Indo American News

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Summer Youth Camp 2015 at Radha Madhav Dham: Join this Extraordinary Family Camp from Jun 27 to July 11, 2015

Pracharak Teaching

AUSTIN,TX: Radha Madhav Dham’s 2015 Summer Family Camp is approaching fast. More than 250 families from all over the country and even world, come to this idyllic and scenic ashram situated in the Hill Country of Austin Texas, to attend this family camp. Many kids, instead of going to soccer camp, sleep-away camp, traveling or playing video games choose to come here sometimes forcing their parents to make this happen! What is so extraordinary about this camp that makes kids want to come back again and again to a camp organized by a temple? Kids have more fun than they can imagine, an extraordinary kind of fun that they don’t expect – and, its not just because of activities organized at camp its because of everything they gain when they are here…. they never want to leave this place once they get here.

Family Camp

The two weeks spent at the camp gives youth a deeper sense of their own self, they understand their roots, their culture & heritage and start feeling a sense of pride and confidence in who they are, an Indian and a Hindu. It bonds them with the temple community since this place lets them be who they are – they don’t have to pretend, they can just be! They also have fun being together with so many other like-minded kids, the bonding among them becomes special… they recognize these kids as heir own brother and sisters they can count on in their lives which they know is not possible in the external world.

Adults participate in their own way, with people of their own ages in interactive sessions with preachers, workshopping the difficulties they have in raising children as Hindus in a Western world, challenges in understanding Hinduism or learning how to develop their own spiritual practice. They get an opportunity to do their own electives – learning to play musical instruments, learning to chant and listening to spiritual discourses. The best part for them is that they don’t have to worry about taking care of their kids… they can spend the entire time on their own self – learning, developing and having fun. It’s a preciously sweet time for everyone there… and truly an inspiring thing to see.

There is an incredible community of devoted volunteers, teachers and staff who put together a truly memorable experience for children of all ages and in parallel for participating adults. Your family will have the opportunity to:
Learn about Hinduism through interactive discussions, debates & fun learning sessions. It will clarify your questions on Hinduism
Explore the wonders of Indian culture by participating in your choice of electives such as dance, music, harmonium, dholak, stage performances, prasad making, philosophy, debate & logic, robotics, special projects
Make lifelong friends with other children who share similar interests and create lifetime bonds so they can become your devotional support
Have their spiritual questions answered by the Camp’s experienced teachers so you can build an understanding of your Hindu heritage.
Build a relationship with God by learning simple, practical and easy ways to build a sweet devotional relationship with and come close to God

“I’ve been going to family camp for a long time, and if there is one thing I know, it’s that it gets better with each year, you create connection with them that lasts a lifetime. The bonds that are forged over the course of the camp are unlike anything else” says Vyasar a long time camp attendee who has this year chosen to take on the responsibility of running the camp and inspire other kids.

Your family too can immerse in learning about the wonders of Indian culture, heritage and spirituality by attending this extraordinary Hindu Family Camp at Radha Madhav Dham. Just come and experience it for yourself.

Experience the joy of home at Radha Madhav Dham. Register today. Registration for the Camp is free. Book your overnight accommodations by visiting www.radhamadhavdham.org or calling 512-288-7180.

June 5, 2015
Gandhi in South Africa – Part 3

The story thus far: Gandhi, having studied well and completed his law degree in England, returns to India. He misses England but is happy to be reunited with his family. He begins practicing law in Rajkot.

