My name is Prerna Lal. I am a freelance writer, social media expert, aspiring attorney and life-long student.
// January 16th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Desi-Indian
Want to try out new, ‘exotic’ International music and just don’t know what to listen to after seeing the gazillion Indian music albums out there? Well, here is a listing of some of the best songs from Bollywood in 2009, in my opinion.
New York – Tune Jo Na Kaha
3 Idiots – Behti Hawa Sa Tha
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// July 5th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // All things LGBT, Desi-Indian, Moron of the Week
On the heels of the Section 377 repeal in India, some faith-based leaders cannot hold in their hatred and discontent. The Times of India reports:
Leaders of faith across the spectrum are appalled — albeit to varying degrees — by the judgment. While Reverend Dominic Emmanuel, spokesperson of the Delhi Catholic Archdiocese, said the Catholic church has nothing against gays per se, he stressed, ‘‘We strongly believe that sex between same sex partners is immoral, unnatural and unethical.’’
His counterpart in Mumbai, Rev. Tony Charanghat, agreed, saying, ‘‘While homosexuals have to be treated with respect, homosexuality
can’t be equated with heterosexuality. The nature of sex should be complementary to life, which is God’s design.’’In fact, Mumbai’s Catholic Secular Forum (CSF) circulated mass SMSs last week appealing to Catholics to protest against the move to legalize homosexuality. Now, with the verdict in favour of gays, CSF will appeal against the judgment. ‘‘We protest on both, health and religious grounds,’’ says Joseph Dias, CSF general secretary.
‘‘We have statistics to prove that a large number of HIV cases are gay, and this verdict may lead to an AIDS epidemic of sorts,’’ Dias added.
Yoga teacher Swami Ramdev minced no words. ‘‘Do the people behind this verdict consider homosexuality natural? Is it something they will themselves do? If our parents had been gays, would we have been born? Freedom doesn’t mean licence. Our family system is the only ideal we can show to the world. Sadly, this judgment will end up corrupting it. I will be part of every protest against the judgment.’’
// July 2nd, 2009 // 10 Comments » // All things LGBT, Immigration
I am always asking everyone to share their stories because narratives are powerful, persuasive, and so that our stories don’t get lost to history.
I am guilty of never sharing my own story. And it has taken me a lot to get to this point but I don’t want this to be lost to history.
So I was asked to talk about what it was like to grow up queer in Fiji, and I can’t talk about it without sharing my ‘coming out’ story.
There’s two typical things in my story
1. I always knew I liked women
2. I fell in love with my best friend
And may I add this happened in an All-girls Catholic High School.
The year was 1998, I was around 13. I wouldn’t call it love at first sight but she was certainly the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She entered the classroom, late, and sat down beside me.
After the initial awkwardness, we became friends. Best friends.
After a month, I confessed that I was in love with her. She was confused and started crying. And that’s how news of my sexual orientation spread like wildfire. But she returned the feelings.
Our friends found out, so did our teachers, the principals, our parents, their colleagues and other schools in the area. Everyone knew about the two lesbian lovers at ______________________.
No one was supportive.
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// May 30th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Immigration, Videos
There comes a point in the U.S. immigration debate when I really question what ‘camp’ can I really fit under. It happens when advocates of undocumented students scoff at the lives and dreams of legal immigrants to the United States and support restrictions rather than critical reforms to the H-1 B program.
Senator Durbin–a great advocate of the necessary DREAM Act for undocumented kids–is nonetheless also the chief sponsor of a bill to curb H-1 B visas. I can’t stand behind Durbin when he sponsors one group of immigrants over another.
The H-1 B system is badly in need of reform–the tethering of the Green Card immigrant to her/his employer oftentimes becomes a decade-long exploitation with no guarantee of permanent residency down the road. And with cutbacks in education spending in the United States, including little incentive to pursue careers in technology, where do employers go to find workers? It is no wonder that big business supports the DREAM Act, which would give employers a small pool of productive immigrants to hire. Without the act, we are left with businesses outsourcing jobs to countries like India. We are certainly better off with a system that allows for greater skilled labor migration to this country because immigration is no zero sum game. The presence of skilled immigrants has greatly benefited this country and enriched the lives of American-born citizens.
