Category Archives: Holidays

L’Shana Tovah

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A very sweet new years to all of our Jewish readers.

[Update: Here’s a wonderful description of Rosh Hashanah, Calcutta style, by an Indian Baghdadi Jew (via the 92nd street Y blog)]

There have long been Jews in India.

India has a legacy of three distinct Jewish groups: the Bene Israel, the Cochin Jews and the White Jews from Europe. Each group practiced important elements of Judaism and had active synagogues. The Sephardic rites predominate among Indian Jews.

The Bene Israel (“Sons of Israel”) lived primarily in Bombay, Calcutta, Old Delhi and Ahmadabad… The Bene Israel claim to be descended from Jews who escaped persecution in Galilee in the 2nd century B.C.E. The Bene Israel resemble the non-Jewish Maratha people in appearance and customs, which indicates intermarriage between Jews and Indians. The Bene Israel, however, maintained the practices of Jewish dietary laws, circumcision and observation of Sabbath as a day of rest.

Jewish merchants from Europe traveled to India in the medieval period for purposes of trade, but it is not clear whether they formed permanent settlements in south Asia. Our first reliable evidence of Jews living in India comes from the early 11th century. It is certain that the first Jewish settlements were centered along the western coast.

The first Jews in Cochin (southern India) were the so-called “Black Jews,” who spoke the Malayalam tongue. The “White Jews” settled later, coming to India from western European nations such as Holland and Spain. A notable settlement of Spanish and Portuguese Jews starting in the 15th century was Goa, but this settlement eventually disappeared. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Cochin had an influx of Jewish settlers from the Middle East, North Africa and Spain. [Link]

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A chilly Diwali

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Manhattan celebrates Diwali next Sunday, October 2nd at the South Street Seaport. Come enjoy bhangra, chaat, Air-India fireworks (not the Flight 182 kind) and life insurance booths next to the Brooklyn Bridge.

The chilly Seaport is a moorage for tall ships in the shadow of azure skyscrapers by Wall Street. It’s both an anachronism (a mall these days) and an odd spot for the celebration, evoking the Americans dressed as Indians who dumped tea in Boston Harbor.

Real Indians would never waste perfectly good tea. And it would probably be Lipton.

Previous post here. Related posts: one, two, three.

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Fight, for the Right, to Diwaaaali! (updated)

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diwalilamp.jpg.jpg This morning, the NYC Council Committee on Transportation held a hearing in relation to the suspension of alternate side of the street parking rules on the Hindu festival of Diwali.

This is a big deal. Alternate side of the street parking is rarely suspended, and affects anyone looking for a place to park in NY. Only 32 legal and religious holidays are recognized by the City. Scroll down here for a list. From the petition organizers:

The first step in the process is the proposed legislation to get approved at the hearing on September 20th. Then, the Mayor will have to sign it into law. It is critical that the Council Members and, in turn, the Mayor appreciate the interest in and support of this legislation. The more support shown for the legislation at this stage of the process, the more likely it is that the Mayor will not veto it.

According to the NYC Department of Planning,there are over 600,000 foreign-born persons of South Asian descent in the NYC metro area; this does not even include those of South Asian descent born in America…If NYC takes this step, other cities and municipalities throughout the country will have the precedent to do the same.[link]

Since ASotS parking is suspended on Sunday, most ethnic/national parades such as the Puerto Rican Day parade are held then. (Here is a complete list of NYC ethnic festivals – read and weep :P)

Suspending parking rules for Diwali would be a huge symbolic (and practical re: parades) recognition of South Asian contributions to the city. Please read more on what you can do to show your support. Stay tuned for updates.

Update: The Committee on Transportation unanimously approved it! From the organizer’s email:

The legislation will be voted on by the full NYC Council at the Stated Meeting on Wednesday, September 28. [If they] approve the legislation it will then go to Mayor Bloomberg to be signed into law. Then the Mayor will have 30 days to sign or veto the legislation…press conference at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, September 28, on the steps of City Hall.

Related posts:1, 2, 3. Continue reading →

How to make Karanjees via WaPo

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karanjee.jpg I feel like typing “Happy Ganesh Utsav“, but I’m 99.9% certain that’s incorrect, inapposite and just plain inane. Surely I will suffer a beat-down for my cheekiness; I implore you to bear in mind (while you are paddling me) that I’m just a simple Christian girl from Coconut land/God’s own country who has no idea what this snack even IS. 😉

It’s well-established that I’m reading whenever I’m on the metro and half the time I’m doing that, I’m actually scanning the articles for sepia-tinted stories which I can bring you here. 🙂 Normally, I find brown down ’round the front page; yesterday, I was slightly surprised to see that my “local” paper’s Food section was where the mutiny was at. Et voila, an article by Priya Phadke to coincide with a certain deity’s partay. I’ve seen hundreds of recipes in WaPo, but this is the first desi one that I’ve noticed.

Priya is the assistant art director for The Post’s Sunday Source, a.k.a. the section I love most and thus save for Georgetown, Dean and Deluca and cappuccino-soaked Sunday afternoons. Here’s what our dear artiste had to say about what you guys are going to be making (and then sending to North Dakota, please. Thanks!):

In the three years since I moved to the United States from Mumbai, as Bombay is now called, I get most homesick during festive seasons. My maternal grandmother nani would make comfort food, and her karanjees are what I miss most.
Karenjees are dough stuffed with soft, shredded coconut that is flavored with cardamom, saffron, sugar and Gulkand, a rose petal jam that lends a distinctive flavor and fragrance and sets my nani’s karanjees apart from all others.

