On one of my trips to the Fiji Islands, in the South Pacific, I had the privilege of visiting Dilkusha Home, an orphanage that has been serving orphaned children for over 100 years.
The last two Christmases, a few of my friends and colleagues got together and raised over $300.00 to make the Dilkusha Home’s children’s Christmas a little brighter. This gift giving season, we were hoping to continue this tradition. And we needed your help. I would be grateful for any amount of support.
Currently, Dilkusha Home is serving 29 children, mostly girls, who range in ages from 1 to 19 years. And they have now also adopted their first boy! The older girls remain in the home due to permanent disabilities and their inability to live independently. The Home’s policy is to keep the girls in the home till they complete all their education and are able to be financially independent and live productive lives. This is such an amazing program for the girls of Fiji! Great to see it is in existence for over a 100 years and still going strong.
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Saturday, February 9, 2013
A Five Headed Snake! Yikes!
Another short excerpt from my forthcoming novel "Kalyana." Very excited about releasing my new novel!
“What happened next, Mummy?” I licked the edges of my lips.
“The Yamuna River raged and her waves threatened to swallow Yasudev and baby Krishna whole.” My mother would fix her penetrating stare upon me, and my heart would skip, the hairs rising on my arms. I knew what would follow: “And it was then that the five-headed snake from below the waters emerged.”
“Five-headed snake!” I would shiver in the night air.
“Sumitri, you are frightening her,” my father would say. “The child is scared of snakes and is ridden with nightmares about them, and here you are telling her stories about snakes with five heads!”
“Rajdev Seth, it’s not snakes,” my mother would say. “There was only one five-headed snake. And it was a good one.”
My mother would throw me a conspiring look and try to speak the next series of words as fast as she could before Father could demand that she end all stories for the night.
“The snake’s five heads shielded baby Krishna from the water, and the snake itself was Yasudev’s guide, allowing him to...”
“Sumitri...”
“Snakes are not to be feared, but to be embraced. They are your guides. Kalyana...”
“Sumitri!” My father would tell my mother to go back to bed, bringing the story to an abrupt end.
“What happened next, Mummy?” I licked the edges of my lips.
“The Yamuna River raged and her waves threatened to swallow Yasudev and baby Krishna whole.” My mother would fix her penetrating stare upon me, and my heart would skip, the hairs rising on my arms. I knew what would follow: “And it was then that the five-headed snake from below the waters emerged.”
“Five-headed snake!” I would shiver in the night air.
“Sumitri, you are frightening her,” my father would say. “The child is scared of snakes and is ridden with nightmares about them, and here you are telling her stories about snakes with five heads!”
“Rajdev Seth, it’s not snakes,” my mother would say. “There was only one five-headed snake. And it was a good one.”
My mother would throw me a conspiring look and try to speak the next series of words as fast as she could before Father could demand that she end all stories for the night.
“The snake’s five heads shielded baby Krishna from the water, and the snake itself was Yasudev’s guide, allowing him to...”
“Sumitri...”
“Snakes are not to be feared, but to be embraced. They are your guides. Kalyana...”
“Sumitri!” My father would tell my mother to go back to bed, bringing the story to an abrupt end.
Snakes! Snakes! Snakes! Excerpt from my forthcoming novel "Kalyana"
Happy Chinese New Year! YEAR OF THE SNAKES! What's new for me? My new novel Kalyana. And...snakes have great symbolic significance throughout the whole book! Here's an excerpt from Kalyana featuring snakes...snakes...snakes...and more snakes.
Of all the stories my mother told me when I was young, this one alone stirred recurring nightmares. I was transported back to the SS Sangola, in the middle of the ocean. The ship was swarming with countless king cobras, slithering all around me. I could hear low growls under their hissing calls. They were coiled in front of me, wearing red maharajah crowns, while others held back, draped over the barrels, hanging on the masts. Trapped, I shivered, chanting prayers, my knees clutched to my chest. I stayed huddled in a corner of the deck as the sensation of slithering serpents crawled up my legs and across my body.
Then my mother would miraculously appear. She would hit the snakes on their heads with a blackened steel pot. Black blood and gore would paint the walls and decks of the ship as the pitiful snakes collapsed belly up, one by one, until a stream of yellow carpeted the ships' floors.
Of all the stories my mother told me when I was young, this one alone stirred recurring nightmares. I was transported back to the SS Sangola, in the middle of the ocean. The ship was swarming with countless king cobras, slithering all around me. I could hear low growls under their hissing calls. They were coiled in front of me, wearing red maharajah crowns, while others held back, draped over the barrels, hanging on the masts. Trapped, I shivered, chanting prayers, my knees clutched to my chest. I stayed huddled in a corner of the deck as the sensation of slithering serpents crawled up my legs and across my body.
