Gaurav Rastogi will be blogging his thoughts as he reads the Bhagvad Gita for the first time. He is 35, lives in the Bay Area, is curiously religious but not a Sanskrit scholar.

GITA KI KASAM KHA KAR KAHO…(PUT YOUR HANDS ON THE GITA AND SWEAR THAT…)
References to the Gita are everywhere in Indian – and international - culture. As everybody knows, Bollywood criminals are asked to swear by the Gita that they will speak the truth and nothing but the truth. This sort of confers a “holy book” status on the Gita, in league with the Bible or the Quran. We grew up watching pulse-racing TV in the form of BR Chopra’s Mahabharata with its kitschy dress sense and continuous references to Karmanyeva Adhikaraste. In international culture, you might know that the book and movie - The Legend of Bagger Vance (Will Smith played the eponymous Bagger Vance, which even sounds like Bhagvan. Besides, he’s black, which is a plus) loosely translated the teachings of the Gita in the context of Golf-as-War. More »

by Rohini Mohan

We are the new wave of Indians who streamed into the US. We lived and worked as adults in a liberalized India that had already started to mesh with the West. Unlike our predecessors who moved here before the booming 90’s we were already exposed to many aspects of American life. Cable TV and the Internet had taken care of that. So we did not really have to worry about the ‘Culture shock’ phenomenon that the earlier generation of immigrants faced on arriving here. We went our merry way, working, getting married, enjoying life, integrating into the society (or not). And then, one fine day we had kids. That’s when we started feeling it – the dichotomy between two diametrically opposite cultures - the big face-off between the Indian way and the American way of child rearing. More »

By Vidya Pradhan

Motorcycle riding, Frisbee playing iconoclast or loving spiritual mentor? After an interview with Sadhguru, I can almost picture him saying with a belly laugh “Are the two mutually exclusive?”

I heard of Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev through two friends who have been deeply influenced by his words, his actions and even his very presence.

A spiritual rebel who has disclaimed deep knowledge of traditional Hindu scriptures, Sadhguru experienced a transcendent bliss at the age of 25 and has since made it his mission to share his experiences with others. He has served as delegate to the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders, the Alliance for the New Humanity, and is an active supporter of the World Council of Religious and Spiritual Leaders. Recently he was in the Bay Area to address the members of TIECON. Through his Isha Foundation, he has directed several outreach programs for life-term prisoners, impoverished children and rural rejuvenation in southern India.

When he graciously agreed to a phone interview from India, I was a little intimidated. Despite reading many of his speeches and sayings, I was no closer to understanding the essence of his teachings. More »

By Rohini Mohan

With a population in excess of a billion, most struggling to merely subsist, it is not surprising that a country like India has not really been that vested in upholding and enforcing its human rights policy. There are countless human rights violations everyday on an individual and mass level, but very rarely are these brought to the attention of the authorities. Even when they are, chances are, other more pressing issues are given precedence. What we take so much for granted in the developed world has so far been a luxury in India; just like everything else, in this area too, it is only the voice of the moneyed that is heard. But things are changing, if slowly. To understand the progress in this critical milestone in a country’s development, WNI spoke to R Nataraj, recent Police Commissioner of Chennai and currently ADGP (Additional Director General of Police) assigned to the Investigations Division, State Human Rights Commission (SHRC), Tamilnadu. More »