SAJAforum

WRITERS: Hanif Kureishi's writing room - and yours

What makes the perfect writing environment?  In a special report, The Guardian surveyed the rooms of several authors past and present, including Rudyard Kipling (who used to pace on his Indian rugs), Charles Darwin and Martin Amis .

Author and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi is one of the featured writers. He describes his room as follows:

I've got thousands of CDs because I always listen to music when I'm writing. I've done it since I was a teenager, when I first started writing in my bedroom in Bromley. Silence makes me feel rather uncomfortable, nervous.

The flock wallpaper was in the house when I got here, I've kept it, and indeed fought to keep it, because it is like being in an Indian restaurant, and I always wanted to spend all of my life in an Indian restaurant.

What does the space you write in look like?  Post your comments below.

PAKISTAN: Five questions for Aitzaz Ahsan, leader of the lawyers' movement

This morning, Aitzaz Ahsan, the President of the Pakistan Supreme Court Bar Association and the leader of Pakistan’s “lawyers’ movement,” spoke to a large audience at the New York City Bar Association about the lawyers’ movement, the importance of an independent judiciary, and the role of U.S. policy in Pakistan’s judicial crisis. During the past year, the New York City Bar has played an active role in support of Pakistan’s lawyers and judges — organizing a solidarity rally with other area bar associations after Gen. Pervez Musharraf imposed “emergency” rule in November, issuing a statement strongly urging Musharraf to restore the rule of law, and awarding an honorary membership, one of the organization's highest honors, to Pakistan Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

In his remarks, Ahsan thanked U.S. lawyers and bar associations for their “unstinting support for constitutionalism, rule of law, and reinstatement of an independent judiciary in Pakistan.” He said that last November’s rally — which drew hundreds of New York lawyers to the steps of the courthouse in lower Manhattan — “was an unprecedented collective action, and it was noticed throughout Pakistan.” Ahsan expressed his view that “what has endeared the people of America to the people of Pakistan, despite the adversarial policies of the American administration, has been the support of the bar associations.”

Following his address at the New York City Bar, Ahsan briefly talked to SAJAforum about the lawyers’ movement, the prospects for reinstatement of the judges ousted by Musharraf, and the role of Pakistan’s media:

Q: There’s been much speculation about what caused General Musharraf to try to dismiss the Chief Justice of Pakistan back in March 2007. What do you think caused him to take that step?

A: I think that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz poisoned Musharraf’s ears after the Steel Mills Case, which was a judgment that was an indictment of the Prime Minister. After the Supreme Court decided that case, people started saying — including myself in speeches in the National Assembly — that the Prime Minister could be indicted, and ought to be indicted. So there is some evidence of the fact that Shaukat Aziz began to advise Musharraf to fire the Chief Justice, and played on his fear that the Chief Justice was going to decide against him in his bid to be the President for another term. So I think it was mainly this, a paranoia that was created in Musharraf’s mind by Shaukat Aziz.

Q: In the past, most Supreme Court justices in Pakistan have cooperated with military coup leaders and even have sought to legitimize military takeovers in their judicial decisions. What do you think has made this moment different and caused so many judges to react differently this time?

CONV: Aisha Sultan on pitching a column

Aisha Sultan loves to write about dirty diapers, working mothers and grocery shopping. And she loves that her own experience with motherhood led her to becoming a columnist and editor at  the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

"I figured if I cared about a subject that much, I could write about it and touch people," she said.

The road to becoming one of the first South Asian columnists in U.S. didn't follow a marked route, Sultan said at a session during the SAJA convention. Sultan studied sociology at Trinity University in Texas, and started writing when she found a job at her school newspaper.

She remained a sociology major until on her way to obtaining a doctorate degree she found that she wasn't sure.

"I really missed the ink, I missed journalism," she said.

When The Wall Street Journal offered her an internship, she couldn't turn it down. Eventually, the experience led her to her job with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as a reporter.

After ten years of reporting and two kids, Sultan's big idea began to unfurl. She realized that her life as a young working mother was under represented in the news.

With her personal experience in mind, Sultan crafted a pitch that included a column, blog and interactive forum for parents. It was subject matter that had not really been explored at other publications. After thorough research and a digital presentation, she was ready to put her thoughts in motion.

"I became like Al Gore with my Power Point," she said. "Every editor I found, I grabbed and made them watch."

CONV: ESPN Anchor Kevin Negandhi to debut on SportsCenter

The dreams of a 14-year-old sports fanatic will come true on Friday when ESPN sportscaster Kevin Negandhi makes his debut on SportsCenter.