Upon return to India, Gandhi started to practice law in Rajkot, but he was soon deeply disgusted at the greed and dishonesty of many of his fellow professionals. After some time, he got an offer to work in South Africa from Dada Abdulla & Co who owned big business concerns there. He was to be a legal adviser to the firm that had filed a lawsuit against another company seeking damages of 400,000 dollars. They hired Gandhi for his fluency in the English language and his knowledge of English law. He was contracted for one year and was promised a substantial salary and first class passage to South Africa. The lure of seeing a different country and meeting new people piqued Gandhi’s interest. He accepted the offer, even though it was difficult to be apart from his wife and young son. In April 1893 he left Bombay for South Africa. He reached the port of Natal at the end of May 1893. In South Africa, he noticed that Indians were treated with little respect. They were called “coolies”, a derogatory term. Within a week of his arrival, he visited the court with Abdulla Seth of Dada Abdulla & Co. No sooner had he sat down that the magistrate pointed his plump finger at him and said “You must remove your turban”. Gandhi was surprised. He looked around. There were several Muslim and Parsi men wearing turbans. He could not understand why he was being singled out.

“I see no reason why I should remove my turban. I refuse to do so,” said Gandhi. When the magistrate insisted that he remove his turban, Gandhi walked out of the court. Abdulla Seth ran after him and caught him by the arm.

“You don’t understand,” said Seth. “These white people consider Indians inferior and address them as coolie or sami. Parsis and Muslims are allowed to wear turbans as the turban is thought to have religious significance,” added Seth.
“The magistrate insulted me,” Gandhi said angrily. “Any such rule is an insult to a free man. I shall write at once to the Durban Press to protest such insulting rules.”

And Gandhi did write. The letter was published and it led to unexpected debate and discussion. At the same time, some other papers described Gandhi as a troublemaker and unwelcome visitor.

After a week in Durban, he left for Pretoria to attend to the case for which he was engaged. With a first class ticket, he boarded the train. At the next stop, an Englishman got into the compartment. He was traveling to Pretoria too, in the first class compartment. He looked at Gandhi with contempt and called the conductor.

“Take this coolie out and put him in a lower class!” he ordered.

The conductor turned to Gandhi and said, “Hey Sami, come along with me to the next compartment.”

Insulted, Gandhi refused to move saying that he had purchased a first class seat and was entitled to be there.

The conductor called a policeman who pushed him off the train with his bag and baggage. The train left and Gandhi spent the night shivering in the cold.

This incident changed the whole course of his life. He decided to fight all such injustices. He sent a note of protest to the general manager of the railways, but the official only supported the rail employees. More trouble was in store for him. The next morning, he went to Charlestown by train. He had now to travel by a stagecoach to Johannesburg, but he was not allowed to sit inside the coach with white passengers. To avoid confrontation Gandhi sat outside on the coach-box behind the coachman. After some time the conductor asked him to sit on a dirty sack on the step below. Gandhi refused. The conductor began to pull him down and beat him. At this time, some of the passengers came to Gandhi’s rescue and he was allowed to sit with them.

Gandhi reached Johannesburg the next night, quite shaken by the experiences on the way. He had the address of a Muslim merchant’s house, where he spent the night. The next day he bought a first class ticket and continued his train journey to Pretoria. The only other passenger in the compartment was a well-dressed Englishman. A little later, a conductor entered and Gandhi quickly showed him the ticket. “Your ticket does not matter,” growled the conductor. “Go to the third class compartment at once!”

Before Gandhi could reply, the Englishman said, “Why are you harassing this gentleman? His ticket gives him a right to be here.”

And then turning to Gandhi, he told him to make himself comfortable. Thanking him warmly, Gandhi settled down with a book. It was late in the evening when the train pulled into Pretoria. He stayed at a hotel that night and moved into a lodge the next day. There he began to study the Abdulla lawsuit. Even while he was working on it, he found time to call a meeting of the Indians in Pretoria.

To Be Continued…

June 5, 2015
Fascination with Historical Bengali Episode Develops into a Poignant Movie, True to Life

At the Houston screening of the movie “Chittagong”, local organizers Partha Chatterjee (left) and Raja Banga (right) with supporter Sanchali Basu with the movie’s director Bedabrata Pain (second from right). Photos: Jawahar Malhotra

By Jawahar Malhotra

KATY: Even among Indians in the Old Country, there is no widespread knowledge of the events of the 1930s that accelerated the unraveling of the British Colonial rule in the eastern part of the country and ultimately led to its retreat and the sad and damaging partition of Bengal that followed just 15 years later.