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Midnight’s towers

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The Empire State Building is lit green and white this weekend in honor of Pakistan’s independence. Manhattan’s parade starts at 12:30 pm today and goes down Madison Ave. from 41st to 26th Sts.

The 23rd St. tower’s lighting is still on IST. Maybe it’s reactionary political commentary; maybe it’s a statement of solidarity; maybe, like vegetables and viceroys, it only morphs at the stroke of midnight.

 

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India daze

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On IST as always, NYC’s India Day parade was held on August 21 this year. I couldn’t attend, but I hear one of our readers played the nauch girl on stage. Perhaps you’ll chime in with incriminating photos.

Like the Poe toaster, only sans macabre, some mystery soul always garlands the Gandhi statue in Union Square with fresh flowers:

For over 50 years since 1949, on the night marking the anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s birth, a mysterious man-in-black has entered the cemetery where the master of the macabre lies buried, and, making his way through the dark shadows to Poe’s grave, he places a partial bottle of expensive French cognac and three blood-red roses there, presumably as tokens of admiration and in tribute to the great author. This ritual completed, he then slips away into the night as quietly and as mysteriously as he came…

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Fifty-eight years

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‘… the highest ideals of the human race: satyam shivam sundaram.’

— Subhash Chandra Bose

‘A new star rises, the star of freedom in the East… May the star never set and that hope never be betrayed…

‘The ambition of the greatest men of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye.  … so long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over…

‘… no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought or in action… All of us, to whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of India.’

— Jawaharlal Nehru

‘… even as regards Muslims you have Pathans, Punjabis, Shias, Sunnis and so on and among the Hindus you have Brahmins, Vaishnavas, Khatris, also Bengalis, Madrasis, and so on… Indeed, if you ask me this has been the biggest hindrance in the way of India to attain the freedom and independence and but for this we would have been free people long, long ago. No power can hold another nation, and specially a nation of 400 million souls in subjection; nobody could have conquered you, and even if it had happened, nobody could have continued its hold on you for any length of time but for this.

‘Therefore, we must learn a lesson from this. You are free; you are free to go to your temples. You are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any region or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the State.’

— Mohammed Ali Jinnah

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A more perfect union (updated)

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‘America the Beautiful‘

… Thine alabaster cities gleam
undimmed by human tears…

America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free! … (Did Ayn Rand know about this?)

Till nobler men keep once again
Thy whiter jubilee!

Happy birthday, sweet land of liberty. I love my country tremendously, but the intertwined backstories of the good ol’ U.S. of A. and desi Americans are replete with historical irony. The übermutinous Declaration of Independence was signed 229 years ago on this day:

Prudence… will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes… But when a long train of abuses… reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government… The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries… the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States…

Asian Indian students who were supporters of independence from the British Empire were expelled from the country by order of President Theodore Roosevelt… [Link]

When [Gen. Dyer, who executed the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre] was felicitated — not censured — in the British House of Lords, even Mahatma Gandhi, that apostle of tolerance, was moved to suggest that “co-operation in any shape or form with this satanic government is sinful”. [Link]

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither…

 A geographical criterion was used to exclude Asian Indians, because their racial or ethnic status was unclear… The 1917 immigration act denied entry to people from a ‘barred zone’ that included South Asia… [Link]

… sustained political attacks against Asian Indians… culminated in the imposition of the 1917 Barred Zone Act. Asian Indians joined other Asian country nationals… who were excluded from immigrating to the United States… [Link]

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As American as Gatka

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For the first time, the DC Independence day parade will include a gatka display, featuring the Miri Piri Gatka Dal (Texas) and the  Sikh Gatka Akhara (DC).

Gatka is a (the?) “Sikh Martial Art.”  A fighter swings his or her weapon (usually a stick, sword, or chain) in a fast, fluid, circular, flowing motion, while following a set footwork routine called the Panthra.  The result is both visually captivating and quite effective. Stylistically, gatka is more like kendo than fencing. Fencing was developed to train men for one-on-one duels; it’s linear and episodic, concentrating on lunges designed to penetrate armor. Gatka is designed so that one fighter can hold off multiple opponents and it relies upon continuous motion. The two fighting styles are different in all the stereotypical but true ways that East differs from West.

If you can’t make it, you might be interested looking at some video clips. My favorites include this one of a man with two swords, one man fighting multiple opponents, and this video-game style clip of two guys fighting. And yes, women do gatka as well [Windows Media Required].

At first I was concerned that the athletes demonstrating gatka would get a rude reception. After all, they’re swarthy, mainly male, dressed in salvar kameez, wearing round turbans. The men have long flowing beards. And this is the Fourth of July, a time for both patriotism and bigotry.

But I thought about it some more, and relaxed. After all, who would be dumb enough to mouth off to a bunch of Texans swinging swords like airplane propellers? Now that would be un-American.

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For 39 years, “One People, One Nation, One Destiny”

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coat of armsWe’ve been accused of a lack of lowe for Guyana, so I thought I’d point out that serendipitously enough, today is Guyanese Independence Day. Wikipedia says so on its main page, under selected Anniversaries. By the by, did you know that Guyana is half desi?

the three major groups are the (East) Indians or Indo-Guyanese (50%) who have remained predominantly rural, the Africans or Afro-Guyanese (36%) who constitute the majority urban population, and the Amerindians (7%) who live in the country’s interior…

Guyanese flag

Christianity (50%), Hinduism (35%), and Islam (10%) are the dominant religions in Guyana, with the latter two concentrated in the Indo-Guyanese community.

Word. SM is down with ALL brown, y’hear? 🙂

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