Negandhi, the first national South Asian sports announcer in the U.S. who spoke at the SAJA convention, joked that his parents will finally believe that he has a real job now.

"My mom still wants me to be a lawyer," he said, laughing.

His upbringing in an Indian household provided Negandhi with a strong work ethic but no role models in his chosen field of sports journalism. He decided to get as much hands-on experience as possible, and had five internships at radio and television stations on his resume by the time he graduated from Temple University.

Negandhi's  trategy was to start his career working in smaller markets, which would give him a chance to fine tune his skills without embarassing himself in front of a large national audience. He worked on developing his own style, an on-air voice that matched his personality. Eventually, he said an anchor has to learn to transfer his own personality on screen.

"You gotta just be yourself," he said. "If you're not yourself, the audience will figure it out."

His first jobs taught him to be aware that things constantly changed in sports. To broaden his expertise, he covered basketball, baseball and football. But his favorite is football, both NFL and college leagues.

"I think college football could be the best sport in America if we had a true playoff system," he said.      

Negandhi said he works on forming relationships with athletes by being the guy who asks them questions that dig deeper. His favorite interview: "The guy who really stands out is Warrick Dunn from the Bucs; he's just a great guy."

CONV: Amar Bakshi and "How the World Sees America"

Punchy short-form writing, engaging video clips and a strong voice were the recipe for Amar C.  Bakshi’s multimedia blog series "How the World Sees America" for the online editions of the Washington Post and Newsweek as part of a project called PostGlobal.

[ PostGlobal, "a conversation on global issues with David Ignatius [of The Washington Post] and Fareed Zakaria [of Newsweek],"  is a joint effort of the Post and Newsweek and consists of commentary from the two of them, and assorted posting and commentary from other staffers and folks around the world.]

His subjects are varied: a drag queen in Pakistan, a female Lebanese rapper, pageant queens in England, a teacher at an Islamic school in India.

The stories range from prostitution to political leadership but with the common thread of how the global community feels about Americans and the U.S. government.

Bakshi, 24, spent one month in a country, putting a human face on the sentiments and looking beyond the blanket criticisms.
“My value added is bringing a bit of a humanistic, artistic sensibility to more mundane stories that wouldn’t be told,” he told a group at the SAJA convention.

He found his sources by listening to conversations at bus stops, bars and restaurants. Contacts with local journalists and doctoral students also helped him create relationships with compelling sources.
Learning how to narrate their tales came with experience.

A one-man show, Bakshi toted his high-definition Sony video camera around with him for hours, familiarizing his sources to the screen. His intention was to have people forget about the camera altogether, and in a few hours they usually did.

“For me it’s discovery,” he said. “Trying to be empathetic, and trying to tell stories that are worth telling.”

He edited the video clips to concise, one- to two-minute segments. Sometimes a voice over accompanies local images, sometimes the screen remains fixed on a subject’s face as they speak.

CONV: Snippet from "Brick Lane" Q&A

At the 2008 SAJA Convention, Tannishtha Chatterjee, talks about how she was cast in "Brick Lane" (the Sony Pictures Classics film of the Monica Ali novel) She and Sarah Gavron, the director, were interviewed by SAJA's Aseem Chhabra. Thursday, June 19, 2008 - 8:48 p.m. The movie opens Friday, June 20, in the U.S.

See a detailed report on the screening and Q&A.

THREE QUESTIONS: Vindu Goel becomes NYT's deputy tech editor

Vindu Goel, already one of the most senior South Asian business journalists working in America, is expanding his reach. Until recently, he was a columnist and blogger (Vindu's View from the Valley) for the San Jose Mercury News, where he had been business editor, assistant business editor and a member of the editorial board. In March 2008, the New York Times announced he was coming on board as deputy technology editor. He joins the paper on Monday, April 21, 2008. From the memo, reproduced below:

In this newly created position, Vindu will work with tech editor Damon Darlin and deputy tech editor David Gallagher, as well as Kevin McKenna, deputy business editor for online news, to expand our coverage of technology, particularly on the Web. It's a job that Vindu is particularly well suited to do, given his range of experience in overseeing business and tech coverage, and his passion and vision for Web journalism.

Before heading east, Goel answered three quick questions from SAJAforum:

• Can you tell us what you expect to be doing at the Times?
• How do you feel about leaving the exciting world of Silicon Valley?
• Can you give our readers some thoughts on why you've taken the editing track for so much of your career? Many young journalists, as you know, pursue reporting over the editing jobs.

See his answers below. And post your comments, please.

For more on Goel, see his answers to questions posed at HighSchoolJournalism.org's "Ask A Pro"
circa 2001. A highlight: "I think in my heart that I always knew I would be in news. I published my first newspaper in the fourth grade with a friend of mine, and I've been drawn to newspapers ever since."

