Today we look at a darker side of the picture – aging parents. “As my father gets older and reaches an age where he needs more help and emotional support than ever before, I am confronted with a challenge that almost all young desis face today: how to juggle our responsibility towards our parents, which is an integral part of our culture, with the many demands of our hyperactive cosmopolitan lives and our focus on the realization of our own potential and dreams. Ultimately, we all find different solutions but the underlying emotional conflict is the same for everyone.
Guest Blog: Talkback with Sanjay Sanghoee
Browsing: Sanjay Sanghoee
“The Indian community in America has certainly ‘arrived’. Indians are everywhere, from finance to politics to media, and they are not just treading water either – they are rising to senior positions and directing the destinies of industries. They are also greatly involved in philanthropic work, not just for the homeland but right here at home as well, and they are truly assimilated into the American culture and values.
And that is what makes Gutpa’s fall even more problematic. He represents everything good about being Indian-American – educated, polished, humble, generous, statesmanlike – and yet his choices later in life throw all that away for the sake of money and in his quest for even higher status.” – Sanjay Sanghoee – Guest Post
The latest salvo, of course, has come in the wake of the Delhi rape scandal, and has tarnished the reputation of the country immeasurably. Not that rape and women’s rights are not real problems in India, but the persecution of an entire nation and culture is unjustified.
After all, we are still talking about a nation with thousands of years of rich history and advancement behind it and a cultural pedigree that frankly far outpaces that of America; not Iran or some tribal village in Afghanistan where they still use the abacus and stone women for adultery.
We are also talking about a nation with more than a billion people and very complex sectarian, cultural, religious, and economic dynamics that don’t lend themselves to black-and-white characterization or blanket judgment. Guest Blog – Sanjay Sanghoee
“Being Indian myself, it has always puzzled me when fellow Indians express their support for the Republican Party, which has rarely shown concern for the interests of minorities. Then why do some support them?
A big reason is financial. Republicans are big on free enterprise and low taxes, which plays well with immigrants who are insecure about their financial future in the new world and with those whose priority is wealth-creation. But another factor, equally powerful, is the need for acceptance in mainstream society; and nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in Dinesh D’Souza, the President of King’s College in New York, an author and a prominent Republican mouthpiece.
Dinesh D’Souza, of course, is Indian.” (Guest Blog – Talkback with Sanjay Sanghoee)
“As I get older, I find myself trying to rediscover some of the values of our Indian culture which shaped my childhood and still run as an uneasy undercurrent through my adult psyche, but for the most part have been suppressed in the desire to adapt to the New York lifestyle.
As with all value systems, of course, not everything is desirable and it’s necessary to pick and choose the best of both Indian and American values in order to be truly happy.” – Sanjay Sanghoee
“When Bobby Jindal first exploded onto the national scene in 2007, the Indian community was rightfully proud. A boy genius had become the youngest governor in American history at the jaw-dropping age of 36. The subsequent buzz about him being a potential presidential candidate in 2012 made him into an even bigger star. At least for Indians, he was truly the anointed one. That, however, was then.
Cut to 2009 when he delivered an extremely awkward, meandering, ideologically driven Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union speech. Even people in his own party were disappointed and suddenly there was doubt about Jindal’s readiness for a larger platform.”
– Guest blogger Sanjay Sanghoee
As Galleon co-founder Raj Rajaratnam’s trial
Insider trading scandals have been a staple of the American landscape for decades and while the more sensational ones like those involving Michael Milken and Martha Stewart are legendary, they are only symptoms of a larger disease that is the true bane of the business world – The Old Boys’ Club mentality.
Guest blog – Sanjay Sanghoee