“But for the average Bengali school kid, this is a most revered and well known part of pre-Independent Indian history”, said Bedabrata Pain, who was in town this past weekend to attend the screening of his movie, “Chittagong” to a select audience. For them, the story of Masterda Surya Sen and his group of revolutionaries who fought to get the British out of the port city of Chittagong is steeped in nationalistic fervor and pride. “But, this is not a documentary”, Pain is quick to point out, “rather a flight of my imagination, fed by some years of research into the Chittagong Uprising of 1930”.

The capacity crowd of 250 lined up at the Katy Mills AMC 20 last Saturday, November 8 for the movie’s only screening in the Metroplex.

And, he also admits, a stroke of luck that brought him face-to-face with one of the chief protagonists in the movie, Subodh “Jhanku” Roy who was a 14 year-old recruit into the Indian Republican Army, Chittagong Branch. As word got around in Kolkata that Pain was interested in making a movie about the event, an acquaintance told him about an old man who was lying on his deathbed in the P.G. Hospital. Pain hurried to his bedside and was able to meet the 91 year-old Jhanku and get his life story and video tape a few moments with him. “The movie is told through the eyes of the 14 year-old Jhanku, and not that of the leader, and so is more exciting. Most movies of leaders end in failure”, he added, “but not this one”. Jhanku died two weeks after telling his tale.

Pain was also lucky enough to meet Jhanku’s younger brother Subas Roy who gave him most of the details, and also met the last man of the revolutionary boys squad, Behari Chaudhury, who was 99 then and died at 103. As the movie ends, video clips of the elderly Jhanku and Chaudhury and other characters in the film roll by with captions about what they subsequently became and achieved, which added to the audience’s acceptance of the authenticity and accuracy of the movie.

The low-budget movie was presented by the Tagore Society of Houston and was screened on Saturday, November 8 at 2 pm at the AMC Katy Mills 20. The 250 capacity audience got a chance to mingle with the director Bedabrata Pain prior to the screening and then immediately afterwards for a question and answer session at which he described how he got interested in the subject and the making of the movie.

An award-winning NASA scientist, an inductee to the US Space Technology Hall of Fame and an inventor of the digital camera technologies and holder of 87 patents, Dr. Bedabrata Pain quit NASA after 16 years to follow his passion film-making. “I had no movie making experience and this was my first time on a set”, quipped Pain with a chuckle before the screening. “In fact, the waterboy had more time on a set than I did”! He wrote the story, then hired someone to make the screenplay and started scouting around in Bengal for a location.

“I got the film fully funded and was ready to start when I discovered that someone else had copied my idea and made the Bollywood movie Khelein Hum Jee Jahan Se (in 2010 by the producer Ashutosh Gowariker, based on Manini Chatterjee’s book Do or Die) so I shelved it”. He turned, instead, to the royalties from his patents to invest $800,000 of his own money into making the film and started again. “Most of the actors took really low payments and even the musical team of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy took next to nothing”, Pain recalled.

After 42 days of shooting in Lataguri (at the foothills of the Himalayas) to recall the hills of Jalalabad (on the outskirts of Chittagong, the scene of the real-life 1932 siege of the revolutionaries), the movie was edited in Los Angeles. Pain wanted the movie to play across many audiences, so he made the movie in the more widely understood Hindi, with English subtitles, and had the well-known script writer Piyush Mishra translate the dialogues from English into Hindi. He then chose an American, Eric Zimmerman, to be in charge of cinematography and editing. “I wanted a different perspective on the filming and how the material flowed”, Pain said. “Indian movies still have a lot to learn about screenplay, photography and editing”. He then turned to Anurag Khesap to fund the publicity campaign and got Mountain River Films to handle distribution in the US.

The result is the 1 hour 45 minute movie that engrosses you from the first scene and then captivates you till the end. Filmed in sepia-toned colors that evoke movies of a bygone era, Pain and Zimmerman have used simple, ordinary surroundings to unfold the events that led to the Uprising and have created this award-winning film.