BOOKS: Interview with Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni on "The Palace of Illusions"

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s new novel, The Palace of Illusions is ambitious, to say the least. It is an adaptation of the Mahabharata, the ancient Indian epic which weighs in at a little under 2 million words. The original is set in a man’s world of battle and politics, but Divakaruni’s narrator is Draupadi, the fiery-tongued princess whose main role in the original work is setting off the war that annihilates society. Divakaruni’s vivid imagination and sure command of storytelling turn Draupadi into a complex and ultimately admirable figure while remaining true to the familiar story of the Mahabharata. (Listen to a recent SAJA audio interview with Divakaruni)

Divakaruni is the author of several novels for adults and young adults, most recently The Mirror of Fire and Dreaming and Queen of Dreams (see her personal site). She also teaches creative writing at the University of Houston.

She visited New York last week as part of her book tour and spoke to SAJAforum about her new book: how to make ancient characters sound modern, rooting a powerful female within a patriarchy, and writing in ways that appeal to Hindus and Westerners alike.

Q: Your first books were poetry but you’ve moved on to short stories and novels. Why is that?

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni: I think I was becoming more and more interested in story, in narrative. And I found that all of my poems were becoming narratives. They were becoming little stories told in verse. And I wanted to explore it through a medium which would allow me more space: stories. Then I got greedy; I wanted more space. I moved into writing novels.

Q: And so for this one you picked one of the longest stories ever told. Why the Mahabharata?

CBD: I think I have a personal connection to it because from the time I was little my grandfather would tell me stories out of the Mahabharata. And so I sort of grew up with it. I thought a lot about it, especially about the women. And I always imagined the inner life of the women because the focus is on the men, on the heroic battles, the politics, all of that. So I wanted to change the focus and look at the lives of the women, especially their internal lives.

MUSIC: Wasifuddin Dagar's 500-year-old legacy

Ustad Wasifuddin Dagar, the young master dhrupad vocalist, is on a Spring 2008 concert tour which started on April 3, 2008 with a concert at University of North Alabama. His four-person ensemble includes Pandit Mohan Shyam Sharma, accompanying him on pakhawaj. The Ustad represents the 20th unbroken generation of dhrupad singers in the Dagar family, going back to the 16th century.

"Dhrupad, the oldest form of music from North India, is described as a meditative and contemplative style," reads the release for the World Music Institute's concert on April 5. "The performance of dhrupad is a prayer and endeavors to conjure in the listener an awareness of the One." Austere, august, pure are words used to describe it, and accessibility is considered difficult for performers and listeners alike. Some well known dhrupad vocalists outside the Dagar family are Ashish Sankrityayan, Gundecha Brothers and Ritwik Sanyal.

One of the several aspects unique to dhrupad are the gamak and hudak, (explained in the Q&A below) described as "downward yodeling" by Jon Pareles of The New York Times in a 1983 article. In May, 2000, he wrote of dhrupad, and this time of Ustad Wasifuddin Dagar, "The music looked inward, making an offering of all the resources of the human voice"€.

Ustad Wasifuddin Dagar talked to SAJAforum about dhrupad, the intricacies of gamak and the legacy he upholds. (Concerts in New York, NY on 5th April and in East Brunswick, NJ on 6th April)

You've been performing in the US since 2000. How do audiences here receive the art form?

The very best thing about the US audiences is their openness. They're open to so many kinds of music, so many cultures. If you go back to India there are very few Western performances there, but when you come here, there are so many performances of different kinds of music of different parts of the world. And that makes the musician and the music accessible to them. We are able to share it with them easily.

EVENTS: Mira Nair and others address South Asian Women’s Leadership Forum

[That's filmmaker Mira Nair with SAWLF founder Simi Ahuja at the March 15 Congress 2008. PHOTO: Seshu Photography. Click to magnify.]

Filmmaker Mira Nair gave the keynote address at the South Asian Women's Leadership Forum's Congress 2008 on March 15. In a discussion covering a wide variety of topics, Nair talked about the inspiration for "The Namesake" and "Mississippi Masala," her life in Uganda, and how she kept her creative vision in Hollywood today.

Asked by an aspiring filmmaker about how she stayed true to herself throughout her career, Nair said “The key for me is to never let anyone own my idea until it's fully fledged.”

She continued, “That is not an easy thing in the film business because when people give you millions they expect to own it.”

“My big joke in the community is that I am very open and collaborative as long as I have the last word.”

Nair was drawn to Jhumpa Lahiri's novel "The Namesake" after her mother-in-law died unexpectedly, due to medical malpractice.

