Meet Puja Kakar, the Cover Model selected for NEEM Magazine’s Fall 2009 cover.  Puja is truly the definition of “model behavior,” living life in the service of others and looking gorgeous in the process!

While many people your age our out partying, you’ve taken a more practical approach – how does that feel?

puja:   I just feel that there is a time for everything. Some of the people from our generation feel that life is a party. However, they can get carried away.  I feel like it’s just about setting your priorities and finding a balance in life.

You work with autistic children…. what lead you to do that?

puja: I absolutely love children. They are just so pure, innocent, and oblivious to the world, especially autistic children. My mother has been working for Board of Education so she was my hook up for this job. Also, I was interested in autistic children ever since I did a project on it in high school.

In South Asian society, autism is not understood – what is the best you can describe it to our readers?

puja: I am so glad that the show Aap Ki Antra came out. It is such a good awareness program. As mentioned on the show, autism is NOT psychosis.  It is a condition where the child cannot communicate their needs and wants. Sometimes they themselves are not aware of them. They have delays in cognitive development and language and often have repetitive behavior as well.

On a lighter note – where do you see yourself in 5 years?

puja: I see myself as Nurse Practitioner preparing to get married and settle down. Lets hope that happens! haha

Quick, tell us 5 random things about yourself!

one:  Okay, I am super hyper. I like being loud and crazy to make people laugh.

two:  I am very filmy. I used to daydream about my prince charming coming on a horse. Haha and then I woke up and realized that’s not exactly how
it works.

three:  Food. I love eating and trying new things.

three:  Food.  I love trying new things.  My favorite is Thai food..yum!

four:  I have a single mother that I adore. She is my world and my only family.

five:  I am fond of Satsung; which is like a philosophy class. It basically teaches how to live a happy, humble, and simple life.  Hm

Marching forward has always been a fundamental right of a progressive movement. Whether it be marching in support, in protest, or in celebration. We have watched the epic marches of the past that provided us our current freedoms and some of us have marched in protest of those that threaten to encroach upon such freedoms. Have we ever stopped to think: what would happen if we were barred from marching for something we believed in? Not because the march itself was prevented, but because the persons organizing the march did not believe we had the right to march by their side.

That was the dilemma faced by the South Asian Lesbian & Gay Association (SALGA) this year at the India Day Parade in New York City where they protested for their right to march.

Trying to March
“We applied to march in the India Day Parade in July 2009. The Federation of Indian Associations (FIA) was very enthused with our participation until we told them what SALGA represented. After that, we never got a response from them,” noted Priyanka Mitra, a SALGA spokesperson. At first SALGA thought that they had missed a deadline, but then another person submitted an application in August 2009 to march for another organization and the application was granted. At that point SALGA members knew that their petition was not going to be granted because they represented a so-called “taboo” cross section of the South Asian population: the gay and lesbian population.

This was not the first time that the FIA has denied groups the right to march. In the past they denied a domestic violence organization, SAKHI for South Asian women the right to march because they did not want “depressing” organizations represented on a “happy” occasion. “They said that [Indians] don’t beat our ways,” remembers Priyanka. SALGA has also been denied the right to march. There was a complaint filed against the FIA in the 1990s for denying such groups the right to march. “Now they cannot flat out say ‘no’ to us,” notes Sapna. “Now they can just ‘lose’ our application,” notes Aneesa Sen, in charge of SALGA support & outreach. Unfortunately, this passive discrimination makes it more difficult for groups such as SALGA to demand their right to participate in the India Day parade.

“We were allowed to march once,” says Jignesh Gandhi, a participant in SALGA’s protest at the India Day parade. “The second time [we were allowed to march] was because the community board blocked [FIA’s] application [for the parade] until SALGA was approved to march,” he says.

Priyanka decided to post the issue on Facebook and Sapna Pandya, a public health advocate and SALGA member wrote an open letter as a reaction to this enraging issue. “It’s a constant issue. But this year [was more of an issue] because of 377 being struck down in India. We had a party to celebrate that and then FIA does this.”    In fact, 2,000 gay, lesbian transgender & bisexual persons marched in celebration of the 377 ruling in India. Members of the SALGA community in New York City decided to protest the India Day Parade in New York City as a response to the actions of the FIA.

Decision to Protest
The community driven protest was not about disrespecting India on its celebration of independence, but about demanding respect for all Indians. While most Indians marched or cheered for their independence, SALGA members were pushed into protesting for their right to march. “FIA has no right to define who is and who is not Indian,” says Sapna. Aneesa notes, “They assume it’s all about sex, that’s the general perspective. If we keep quiet about [being LGBT], people are okay with it. it’s only when we are open about it.”

