Browsing: New Jersey

Assemblyman Upendra J. Chivukula of New Jersey is very much a people’s man, rubbing shoulders with the person on the street and well aware of the difficulties the middle-class faces. He’s been there and he’s walked in those shoes. He is running for US Congress from New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District but he’s come up the hard way and understands the concerns of his constituents.

He was born a continent away in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh in a lower middle-class family. He and his five siblings, parents and grandmother lived in a mud hut with thatched roof without electricity where schoolwork had to be done outdoors under the street lights, and life had to be lived on a fixed income. The family even moved to Chennai in search of work.

“My father held many jobs including that of cashier and teacher and was a very honest man who taught us good values,” recalls Chivukula. “My mother was a music teacher, teaching classic Karnataka music and she played the veena. We still have the veena back home and when I visit her, I see that she is still singing. She is 83 years old and I wish I had the gift and talent that she has!”

She’s made Madhur Jaffrey, Preity Zinta, Yoko Ono and even Cherie Blair, the former First Lady of Britain, taste her cakes. She says with a smile, “Preity Zinta called them ‘yummy’; Yoko Ono said ‘Nice cupcakes’ and Cherie Blair said, ‘These are great!’”
Indeed, if Parul Patel has a mission in life, it’s to get a cupcake inside you!
(Parul offers a tasting to Britain’s former First Lady, Cherie Blair, at a fundraiser)

They may live in American cities, go to American schools but Bollywood runs in their blood. We’re talking of young Indian-Americans, thousands and thousands of them, scattered across American towns and cities. Weaned on Bollywood movies on DVD since babyhood, they learn the Shah Rukh moves, the Madhuri moves, the Shahid moves, almost by osmosis in family living rooms.
Later many of them learn dance, classical and Bollywood, at the scores of Indian dance schools that have sprouted up in towns and cities. They dance at family events, birthdays and weddings, as naturally as if they were in a Bollywood movie and it was written into the script of life.