BOOKS: Toronto Sun profiles David Davidar of Penguin Canada

David Davidar, the former head of Penguin India for 17 years, has been the head of Penguin Canada for four years now, making him, along with Sonny Mehta, head of Alfred A. Knopf, one of the most influential South Asians in international publishing today. Learn more about him in a Toronto Sun profile by Ajit Jain. From "A Page Turning Career":

He was barely 26, but David Davidar was fortunate enough to be at the right place at the right time.

It was 1985 and Davidar was completing his diploma in publishing at Harvard University when he encountered the chairman of the Penguin Group.

"He said to me, 'Would you like to go back to India and set up Penguin India?' " Davidar, now president and publisher of Penguin Books Canada, told me. "It was kind of a gift from God. You can either make something of it or throw it away."

Hard to believe, he concedes, that Penguin India was launched in 1985 with only $10,000.

"Not exactly the amount for starting a publishing company," he says now. "Today we are a multi-million dollar company in India."

In 1987 Penguin India published a mere seven titles. Today it has 200 titles. Davidar is the brain behind all this. He's the one who brought on board authors like Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Arundhati Roy, Vikram Chandra, Rohinton Mistry and Anita Rau Badami among others.
<snip>

By 2003, senior Penguin management decided that if he could build their company from scratch in India, he might be able to transform Penguin's operations in Canada, which had been languishing for years.

'That's how Davidar landed in Toronto on Jan. 1, 2004, as president and publisher of Penguin Canada.

"Last year we crossed $100 million here," he said about Penguin Canada. "We are profitable now."

As in India, Davidar has built an impressive list of authors -- Margaret Macmillan, Zadie Smith, John Ralston Saul, Michael Ignatieff, Roy MacGregor, Stuart Maclean, and the list goes on.

More on Davidar, who's also a successful author, in his Wikipedia entry. Post your comments.

BOOKS: V.V. Ganeshananthan in Esquire

That's SAJA VP, V.V. Ganeshananthan on Esquire.com, part of its "Last Line" feature, in which they interview authors about writing and more. The photo is by SAJAforum's own Preston Merchant. She talked about her debut novel, "Love Marriage," which comes out in April.

Her first-person piece, as told to Anya Yurchyshyn, starts this way:

“He would have died, and he thought about this, and he swallowed, realizing the words that had been on his tongue at the moment that misdirected bullet was fired: O God, it's not me, I'm not even Tamil.”

This sentence is from my first novel, Love Marriage. The incident is based on a story that a relative told me long ago. The character, Kumaran, an ethnic Tamil, is riding the bus in Sri Lanka. Soldiers stop the bus because they are looking for someone Tamil. Maybe that person is suspected of something, or maybe they want him for some other reason. A militant Tamil separatist group, the Tamil Tigers, has recently formed and begun committing sporadic acts of violence. But many Tamils in Sri Lanka have no affiliation with this movement, and these people are afraid. And with good reason: The soldiers point a gun in Kumaran’s direction, and they shoot the person behind him. But the bullet grazes him on its way to its actual target. He becomes collateral damage physically, but a direct moral casualty. He is unable to forgive the soldiers or himself for what he has almost said.

Read the rest of it here. Listen to a 30-minute web radio interview with Ganeshananthan (mostly about SAJA and the media, but she also talks about her book. Read SAJAforum's item on her being part of a front-page New York Observer collection of profiles of South Asians making it big on NYC's cultural scene.

Post your comments below.

THREE QUESTIONS: Sevanti Ninan, editor of The Hoot

These watchful owl eyes are the symbol of one of the most important media watchdog institutions in the world. The Hoot, at www.TheHoot.org, is a Delhi-based website that watches the media in the entire subcontinent. And what a task that is. With everything from government interference in several of the countries, to a celebrity and infotainment-obsessed culture in others, The Hoot has emerged as a one-stop shop for anyone interested in the media in South Asia.

Here's how the sites editors describe themselves:

We believe that the task of monitoring the media in a democratic polity is as important as the work of the news media themselves. We cannot have the watchdogs become either sleeping dogs or lapdogs.To sustain this site we require the support of organizations and individuals who believe that free and ethical news media form the cornerstone of democracy. In order to do this task we require resources, material and intellectual. We exhort you to help us in either way. Please write for us. Please send us information, alerts and tips. We promise to follow up. Write to editor@thehoot.org.We also look forward to your monetary support. No amount is too small for us and our task. We want to create a corpus that will sustain this media portal.
[More about the site and its parent organization, the Media Foundation, here.]