The group was careful in their decision to protest, taking care to be non-violent while getting their point across. Being South Asians with a sizeable immigrant population they were aware of potential deportation issues that may come up if there were arrests made during the protest. They started the protest off in a cordoned off area where protestors could stand and then walked parallel to the parade on the sidewalks. “Jay Sean gave us a thumbs up sign,” notes Jignesh. Several persons joined SALGA protestors as they walked as they gained more attention from the parade spectators. “An uncle said ‘Why are you standing here beta, you’re legal in India now,’ because of the 377 ruling. [When we told him about FIA’s decision] he said that ‘it was a shame.’ All ages and communities came up to us,” says Sapna.

LGBT in South Asian Communities
The FIA’s actions seem starkly familiar even though India struck down 377. LGBT persons are not always welcomed with open arms in the most progressive families, and in a country of constrained sexuality and gender discussion they find difficulty as well. However, there is less violent backlash against the LGBT communities in India or by Indian Americans because it is hidden – it is an issue that is not discussed openly, it is talked about behind closed doors. “The Indian community is very reputation focused. It’s not about what you actually do, just what people know that you are doing,” says Jignesh.

As long as an LGBT person stays quiet about their sexual preference, they are fully accepted. “Staying quiet” often means not discussing, marrying in a heterosexual manner, and not being a community activist. “[South Asians] are passively homophobic,” notes Sapna.

Yet Sapna notes that “queer organizing here is different from back home [in India].” She says that there is a growing queer movement in Mumbai and it’s easier to talk about there. The movement is linked to the HIV awareness work and people can openly talk about sex, the use of condoms, and the importance of the HIV discussion. “Here, it’s harder to talk about it. We haven’t been able to talk about sex or HIV. Nobody comes forward. In Bombay, we have done condom demonstrations,” she notes. Sapna also notes that her partner is a Pakistani woman who has come out to her parents in Pakistan, “Her parents are very accepting, yet very religious. And very loving. They live in Pakistan and we visited them.”

What does that say about the LGBT movement in South Asian Americans? Perhaps it is as simple as the general immigrant experience: immigrants have latched onto the conservative approach of the India that they left behind in the 70s, 80s and 90s, teaching their children those old ideas and concepts. Instead of moving forward with the India of today, they are clinging to out dated ideas that South Asia has progressed beyond.

FIA’s Response and SALGA Moving Forward
They did not get back to SALGA after the protest. The FIA did respond to reports, giving a half hearted apology and labeling it as a “clerical error” according to Priyanka. “Someone at the head of FIA said that it was no error,” laughs Aneesa.

Interestingly, Aneesa notes that no one had a burning desire to march in the India Day parade, but the point was to show LGBT South Asian Americans that they had community support. “As a general rule we don’t approach a lot of South Asian organizations,” says Aneesa. The group wanted to do this to show LGBT persons that are closeted and having difficulty coming out that there is support for them. “We want to open up the dialogue. Not just about SALGA, but about the community overall,” says Sapna.

Moving forward, Aneesa says that SALGA does want to partner with South Asian organizations after the striking of 377 in India and the passing of Prop 8 in the United States. “Now being gay and desi – this is our time. Now the community is very mobilized, Prop 8 might have been a blessing in disguise,” says Priyanka. SALGA is working on setting up a hotline to help provide a resource for LGBT persons. They want to reach out to all New York entities and become a more active organization that can serve the need for LGBT individuals of South Asian descent.

In addition to their community work for LGBT persons, they will continue to try and reach out through parades and festivals. As Priyanka notes, “India Day parade is a soft parade. Pakistan Day parade is a hard target.” After all, SALGA is more than a support group for the LGBT community, they are a vehicle of change and acceptance on a larger scale, throughout the South Asian American community.

While Persian poetry still holds its own in great literary circles, the impact that those words had on both society and the interpretation of emotions is one that only increases with time.  Of the major poets, their faith in Islam played an integral role in the syntax of their work as well as the imagery they verbally layered. 

Among the cornerstones of Persian poetry was Rumi, whose works concerned themselves with the concept of Tawhid, a pillar within Islam’s strict monotheism.  Rumi encouraged music, poetry and dance as a venue for reaching God.  Narrowing their whole being on the divine was so intensely manifested that the gap between one’s spiritual aloofness from God diminished; therefore, restoring the natural soul to God.  Rumi was also instrumental in elucidating the dark beauty of grief while simultaneously tying it to spirituality. Following the death of his dervish friend, Shams-e Tabrizi, he wrote the poem “Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi,” where he recounts searching for his friend.  His writing transforms into a literary epiphany as he writes: “Why should I seek?/ I am the same as/ He.  His essence speaks through me./ I have been looking for myself!” This line illuminates a central feeling not only in grief, but also in religious reverence.  One remembers the dead by internally remembering their impact and therefore prolonging their memory.  One also finds the fluidity of God because it’s transformed from love of a higher being to the same love one has for a lost friend.

