At 5 pm, the reruns would come on. I knew that the episodes weren’t new. After all, TV40 wasn’t a channel you turned to for the latest in TV programming. But the sounds, the sights, the characters — – for me, it was the first time around.
Like clockwork, my dad would get home from work around 5:15 pm. The evening’s episode of Star Trek would already be underway, but he managed to get caught up. He would sit down in his living room chair, and we would watch Star Trek together. Captain Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scottie, Uhura. Romulans, Klingons, Vulcans, and tribbles.
Come on in. Have a seat. Donations are on a sliding scale, from $10 to $20.
There’s no TV or kitchen, just a nice young sarode player in the center of the room. Tabla player too. Oh, and don’t forget Gautam, who runs the show.
We spent our Friday night at the Sangati Center, located at 22nd and Shotwell in San Francisco’s Mission District. We sat down, we listened to classical Indian music, and we let our minds wander.
On the eve of Christmas eve, I stepped out my apartment door and walked down the stairs. It was cold outside, but I still needed to check my mail. I wasn’t waiting for anything in particular.
I turned the key and opened my tiny mailbox. An envelope sat inside. Keep reading →
After the Mumbai terrorist attack, a friend in New Delhi with a fondness for Batman comic books emailed me her thoughts. She is Kashmiri in ethnicity, Muslim in roots, and would probably self-identify as secular in practice:
“I can’t seem to process the attacks and all it could entail, and what the ’solution’ is, very clearly.
Will ramping up ’security measures’ mean my personal freedom gets curtailed?
Even more scarily, will my Muslim friends have to watch every word they say, go through harassment for renting a flat, have to be on the defensive whenever somebody talks of Islamic terrorism?
My Mumbai friend Avehi Menon took some pictures on a recent trip to Bihar, one of India’s less developed states. Avehi and I used to hang out during my six months in Delhi.
Bihar faces significant challenges: poverty, corruption, and organized crime. Still, all of that slips away for a moment when you see the optimism and curiousity of a room full of kids.
It makes a difference what language your victims speak. By targeting foreigners and wealthy Indian elites, the Mumbai terrorists have received saturation coverage — at least in U.S. media.
Why? For one thing, it is a national U.S. holiday, and there’s little domestic news to report. But equally important — so many of the Mumbai victims speak English. These are some of the most expensive hotels in India, and only the wealthier classes congregate there.
There have been other terrorist attacks in other nations. And there have been other terrorist attacks in India. But the language (and nationality) of the victims makes all the difference in how the attacks are covered by international media.
I always found the export of “Indian spirituality” to be a dubious industry. Somewhere between the foreigner-oriented ashrams and the exchange of dollars into rupees, I smelled a little exotification. Still, I maintained a healthy skepticism towards my skepticism. In concept, there was nothing wrong with the idea of one nation’s ideas being exported to another (much wealthier) nation.
Somewhere in the midst of this skeptical swirl, I perceived Deepak Chopra. Part diasporic ambassador, part Indian doctor myth, part spiritual marketing juggernaut — Deepak Chopra is a lot of things.
I must admit that my skepticism took a backseat when I read/saw his comments on CNN’s Larry King Live and on CNN International. He was speaking about the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, and how political leaders should respond.
There are problematic generalizations in his comments — the “Muslim world,” Pakistan as a “failed state.” But he also pointed his audience in important directions:
It is a curious thing, this business of labels. The terrible attacks in Mumbai could easily be called 11/26, but instead, the corner of the screen says “India’s 9/11″.
At 5 pm, the reruns would come on. I knew that the episodes weren’t new. After all, TV40 wasn’t a channel you turned to for the latest in TV programming. But the sounds, the sights, the characters — – for me, it was the first time around.
Come on in. Have a seat. Donations are on a sliding scale, from $10 to $20.