The site's left rail provides an archive of items about various aspects of the region's media, while the right side offers resources aimed at journalists, journalism students and even readers.

Here are a couple of recent items that show the breadth of what The Hoot covers.

• Restoring Freedom to the Media in Pakistan: A new Hoot study describes the dimensions of the problem, even as victorious leaders of the Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz commit themselves to lifting restrictions on the press. SEVANTI NINAN outlines who the oppressors were over the last three years.
• Shoddy edits on the Budget: So many editors waste time being seen on TV instead of poring over the documents like the old timers used to. DARIUS NAKHOONWALA carps about the general devaluation of editorial comment.
• When India gets going…: The development of community radio in India is going to have an international effect when it really gets going. STEVE BUCKLEY, president of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters, tells PIYA KOCHHAR.
• Why the US Elections are hot news in Kerala: Muslims, who constitute 50 per cent of all non-resident Keralites, take a keen interest in US politics and its implications for Muslim nations.  N P CHEKKUTTY  on Kerala’s appetite for global news.

I rely on The Hoot to keep up with what's going on in the region, so I decided to learn more about how the site works. I asked Sevanti Ninan, its tireless editor, to answer three quick questions. Her answers are below. Post your comments, please.

FILM: Gurinder Chadha on directing sex scenes

A note from Aseem Chhabra, entertainment writer...

Here's what Gurinder Chadha ("Bend It Like Beckham") told the Guardian in an article called "50 arts secrets revealed":

Q: Are sex scenes as uncomfortable for directors as for actors?
GC: Yes. I'm a good Indian girl, I still don't do sex scenes in my movies
because my mum would kill me!

Post your comments below.

HOLLYWOOD: Notes - and audio - from SAJA/SAMMA panel on South Asians and Hollywood

As part of pre-Oscar festivities, SAJA and SAMMA - South Asians in Media and Marketing - hosted a chat on South Asians in Hollywood on Friday, Feb. 22. Actors Kavi Ladnier, Aasif Mandvi and Manu Narayan and SAJA Board member and entertainment writer Aseem Chhabra touched on a wide range of themes ranging from the mindset of casting directors to the number of South Asians in television and film today.  You can listen to the archived webcast at this link or using this player:

Discussing the 2007 Oscar nominations, Aseem Chhabra expressed disappointment that Tabu and Ifran Khan of "The Namesake" were not nominated. “The Academy tends to forget Indian actors when it comes to these types of awards,” said Chhabra. He also noted that Fox Searchlight concentrated its marketing efforts on promoting "Juno," which garnered four nominations. He also said that "The Namesake" opened so early in the year (March of 2007), that it was easy to forget about it by the time nominations were being done at the end of the year.

Both Manu Narayan and Kavi Ladnier marveled at how far attitudes towards casting have come in the last few years.  “I think they are getting more and more open and welcoming actually,” said Narayan of casting departments. “Because as they see more and more South Asians who want to see themselves reflected in the entertainment of this country [they will] at least consider casting people who are not white or black Americans.”

Q&A: Chris Murray, founder of the Govinda Gallery in DC

The Govinda Gallery of Georgetown, DC has been collecting and exhibiting iconic images of musicians for decades, among them The Beatles, Jim Morrison, Bob Dylan, and the Rolling Stones (and The Who, pictured here by Art Kane). The gallery opened in 1975--it was named 'Govinda' because it connoted the “source of all pleasure,” in the words of Chris Murray, the founder-Director of the gallery. SAJAforum asked Murray a few questions about his roots in the 60s, and the influence of ISKCON.

So, just how did the name Govinda come about?

One day I was walking through this beautiful park in Washington and the thought 'Govinda Gallery' came to my mind. I had then - that was in 1975 - and I still have a deep love for Indian culture. I have been to India twelve different times for pleasure, both spiritual pleasure and tourist pleasure.

So I had Indian on my mind. I was into in yoga and meditation. I had graduated from university in Georgetown in 1969. And at that time there was a renaissance of sorts of interest in things Indian in America… Indian music through Ravi Shankar and the Beatles... so many stylistic things! Mary Mcfadden was collecting Indian art. There was so much interest in India because of its deep spiritual culture, because at that time many people in America were inquiring about spiritual life as opposed just to material life. So it was just the times!

So I thought the name Govinda Gallery and when people ask me what it means, I tell them a loose translation. I tell them it means it’s 'the source of all pleasure.'

We don’t show Indian art there, we never have. So it's not the mission statement for the gallery. The approach to exhibition is curatorial identities. It’s not wrapped up in the name Govinda, there’s no Indian art… or art of the Vedic culture. It’s what I personally enjoy and am wrapped up in. So for me it’s wonderful that it did become that name.

