm / Tuesday, June 15, 4:00pm

A film that challenges the passivity of the international community in the face of ongoing political repression, Iran: Voices of the Unheard brings us the story of Iranian secularists through three fascinating characters. Their social, economic and educational backgrounds differ sharply but all share a love for their motherland and a passion for freedom from political repression and theocracy. Beautifully photographed and brilliantly scored, the film presents a picture of life in Iran that demonstrates the struggles of secular Iranians—both private and public.

Human Rights Watch’s February 2010 report on Iran focuses on widespread human rights abuses since national elections on June 12, 2009, including extra-judicial killings, rape and torture, violations of the rights to freedom of assembly and expression, and thousands of arbitrary arrests and detentions. http://www.hrw.org/en/middle-eastn-africa/iran

Presented in association with Alwan for the Arts, www.alwan.org and Arte East, www.arteeast.org

RESTREPO (NY premiere) + Q&A with filmmakers
Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger—Afghanistan/US—2010—93m—doc—In English and Pashto with English subtitles

Friday, June 18, 9:30pm, filmmaker Tim Hetherington present
Sunday, June 20, 4:00pm *Time Out New York hosts this special screening with filmmakers Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger in conversation with Time Out film editor David Fear, reception to follow
Monday, June 21, 4:00pm, filmmaker Tim Hetherington present

Winner of the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Documentary, Restrepo chronicles the deployment of a platoon of U.S. marines in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley, one of the most dangerous postings in the U.S. military. In their directorial debut, Tim Hetherington (award-winning photographer and cinematographer) and Sebastian Junger (acclaimed author, “The Perfect Storm”) hunker down in a remote 15-man outpost named “Restrepo” after a platoon medic who was killed in action. This is an entirely experiential film: the cameras never leave the valley and there are no interviews with generals or diplomats. This is war, full stop. The conclusions are up to you.

Opens in New York on June 25 at the Angelika Film Center through National Geographic Entertainment

Human Rights Watch’s work on Afghanistan focuses on accountability, women’s rights, issues related to security, and civilian casualties in the ongoing conflict. The most recent report on civilian casualties and the conflict in Afghanistan is the September 2008 report “Troops in Contact: Airstrikes and Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan.” http://www.hrw.org/asia/afghanistan

Presented in association with Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC) www.civicworldwide.org and Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, www.dartcenter.org

Youth Producing Change (World premiere)
Founding Presenter: Adobe Youth Voices
74 minutes

See www.hrw.org/iff for special ticket offers & group rates.

Friday, June 18, 7:00pm *reception to follow / Saturday, June 19, 1:00pm

Young people are on the frontlines of many of the world’s human rights crises, but we all too rarely get to hear their point of view. The third edition of Youth Producing Change shares powerful stories from young filmmakers across the globe as they turn the camera on their own lives and share their visions of change.

HANDS OF LOVE + Q&A with filmmaker David Were
Produced by 14 youth filmmakers from Voiceless Children in association with Listen Up and Adobe Youth Voices
Kenya—2008 —8m—doc—In Kiswahili with English subtitles

For David Were and his community in Kibera, the largest slum in Kenya, having access to simple facilities like a bathroom can be a matter of life and death. After a devastating attack on his father, David and his friends know their work to provide security, latrines, and clean-up projects is more than a struggle for a healthier environment —it is part of ensuring the survival of their community.

KAMRAN’S STORY + Q&A with filmmaker Kamran Safi
Kamran Safi of Kent Refugee Action Network
UK/Afghanistan—2008—3m—animation

Drawing from a series of dramatic life-changing events, Kamran, a 14-year-old asylum seeker, narrates the story of his courageous escape from Afghanistan and his unaccompanied journey to the United Kingdom.

MIGRATION
Eddy Perlaza, Cinthya Durán, and Sinchi Chimba of Agencia de Comunicación de Niñas, Niños y Adolescentes (ACNNA)
Ecuador—2008—5m—doc—In Spanish with English subtitles

Young people find themselves on their own when they seek refuge from violence in Colombia—or when parents are forced to seek work in other countries to support their families. Migration provides a new take on immigration, from the perspective of children left behind.

AN AVERAGE CONGOLESE DIET (ALIMENTATION D’UN CONGOLAIS MOYEN)
Sylvain Koko of UNICEF Oneminutesjr. Project
Democratic Republic of Congo—2007—1m—doc—In French with English subtitles

For 14 years, Congo has been ravaged with conflict. Lack of adequate food remains the norm and millions have died, mostly due to malnutrition and lack of access to basic medicine. The simple truth for children in Congo—having a meal isn’t always a given.

17 & UNIDENTIFIED + Q&A with filmmaker Alicia Wade
Alicia Wade of Global Potential
Dominican Republic/US—2009—5m—doc—In English and Spanish with English subtitles

Born in Batey Cuchillia, Dominican Republic of Haitian descent, Deivei was never provided with a birth certificate. Without it, he cannot continue his education, find a job, marry or travel.

GROWING UP IN INDIA
Produced by 17 youth filmmakers from Free the Children
Canada/India—2009—9m—doc—In Hindi with English subtitles

In the northeastern desert state of Rajasthan in India, Sangita feels the limitations of her culture’s caste system when she decides she must forgo an education to train as a dancer in order to support her family.

BABICA
Martina Hudorovic of DZMP/ Luksuz Produkcija
Slovenia—2008—8m—doc—In Roma with English subtitles

The Roma people have been the target of persecution and discrimination for centuries. A Roma grandmother shares her hopes for future generations as she prepares bread with her granddaughter.

HUDUD
Produced by 12 youth filmmakers from Camera-etc.
Occupied Palestinian Territories—2008—8m—animation—In Arabic with English subtitles

Being 16 in the Occupied Palestinian Territories today is to have one's life dictated by curfews, clashes with soldiers at check points, arbitrary searches and arrests. Hudud (an Arabic word for restriction) illustrates the challenges that Israeli construction of the “separation barrier,” or wall, pose for Palestinian youth.

MARIPOSA + Q&A with filmmaker Espie Hernandez
Espie Hernandez, Wendy Sandoval, and Luna Serna of ImMEDIAte Justice Collective
US—2009—6m—doc—In English and Spanish with English subtitles

As Espie prepares for her quinceañera, a traditional rite of passage celebrating a 15-year-old Latina’s debut, her family adjusts to Espie's decision to "come out" in a different way. Espie’s story embraces the complexity of family tradition and sexual identity with an honest and brave heart.

SEE, LISTEN, SPEAK: NGARRINDJERI’S BEING HEARD (NUKKAN.KUNGUN.YUNNAN)
Edie Carter, Rita Lindsay, Victor Koolmatrie, Melanie Koolmatrie, and Veronica Wilson from Change Media. Australia—2009—6m—doc

After water is diverted from natural streams and lakes in the rural Coroong community and delivered by pipeline to larger cities, the aboriginal Ngarrindjeri face a disastrous water crisis, threatening their way of life. Ngarrindjeri youth speak out to protect their culture and traditions.

IMAGE OF CONTAMINATION
Elizabeth Gonzalez and Antonio Rodriguez of SAY Sí in association with Listen Up and Adobe Youth Voices
US—2008—8m—doc—In English and Spanish with English subtitles

The course of Air Force enlistee Diana López’s life changes forever when she learns that toxic waste has been seeping off nearby Kelly Air Force Base and into her community’s ground water.

Photo Exhibit by Susan Meiselas
IN SILENCE
June 11-24 at the Frieda and Roy Furman Gallery, Walter Reade Theater

Tens of thousands of Indian women needlessly die every year because of pregnancy and childbirth. Many die uncounted, without leaving a trace of what happened to them. Families accept these deaths as destiny or fate, unaware that most maternal deaths can be prevented with access to appropriate healthcare.

