india currents - october 2015

by Gautam Banerjee

october 2015 • vol. 29 , no .7 • www. indiacurrents.com

The dying art of clay idol modeling

The Skinny on a Low Carb, High Fat Dietby Ashok Jethanandani

The Call of Qawwaliby Priya Das

Grief and Costcoby Nirupama Vaidyanathan

Celebrating 29 Years of Excellence

Living ClayWithLiving ClayWith

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2 | INDIA CURRENTS | Northern California October 2015

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The Big, Fat Indian American Stereotype“Sanjay is sensitive about being from

India, and he thinks it’s a cliche that a guy with his name runs a start-up in Palo Alto.” I quote from Adam Johnson’s recently released collection of stories, For-tune Smiles. In the story, “Nirvana,” the character Sanjay has a Stanford MBA and is vaguely embarrassed to draw attention to his culture, so he uses the initials SJ to refer to himself. The inference here is that Indian names are so tough to pronounce that something as safe and generic as a couple of initials would serve to hide the western inability to pronounce Indian names, or the tinge of discomfort that Indian Americans often must face when announcing our last names, or even our first names.

When western writers attempt to make sense of the Indian American élan vital, most of the time, they resort to what is generally and stereotypically known about the community.

I consider Adam Johnson one of the most brilliant writers of our times. His Pulitzer winning novel The Orphan Mas-ter’s Son was executed with such deliberate sleight of hand as to require at least two readings to fully grasp the extent of his genius. Yet, here he is, perpetuating the big, fat Indian American stereotype, and admitting to doing so. For a writer who is known for building nuanced characters, poor Sanjay is as un-nuanced as Anna the admin or vodka drinking Olga.

It used to be that the Indian Ameri-can cliché was all too visible on our blue screens. We saw it in The Big Bang Theory, where astrophysicist Raj Koothrappali ap-peared painfully socially awkward—a nerd with poor social skills. We saw it in The Simpsons, where Apu Nahasapeemapeti-lon had a Ph.D in computer science and worked at Kwik-E-Mart—a nerd with an unpronounceable last name working at a convenience store.

This reminds me of the time, in 2006, Joe Biden quipped “you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin Donuts without a slight Indian accent … I’m not joking.”

These days, though, television has been steadily evolving and viewers have been introduced to some originality and diversity with complex characterizations of Indians, with Archie Panjabi, a private investigator, on The Good Wife; Mindy

Kaling on the The Mindy Project; Dev Pa-tel on The Newsroom, Aziz Ansari on Parks and Recreations, and a host of others.

While I admit that the Indian Ameri-can stereotype is largely positive—hard-working, educationally inclined, entrepre-neurial—the one-size-fits all aspect of even positive stereotypes is exasperating.

In a study titled “When is a Compli-ment Not a Compliment?” published in the Journal of Experimental Social Pyschol-ogy, Alexander Czopp revealed his find-ings that even positive stereotypes can have harmful effects. In the study, “Black participants evaluated a White student who praised the athletic ability of African Americans more negatively than a control condition.” Both white and black partici-pants found the white speaker equally like-able before the stereotype was introduced, but with the positive endorsement of blacks, black participants (and not white participants) found the speaker prejudiced and less appealing.

The groupthink of stereotypes advanc-es perceptions of our communities that are insipid, unimaginative, and sometimes

misleading. It is the very reason why, if our children don’t aspire to Harvard or Yale, many of us believe that we’ve failed as parents, for “look at Rajeev’s children, or Sonia’s or Ashok’s. We must have done something wrong.”

Certainly, as the story progressed, Johnson introduced other interesting fac-ets to Sanjay aka SJ’s character. “About once a month, Sanjay gets homesick and cooks litti chokha for everyone at work. He plays Sharda Sinha songs and gets this look in his eyes like he’s back in Bihar, land of peepal trees and roller birds.” As part of a psychological portrait, those particulars are admirable. So, kudos to Johnson, even though these are details that are piled on top of a cliched premise.

Does this mean that only Indian Amer-ican writers can frame truly dimensional Indian American characters? To know an Indian American do you have to be an Indian American?

Jaya Padmanabhan, Editor

4 | INDIA CURRENTS | Northern California October 2015

INDIA CURRENTSPERSPECTIVES Northern California Edition

www.indiacurrents.com

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October 2015 • vol 29 • no 7

3 | EDITORIALThe Big, Fat Indian American StereotypeBy Jaya Padmanabhan

7 | WORDS AND THINGSChasing the Dissertation MouseBy Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan

8 | OPINIONWelcome to the Gandhi CenterBy Ranjani Iyer Mohan

9 | COMMENTARYGrief and CostcoBy Nirupama Vaidyanathan

26 | EDUCATIONLiberate that Engineering DegreeBy Shivakumar Ramanty

44 | PERSPECTIVEHow I Keep Busy After My Youngest Flew the CoopBy Hema Alur Kundargi