Since then I have published two books, that I have been the coauthor of with Kim Waters on The Butter Thief and Illuminations from the Bhagavad Gita. But in 1975, when I opened Govinda Gallery it was several years before the books would come out.

What was India like in the 70s? Have you been there since?

I went several times in the 80s, was also there in 2000.

In the 70s it was extraordinary. Swami Bhaktivedanta was there on my first trip. I went to hear his lecture in Vrindavan and Mayapur in West Bengal. I had the good fortune to hear him speak at least twice a day, see him on the morning walk, I had the fortune to be there. Period. In the seventies I was very much a student and learning so much. In the eighties Swami Bhaktivedanta was no longer with us, I started going more regularly. In fact, I went five winters in a row, from 1982-87 I was there in February. I went there to take a break, I learnt so much when I was there. I like traveling like that where you are learning and enjoying.

FIVE QUESTIONS: Sandeep Junnarkar and V.V. Ganeshananthan, SAJA's new leaders

[UPDATE: Listen to audio interviews with SAJA's new leaders]

These are photos of two of SAJA's friendliest, most popular members. Sandeep Junnarkar, CUNY journalism professor, doing some teaching in the photo on the left, and V.V. "Sugi" Ganeshananthan, reading from her soon-to-be released novel, "Love Marriage," on the right. Just this week, these two were elected president and VP, respectively, of SAJA (both photos, and the ones below, are by Preston Merchant). From the press release:

NEW YORK CITY, Jan. 29, 2008 -- SAJA, the South Asian Journalists Association, announced its slate of officers for 2008 today. The group serves more than 1,000 journalists and others interested in South Asia and South Asians across the U.S. and Canada.

Sandeep Junnarkar, a new media professor at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism and one of the country's leading experts on online journalism, was elected president. V.V. Ganeshananthan, known as Sugi, a writer and author, was elected vice president.

SAJAforum asked each of them five questions. Their answers are below. Journalists/bloggers looking to contact them can find their contact info in the press release and are also welcome to quote from this post.

Among the questions we asked:

• What is the state of the SAJA union?
• Can you outline some of your big plans for the year?
• Why are minority journalism groups like SAJA still relevant?
• We presume you will spend part of your time convincing South Asian parents to let their kids become journalists. Pretend I am a skeptical parent of a teenager with journo dreams. Convince me that she needn't become a doctor or hedge-fund manager.

And, perhaps most important of all, we asked Sugi about her confusing names: "Your website is Vasugi.com; your byline is V.V. Ganeshananthan; you go by Sugi. We're confused." Find out what she said below.

Post your comments below.

TV: Interview with CNN's Kiran Chetry in Nepal Monitor

A guest post by Anup Kaphle, SAJAer and Columbia Graduate School of Journalism student.
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CNN's "American Morning" host Kiran Chetry, in her recent interview to Nepal Monitor, an online Nepali journal, hinted that she rather prefers Asian than South Asian. Sepiamunity's Amardeep Singh dissects parts of the interview where Chetry responds to a questions about her "South Asian" identity.

Chetry is a Nepali (which by geography is in South Asia) who moved to America when she was less than a year old. Her father Homa Chetry briefly worked for the Voice of America radio during the early 1970s. 

From Nepal Monitor:

And this is about being a "South Asian." Because you don't really seem like a South Asian unless somebody does some research on you! There are very few South Asians actually doing major shows on cable television in the US. What does being a "South Asian" mean to you?

I define it in a more narrow term. I feel that being half-Nepalese is my heritage, something I have always grown up being proud of and living with. It's never been something that I dwell on a lot; I think that it's just my life, it's who my family is, it's who my father is. My cousins, many of them that are my age, are here in the US, either studying or now have jobs here. And that is just a part of our culture. And I have lived straddling both.

But you are right, when people look at me they don't necessarily say, "Wow, Kiran must be Asian" or "Kiran must be from Nepal." But I think that when you get to really know me and you spend any time with my family, you see what an influence it is. Since my father is from Nepal and that is what I grew up around. It's just me.

And there are not a lot of South Asians, if you want to put it that way, that are represented in the news. However, there are a lot more at CNN, which is interesting. We have our special correspondent Sanjay Gupta, also Betty Nguyen, who is on our air and Alina Cho, one of our American Morning correspondents. All of them are Asian, or South Asian. So I think it is wonderful to be able to see more faces of diversity. And, I am one of them, even though I may not look like I am! I think I understand what being part of the Asian culture is like, not to put everybody into one big generalization. But I definitely understand a perspective because it is part of how I grew up.