India is an emerging superpower, but far too many women and girls continue to face severe barriers while trying to access life-saving healthcare. Safe childbirth doesn’t require state-of-the-art facilities or cutting edge treatment. It depends on adequate basic care and emergency treatment delivered by staff with appropriate medical training. And it depends on knowing when and where women and girls aren’t getting necessary care and following up with decisive action to see that they do. It’s something the Indian government is well equipped to do.

Susan Meiselas has collaborated with Human Rights Watch for decades. She most recently partnered with Human Rights Watch to expose the barriers to maternal health in India in 2009.

Meiselas became a member of Magnum in 1980. Her photographs have been published in the pages of Time, the New York Times, Life, Paris Match. Her coverage of insurrection and civil war in Central America was published throughout the world and she was presented with the Robert Capa Gold Medal in 1979 for her work in Nicaragua. Later awards include the Leica Award for Excellence (1982), a MacArthur Fellowship (1992) and the Hasselblad Prize (1994).

Meiselas completed a six-year project on a visual history of Kurdistan and established the website www.akaKURDISTAN.com to further that inquiry.

PUBLIC SCREENING SCHEDULE

Thursday, June 10
Benefit Screening and Reception
6:30pm THE BALIBO CONSPIRACY (111m)
Q&A with filmmaker Robert Connolly and special guests + reception to follow

Friday, June 11
Opening Night Screening and Reception
7:00pm 12th & DELAWARE (80m)
Q&A with filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady + reception to follow

Saturday, June 12
1:45pm PUSHING THE ELEPHANT (84m)
Q&A with filmmakers Beth Davenport and Elizabeth Mandel and film subject Rose Mapendo to follow
4:30pm IRAN: VOICES OF THE UNHEARD (68m)
Q&A with filmmaker Davoud Geramifard to follow
6:45pm WAR DON DON (83m)
Q&A with filmmaker Rebecca Richman Cohen and special guests + reception to follow
9:30pm CAMP VICTORY, AFGHANISTAN (77m)
Q&A with filmmaker Carol Dysinger and film subject Col. (Ret) Michael Shute to follow

Sunday, June 13
2:00pm WAR DON DON (83m)
Q&A with filmmaker Rebecca Richman Cohen to follow
4:30pm PUSHING THE ELEPHANT (84m)
Q&A with filmmakers Beth Davenport and Elizabeth Mandel and film subject Rose Mapendo + reception to follow
7:30pm CAMP VICTORY, AFGHANISTAN (77m)
Q&A with filmmaker Carol Dysinger and film subject Col. (Ret) Michael Shute to follow

Monday, June 14
4:00pm PUSHING THE ELEPHANT (84m)
Q&A with filmmakers Beth Davenport and Elizabeth Mandel and film subject Rose Mapendo to follow
6:30pm NERO’S GUESTS (56m)
Deepa Bhatia
Preceded by WAGAH (13m)
Supriyo Sen
8:30pm IRAN: VOICES OF THE UNHEARD (68m)
Q&A with filmmaker Davoud Geramifard to follow

Tuesday, June 15
4:00pm IRAN: VOICES OF THE UNHEARD (68m)
Q&A with filmmaker Davoud Geramifard to follow
6:30pm THE UNRETURNED (74m)
Q&A with filmmaker Nathan Fisher to follow
9:00pm NERO’S GUESTS (56m)
Deepa Bhatia
Preceded by WAGAH (13m)
Supriyo Sen

Wednesday, June 16
4:00pm WAR DON DON (83m)
Q&A with filmmaker Rebecca Richman Cohen to follow
6:30pm IN THE LAND OF THE FREE… (84m)
Q&A with filmmaker Vadim Jean and film subject Robert King to follow
9:00pm THE UNRETURNED (74m)
Q&A with filmmaker Nathan Fisher to follow

Thursday, June 17
4:00pm CAMP VICTORY, AFGHANISTAN (77m)
Q&A with filmmaker Carol Dysinger to follow
9:00pm IN THE LAND OF THE FREE… (84m)
Q&A with filmmaker Vadim Jean and film subject Robert King to follow

Friday, June 18
4:00pm ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE (94m)
Q&A with filmmakers Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath to follow
7:00pm Youth Producing Change (11 shorts, 74m)
Q&A with filmmakers + reception to follow
9:30pm RESTREPO (93m)
Q&A with filmmaker Tim Hetherington to follow

Saturday, June 19
1:00pm Youth Producing Change (11 shorts, 74m)
Q&A with filmmakers
3:30pm MOUNTAINS AND CLOUDS (93m)
Q&A with filmmakers Michael Camerini and Shari Robertson + reception to follow
6:30pm ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE (94m)
Q&A with filmmakers Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath to follow
9:15pm HONEYMOONS (95m)
Q&A with filmmaker Goran Paskaljevic to follow

Sunday, June 20
1:30pm ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE (94m)
Q&A with filmmakers Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath to follow
Time Out Screening
4:00pm RESTREPO (93m)
Q&A with filmmakers Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger and Time Out film editor David Fear + reception to follow
Festival Centerpiece
7:00pm MOLOCH TROPICAL (107m)
Q&A with filmmaker Raoul Peck and film critic Kent Jones to follow

Monday, June 21
4:00pm RESTREPO (93m)
Q&A with filmmaker Tim Hetherington to follow
6:30pm OUT IN THE SILENCE (66m)
Q&A with filmmakers Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer + reception to follow
9:00pm HONEYMOONS (95m)
Q&A with filmmaker Goran Paskaljevic to follow

Tuesday, June 22
3:30pm HONEYMOONS (95m)
Q&A with filmmaker Goran Paskaljevic to follow
6:15pm BACKYARD (122m)
Carlos Carrera
9:00pm OUT IN THE SILENCE (66m)
Q&A with filmmakers Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer to follow

Wednesday, June 23
4:00pm OUT IN THE SILENCE (66m)
Q&A with filmmakers Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer to follow
6:15pm LAST BEST CHANCE (100m)
Q&A with filmmakers Michael Camerini and Shari Robertson to follow
9:00pm BACKYARD (122m)
Carlos Carrera

Thursday, June 24
4:00pm NERO’S GUESTS (56m)
Deepa Bhatia
Preceded by WAGAH (13m)
Supriyo Sen
Closing Night Screening and Reception
7:00pm PRESUMED GUILTY (88m)
Q&A with filmmakers Roberto Hernández and Geoffrey Smith + reception to follow

Images Courtesy of Human Rights Watch International Film Festival

"Every day, after lunch, Cauvery and I would go for at least a ninety-minute walk, if not longer. She would tell me about the history and geography of Ireland. I had so many questions to ask about writing and publishing, and she patiently answered them all. Sometimes, she volunteered publishing tips, words of wisdom, and names of useful contacts."

EGO contributor Sweta Srivastava Vikram's personal essay recounts the blossoming of a friendship under the watch of a volcanic ash cloud.

About a month and a half ago, after being accepted at a writer’s retreat in the Beara Peninsula of Ireland, I set out to make my mark. I was extremely excited about the opportunity. The focus of this retreat is just one thing: The accomplishment of artistic goals. The ethos of the place is to enable the process. So chores don’t create a hindrance in the creative journey, artists are pampered to an extent indescribable. Even your laundry is done for you. Every meal is freshly prepared and has homemade taste. And the Irish, like the Indians, are quite obsessed with loving, sinful cooking. Butter, crème, and freshly baked cakes are a significant part of the meals. No wonder I gained weight despite walking for two hours every day.

I couldn’t wait to see my fantasy land. But when I reached the retreat, I found out that the director had to leave for the United States because of a family emergency. My world crumbled a little. But before I could panic, a fellow writer, an Indian Irish woman, came to my rescue. Her name was Cauvery Madhavan (Author of “The Uncoupling” and “Paddy Indian”). She distracted me by sharing information that would excite any budding writer. Legends like Billy Collins and Jhumpa Lahiri had spent time at this retreat. When she told me that I was staying in the same room where Billy Collins had stayed about a year ago, I died of ecstasy. And, of course, I temporarily forgot about my anxiety.