These words are inscribed on the entrance of the United Nations building in New York: “Human beings are members of a whole/ In creation of one essence and soul/ If one member is afflicted with pain/ Other members uneasy will remain/ If you have no sympathy for human pain/ The name of human you cannot retain.” These simple, yet harmonic, phrases were composed by Sa’adi, whose major works include Bostan, meaning the fruit orchard.  His works are immediately reminiscent of illustrated metaphors that refer to a vast collection of his personal experiences.  He generally composed in the straightforward mathnawi style, which involved rhyming couplets.  Yet, he constantly drew on the collective human experience as fodder for encouraged camaraderie and the desire to link the race through metaphors, or even religion, as quoted by Barack Obama: “The children of Adam are limbs to each other, having been created of one essence.”

Hafez was known for his ecstatic love poetry as well as his heavily layered mystic poetry.  His words, though mystical, also addressed an inherent primal sense of being within humans.  One of his famous lines states, “Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly/ And wants to rip to shreds/ All your erroneous notions of truth.”  Many Sufi mystic schools sought to illuminate truth through double meanings and layered metaphors in order to address the multiple ways and epiphanies one can experience and visualize in order to see truth.  Hafez emphasizes the ephemeral nature of mortal existence.  He codes humanly existence as “veeraane,” or ruins, which literally renders materialism obsolete.  He also portrays the duality of his own identity, both in a spiritual and material setting, and constantly evaluates his well-being through rhetorical questions.  For example, he questions, “Am I a sinner or a saint/ Which  one shall it be?/ Hafez holds the secret of his own mystery…”

Nazami Ganjavi fuzed the immortal romantic story of Layla and Majnun into one long poem. What’s fascinating about the distinct Islamic shadowed love in this dramatic tale is the emphasis on platonic love.  Compared to Western tales, such as “Tristan and Isolde,” or Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” there is no consummation of the relationship.  It consistently remains admiration at a distance and a bitingly abstinent relationship that eventually removes all traces of libido from their love.  Similar to the concept of tawhid, which dictates extreme monotheism and the indivisible status of God, Majnun’s love for the girl Layla represents an infinite cycle of God’s handiwork by representing his love of her as an extension of his love for God.  For tribal reasons, Layla and Majnun are not allowed to be married.  Majnun is cast out of society, but his love for Layla sustains him.  Because his love is unadulterated by human desires, “The wild beasts had no enmity toward him/ For there was no mixture of animality within him” (314).  In this romance, it is Layla who represents normalcy, or at least an inherent reality in her approach to the relationship.

Even though she is married to another man, she reserves the part of her soul and her love for him.  This internalization that she is, in spirit, with her lover, preserves her sanity.  However, Majnun’s separation from her breeds a dichotomy within his soul of the wild and ravaged versus the spiritual calm his pure love has procured.  Layla acts within the bounds of reality, influencing what she can, but never losing herself.  After Layla’s husband dies, they are reconciled, but Majnun’s silence overwhelms her.  She rebukes him, and says, “You are the bulbul in the garden of this world/ I am attuned to you like the rose/ And today, which is the day of union/ you have put a clasp on the casket of your tongue” (317).  These lines are heavily laced in sexual metaphor and reveal an unmistakable restlessness in her dialogue.  But Majnun, who has placed her on a pedestal of perfection, cannot interact with her on a human level because she is only real to him in his prayers and endless fascination of her.

Persian poetry is distinct; not only in its religious overtones, but also in its concentration of spiritual awareness in relation to the material world.  These ancient poets and philosophers encouraged   individuals to attune themselves to their mental needs as opposed to the stresses and problems of their external environments.

Providing a voice to those that are silenced creates the platform for this richly provocative sotry woven through symbolism, masterful storytelling, and the infamous monsoons of India. In her book, Haunting Bombay, Shilpa Agarwal has taken her pen, or rather her computer, and written a beautiful understanding of India of the yesteryears – haunted not just by a real ghost but by unspoken words, misunderstandings and deep rooted tradition.

Fall trends in terms of hair are simple:  accessories my friend.  Lots of sparkly, shiny, lovely things that make you want to stop and say “oooo I wish I could rock that.”  Well the truth is, South Asian women CAN rock that and we at NEEM are here to show you which ones you should be rocking!

ShInY PrEtTy PiNs
Style-ify your simple bun by adding crystal enhanced pins instead of plain bobby pins.  They will instantly upgrade your look into this season.

fEaThEr gLoRy
Feathers are no longer only for boas, they are gracing the strands of the most stylish women.  They key to this trend is not to overdo it.  Pair it with a simple outfit, devoid of crazy prints, in a simple cut – like an A-line skirt and simple blouse.  Then add the hair accessory for an eye grabbing bit of Fall style.

JeWelRy InTeRwOvEn
Jewels in your hair aren’t only for the beauties in Devdas.  They are now an absolute necessity for your simple hair style – be it a bun, half up-do, or side part.  A simple jeweld piece upgrades your entire look and takes you into a sexy evening arena.  Try something unique like this Orange Blossom Bun Cover.