The interview is a great read about her life, her family and her journey to CNN.

Want to know more? See SAJAforum coverage of her move in April 2007 to CNN. In 2006, she came in at #3 in Maxim's list of TV's sexiest anchors. More on Chetry on her official CNN bio, her Wikipedia profile and a  fan-run Yahoogroup. Please put your thoughts in the comments section below.

-- Anup Kaphle

HEY, FOLKS-WHO-WORK-IN TV: HELP US CONFIRM SOME HISTORY HERE... Asha Blake , formerly of ABC and NBC was the first South Asian anchor/co-anchor with her own national show (ABC "World News Now" in January 1997). Riz Khan, Zain Verjee and several others on CNN International had their own shows on that network, starting in the mid-1990s. Uma Pemmaraju, who was a charter anchor on Fox News Channel when it launched in 1997, was anchor of various news updates and other shows. PLEASE HELP US MAKE THIS ACCURATE! More info welcome in the comments section or via e-mail to saja[at]columbia.edu

BOOKS: Shashi Tharoor's India - an interview with the author

Shashi Tharoor dwells on the good side of India in his new book The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cell Phone, but is not afraid to face the bad. The collection of essays begins with an animal parable — itself an ancient Indian tradition — representing India’s incredible growth over recent years and the world of possibilities that a booming economy opens. Nonetheless, especially in the first essays, the spectre of intolerance in Indian society frustrates him. He writes, “I am proud that Hinduism is a civilization and not a dogma” and has sharp words for those who would make it a dogma. What he, like Amartya Sen, a Harvard economist who has written on Indian culture, finds most remarkable about Indian culture is its historical ability to absorb traditions and ideas, and to debate thorny issues. (Tharoor profiles Sen in the book.)

Tharoor is a relentless commentator and the range of the 67 essays is astounding, given that his day job until last February, UN Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, not to mention being a candidate for Secretary-General, would seem to allow little time for such prolific writing. Among the articles are musings on Indian culture for example the penchant for renaming streets and whole cities) with a healthy dose of politics, what it means to be from Kerala, being an Indian abroad and of course cricket. He has profiled some remarkable people including Former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, the painter M.F. Husain and his own father, Chandran Tharoor.

As brilliant as each essay is individually, the book is a bit diffuse. Tharoor has clearly written the essays for different readerships (some appeared in Indian news outlets and others in Western ones) and though the same elegant prose carries through all of them, some will be rather opaque to American readers and some will strike South Asian readers as a little basic or even preachy. Nonetheless, collections of essays are meant to be thumbed through so this is hardly a fault.

PAKISTAN: Interview with BBC Urdu editor Shahzeb Jillani on the Emergency

[NEW: SAJAforum coverage of the Pakistan Crisis, including experts]

Following is a SAJAforum interview with Shahzeb Jillani, an editor at the BBC Urdu. It was conducted by e-mail by Taimur Khan, who also contributed "PAKISTAN: Bloggers take on the Emergency" to this site. Jillani addresses the impact of the Emergency on the media in Pakistan, as well as the growth of Internet news and how this Emergency compares with previous acts of Emergency.

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SAJAforum: How have the press and private media in Pakistan had to alter their usual norms of coverage under the strictures of emergency rule?

Shahzeb Jillani: General Musharraf's controversial 'Provisional Constitution Order' targets the superior judiciary first and foremost. It's secondary target has been Pakistan's electronic media, namely the private TV news channels and FM stations broadcasting news. The general has accused them of being 'irresponsible' and spreading 'negativity'. Since Saturday when the Emergency was imposed, news TV channels have been taken off-air and a host of amendments have been made to the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) rules. Effectively, these new amendments amount to tight censorship on the media to stop them from reporting on 'the war on terror', constitutional cases of paramount national importance in the courts, and criticisng the role of President Musharraf and Pakistan Army. As a result, people in Pakistan can only watch state-run Pakistan Television (PTV) and listen to Radio Pakistan.

How are these new rules being enforced?

The government took the news channels off-air by directing all the cable operators nation-wide to pull the plug. A few days ago, the authorities raided the printing press of a leading publication in Karachi to stop them from bringing out a special newspaper supplement on the fast changing political scenario.

What risks do the private press and media face if they don't follow government restrictions?

Media owners, editors and working journalists have reacted strongly to the government's measures. They are currently meeting/consulting to devise a collective response. There are reports of some journalists
being harassed and intimidated.

What role is the Internet playing for media organizations?  Is it a viable way to get around the new rules?