So how did Cauvery know what would work to calm my nerves? Cauvery and I drove up together to the retreat from Dublin because my flight from Dublin to Cork (the closest airport to the retreat) was canceled. The director had put me in touch with Cauvery, who generously offered to pick me up from Dublin airport.

Sometimes it takes eternity to know a person, while other times, a few hours are enough. Cauvery and I got chatty on our four-hour drive. There was a sense of familiarity. I don’t know if it was karmic alignment or just sheer coincidence, but she and I had a lot in common. Cauvery went to the same school, for a few years, in Mumbai as my husband’s sister. She and my brother’s wife studied from Stella Maris college in Chennai. Hold your breath; she and my brother went to boarding schools in Dehradun, which isn’t really far from Mussoorie – the hill station where my boarding school was. It doesn’t end there; both our husbands are April born and she and I were both born in January.

A very optimistic lady, Cauvery spoke fondly of her life in Ireland and her family. She asked me about my career, interests, and family. It was informal banter, which never got stale. Right from the first hour, I learnt a lot from her. It was refreshing to meet a writer who adorned her weaknesses just as gracefully as strengths. A good role model.

I knew Cauvery was a published novelist but didn’t realize how famous she was until one morning at breakfast, when a group of us were discussing immigration and identity, she talked about a particular article that had appeared in the Evening Herald. Cauvery has written for several publications in Ireland. She is also a travel writer for one of the leading travel magazines and has done several radio shows. But she doesn’t wear a brag-tattoo on her forehead. If anything, she attached prolific adjectives to my name while introducing me to other writers.

Every day, after lunch, Cauvery and I would go for at least a ninety-minute walk, if not longer. She would tell me about the history and geography of Ireland. I had so many questions to ask about writing and publishing, and she patiently answered them all. Sometimes, she volunteered publishing tips, words of wisdom, and names of useful contacts. She would say, “You remind me of myself when I was your age.” Oh yeah, age was a big joke at the retreat since I was the youngest of the lot. Cauvery told everyone how I was born the year she graduated from high school. I blame it on the jetlag for letting that information slip out of mouth.

Anyway, as the days went by, the volcano in Iceland erupted wreaking havoc. I was disturbed because after my residency, my husband was supposed to join me in the Eyeries. We had a week of vacation planned around his birthday. But with the European airspace closed, the probability of his trip became dimmer with each passing day. I was anxious. What would I do until the airspace opened? Where would I stay? Our hotel reservations had to be canceled. Flight, train, and car bookings had to be altered. I loved Ireland the warmth of its people, but I wanted to get home.

Cauvery, in a calm tone, said, “No need to stay in a hotel. You stay with me and my family in Kildare.” Kildare is a suburb/village forty minutes outside of Dublin. Normally, I would be hesitant living with a stranger, but Cauvery voice was so nurturing that I trusted her. Something told me it was going to be okay. She comforted me that I was going to be alright. That I would reach New York.

But her bigheartedness didn’t end there. I spent four days with Cauvery, her loving family, three dogs, a kitten, and ten hens, before I moved to a hotel. She said to me, “You lost time at the retreat, as the volcano distracted you. Use this time at my place to write.” She asked if I wanted to call my parents and comfort them. For some reason, my parents and in-laws were under the impression that I was sitting in a desolate corner of Ireland, covered in volcanic ash.

Cauvery’s energy carries over her family and even her animals. Even her thirteen-year old would enquire whether I was doing okay. We celebrated my husband’s birthday, while he was in San Francisco, by cutting a cake and drinking good wine at this munificent novelist’s house. This is when there was personal chaos going on in Cauvery’s life with a series of her friends and then dog falling prey to cancer. But she never once made me feel that I was an additional responsibility.

My mother always says she loves how my husband always makes himself at home, anywhere. But I am not like that. Aside from my own house and my parents’, I am rather formal. I could be dying of splitting headache, but I won’t even ask for tea unless someone offered it to me. But at Cauvery’s, I felt uninhibited. Maybe because she was so relaxed and didn’t treat me like an outsider.

Barbara Babcock, a legendary Hollywood actress and Emmy award-winner who was at the retreat asked, “Did you both get along because of the Indian roots in common or was it chemistry?” Both Cauvery and I answered simultaneously, “Chemistry.” One of the housekeepers at the retreat said to Cauvery, “You look after her like she’s your younger sister.” And you know, what Cauvery Madhavan has done for me, very few humans would. She welcomed a stranded stranger, me, in her house and not even for a moment did she or her family make me feel unwelcomed.

I am a strong believer in the adage, “Every thing happens for a reason.” I am not exactly sure what “good” came out of my changed-plans. I am still unhappy about the time I didn’t get to spend with my husband in Ireland. But I do know that I am glad to have made a new literary friend who taught me humility and benevolence. She's taught a cynical New Yorker, me, that not every stranger who says a hello is a serial killer.

In India, people believe marriages are made in heaven. But does the same hold true for friendships? I don’t know, but fate does have a role to play in bringing people together, not ethnicity. I truly believe that getting along with someone has nothing to do with their age; it’s the attitude.

AUTHOR BIO: Sweta Srivastava Vikram (www.swetavikram.com) is a multi-genre writer and marketing professional living in New York City. She is the author of an upcoming chapbook of poetry from Modern History Press, “Kaleidoscope: An Asian Journey of Colors.” Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in literary journals, online publications, and anthologies across the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, India, New Zealand, and Philippines. Sweta was recently offered a part scholarship for a workshop with the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation in San Francisco. She is a graduate of Columbia University.

E. Nina Rothe describes The Sa Dance Company's NYC performance on May 14th as "infectiously exhilarating". Her interview with the artistic director of the ensemble PAYAL KADAKIA reveals the inspiration behind the ensemble's performances and how it raises the bar for, and awareness of, Indian dance.

Watching a group of women dance in such organic unison and performing with such enthusiasm and perfect form is simply enchanting. But the beauty of Sa Dance Company - under the artistic direction of Payal Kadakia - runs deeper than their perfectly performed routines and stunningly put together women. Their deep allure lies within the uniqueness of each individual member of this dance company, their varied interpretation of the material and their distinct characters and physique.

Dance great Merce Cunningham once said "You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive. It is not for unsteady souls." I would add to his statement that a great dancer has to give him or herself completely to their art, without expecting their ego to be pampered or their pride to be soothed.

It is in fact those dancers who can make their art seem quite effortless that we, as an audience, most enjoy watching. Because hidden within those fluid, apparently simple moves lie the true artists. Devoid of the bravado that will make them seem like heroes in their jumps, or heroines in their pirouettes, the twelve women who make up the corps of the Sa Dance Company are just such magical dancers. But a word of caution: Try to replicate any of their single moves and you'll realize just how challenging their routines truly are.

The performance started with a piece titled 'I Believe' and indeed, it made me believe in a world where beauty and grace not only exist, but reign supreme! Dedicated to the dancers' mothers, with music by A.R. Rahman and Sur Madhur Productions, 'I Believe' was folk in tone but modern in execution. Piece 'Two' - by name and order - featured the dancers in a black dress and peach dupatta, to the music of various Bollywood favorites, their dancing a bit more contemporary in style. After the intermission, filmmaker Mira Nair took the stage to show her support for Payal Kadakia, the woman who taught Nair to dance a routine she performed at her niece's wedding. She gushed about the grace and talent of the company and assured that they all have "A very quick job waiting for them, when 'Monsoon Wedding' opens on Broadway, as a musical!"

In the third piece, 'A Bollywood Tale' the dancers gave Aishwarya and Madhuri Dixit a run for their money, even performing the infamous 'Dola Re Dola' from Bhansali's 'Devdas'. And, dulcis in fundo, the company closed the evening with a totally contemporary piece titled 'ID #: AIMNEDRIIACA' which not only showed a more acrobatic side to their talent but also showcased their wide dramatic range and contemporary technical abilities.