// December 3rd, 2008 // No Comments » // Immigration
I am a bit ill this week and trying to relax before exams so this is a short note -
The DREAM Act has taken off as the #1 idea on Change.org and the many students coming out with their stories is absolutely heart-warming as well as heart-breaking. It might be tough to repeat this in the second round (Jan 5 – 15) but we must try to come out in the Top 10 and maintain a link with the supporters of critical immigration reform online. That’s why I urge all supporting members of Change.org to add DreamACTivist as a friend to get more updates and alerts on upcoming actions as well as join the Immigration cause.
Another idea that is very close to my heart (and personally tugs at my heartstrings more than the DREAM Act) is Uniting American Families Act. It has been placed in the Immigration section so the LGBT community might not be too aware of this. We tend to maintain a bridge between immigration and LGBT issues too often but issues like these show the heteronormativity of immigration laws affect more than just one core community.
Don’t forget your book donations to the Fiji Children’s Trust. Fiji might be the epitome of paradise in the eyes of many tourists, but the people living there have another story to tell. The Indians that have migrated from the country due to the coups have their own tales of sorrow and grief but that does not mean we should forget those that are left behind, especially the children. They played no part in the overthrow of the Indian-dominated labor government or the subsequent persecution of Indians; hence, they should not be punished for the ignorance of Fijian nationalists and nativists.
Of course, the government is realizing that the loss of Indo-Fijians has drastically harmed the economy and trying to lure back former Fiji citizens:
The interim government has announced former Fiji citizens living abroad will be entitled to automatic residency status at a cost of 1,860 US dollars from next year, giving them the right to reside, work and invest in the country.
It’s also setting up a foreign currency accounts scheme to make it easier for them to send money to Fiji.
Wait, so we migrate from Fiji after nativist calls to “go back home to India” and the overthrow of two democratically-elected Indian-dominated governments, but the Fijian government wants us to now PAY for residency after forced migration?! That is such an insult! Of course I say that while still maintaining my own Fijian citizenship …
I’ll be back after this weekend with loads of posts.
// October 26th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Desi-Indian
It’s close to 2am as I write this blog post. Everyone else in the house is sleeping. But the room next to mine–the prayer room–is well-lit with ‘X-mas’ lights, candles (diyas) and a megawatt standing lamp. The room is brighter than it would be in broad sunlight and it will remain this way all night.
Economic downturn, rising food prices and the tight supply of cash have already prevented Indian families the world over from being as lavish in their gifts and celebrations as previous years. These are days of (financial) darkness which cannot be driven away by the extra consumption of electricity to burn lampshades all night in the hopes of getting ‘Lakshmi’ (money) to come into our homes. It simply means a higher electricity bill at the end of the month ( not to mention the water bill from all the cooking and cleaning) — lakshmi going rather than coming. Festival of light increases financial burdens instead of bringing prosperity.
Can someone explain all the smoke INSIDE the house from the ‘hawan-kundh?’ I don’t get why some Indian people need to hold big congregations of people in their house to say a few chants, pour ghee into fire and create massive amounts of smoke that even has the smoke-alarm blaring loudly in a room all the way upstairs with a closed door. Festival of lights does not mean light your house on fire. And it certainly does not mean making your guests and family members suffocate in smoke first thing in the morning, especially if they already suffer from chronic hayfever!
Thankfully, we do not have ‘noise’ in the United States due to firecrackers going off in many neighborhoods. But if you are celebrating, think about the animals in your area with five times as much hearing sensitivity than your own, silently suffering in ignorant human revelery. Festival of lights, not festival of noise.
And who can forget the sweets — the sugary fried delights — ‘balls of sugar’ according to my brother-in-law. Do we really need to celebrate the victory of good over evil with tooth decay, high cholesterol and diabetes? It certainly is not the festival of glucose and fat.
Happy Diwali.
// October 21st, 2008 // 2 Comments » // All things LGBT, Desi-Indian, DesiPundit
Only 47% are opposed to Proposition 8 according to this recent survey. What should be more embarrassing is that, as a group, we lag behind other Asian Americans in opposing Proposition 8.
Alas, the report was unnecessarily nice to the ethnic group.
Get with the program my Desi brothers and sisters!
