Literary Safari

This post originally published at Sepia Mutiny.

I’m playing a new online video game today. It’s called “Homeland Guantanamos” and it has transformed me into an undercover journalist whose task is to unearth clues about the mysterious 2007 death of Boubacar Bah, a Guinean tailor who was held at a detention center in Elizabeth, NJ for overstaying his visa.

“Homeland Guantanamos” is the latest multi-media offering from Breakthrough, the human rights organization which uses media and popular culture to raise awareness here and in India. [Abhi covered their video game “I Can End Deportation” or I.C.E.D. earlier this year. ]

We’ve all heard stories about immigrants (illegal and residents) being detained without explanation or for prolonged periods of time. At the website, I got to see what life might be like on the other side of the fence. I took a tour of a simulated immigration detention center and collected clues to help solve the mystery of Bah’s death (he died of a skull fracture and brain hemorrhages). Along the way, I saw other detainees (eg: a pregnant woman kept in shackles during labor) and witnessed conditions of the facilities, including the solitary confinement room, the bathrooms, and the dining hall. Though this is a simulated experience, the content is based on factual sources such as news articles, court documents, and interviews.

Why call the site “Homeland Guantanamos”? According to Malikka Dutt, executive director of Breakthrough, “the Department of Homeland Security is violating the human rights of legal and undocumented immigrants” and some of the inhumane conditions of detention centers where these immigrants are being held are not all that different from the facility at Guantanamo Bay.

A few facts:

Last year, more than 300,000 people were held in detention centers on mainland USA.
The cost to tax payers last year alone was $1.2 billion to tax payers.
Since 2003, 87 detainees have died in detention centers.
There are over 100 detention centers throughout the country. [ A map of detention centers is available here, searchable by zipcode. The most detention centers seem to be clustered in the Northeast. ]
Between January 2004 to November 2007, nearly a million people passed through immigration custody.

As with I.C.E.D., response to this project has not been all warm and fuzzy. In a Times article published this weekend, Kelly A. Nantel, a spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the video game was “a work of fiction that dehumanizes the individuals depicted and grossly distorts conditions in detention facilities.”

Dutt maintains that the Dept. of Homeland Security’s enforcement measures are “increasingly draconian” and hopes that this game will serve as a platform for increased support of the Protect Citizens and Residents from Unlawful Raids and Detention Act, proposed by Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Edward Kennedy (D-Ma.). More in the NYT article.

The Homeland Guantanamos site features compelling video testimonials from detainees. Breakthrough went “live from jail” and interviewed several long time permanent US residents who face possible deportation because of unfair immigration laws. It also has an action guide and a memorial wall. Most certainly worth checking out.

I’m going to be judging Kahani’s Fourth Annual Young Writers and Illustrators Contest this winter. It’s open to young writers between ages 6 and 11 and the deadline is Sunday, Nov. 23, 2008.

The rules are simple: the story must include the words fever, mountain, and peacock.

Monika Jain, editor of Kahani, the award-winning literary magazine for South Asian children, asked me for some tips for the young writers. Here are my three golden rules:

Cook Up a Rich Setting. When we tell a story, we often bring a scene to life with description. On a blank piece of paper, write down the three contest words. Make a list of all the descriptive words (adjectives, especially) that come to mind when you think of each of these things. What does it smell like? Taste like? Feel like? Remind you of? Sound like? This brainstorming exercise will give you rich language to weave into your story. For example, for cobra (a word from last year’s contest), words that come to mind are sneaky, poisonous, dangerous, hiding, hood.

Map Out Your Story. Every short story has a beginning, middle, and an end. Before you start writing, ask yourself: When and where does my story take place? Who are the main characters in my story? Are they kind, naughty, unhappy, young, old? What is the big problem that they have to face? What events happen along the way? How does the problem get solved? Use your answers as a map or guide when you are writing.

Don’t Think Too Much! Writing a story should be fun, and a great story is all about letting your imagination loose. If your peacock wants to live inside a house, let it. If your cobra wants to be magenta in color or wants to talk, why not? Start writing and see where your writing takes you. This is supposed to be fun!

An entry form and complete guidelines are available here. Do spread the word. Kids don’t have to be subscribers to enter the contest.

Next week, the holy month of Ramadan will come to its conclusion and millions of Muslims around the world will be celebrating Eid-ul-Fitr. “Eid” is an Arabic word meaning festival and “Fitr” means to break the fast. So, yes, Eid-ul-Fitr is literally the festive breaking of a month long fast.

Earlier this week, I was surprised and pleased to see the window of my favorite children’s bookstore in NYC, the Bank Street Bookstore, filled with books and novelty items about Eid. Included in their window display are the following three picture books which, I think, beautifully bring the Eid celebration to life for young children here in the U.S. Here you go: three picture book picks, one for each day of Eid.

The Best Eid Ever, by Asma Mobin-Uddin
Boyds Mill Press, 2007

On Eid morning, despite all the gifts she receives, Aneesa is sad because her parents are away on Hajj. Her outlook changes, however, when she meets two sisters—refugees from a war torn country—at the mosque. While her grandmother Nonni prepares a delicious Eid feast, Aneesa cooks up a plan to share the festival’s delights with her new friends and give them the best Eid ever. Laura Jacobsen’s pastel pencil illustrations sensitively bring to life Asma Mobin-Uddin’s poignant holiday story about sadaqua, the Islamic tenet of voluntary giving within one’s means.