After the performance, EGO caught up with Payal Kadakia, to find out more about Sa Dance Company and the woman who founded it.

EGO: What inspired you to become a dancer?
PAYAL KADAKIA: When I was about 3 or 4 years old, I started dancing with one of my mom’s close friends. We were a group of 10 girls, and we started training in folk dancing, and began to do about 4 or 5 competitions annually. We would train in someone’s basement every other Saturday morning or so. I did that for about 10 – 15 years. Throughout, I also trained in classical forms with my dance teacher. At the same time I was watching Bollywood films, and became enamored with actresses like Madhuri Dixit. I started performing more at the entertainment side of family functions. People always told me I danced with my heart, and that I was really into the music. I would watch Madhuri Dixit over and over again...

EGO: How did Sa Dance Company come about?
PAYAL KADAKIA: A lot of the girls in Sa are girls I’ve danced with at some point or the other – either in college dance troupes, or a Bollywood dance company here in New York. Then, about a year ago, me and another dancer (Pooja Bakri) were at an outdoor dance festival. We realized that people love Indian dance so much, and we thought there has to be a more standardized way to present Indian dance. There wasn’t any place for an American person to just go and see Indian dance. Our goal became to raise the bar in presenting Indian dance to the world, and I wanted to make sure we educated people too. I was especially inspired by Alvin Ailey, whose modern dance style is influenced by his African American culture. That’s the way I want to do it for Indian dance - I want people to embrace the culture and the traditions through dance.

EGO: How would you describe the overall dancing style of Sa Dance Company?
PAYAL KADAKIA: A lot of thought has been put into this. It’s a new form of dance I would say – contemporary Indian-American dance. Yes, it’s definitely influenced by many Indian styles, especially all the folk styles; but it is also influenced by American forms that I’ve learned over time: ballet, jazz, modern. Even in terms of the songs we choose, we try to use other parts of our bodies to expand Indian movement.

EGO: What moves you most when you watch another dancer?
PAYAL KADAKIA: What moves me most is when a dancer loses themselves on stage; that’s the magic that comes. Dancers can always train in the same thing, but what really touches me is when a dancer dances from the heart. One of the number-one things that I look for is a dancer who can perform wholeheartedly; where it’s not all about technique, because that is the given; it is that X factor that makes them amazing. Luckily over time, I have met these girls through these dance experiences; they bring that to the table and that’s when I love myself.

EGO: And what are some of your pet peeves about the profession?
PAYAL KADAKIA: My pet peeve is that right now it’s very difficult to branch out, to create something new within an atmosphere because it’s very easy for people to stereotype you into a certain style. There are different companies all around that do various types of Indian dance. People have to work together to help build this Indian community. It’s all about raising standards and we need to continue working together and supporting each other, and being open-minded to what everyone has to present.

About the author: E. Nina Rothe ran her own column at Chic Today for over a year and a half where she interviewed Sooni Taraporevala, Zoya Akhtar and Liz Mermin among many others. She currently writes for AVS TV. She has just been published in Tehelka Magazine and Bespoke as well. You can find her personal writing on her blog The Ajnabee Websites: (http://theajnabee.com/)

Around school, my friends referred to my Arangetram as my “Dance Graduation.” This is a term I’ve had ambivalent feelings about..

Very often, I find women (and it is mostly women who take up the dance form here in the States) who use their Arangetram as a way of stamping and sealing their Indian identity… not just for college applications or grants, but for themselves.

EGO presents Piyali Bhattacharya's novel and informed take on the 'Arangetram' within the diaspora.

Around school, my friends referred to my Arangetram as my “Dance Graduation.” This is a term I’ve had ambivalent feelings about. Technically, the term “Arangetram” or “Ranga Pravesha” means, I believe, the “Ascension of the stage.” It is supposed to be the first time a student of Bharata Natyam performs the pieces s/he has learned for a discerning audience. It seems counter intuitive, then, to refer to such an event as a “graduation,” a word whose etymology suggests completion.

And yet, as I watch more and more students of Bharata Natyam grow up in the States and go off to college and grad school, Arangetrams seem to be becoming quite a phenomenon. Very often, I find women (and it is mostly women who take up the dance form here in the States) who use their Arangetram as a way of stamping and sealing their Indian identity… not just for college applications or grants, but for themselves. Afterwards, very few of these women go on to pursue dance in any form.

The art form of Bharata Natyam has been steadily gaining popularity since it’s revival in the 1960’s. This is true both in India and in the States. However, in the States, Bharata Natyam seems to have taken on a life of its own. It is a very visible expression of identity, and it is also an art form in which one can easily climb the ladder of progress, in a way. That is to say, you start off with a simple “thaiyya-thai” and by the end you’ve progressed to an entire repertoire of dance pieces. This is different from say, vocal music, where the measure of how much you’ve learned can be a subjective opinion on how much the quality of your voice has changed.

So I suppose it isn’t surprising that Indian parents raising their children abroad often choose Bharata Natyam as a way of giving their children a perspective on Indian culture. After all, many dance pieces are based on Hindu mythology, and I can personally say that in addition to my Bharata Natyam training, I also learned a lot about Hinduism, spirituality, and the relationship between Guru and student, or Guru-Shishya Parampara, during my lessons. But I think something about the quality of Arangetrams that happen in the States is still inherently different from those that are more traditional.

To further investigate the issue, I talked to Bharata Natyam, Bollywood, Jazz, Tap and Modern Dancer Shivani Thakkar. Thakkar’s own mother was her Bharata Natyam teacher, and after attending USC and getting her degree in Theatre studies, Shivani has dedicated her life to learning and teaching Indian and fusion dance forms. This is what she had to say about Arangetrams in the west:
"I do agree that many young girls in the US and Canada pursue Bharata Natyam and the completion of their Arangetram to connect with their culture and feel a sense of identification with their Indian roots. My mom teaches in Canada and I have seen so many of her students work diligently up to their Arangetram and then stop dancing all together. Ironically, many of my mom's students who have continued pursuing the second and third level courses have been mainstream American or Canadian girls who are not Indian at all."

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with pursuing Bharata Natyam as a way of getting closer to your roots! This is exactly the reason my parents enrolled me in dance lessons at a young age, and it was in my dance school that I found a community of women to connect with through tough years in high school. Yet, I find it very interesting and not surprising that Thakkar’s Guruji’s advanced students are often not ethnically Indian, and that those who are use their Arangetrams to bolster their Indian upbringings.

I should say that I am not at all exempt from this. I’ve kept up with dance maybe more than many of my American Desi counterparts, starting a dance team and a Bharata Natyam workshop at my college. But I certainly haven’t pursued dance professionally. And obviously, just because you’ve had an Arangetram doesn’t mean you are mandated to go for a PhD in Bharata Natyam! I’m also not suggesting that the way the tradition of Arangetram has developed in the west is offensive. I loved having my entire high school in attendance at my ceremony, and photos from that day are priceless to me. Rather, I’m suggesting that even if after our Arangetrams we never put on our ghungroos again, we take a step back and think about what Arangetrams in this country have come to mean… and maybe reconsider referring to them or thinking of them as a kind of graduation, or as proof of Indian identity. Of course Bharata Natyam contributes to our Indianness, and by all means we should go ahead and have a big Arangetrams. But maybe we should keep in mind that a splashy celebration is fine, but the quality of belonging to a particular race or culture is inside of us, not reflected in an ornate invitation card.