60 | FICTIONBrinkBy Tanvi Chawla Buch

108 | ON INGLISHHey, I Need Cash!By Kalpana Mohan

110 | THE LAST WORDAnnoyed by the Self-help Cult? You Are Not AloneBy Sarita Sarvate

LIFESTYLE

76 | Cultural Calendar

88 | Spiritual Calendar

20 | BOOKSReviews of The Man Who Wasn’t There, Being Mortal, Mango Cheeks, and Metal TeethBy Vidya Pradhan, Rajesh C. Oza, Melanie P. Kumar

28 | RELATIONSHIP DIVA Four Types of Men to Avoid DatingBy Jasbina Ahluwalia

34 | INVESTMENTDoes Investing in Gold Make Sense?By Kunal Sampat

38 | TAX TALKFiling a Tax ExtensionBy Rita Bhayani

63 | TRAVELCoconut and Mangrove DreamsBy Kalpana Sunder

74 | MUSICThe Call of QawwaliBy Priya Bhatt Das

98 | DEAR DOCTOR How Do I Find Personal Fulfillment When All I Do is Take Care of Others?By Alzak Amlani

106 | RECIPESGet Your Beetroot Chops OnBy Jagruti Vedamati

DEPARTMENTS5 | Letters to the Editor15 | Popular Articles

WHAT’S CURRENT

32 | Ask a Lawyer33 | Visa Dates

The four-hundred-year old traditional art form of clay idol modeling is on its way to eventual extinction

By Gautam Banerjee

16 | Living with Clay

Reviews of Phantom, Katti Batti

By Aniruddh Chawda

86 | Healthy Life

The Skinny on a Low Carb, High Fat Diet

By Ashok Jethanandani

41 | Films

10 | TechnologyHackers for a Better World

By Prakash Narayan


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letters to the editor

Modi Lovers, Modi HatersThis is in response to the article penned

by Joe Samagond and Vidya Pradhan as well as the cover story by Vamsee Juluri (“The Modi Model,” “Speak Up, Prime Minister Modi!” September 2015)

Prime Minister Modi has been in office for only one year and has already sowed the seeds for a great future for India and surrounding countries.

i) The extremely complex border with Bangladesh has been resolved and a new fencing is taking place. This will stop il-legal migration on that border.

ii) The Naga insurgency has put their trust in Mr. Modi and agreed on a negoti-ated solution (rather than an armed con-flict) to their cultural heritage preservation concerns.

iii) Millions of poor Indians have been given the opportunity to open bank ac-counts whereby they can secure affordable bank loans rather than paying hefty inter-est rates to private loan-sharks.

iv) The River Ganges is being cleaned.v) Mr. Modi has been able to secure

the trust of like minded countries (Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka) within South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC), in establishing trans-port and economic links.

vi) Mr. Modi has started hydro-electric projects with Nepal and Bhutan

vii) Japan, UAE and other countries have already pledged large sums to tackle India’s complex infrastructure projects.

viii) Mr. Modi has convinced Australia to supply uranium.

ix) With France, India has agreed on nuclear power plants and defense equip-ment contracts and defense and agricul-tural research with Israel.

x) Mr. Modi has clamped down on government bureaucrats who were wast-ing the countries time and resources.

xi) To the Chinese, he had warned them that if they did not help equal-ize trade imbalance with India, he will pass anti dumping laws affecting Chinese goods. This is why China has invested US $20 billion in India’s infrastructure projects.

xii) Mr. Modi has been working 18 hours a day for the Indian people, as com-pared to Congress leaders who were busy

looting the country, left and right.In short, Mr. Modi is a blessing to In-

dia. Jai Hind.Hemant Shah, San Jose, CA

The architect of the 2002 state-spon-sored ethnic cleansing, including a series of gang-rapes and burning humans alive, is being called humanistic in your cover story by Vamsee Juluri? (“The Modi Model,” September 2015)

The 2002 riots was yet another ho-locaust except that the victims were not Jews. If Modi reflects any humanism, then Mussolini and Hitler are angels!

Those who have any conscientiousness need to examine:

i) Hindu fundamentalists referring to non-Hindus as bastards [RSS/BJP].

ii) While the cause of fire in Godhra’s train remains unknown in spite of the conspiracy and aggressive manipulations by Modi’s government, the author is echo-ing Modi’s justification of the prolonged gang-rapes and burning humans alive in 2002 riots.

iii) In most communal riots, 90% of the casualty is of Muslims, which comprise only 15% of the population. How? Why?

iv) The media is controlled by the 80% pro Hindu majority, portraying propa-ganda as truth.

Congressman Edolphus Towns once reported on India (1999): “… This eth-nic cleansing has taken the lives of over 250,000 Sikhs since 1984, over 200,000 Christians in Nagaland since 1947, over 60,000 Muslims in Kashmir since 1988, and thousands of … [other] minority peoples.”

Ron A. Patel, Watsonville

The September issue had two readable articles about India’s Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi (“The Modi Model,” “Speak Up, Prime Minister Modi”). Vidya Prad-

india currents - october 2015

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