BIZ: Indra Nooyi's "View from the Top" from FT

FT.com is doing a series of video-based CEO interviews called "View from the Top" and kicks it off with an interview with Indira Nooyi of PepsiCo. There are two parts: America and CEO compensation; and environment, obesity and advertising.

From the same series, Bill Ford, the CEO of General Atlantic, talked about India, China and newspapers.

Earlier SAJAforum coverage of Indra Nooyi:

• Nooyi becomes CEO (Aug. 14, 2006)
• Nooyi named most powerful woman in business (Oct. 2, 2006)
• Nooyi on list of 100 most influential people in the world (May 5, 2007)
• Nooyi #5 on world's 100 most powerful women (Aug. 31, 2007)

Post your comments below.

INTERVIEW: Five Questions for Nisid Hajari, Foreign Editor of Newsweek

It's been almost exactly a year since Nisid Hajari became foreign editor of Newsweek magazine. He was previously managing editor of Newsweek International. It's been an eventful year for foreign news - Iraq, Iran, Burma and much, much more - so he's been pretty busy. Just this week, the magazine ran a provocative cover on Pakistan.

He answered five quick questions from SAJAforum. His detailed bio is below the Q&A. On a side note, with Bobby Ghosh being named world editor of Time (and succeeding Romesh Ratnesar, who's on book leave), South Asians continue to be foreign editors of the two top U.S. newsweeklies (see Ghosh's Q&A).

SAJAforum.org: Congrats on surviving your first year as foreign editor. Can you explain how this job differs from being managing editor of Newsweek International. Those outside the magazine may not quite understand the roles of each and how the new role is a promotion within Newsweek.
HAJARI: Thanks very much. The confusion is understandable: At Newsweek International, I helped Fareed Zakaria run the magazine. That meant managing a staff of senior editors, approving layouts and covers, dealing with budget and advertising issues, and so on. But Newsweek International is a smaller entity than Newsweek--the one has a worldwide English-language circulation of around 750,000; the other has an American circulation of over 3 million. Moving over to "Domestic" means that I'm responsible for our coverage of the most urgent global stories-- the war in Iraq, the nuclear programs in North
Korea and Iran, the war on terror, and so on. Those stories appear in the international edition, sometimes in slightly different form, but are usually produced by the U.S. edition.

SAJAforum.org: What were you most proud of from your last five years at Newsweek International?

MOVES: Bobby Ghosh Becomes World Editor of Time, Romesh Ratnesar on Book Leave

A double SAJA move, folks. Romesh Ratnesar, who has been the world editor of Time since 2004, is going on book leave and is being succeeded by Aparisim "Bobby" Ghosh, who's been in the magazine's Baghdad bureau for four-plus years (Ghosh, who was born and raised in India, is the first Indian and first non-American to hold the world editor title at Time; Ratnesar is an American born to Sri Lankan parents). From Time editor Rick Stengel's memo (reproduced in full below):

I’m happy to announce that Bobby Ghosh has been named World Editor. Based in New York, Bobby will be responsible for editing the domestic magazine’s international coverage. In that role, he will be working closely with Michael Elliott, who leads the increasing coordination of our international output across all editions and time.com. Bobby’s extraordinary work from Iraq and his dedicated support of TIME’s Baghdad bureau has been inspiring to us all.
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Bobby succeeds one of the great all-time TIME world editors, Romesh Ratnesar, who has departed for a well-deserved book leave. Romesh will be back in January in an important new role.

We decided not to disturb Ratnesar during his book leave, but did ask Ghosh to answer three questions (his answers are below). Also see a much longer SAJAforum Q&A with Ghosh right after his 2007 SAJA Convention salon (caught in action above by Preston Merchant) - he discussed his experiences as a reporter in Iraq. Please post your comments below (we'll make sure Ghosh sees them). More on Ratnesar in Mediabistro's profile, "So What Do You Do, Romesh Ratnesar?"

NOTE: Once again, the top two American newsweeklies have South Asians in charge of editing the international news for their domestic editions. Nisid Hajari is the foreign editor for Newsweek, and is Ghosh's counterpart. Fareed Zakaria, on the other hand, is editor of all the international editions, making him the counterpart of Michael Elliott, who's mentioned above.

[To reach Bobby Ghosh, e-mail saja(at)columbia.edu (subject line = pass onto Bobby Ghosh) or use the comments section below.]

THREE QUESTIONS FOR BOBBY GHOSH, WORLD EDITOR OF TIME

SAJAforum: Congrats on the new gig. How did you decide to move to HQ?
A: It was the sort of offer you don't refuse -- the chance to shape TIME's coverage of world news. But it was hard to give up Baghdad, especially my colleagues there. Luckily, my new job will allow me to travel to Iraq from time to time.