Do you agree with Piyali’s take on Arangetrams in the West? Email her at egofemme@egothemag.com or leave a comment on the facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=225372522449&ref=ts

About the author:
Piyali Bhattacharya is an American-born Desi writer who contributes pieces about South Asian American Feminisms to EGO every fortnight. Please send comments to her at EGOfemme@egothemag.com or to EGO at info@egothemag.com

Image courtesy of Deviantart

WHEN: Saturday, May 1, 2010
WHERE: SAYA! Center, 54-05 Seabury Street, Elmhurst, NY

South Asian Youth Action (SAYA!) founded in 1996 with the mission to create social change and opportunities for South Asian youth to realize their fullest potential. It offers academic support, leadership development and athletic activities to low-income South Asian youth ages 5 to 19.

WHEN: Saturday, May 1, 2010
WHERE: SAYA! Center, 54-05 Seabury Street, Elmhurst, NY

The tournament will consist of 12 youth and volunteer three-player teams. Last year’s event drew nearly 100 local youth and community members.

The Hoops for Hope Basketball Tournament was created by both a Muslim and a Hindu SAYA! volunteer to demonstrate the solidarity of South Asian Americans in response to the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India.

The tournament is organized by SAYA!’s Young Professionals Action Council, a group of South Asian professionals who donate their time and organize other South Asian professionals to support SAYA!.

Donut Plant will donate food for the event, and Sae-a will print free t-shirts for all the players. The t-shirts will display a logo designed by a youth and selected from SAYA!’s logo design competition.

SAYA! was founded in 1996 with the mission to create social change and opportunities for South Asian youth to realize their fullest potential. It offers academic support, leadership development and athletic activities to low-income South Asian youth ages 5 to 19. Through its center and programs in five Queens public schools, SAYA! serves nearly 600 youth each academic year.

Wednesdays at 7:00 p.m.
Box Office: 212.620.5000 ext. 344
Online tickets: http://www.rmanyc.org/out
RMA members receive up to 25% discount on tickets

EGO Magazine is the proud media sponsor of OUT in the Himalayas.

Wednesdays at 7:00 p.m.
Box Office: 212.620.5000 ext. 344
Online tickets: http://www.rmanyc.org/out
RMA members receive up to 25% discount on tickets




Wednesday June 2, 2010 at 7:00 PM
A Buddhist Perspective on Homosexuality
$20

Jeffrey Hopkins, Buddhist scholar and author of Sex, Orgasm, and the Mind of Clear Light: The Sixty-four Arts of Gay Male Love, charts a personal course as a gay man in a Buddhist world.

Jeffrey Hopkins is Professor Emeritus of Tibetan Buddhist Studies at the University of Virginia where he taught Tibetan Buddhist Studies and Tibetan language for thirty-two years from 1973. He received a B.A. magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1963, trained for five years at the Lamaist Buddhist Monastery of America in Freewood Acres, New Jersey, and received a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from the University of Wisconsin in 1973. He served as His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s chief interpreter into English on lecture tours 1979-1989. At the University of Virginia he founded programs in Buddhist Studies and Tibetan Studies and served as Director of the Center for South Asian Studies for twelve years. He has published forty books (which have appeared in twenty-two languages), including edited translations of fourteen books by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the latest being How to See Yourself as You Really Are and Becoming Enlightened. In 1999 he published The Art of Peace: Nobel Peace Laureates Discuss Human Rights, Conflict and Reconciliation, edited from a conference of Nobel peace laureates that he organized in 1998 for the University of Virginia and the Institute for Asian Democracy. In 1992 he published a translation and analysis of Gedün Chöpel’s Tibetan Arts of Love which in 1998 he adapted as Sex, Orgasm, and the Mind of Clear Light: The Sixty-four Arts of Gay Male Love. Hopkins was born in Barrington, Rhode Island, and has received three Fulbright Fellowships.

Wednesday June 9, 2010 at 7:00 PM
Lesbians of Yunnan
$15

Featuring a film-in-progress Ma & Yi by visual anthropologist Liu Yi, this program explores minorities-within-minorities in the Himalayan foothills of China.

The lush province of Yunnan boasts a startling biodiversity as well as having the highest concentration of ethnic and cultural groups in the whole of China. Ma and Yi are lovers. Yi is of the Yi – an ethnic group once predominantly animist. Her girlfriend Ma is Hui, and a Muslim. The once-large Muslim population came about when Chinese converts fled the cities of the southeast coast of China to escape persecution. Liu Yi’s film looks at the relationship of two young women in a country whose official stance on same-sex relationships seems to be “no approval, no disapproval, and no promotion.” Ma and Yi’s college friends are now all getting married, and the two young women long for a wedding ceremony of their own. The film documents their reaction to and reception at the weddings of their Muslim friends.

The visual anthropologist Liu Yi has lived, studied and worked extensively in China, Switzerland, Scotland, Germany and Liberia during the last decade. She is now based at the East Asian Institute of Visual Anthropology at Yunnan University with particular focus on minority populations in Yunnan, notably a Chinese Thai village and young Chinese Muslims.

Wednesday June 16, 2010 at 7:00PM
Hijras: the “Third Gender” in Pakistan
$20
Guru Hijra Bobby and Chicago-based poet and Pakistan News editor Ifti Nasim will engage in a dialogue about living as a member of the ‘third gender’ in the Moslem state of Pakistan.

On the bottom rungs of Pakistan's social ladder, the eunuch-transvestites or "Hijras" scrape out a hard existence. Historically Hijras were members of the Mughal Empire court. Nowadays, Hijras earn their living as beggars, dancers and prostitutes. Though often reported on in India, the Hijras of Pakistan are relatively unknown outside of that country. Most Pakistani cities have sizable Hijra communities, divided into clan groups living mostly in slums and presided over by a leader or guru. Hijra means hermaphrodite in Urdu, but most Hijras are homosexual transvestites, some of whom have gone through a crude sex-change operation. The Hijras are both feared and pitied in Pakistan, feared for their supposed ability to place curses, pitied for being outcast children of Allah. Most Hijras leave or are ejected from traditional Pakistani families around puberty and then join the Hijra community for life. Many have also reported that Hijras will kidnap young men, forcibly castrate them and force them into prostitution, gaining income for the community. More Hijras, however, earn their living by begging, and by dancing at carnivals, weddings and births. To provide a living detail of the Hijra experience will be Syed Ghulam Abbas, better-known as “Bobby.” Sharing the stage will be Ifti Nassim, Chicago-based poet and inductee to the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame.

Wednesday June 23, 2010 at 7:00 PM
Sex and Gender in Buddhist Monasticism
$15
A talk by Janet Gyatso, Harvard University Divinity School's first Hershey Professor of Buddhist Studies

Janet Gyatso is a specialist in Buddhist studies with concentration on Tibetan and South Asian religious culture and is Harvard University Divinity School's first Hershey Professor of Buddhist Studies. Her books include Apparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies of a Tibetan Visionary; In the Mirror of Memory: Reflections on Mindfulness and Remembrance in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism; and Women of Tibet. Her current book project is on traditional medical science in Tibet, its relation to modernity, and its relation to Buddhism. She has also been writing on conceptions of sex and gender in Buddhist monasticism, and on the current female ordination movement in Buddhism. Previous topics of her scholarship have included visionary revelation in Buddhism; issues concerning lineage, memory, and authorship; philosophical questions on the status of experience; and autobiographical writing in Tibet. Professor Gyatso was president of the International Association of Tibetan Studies from 2000 to 2006, and is now co-chair of the Buddhism Section of the American Academy of Religion. She teaches lecture courses and advanced seminars on Buddhist history, ritual, and ideas, and on Tibetan literary practices and religious history. In both teaching and writing she draws on cultural and literary theory, and is concerned to widen the spectrum of intellectual resource for the understanding and interpretation of Buddhist history. She leads an ongoing reading group for graduate students in Buddhist studies, and is the faculty director of the Buddhist Studies Forum. She is currently the director of Graduate Studies in the Committee on the Study of Religion, and is also a member of the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations as well as the Committee on Inner Asian and Altaic Studies. She has chaired the Committee for the Study of Women and Gender, and is leading the development of a new track for the training of Buddhist lay ministers and leaders in the master of divinity program at the Divinity School.

