Browsing: Sikh community

You probably will never meet two more unmatched people than the lead pair in ‘Learning to Drive’: Wendy (Patricia Clarkson), a frenetic Manhattan book critic whose relationships are falling apart and Darwan (Ben Kingsley), a gentle Sikh taxi driver and part-time driving instructor.

Both are from New York City but inhabit worlds apart.

Their lives intersect when Wendy, devastated by the fact that her husband Ted (Jake Weber) has left her for a younger woman, decides to take driving lessons to regain her independence. Darwan, who is about to be entering into an arranged marriage, sight unseen with Jasleen ( Sarita Choudhury) a woman from his village in India, has his own immigrant upheavals in a new world.

Dr. Eboo Patel is a man of peace in a time of violence. At a time when a Muslim name automatically gets equated with terrorism and Islam itself is misunderstood, this young Muslim Indian American shows the power of interfaith dialogue.

Recently he was honored in New York with the 2012 Guru Nanak Interfaith Prize, established by Hofstra University with a gift by the Bindras, a prominent Sikh American family in New York. This award has earlier been given to the Dalai Lama, Rabbi Arthur Schneier and Religions for Peace.Patel has been successful in propagating the very commonsense yet outrageous idea that given a choice, young people of different religions will prefer love over hate, peace over violence.

Cinema can be a powerful way of creating awareness of culture and issues. The Sikh community has been very successful in doing this by telling stories about the community and the faith.