Chittagong is an uplifting action-drama of an improbable triumph, told through the life of the reluctant hero, a teenager Jhanku (Delzad Hiwale in his debut role). This Indian historical war drama film stars Manoj Bajpai in the lead role of Masterda Surya Sen and is based upon actual events of British India’s Chittagong Uprising. The cast includes three national-award winning actors Nawazuddin Siddique (as Nirmal Sen), Rajkumar Rao (Loknath Bal) and Vega Tamotia (Pritilata Waddedar). The film features music by trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, lyrics by Prasoon Joshi, sound by Oscar winner Resul Pookutty and cinematography by Eric Zimmerman.

This film was released in India in October 2012, with many Bollywood actors like Shah Rukh Khan at the premiere. It is the winner of Golden Lotus in the Indian National Award, 2013, winner of several international film festivals including Florence Film Festival 2012, Sedona International Film Festival 2013, Jaipur International Film Festival 2014 (best film, best screenplay) and Washington DC Film Festival 2014 (best film, best director).

The film has had limited release so far in the US, with screenings in New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco and now Houston. Pain plans to have screenings in San Diego, Chicago and Atlanta soon and was already besieged by people who had heard about the Houston screening at the IIT picnic (see page 06) for more shows in Houston. A fellow IITan, the Los Angeles based Pain was delighted at the appeal to various cross-sections of the Indian diaspora and vowed he’d be back in the Bayou City for more shows.

November 13, 2014
Sewa International and Houston Maharashtra Mandal Join Hands to Raise Funds for Jammu & Kashmir Floods

HMM president Megha Ozarker handing over the check to Sewa Project coordinator Kavita Tewary.

HOUSTON: As we go about enjoying our life every day, there are children and families suffering in Jammu and Kashmir, struggling in cold weather, looking for food and shelter. To most of us in Houston, lives of those children mean nothing but a news item. But, it meant more to some wonderful men and women at Maharastra Mandal.

Sewa International a leading Hindu faith based nonprofit with humanitarian focus and worldwide reach.When the recent J and K floods happened Houston Maharashtra Mandal’s (a leading nonprofit) board members particularly Mridula Lele and its President Megha Ozarker and Ravi Ozarker,undertook the noble endeavor of raising funds for this disaster.

Mrudula Lele from HMM collecting funds for J &K

Mrudula Lele said that as citizens of India they felt a responsibility towards helping Indians in need. With this attitude in mind, Houston Maharashtra Mandal decided to organize a fundraiser for the J &K floods. HMM WAS researching for organizations which were helping for this cause and came across Sewa International. Sewa is a reputed organization in the Houston area and they also have their sister branch Sewa Bharati, in India, which is working for this cause on ground level.HMM contacted Sewa and they explained the intensity of the flood situation and how they were helping the people affected. Apart from sounding genuine, the empathy with which they work for people in need was the factor which made HMM decide to give the collected fundS to Sewa.The effort put in by the HMM president Megha Ozarker was commendable.Houston Maharashtra Mandal 2014 Committee members had a phone conference with Kavita Tewary, Project Coordinator|Sewa International. She gave an excellent talk about the situation in Kashmir and also supported HMM’s intention to help. She had in-depth knowledge of what was happening in Kashmir.

After the meeting, HMM sent an email blast to all its members to raise awareness for this calamity,an appeal was posted on HMM website ,and a donation box was set up at the Diwali event in Katy. Appeals were made several times during the event to raise funds.Overall, the response was great.According to Ravi Ozarker any donation big or small is very important and builds community strength. Strength and confidence that we are there to help out our community and other communities when any need arises. It showed how much people cared for our communities in India and were willing to help. We witnessed love for country, love for our people, love for our communities and above all love for humanity.

If you want to help or if your organization wants to do similar efforts for flood hit Jammu and Kashmir or states hit by Cyclone Hudhud, email at Houston@sewausa.org or call -Kavita Tewary@ 713-303-4253

November 13, 2014