Wednesday June 30th, 2010 at 7:00 PM
Will Gay Marriage be Adopted in the World’s Youngest Democracy, Nepal?
$15
Sunil Pant, the first openly gay Nepali parliamentarian, is not satisfied with that achievement: he aims to make Nepal flourish through “pink tourism” and be the first Asian nation to adopt equal marriage rights for gays and lesbians. Here he talks about the hurdles that face him and his Blue Diamond Society.

On April 10, 2008, Sunil Babu Pant secured one of the five seats won by the Communist Party of Nepal (United) in the 601-seat assembly. In the previous year he had petitioned Nepal’s Supreme Court to demand the defense and legal protection of human rights of sexual and gender minorities and the abolition of all discriminatory laws and policies. The Court ruling was a indication of Nepal’s radical political change: it declared that sexual minorities were ‘natural persons’ deserving of protection against discrimination and ordered the government to come up with legislation guaranteeing civil rights for homosexuals. A government commission was also to be established to study legalization of same-sex marriage, and to make official documents such as identification cards and passports include a third option for a person's gender.

OUT in the Himalayas is presented with support from the Arcus Foundation.

EGO Magazine is the media sponsor of OUT in the Himalayas.

RUBIN MUSEUM OF ART presents the launch of Fawzia Afzal-Khan’s autobiography Lahore with Love: Growing up with girlfriends, Pakistani-style

Wednesday, April 21
7:00 PM $15
*includes admission to all museum exhibitions before the program.

An evening of film, dramatic readings and musical performance
with Richard Marriott, winds and arrangements Eyal Maoz, guitar
John Hadfield, percussion Fawzia Afzal-Khan, Vocals and Harmonium

RUBIN MUSEUM OF ART
150 WEST 17 STREET, NEW YORK CITY
www.rmanyc.org

Wednesday, April 21
7:00 PM $15
*includes admission to all museum exhibitions before the program.

An evening of film, dramatic readings and musical performance
with Richard Marriott, winds and arrangements Eyal Maoz, guitar
John Hadfield, percussion Fawzia Afzal-Khan, Vocals and Harmonium

RUBIN MUSEUM OF ART
150 WEST 17 STREET, NEW YORK CITY
www.rmanyc.org

Fawzia Afzal-Khan’s memoir of childhood in Pakistan weaves together memory and desire to create a tale that is marvelously compelling and endlessly entertaining, at once poignantly personal and richly political. . . . Readers of this book will inevitably be reminded of the work of Anais Nin, and this is a major achievement.
—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University

For women growing up in Pakistan’s patriarchal, segregated society, it is not surprising that female friendships take on a deep, enduring resonance. Yet what happens to these friendships? Hajira gives up art in deference to her husband’s success and later, at a dinner party, shoots herself. Saira marries a medical student when she is eighteen, has three children, lives through her husband’s affairs, and has a nervous breakdown. Madina, aggressive and foul-mouthed, abuses her husband and competes with Afzal-Khan in the theater and romantically. Samina’s body is found on a bench in the garden of a hospital, a suspected ‘honor killing’ by her brothers.

In Lahore with Love, Afzal-Khan shares intimate stories of these young girls, and later women, celebrating the strong bonds that helped shape her character. She balances this coming-of-age memoir with a clear-eyed look at a country that evokes both fierce loyalty and utter despair from its inhabitants. The author recalls growing up in the sixties and seventies in Lahore, living in a time of war, attending a Roman Catholic school as a Muslim middle-class teenager, and enduring the constant political upheaval that threatened her freedoms. Afzal-Khan eventually leaves Lahore and moves to the United States to pursue her Ph.D. She recounts the complex mix of longing and alienation that she feels upon returning to visit her homeland and friends.

Fawzia Afzal-Khan is University Distinguished Scholar, professor of English and director of Women and Gender Studies at Montclair State University in New Jersey. She is a published poet and playwright. Her books include Cultural Imperialism and the Indo-English Novel and A Critical Stage: The Role of Secular Alternative Theatre in Pakistan. She is the coeditor of Shattering the Stereotypes: Muslim Women Speak Out and The Pre-occupation of Postcolonial Studies.

From Bollywood to West Hollywood she has the latest make-up trends covered.

Her New York city practice caters to urban ‘desi’ brides, women with an edge and ‘fashionistas’ alike.

Check out http://www.soniamansoor.com and prepare for your journey towards transformation.

Pakistani born New Yorker Sonia Mansoor’s passion for color became evident early on. She dabbled in painting at the New School and was then inspired to transform this passion into a professional make-up practice catering to a varied clientele comprising urban ‘desi’ brides, women with an edge and ‘fashionistas’ alike.

Sonia’s skin care and preparation routine enhances your natural radiance rendering the skin flawless.

From Bollywood to West Hollywood she has the latest make-up trends covered.

She offers a variety of make-up styles including
* Bridal Make-Up
* Beauty and Natural
* Evening
* Special Occasion
* Fashion/Glamor/Editorial
* Runway
* Film and TV
* Headshot Make-Up
* Men’s Grooming
* Air Brushing

Sonia is certified in the New York State Fundamentals of Beauty Make-Up by the Carsten-Aveda Institute and has also trained at MAC and the Elizabeth Arden Red Door Salon.

Tucked away in her centrally located Manhattan make-up studio, Sonia creates her signature dramatic and glamorous looks by appointment only. She uses top of the line international brands like Lancôme, NARS, MAC, Urban Decay, Estee Lauder, Elizabeth Arden and Aveda, including their mineral make-up products, as well as TEMPTU air brush line.

Check out http://www.soniamansoor.com and prepare for your journey towards transformation.

A celebration for a cause - it doesn't get much better than that. Star writer E. Nina Rothe shares this unique confluence of culture and giving with EGO readers.

To all the naysayers this serves as a moment to pause and take notice because the world moves forward and bigotry is neanderthal.

To all the naysayers this serves as a moment to pause and take notice because the world moves forward and bigotry already seems neanderthal.

It is an undeniable fact that those of us who are lucky enough to call the USA home are living in a land that is civilized, culture-friendly and way ahead of most of the world in terms of democracy and human rights. Yet same-sex marriages are only currently granted legal licenses in five states, one federal district and one Native American tribe. Another three states, including New York, recognize the union but do not grant the same-sex couple a legal license. And on the unrelenting side of the argument, more than thirty-five states have adopted statuses banning gay marriage. Those statistics are both shocking and surprising, considering the freedom we so often take for granted living on this side of the world. Doesn't 'One Nation indivisible with Liberty and Justice for all' apply to everyone? Apparently not. We indeed stand divided when it comes to our definition of 'Marriage'.

On Thursday, March 25th, I was privy to a bit of history in the making when I witnessed two women, Priyanka and Lisa, get married in NYC, during a traditional Indian wedding ceremony complete with Mehndi, Dandiya and a bride adorned in red and gold. And the festivities were celebrated under the auspicious watch of the Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office and its Executive Director Bruce F. Knotts. Of his involvement in the affair, Knotts said "Mangalam, the Bollywood wedding, was perhaps the most enjoyable evening we've had since arriving in New York in 2007. The crowd was diverse and everyone got into the color, music and vibrant energy of South Asia. Funds raised go for a good cause to empower the Queen Mothers of the Manye Krobo people in Ghana, to educate and provide heath care to children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. This part of Ghana has experienced the highest HIV infection rate in the country. We were happy to bring this worthwhile project to an entirely new audience. It was a spectacular evening made even better by promoting an important humanitarian cause to educate children orphaned by HIV/AIDS."