Then my mother would miraculously appear. She would hit the snakes on their heads with a blackened steel pot. Black blood and gore would paint the walls and decks of the ship as the pitiful snakes collapsed belly up, one by one, until a stream of yellow carpeted the ships' floors.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Dilkusha Home Project
I am happy to say that this year we raised $315.00 for Dilkusha Home Orphanage. I wanted to say thank you to the following people for being so generous this past Christmas season:
Jutta Wittmeier
Carmen Wittmeier
Steve Milliard
Michelle Biefer
Laila Khelawan
Wammy Municiiri
Dr. Dinesh Rajakaruna
Fazil Thaha
Zoraida Espinoza
So far, we have raised $615.00 CAD (approximately $1200.00 FJ) to date.
Dilkusha Home's children thank you and send you their blessings.
Jutta Wittmeier
Carmen Wittmeier
Steve Milliard
Michelle Biefer
Laila Khelawan
Wammy Municiiri
Dr. Dinesh Rajakaruna
Fazil Thaha
Zoraida Espinoza
So far, we have raised $615.00 CAD (approximately $1200.00 FJ) to date.
Dilkusha Home's children thank you and send you their blessings.
Friday, January 4, 2013
My debut novel a subject of discussion at the SALA 2013 Conference in Boston, MA
Thank you to my friend Dr Rajnish Dhawan for presenting a paper on my first novel The End of the Dark and Stormy Night at the South Asian Literary Association (SALA) Conference in January 2013 at Boston, MA.
SALA 2013 Race and the South Asian Diaspora
The 13th Annual Conference of The South Asian Literary Association
January 2-3, 2013
Boston, MA
CONFERENCE PAPER ABSTRACTS: RAJNISH DHAWAN, UNIVERSITY OF THE FRASER VALLEY, ABBOTSFORD, CANADA
Spatializing Cultural Hybridity in Canada: A Study of Race Relations in Rajni Mala Khelawan’s The End of the Dark and Stormy Night
“If postmodern hybridity emphasises not fusion, but multiple and mobile positionings created by the performative transgressions of national grand naratives – what Homi Bhabha has refered to as ‘shreds and patches’ of many and diverse national voices,” then is there a possibility in the contemporary hybrid literature to provide a unifying centralized fabric where these ‘shreds and patches’ can be turned into a homogenous collage where every patch keeps its identity while being a part of the unified whole? Canadian multiculturalism thrives upon the concrete identification of these ‘shreds and patches,’ viewing them as an essential part of a heterogeneous fabric, often searching in them for the lure of the exotic – be it the first nations, the Indo-Canadians, the African-Canadians or the Chinese-Canadians. The essentialization of the hyphen has been the hallmark of Canadian multiculturalism and the hyphen has been strengthened by denying or shying away from the discomfort associated with the inter-racial discourse. Rajni Mala Khelawan’s debut novel The End of the Dark and Stormy Night tries to redefine the hyphen by embracing the discomfort, and by using humor as her primary medium of inter-racial discourse she tries to move towards the comfort zone where inter-racial relations could afford to laugh with each other rather than laughing at each other. This paper will focus on the study of the use of humor in the depiction of inter-racial relationships in the novel and the novel’s attempts at diluting the hyphen despite strong voices within the text advocating its retention.
SALA 2013 Race and the South Asian Diaspora
The 13th Annual Conference of The South Asian Literary Association
January 2-3, 2013
Boston, MA
CONFERENCE PAPER ABSTRACTS: RAJNISH DHAWAN, UNIVERSITY OF THE FRASER VALLEY, ABBOTSFORD, CANADA
Spatializing Cultural Hybridity in Canada: A Study of Race Relations in Rajni Mala Khelawan’s The End of the Dark and Stormy Night
“If postmodern hybridity emphasises not fusion, but multiple and mobile positionings created by the performative transgressions of national grand naratives – what Homi Bhabha has refered to as ‘shreds and patches’ of many and diverse national voices,” then is there a possibility in the contemporary hybrid literature to provide a unifying centralized fabric where these ‘shreds and patches’ can be turned into a homogenous collage where every patch keeps its identity while being a part of the unified whole? Canadian multiculturalism thrives upon the concrete identification of these ‘shreds and patches,’ viewing them as an essential part of a heterogeneous fabric, often searching in them for the lure of the exotic – be it the first nations, the Indo-Canadians, the African-Canadians or the Chinese-Canadians. The essentialization of the hyphen has been the hallmark of Canadian multiculturalism and the hyphen has been strengthened by denying or shying away from the discomfort associated with the inter-racial discourse. Rajni Mala Khelawan’s debut novel The End of the Dark and Stormy Night tries to redefine the hyphen by embracing the discomfort, and by using humor as her primary medium of inter-racial discourse she tries to move towards the comfort zone where inter-racial relations could afford to laugh with each other rather than laughing at each other. This paper will focus on the study of the use of humor in the depiction of inter-racial relationships in the novel and the novel’s attempts at diluting the hyphen despite strong voices within the text advocating its retention.
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