Elections 2008 resources for the South Asian community from SAALT
Elections ‘08 Resources - As the South Asian community is gearing up for the 2008 Elections, SAALT has developed some key resources to provide insight and amplify the South Asian voice. (September 2008)
// October 12th, 2008 // No Comments » // Desi-Indian, DesiPundit
If I ever made it ‘big’ as an author, I probably won’t be considered ‘Indian Writer in English’ either since I have never been to India. At least that seems to be one of the central assumptions of the reporter: to make claims of authenticity beyond a shadow of doubt, one must have ties to ‘India’ and spend time in the country beyond merely advertising a book.
Why does it matter? So that the Indian press can take some fake nationalistic pride and solace from the fact that an award-winning writer is authentically Indian. No thanks. There is no such thing as being authentically Indian. We should celebrate good literature for the mere fact that it is good; not because it is written by one of ‘us.’
In a postmodern, postcolonial and transnational context, the Indianness of the writer is increasingly becoming both highly visible and irritatingly elusive. In the beginning there was Salman Rushdie, who was born in India—so what if he never lived here! Then there is Hari Kunzru—who, one wishes, looked more Indian so that our claim to include him as an ‘Indian writer’ would have more legitimacy! There is also Jhumpa Lahiri, the caramelskinned beauty, born in London, and brought up to be Indian in the US, who won the Pulitzer Award that is meant exclusively for ‘American’ writers. Is she Indian or is she not?
The annals of criticism on Indian writing in English are punctuated periodically by such basic questions. It is only when the big awards are announced that all debate is put on the backburner; the media, literati, and chatterati gear up with headlines and statements that declare ‘Indian writing in English comes of age’; ‘The Empire writes back’; or simply ‘Once again our girl gets home the Trophy’. V S Naipaul too, would have been similarly and readily co-opted, had he not waged a lifelong battle against such ‘areas of darkness’. There is definitely something about international awards that pushes further the frontiers of Indianness.
Strange things happen to these award-winning ‘Indian’ writers if they default on tokens of Indianness. Kiran Desai was pulled up by a chauvinistic section of the media for not wearing a sari to the Booker Award ceremony. Surely she should have known better than to reveal to the whole world and its aunt her innate multiculturalism—the same multiculturalism that she criticises so eloquently in her novel The Inheritance Of Loss. But Desai also found several champions who defended her sartorial choice as one that befitted a universal writer: Nilanjana S Roy, a reviewer and critic, observed, ‘Writers belong to nations by accident and by default. But the only country that can really hold them is the borderless country of the imagination. We diminish ourselves as readers every time we forget that.’’
Should we be ashamed of ourselves to want our very own Indian writers in English? Should we conclude that there are and can be no Indian, American or British writers? I wouldn’t worry too much about being overly nationalistic. After all, virtually no writer makes a secret of his or her saleable nationality when it comes to book promotions and publicity campaigns: Indianness sells well in the global market. The market-savvy Rushdie, for instance, introduced Kiran Desai as ‘a new child with lavish gifts’’ born of “India’s encounter with the English language’ and not as the denizen of a ‘borderless country of the imagination’ to the literary world.
The real problem is how to shop for the authentic Indian writer. Is s/he the one who looks Indian? V S Naipaul in; Hari Kunzru out. Is s/he she the one who writes about India? My God! Vikram Seth is out with his An Equal Music and it’s Mark Tully that’s in! Is s/he the one with the Indian passport? Oh God! Where is everybody?
I think I personally would go the Bollywood crossover way (there is no other way to go these days!). As in Loins Of Punjab, I too will look for the Indian soul—a purely spiritual engagement with the country. My prize for the Desi Writer Idol would go to our very own White Mogul, William Dalrymple. In recent times, Dalrymple has emerged as an articulate critic of American imperialism, which he critiques as the post-modern avatar of British colonialism.
The Scottish writer, his website claims, divides his time between Delhi and London. Not only is this more than Rushdie, Kunzru or Lahiri do to be Indian; it is also much more in hours and minutes than the time spent in their ‘own’ country by the likes of Kiran Desai. I hear that even Amitav Ghosh—who at one time was considered Indian with a vengeance by the same critics who rejected Rushdie for not being Indian enough—hardly visits any more, except for book tours, of course! Besides, Dalrymple knows Urdu, is a champion of pluralism and is regularly rapped on the knuckles by fellow whites for his West-bashing. How many Diasporic and international Indian writers can match this?
Source: Times of India Goa
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