About the UU-UNO, Knotts continued "It is also important to note the historic work of the UU-UNO to end all criminal sanctions based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The fact that this Bollywood wedding was between two women emphasized in a very fun and non-confrontational way that same-gender loving people are morally equivalent to opposite-gender loving people. Massachusetts, the American state with the longest history of same-sex marriage, also has the lowest divorce rate, which shows that support for marriage equality strengthens the institution of marriage for everyone."

And when I asked him about his own personal journey to the UU-UNO he confided "I retired from the U.S. Department of State in 2007 due to discrimination based on my sexual orientation. My career was going nowhere after 25 years of award winning service to my country: awards such as awards for heroism, superior honor, meritorious honor and more. I wanted to make a difference and make this world safer and better for everyone. I work for a safe and dignified life for all. The Unitarian Universalist UN Office gives me the chance to really make a difference in the world. We have changed history at the UN by being the only faith-based voice advocating for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Human Rights at the UN. I am proud to be the UU-UNO Executive Director."

The momentous ceremony, between two people who have been fortunate to find love in each other and are obviously supported in their union by their friends and loved ones, was conducted by Bangladeshi comedian Aladdin Ullah, who handled the affair in his typically humorous flair. The music was courtesy of Bombay's beloved DJ Ash and featured a fantastic belly-dancing performance by the gracefully petite Turkish dancer Chilaires.

The driving force behind Mangalam and this movement that has only just begun to open people's hearts while enlightening their minds, is NYC-based jewelry designer Niraj Parekh. No stranger to discrimination and persecution on the basis of sexual orientation himself, Parekh was granted asylum in the US after being driven out of his native India because of his sexuality. For those of you who may not be familiar with it, it's all about a law by the name of Section 377, which has been in the books since the colonial days of the British and criminalizes homosexual love as 'unnatural sex'.

When I asked Parekh what his inspiration was for organizing Mangalam, he candidly answered "Most of us come to the US to better our economic conditions or escape oppression from repressed societies. Living with guilt for many years - after having been prosecuted in Orissa, India for living an "Unnatural Lifestyle" - was a nightmare for me. Right after being granted asylum here in the US, the first job I ever applied for was at UU-UNO. Meeting Bruce Knotts and learning more about his organization was like therapy. It gave me the strength to not only fight my own oppression but also help the oppressed. I'm blessed with the creative talent of making jewelry and that helps me to participate in my true passion to see this change through."

Parekh continued "Mangalam was meant as a party to celebrate life. While many countries still prosecute homosexual acts, here we celebrated a same-sex wedding. It just proves that love, laughter and fun form the true essence of life. It feels great that while we celebrated here, we could also provide for children in Africa with food and education. After all, they are the future."

In the words of Bruce Knotts "Love is love, no matter the gender. People caring and loving each other is good for society at large and should be encouraged by all of us." Indeed, there is no right or wrong way to love, it's a feeling as natural as fear which appears to be the driving force behind those who are unmovable and antiquated in their views of what the institution of marriage represents.

About the author: E. Nina Rothe ran her own column at Chic Today for over a year and a half where she interviewed Sooni Taraporevala, Zoya Akhtar and Liz Mermin among many others. She currently writes for AVS TV. She has just been published in Tehelka Magazine and Bespoke as well. You can find her personal writing on her blog The Ajnabee Websites: (http://theajnabee.com/)

Piyali Bhattacharya gives us a compelling insight into how hair is interlocked with a 'desi' woman's identity.

Since I hit puberty, my hair has been falling out. There’s no explanation why. There was no indication I wouldn’t grow up to have a thick braid when I was a girl. But there’s no denying it. I do not have famous Sharmila Tagore hair. For years I watched as my long strands swirled down the drain during my showers and tangled tightly into my hairbrushes while blow-drying. Luckily, I had incredibly thick hair as a child, so I’m not left with nothing now. Still, hair (and lack thereof) has always been something of a discussion point among the women in my family.

So it’s got me thinking: what is it with South Asian women and the idea of “Lambe, Ghane Baal?” I suppose it’s true that there’s isn’t a female in the world who wouldn’t want “Long, Thick Hair.” But still, there seems to be a particular fascination in the Desi community with women having cascading tresses that they might twist into a sexy bun. I grew up watching ads for Indian shampoos promising gorgeous texture and length. They assured me that no matter what my figure, smoothing out my sari and letting down my long, thick hair after a tough day in the kitchen would immediately draw my husband to me. These images were only reinforced by Bollywood heroines whose khopas1 were piled high atop their heads, often resembling beehives.

And let’s not forget the Golden Rule: You don’t have good Desi hair if it’s not straight as a pin. All you ladies with gorgeous curls, thick as they may be: I’m sorry, but you might as well hail from a different continent. According to the rulebook for How To Be A Good South Asian Woman, your lambe, ghane baal should be able to be used as a tape measure. Mine, unfortunately, hardly brushes my shoulders (this after a period of having it shorn to shreds), and takes on ungovernable waves if I let it air-dry.

An aunty once told me that all Bengali girls have three traits: they can sing, they can dance, and they have gorgeous hair. Does it count if I’ve got two out of three? Or do I not make it to the Jamini Roy definition of a Bengali woman (http://images.artnet.com/artwork_images_1058_330808_jamini-roy.jpg) if I can’t wrap my hair around my waist?

When I was in college, I went through a phase where my hair was shorter than most of the boys I knew. This did not, I should mention, mean that my look wasn’t feminine. Sometimes I think I’d like to go back to that style. But I can’t deny the fact that when my hair was that short, my identity as a South Asian woman was consistently questioned. People would look at me and immediately assume that I was some sort of “other.” And I suppose that’s just fine. In my own mind, I “other” myself constantly. But, while getting ready for my upcoming wedding, I’ve been flipping through Desi bridal magazines and sifting through pictures of my parents’ wedding, and it has made me subconsciously feel that if I can’t make an adequate khopa at my own shaadi, maybe I won’t be a “real” Indian bride?

This, of course, has thrown me down a rabbit hole of self-reflection and navel gazing. All these questions suddenly fog the windows of my clichéd identity crisis: What does it mean to be a “real” Indian bride? Is it something that I want to be anyway? What does having long, black hair have to do with being South Asian at all?

I won’t spend too much time boring you with the answers to these queries, but I will tell you that while I may have questions about what the length and thickness of my hair says about my identity, I’m pretty sure it won’t be too long before I chop the whole crop off all over again.

1 Khopa is the Bengali word for a bun.

About the author:
Piyali Bhattacharya is an American-born Desi writer who contributes pieces about South Asian American Feminisms to EGO every fortnight. Please send comments to her at EGOfemme@egothemag.com or to EGO at info@egothemag.com

EGO presents, resident feminist columnist, Piyali Bhattacharya's take on V-Day (i.e.: Valentines day in feminist speak) through the lens of Eve Ensler's famous (or perhaps infamous ?), 'The Vagina Monologues'.

Last year for V-Day, I directed 'The Vagina Monologues' at the University of London. I’ve been a part of the production before, either behind the scenes or just helping raise awareness and funds. But directing it is a completely different experience, and one that required me to constantly challenge my preconceived notions of what V-Day meant to different people. More importantly, it challenged my expectations of the ways in which power is manifested or spoken.

Directing a non-American production of the play, I found that things that I had taken for granted in my college versions of the show were totally changing. For example, one might say that the monologue called “My Angry Vagina” was probably written for an American woman with a lot of attitude. But the friend of mine who performed it was African-British, and the way she delivered it blew my mind. She spoke the same words that I had seen performed so many times before, and even though she expressed her anger, she was gentle. She was vulnerable and funny in a way that only the English can be, and she was not at all in-your-face in the way that monologue is often performed. I realized through her performance that “anger” doesn’t necessarily have to equal “screaming.” Of course, this was something I was aware of before, but it wasn’t until she spoke those angry words with such grace that I realized how it could be done. Even though I was technically directing the show, in a lot of ways for that particular monologue, my friend directed my anger with patriarchy through new channels.

