Preston Merchant

Reena Patel: "Working the Nightshift" Launch Party

Geographer and American Foreign Service officer Reena Patel held a party at the Roger Smith Hotel in Manhattan to launch her book "Working the Night Shift: Women in India's Call Center Industry."

The book explores the economic and social issues of Indian women working in this new and untraditional environment that challenges long-held assumptions about their personal and social mobility. 

See more photos. Buy the book.

Asian American Writers Workshop Honors Sonny Mehta

As part of its PageTurner Literary Festival, the Asian American Writers Workshop  honored Sonny Mehta, Knopf Publisher & Editor-in-Chief with a Lifetime Achievement Award. The special guest was Michael Ondaatje, author of "The English Patient."  The event was held at the restaurant called At Vermilion in Manhattan. (Hover over the images for captions; click to go the image archive.)

Glitz and Glamor at the Sakhi Gala

Sakhi for South Asian Women, the community-based organization working to eradicate domestic violence, celebrated its 20th anniversary with a gala at the Prince George Ballroom in Manhattan with two prominent guest speakers -- filmmaker Mira Nair and actor Reshma Shetty.

 Filmmaker Mira Nair, of the much-loved movies "Monsoon Wedding" and "The Namesake"

 Actor Reshma Shetty of USA Network's "Royal Pains"

The evening's MC was Bhavna Toor -- Miss India New York 2001 and a host at Namaste America, the South Asian TV network.

Read E. Nina Rothe's coverage of the event at the AVS TV blog.  See more pictures.

The 2009 South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA) Convention in Pictures

SAJA Convention 2009 (Highlights) - Images by Preston Merchant

Love Letters to Mumbai: From the Asian American Writers Workshop

On May 14, the Asian American Writers Workshop in New York presented a forum called "Love Letters to Mumbai," featuring some prominent artists and writers who have a personal connection to the city.

Author and journalist Amitava Kumar

Author and filmmaker Sadia Shepard

Visual artist Jaishri Abichandani

Author and professor Vijay Prashad

See more pictures.

The Lord Mayor of Leicester

Manjula Sood and Chris Rhodes, Civic Attendant, with the Lord Mayor’s robe

My profile of Manjula Sood, the Lord Mayor of Leicester, is up on Sepia Mutiny.

Indian Dhows

I have a post over at the SAJA Forum about the Somali pirates provoking an Indian navy frigate in the Gulf of Aden.  India is keen to protect its maritime interests in the region, which includes safe passage for its dhows.  Dhows are the traditional wooden cargo vessels that ply the waters from the Horn of Africa to the eastern shores of the Arabian Sea and throughout the Gulf.  India's dhow trade, which is centuries old, is based primarily in Gujarat. 

In 2004, I spent a few days with the men of MSV Shree Mahalaxmi, which was docked in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates as it took on its cargo of grains for transport to Kuwait.  After stopping there, it would pick up dates from Iraq, and make for other ports.  They only returned to India to pick up or discharge cargo, and the journey across the Arabian Sea under sail could take as long as five days.

The crew described a vagabond lifestyle at sea, often spending long stretches in port as they waited for trucks to arrive with new cargo.  Since the Mahalaxmi was a very small dhow (some 75 feet long), its only mechanism for moving heavy objects was a block and tackle.  Most of the materials had to be loaded by hand.

The men were all from the village of Bet on the Gujarati coast, and most were related by blood or marriage.  They maintained all the customs of village India -- serving guests (me) tea, removing their chappals before entering the wheelhouse (which was also the captain's quarters), and enjoying a common meal of chicken and rice after going to the mosque on Friday.

Today's the Day

Barack Obama makes history.

Malaysia, Human Rights & the Indian Minority

A Hindu activist speaks at a rally for the PAS, the Pan Malaysian Islamic Party. An opposition party, the PAS gained support from Indians and Chinese, most of whom are not Muslims, after the Nov. 25 violent crackdown on the Indian protest in Kuala Lumpur organized by HINDRAF.

I traveled to Malaysia in January of 2008 to photograph in the large Indian community there, mostly Tamils whose ancestors were bonded laborers brought from India by the British to work in rubber plantations.

Malaysia's Indian community has undergone significant political transformation in the past year, starting with a protest in Kuala Lumpur on November 25, 2007, that drew tens of thousands of Indians -- and the wrath of the Malaysian government, who deployed water cannons and tear gas.  The protest was organized by HINDRAF, the Hindu Rights Action Force, a group which has recently been banned.

Here are some links about the issues affecting the Malaysian Indian community, some of which I have contributed to or which present my pictures.

Here is my collection of resources on the SAJA Forum about the Nov. 25, 2007 protest and the run up to the March 8, 2008 election.  Human rights lawyer Anil Kalhan at the SAJA Forum provides resources about the recent banning of HINDRAF.  V.V. (Sugi) Ganeshananthan, my traveling companion in Malaysia, has a post at Sepia Mutiny about the release of some of the HINDRAF detainees on the occasion of Deepavali.  In that thread, I have a long explainer about HINDRAF and political Hinduism in Malaysia.

Sugi and I covered some of these issues on the ground in Malaysia and Singapore in January 2008 for Sepia Mutiny.  Here are links:

Guest Blogging from Singapore & Malaysia
Singapore Days, Part I
"There are protests everywhere": Singapore Days, Part II
Malaysian Protest Theater
Photos: Indians in Malaysia
A Spot of Teh
Malaysia's Indian Challenger

South Asian Writers Speak Out for Obama

A group of prominent South Asian writers came together to speak at a fundraiser for Barack Obama on October 4th at Le Poisson Rouge in Greenwich Village.  Above are Mira Nair, Kiran Desai, Suketu Mehta, Salman Rushdie, Akhil Sharma, and Manil Suri (Jhumpa Lahiri was at the microphone when I took this picture).  With over 500 people attending, the event raised $56,000.

You can see more of these pictures at Ultrabrown, Rediff (click "next" at the bottom -- there is a whole series of posts by Aseem Chhabra with my pictures), Indus Diary, and Sepia Mutiny (with a post by V.V. Ganeshananthan).

You can also see pictures from the whole event at my archive.