Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

Happy Halloween to all!

Happy Diwali

It's nearly midnight, and I just got home from celebrating Diwali at the Juhu Beach Street Shelter. The boys decorated the place with lights and created floor decorations made of colored sand--it looked so festive! The head of the YMCA, as well as others, were there and brought lots of food and treats for us all. The evening was topped off with games like put the Bollywood-star puzzle together and escape the bomb blast, which entails running in a circle until the music stops and you land in one of four cities. Your team is out if you land in the city where the bomb blast went off that time.

Speaking of blasts, the other tradition on Diwali is to set off firecrackers. They are still going off outside my window right now! It was complete mayhem, and I don't know how everyone escaped without injury. Hopefully the pictures will give you a feel for how many were going off at once.

Stop the Violence in Orissa Campaign

Historically, Bandra, where I live, has been a predominately Catholic suburb of the city, although it's quite diverse these days. So, when the violence against Catholics flared up in Orissa, in eastern India, many people around here organized a march for peace and distributed these "Stop the Violence" banners around town.

The Hindus in Orissa are using violence to force Catholics to convert, threatening killings with machetes, rape, and destruction of homes. Many Catholics have fled and are living in dire conditions in displacement camps. Those who stay submit to requirements of shaving one's head and swallowing dung of the sacred cow. In recent days, the biggest contraversy brewing is the horrific attack on a nun and a priest in Orissa. The two were pulled from hiding in a Hindu neighbor's house and were brought to another residence where the nun was raped multiple times. The violators tried to rally a crowd to continue the sexual attacks, but, instead, decided to parade her and the priest down the street, naked, in utter humiliation. The nun has come forward to authorities claiming that the police officers she begged for help were joking with the attackers.

This kind of communal tension is not isolated, by any means, to Hindus and Catholics. While religious differences in Orissa have deteriorated into violent measures, discrimination based on race and faith plays out every day--often in more subtle ways--and not only in India. Muslims here claim that they can't get into apartment buildings that are outside of their own communities, and that's only the beginning. As we have seen with the political attacks in the U.S., suggesting wrongly and negatively that Barack Obama is a Muslim, Islamaphobia continues in the American psyche as well. That's why a recent piece by conservative NYT columnist William Kristol seems laughable when he writes, "Sept. 11 did not result in a much-feared (by intellectuals) wave of popular Islamophobia or xenophobia..."

I'm not saying I'm above all this, either. I arrived in India with my own ideas and prejudices of life and people here. Living in Mumbai has pushed me outside my comfort zone in so many ways, and I have learned and grown from every moment of it. That's why I believe the Candid City Project (see earlier post) is so relevant to our times and so important. In my opinion, the only way to change any type of discrimination or prejudice is through education. People fear differences only because they don't understand. Kids and adults alike need to be exposed to people and places and customs and traditions outside of their own and learn to be open to those differences. If that happens, then there is hope for the future that violence like that that is occuring in Orissa today won't continue forever.

Candid City Project

Michael and I are launching a program called the Candid City Project in a school in Hartford and Mumbai. Our goal is to bridge cultural understanding between India and the United States through creative exchange. By sharing photographs taken with 24-exposure, one-use cameras, students in Mumbai and Hartford will have the opportunity to interact with each other as e-pen pals and to discuss their cities, lives, and surroundings as seen through the images. By doing so, students will engage in open and creative dialogue about a distant and perhaps unknown place while also becoming more aware of their own community. In an increasingly global and urban world, the Candid City Project seeks to open students to the amazing diversity in the world and break down misunderstandings or stereotypes through direct interaction.


Check out our great Web site Michael designed at http://www.candidcityproject.com/.

Outside My Classroom on Juhu Beach

Art for Peace

Yesterday, I participated in an amazing program called Art for Peace, held at St. Xavier's College in Mumbai. The program brings together religious leaders and community members from many different backgrounds to discuss in small group exchange the notion of peace. Paired with each group is an artist, who, for now, just listens to the discussion and presentation of ideas but will eventually create an abstract painting out of it all. In February, there will be a huge exhibit in Mumbai, with heads of state--and perhaps even Jimmy Carter. In my group (pictured here in the courtyard of St. Xavier's), we have a mix of Hindus and Muslims, as well as a Zoorastrian and Christian. All in my group are Indian, except for me and an Afghani guy.

The program is run through the Wisdom Foundation, which is headed by a professor of Islamic studies at St. Xavier's College. I heard her speak at an interfaith dialogue I went to last week about how to bring compassion into the world, and she mentioned that she was running this Art for Peace program. Last year, her foundation held an event called Cricket for Peace, which was wildly successful, bringing together 1,500 people of all different faiths for a cricket match.


Religion is at the root of much of the communal tension in Mumbai--and in India, in general--so we have been discussing extensively many different faiths in my course at the university in communal harmony and social peace. In India, it's amazing how identified people are with their religion and how openly it's discussed. At home in the U.S., I never would have known the religion of each person in my class, but here, it's learned almost by way of introduction, "Hi, Deepa, and I'm a Hindu." While tension may be created because of these deep associations and identifications, I have found it to be so fulfilling to be in a cultural where religion is so much a part of the society. I never knew I missed that at home--or even that I didn't have it--until I came here and realized how much deeply spiritual life is in this country.

Our group discussing peace is meeting once per week for at least the next five weeks. After that, the artist will begin his painting, and each of us will contribute by adding a final brush stroke. Hopefully a Web site about the project will be up and running soon, and I will give you that address to read more once it's published.

My Bookshelf

This week, it was announced that an Indian, Aravind Adiga, won England's prestigious Man Booker Prize for his novel, The White Tiger. Beating out Irish novelist Sebastian Barry, whose play was performed at this year's Arts and Ideas Festival in New Haven, Adiga takes on one of India's most pressing contempory issues--the enormous difference in classes. I have not yet read the novel, but I know that the story follows the life of a poor village boy who becomes a chauffeur to one of India's elite. This disparity is everywhere in Mumbai, and it's heartbreaking, to say the least. A friend last night was telling me that he wholesales cheap jewelry to poor people from the villages who sell the earrings and other things on the streets, in the trains, or where ever. He says that he argues with them over like a one-cent discount. The poverty here is just so extreme that every last cent counts, literally. So, if anyone has read Adiga's book, I'd love to hear reactions and know whether I should add it to my bookshelf.

Speaking of which, I've taken a shot of some of the books on the shelf these days. Right now, I'm reading Karen Armstrong's introduction to Islam and a biography on Mahatma Gandhi. (Oh, and struggling to learn and practice Hindi.) I stronly recommend Armstrong's book, as it's been really eye-opening to read about what a peaceful faith Islam is at it's roots, but has been plagued by modern misinterpretations and misrepresentations. Also left to read is The Good Earth, which came highly recommended from my good friend Todd Meagher, and Jumpa Lahiri's new book, Unaccustomed Earth. Lahiri, an Indian-American, is an amazing writer and a master at the short story craft. Definitely read Interpreter of Maladies, if you haven't yet.

Anyone else out there reading anything good?