Since last year’s performance, I’ve been thinking about how a play like 'The Vagina Monologues' or a movement like the V-Day movement applies to us Desi women, and graceful ways in which we might direct our anger against the injustices that surround us. On the one hand, there’s crazy Eve Ensler, shipping out to Pakistan every chance she gets and decrying the value of the burkha. Problematic to be sure, as is almost anything else she writes, including The Vagina Monologues. But on the other hand, there’s V-Day, and the beautiful thought behind it… a movement that Ensler entirely birthed and raised.

So what is V-Day? According to Ensler’s website, VDay.org, V-Day is a global movement to stop violence against women and girls. It generates broader attention for the fight to stop violence against women and girls, including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM) and sexual slavery. The “V” in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina.

So for V-Day and beyond this year, I encourage you to do what Ensler hopes we will all do: find a Desi women’s center near you, or go online to check out the ones that are specific to Desi women that aren’t local.

For me personally, I’m probably never going to make the sacrifice to take a year or two out of my busy life and go teach a group of girls in an Indian village how to read. But maybe if I support programs like the V-Day movement, or other organizations like The Girl Effect (girleffect.org) or even just a local women’s shelter, I’ll have done my bit.

About the author:
Piyali Bhattacharya is an American-born Desi writer who contributes pieces about South Asian American Feminisms to EGO every fortnight. Please send comments to her at EGOfemme@egothemag.com or to EGO at info@egothemag.com

Images: http://www.plgart.com/Quisgard/QuisgardFrameset.htm

So what does the movie have to offer?

The story is simple enough. A man travels across the US hoping to deliver a message. That message? Also simple - “My name is Khan. And I am not a terrorist.”
The reason? The oldest in the world – love.
The complication? He suffers from Asperger's Syndrome.
The journey is a personal quest but this simple, endearing man manages to connect with people in a unique way even as we learn more about why and how he started on this quest.

So what does the movie have to offer?

The story is simple enough. A man travels across the US hoping to deliver a message. That message? Also simple - “My name is Khan. And I am not a terrorist.”
The reason? The oldest in the world – love.
The complication? He suffers from Asperger Syndrome.
The journey is a personal quest but this simple, endearing man manages to connect with people in a unique way even as we learn more about why and how he started on this quest.

SRK is mind blowing as Rizvan Khan. He surpasses anything one could have expected. Of course, perhaps it’s following the recent spate of teenage horrors movies and shows (think Twilight) or just the Om Shanti Om, Main Hoon Na and Devdas expectations. You walk out feeling like it would be impossible for any other Hindi Cinema actor to manage the role better or even as well! But then you realize that that’s not true. Shahrukh Khan has just made this movie so entirely his that trying to picture Aamir Khan or Hrithik Roshan from the mainstream heroes seems wrong, as does Naseeruddin Shah or Nana Patekar from the Art scene. In the same way, even though his co-star Kajol Devgan had a great role and was moving as usual, one mostly remembers Shahrukh Khan.

The use of the US as a backdrop is not just that - the political situations (let’s not put huge spoilers here!), the effects of 9/11, the social injustices - everything is depicted as it is. The dialogues and situations ring true. Every actor does a terrific job. The scenes are breathtaking and real in a way one doesn't always have in Bollywood-connected movies. Karan Johar has directed a truly world-class product.

Some tiny issues? There are a few interesting references that seem to better fit the UK- e.g. they use the word “Paki” as a derogatory for a Pakistani/South Asian, soccer in San Francisco plays a role in the story and there is a reference to Manchester United, to mention three.

Biggest disappointment? The President could have looked more like the President :-(

Bottom line? SRK, you make MNiK rock!

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a non-conformist, any which way you look at it. The former Somali-Dutch politician's story is one that called for self-reinvention. EGO contributor, E. Nina Rothe writes about Ayaan Hirsi Ali's indomitable presence at the Durbar Hall.

At the recently concluded Jaipur Literature Festival, an annual event organized by writer William Dalrymple and an insightful five-day journey through the literary world, Ayaan Hirsi Ali made an unannounced stop to speak about her book 'Infidel' and her views on Islam. The Somalian-born filmmaker and author was accompanied by her ever-present bodyguard, the result of the Fatwa issued against her. It was a Sunday morning surprise, during a particularly session-busy time at the literary festival, but I made sure to attend.

Hirsi Ali is no stranger to controversy, whether she is writing, speaking, being a politician or simply dating. She wrote the script of a film which cost Theo van Gogh his life, then became a Dutch Member of Parliament, only to resign from the position because of statements she made while seeking asylum in the Netherlands. Lately, she's been in the news for contributing to the break-up of the marriage between neo-conservative historian Niall Ferguson and his wife Susan Douglas. Ferguson and Hirsi Ali met last year in NYC and were even photographed kissing at the JLF, which might have accelerated Ferguson's divorce decision.

But regardless of her personal life, it is undeniable that Hirsi Ali is a figure both provocative and controversial and her voice is one that whether we agree with her or not, needs to be heard. She has a physical presence that is impossible to ignore: tall, lean and simply dressed, with just a stitch of make-up and pulled back hair. Her voice is at once feminine and authoritative. And she certainly did not hold back during her talk, which was moderated by Tehelka's editor Shoma Chaudhuri and held in the beautiful Durbar Hall inside the grounds of Diggi Palace, the festival's home since its beginnings.

In her teenage years, Hirsi Ali admitted to having supported the Fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie but now sees the irony in having to live in a similar way. From an early age, she followed what she called a kind of 'Amulet Islam', more of a moderate form of the religion but noticed a definite shift in Somalia, right around 1985. Faith became like an 'inner Jihad' whereas before then 'we were all Muslims and we took it for granted' she said. After this change, the religion 'made you a member of a group, gave you a common objective. You got points for the life in the Thereafter' she continued.

When Chaudhuri questioned her complete repudiation of Islam, instead of going back to a more moderate form of the religion, Hirsi Ali answered that 'those who take the religion in its most militant form, who have interests in spreading Islam, they have shut down the conversation. Just doubting makes you a traitor or an infidel' and continued that 'Western values are incompatible with Islam, where men and women are NOT equal and gay individuals should be killed.'

As a whole, she pointed out that moderate Muslims are regarded as people who have discarded Islam and she advised that reform within the religion would only be possible when the idea that Islam is not perfect could be widely accepted by its followers and clerics.

Hirsi Ali pointed to the fact that 'Christian and Jewish fundamentalists are highly criticized and cartooned' and yet Islamic fundamentalists are avoided as a way to appease, to avoid provocation. She asked 'Can you have a conversation about Islam in any language where you will not offend Muslims?' and continued 'If you touch on the Qu'ran or the sayings of the Prophet Mohammed you will offend Muslims.'

Of course, as far as organized world religions go, Islam is the youngest of the lot. If we look back at Christianity in the 1400, there were two Popes and an Antipope, so from a simply chronological point of view, we could say that Islam is exactly where it should be, treading through its own Middle Ages. Granted, it is difficult to begin the dialogue with a religious faction that simply does not recognize a need for a more moderate version of its doctrines. But is it also possible that a fervent feminist like Hirsi Ali, who has experienced displacement and fear as a result of her beliefs, can stop seeing things multi-dimensionally and perhaps become guilty of a bit of what she so despises in her fundamentalist counterparts?

While the conversation inside Durbar Hall did not exactly present a solution for world peace, it did enlighten those in attendance to the views and opinions of a woman who simply cannot go unnoticed.

About the author: E. Nina Rothe ran her own column at Chic Today for over a year and a half where she interviewed Sooni Taraporevala, Zoya Akhtar and Liz Mermin among many others. She currently writes for AVS TV. She has just been published in Tehelka Magazine and Bespoke as well. You can find her personal writing on her blog The Ajnabee Websites: (http://theajnabee.com/)