The White Nights of Ramadan, by Maha Addasi
Boyds Mill Press 2008

Noor lives in a country in the Persian Gulf and is preparing for Girgian, a special three-day celebration that takes place in the middle of Ramadan when the moon is almost full. Girgian means “candy” and is an occasion where children wear their best traditional clothes and go from house to house collecting treats from their neighbors (not so different from our Halloween tradition of trick or treating). Ned Gannon’s warm paintings carry the reflection of glimmering moonlight and bring a different culture to life for readers. Underlying the narrative of the festivities is a reminder of the significance of Ramadan. “Ramadan can be fun, but remember that the true meaning of Ramadan is spending time with family and sharing with those less fortunate,” Noor’s grandmother tells her.

The Night of the Moon: A Muslim Holiday Story, by Hena Khan
Chronicle Books, 2008

A wonderful primer about the A-Z’s of Ramadan as its celebrated in a Pakistani household in America, complete with presents, backyard barbeques, and trampolines. As seven-year old Yasmeen follows and watches the phases of the moon, we are led through the unfolding festivities in her household and community. In her multicultural classroom, she and her classmates engage in a discussion about Ramadan where she explains the significance of the holy month. The story beautifully portrays a holiday celebrated by many different cultures, a holiday not so different from other holidays marked on the American calendar. This is wonderful contribution to the literature of tolerance and a window into contemporary Muslim culture. I am a huge fan of illustrator Julie Paschkis’s work. Her gorgeous, detailed style is complemented by her ability to take traditional art forms (in this case Islamic tiles) and render them in a contemporary context.

More books about Ramadan at Just One More Book.

I’m re-reading Natalie Goldberg’s “Writing Down the Bones” and am going to start doing more freewrites, in addition to my morning journals. Along the way, I’ll share writing exercises and books that I especially felt strengthened my writing muscles.

In my writing group a few months ago, we did a timed writing exercise (10 minutes) that I really enjoyed: Write a story where each sentence begins with a subsequent letter of the alphabet. So, that means the first sentence starts with “A,” the second with “B,” and so on … I thought it would be impossible, but turned out that wee bit of the structure was tremendously freeing. Here’s the piece of flash fiction that I came up with. (I’ve since edited it a bit and added a few sentences so a couple of letters might be off, but you’ll get the gist of the exercise.)

“All I ever wanted was a house with a yard,” she said. “But your father bought me this monstrous mansion. Ceilings 12 feet high, eight bedrooms, and a forest in the back. Do you really think two people should be living like this? Every day is a trial–so much work, so much space, nobody here. Far, far away from everyone I know. Give me a break. Help me convince him to sell this place, no? If anyone can, it would have to be you.”

I listened to my mother pour her wishes out to me over the phone, jasmine tea in a cup next to me, a wet cloth on my forehead.

“Kumarasami Raghavan is not an easy man to talk to,” I said. “Lest you have forgotten, let me remind you of the time he bought you a Mercedes convertible just after you had given birth to me.” My lips curved into a smile as I imagined my mother, a first-time mom, trying to bundle me into a car seat in a breezy car, her sari flying.  Now here I was, a grown woman swallowing the words I didn’t have the courage to say: “Ma, he has to give you a big house to live in. There’s someone else in the chinnaveedu.” (Of course, Ma would understand what I meant right away if I used the words “small house.” The other woman.)

“Please don’t remind me of that impractical car,” Ma interrupted. “Quietly, in your own way, can’t you do something? Really, you don’t know the weight of your words, you, his only pet daughter.”

Silence streamed through the receiver. I was not going to say anything, I had sworn myself to secrecy.

“Tarini, are you there? Can you hear me?” Ma said. “Signal lost?”

True, I was his daughter. But only daughter? That was a lie. Until last year, I had believed this to be true, but I cannot pretend anymore. Vidya, my father’s other daughter, will not allow me to. Whenever I look in the mirror nowadays, I see her—my height, the same eyes—spread apart, the identical liking for evening ragas and oreo cookies.

“X marks the spot,” Dad used to say when he taught me how to play miniature golf the summer of my ninth birthday. Years later, Vidya sat next to me on an airplane and asked me to exchange seats with her. “That’s my seat,” she said, showing me her boarding card. “X marks the spot.”

Zebras do not have identical stripes. A mother zebra knows her child, a sister zebra recognizes her sibling, just as I knew then that Vidya was my little sister.

So … now, it’s your turn. Feel free to post your Alphabet Flash Fiction here or link back to it at your blog.

This post was originally published at Sepia Mutiny. I’m passing on my copy of “Schooled” to any interested reader. Just let me know you want if you want it in the comments section and, if there is more than one person, I’ll pick a name at random next Friday, the 26th. 

I used to work at a tutoring center on a small private college campus in Westchester, NY several years ago. Our offices were a safe space that students visited for help with writing papers, coursework, math, ESL. We hired several peer and professional tutors every semester to provide such services to our student body, and very often, I also took on a small student load. It was tremendously fulfilling work, helping students navigate challenging course material or a tricky writing assignment, watching them come into their own, grasp the content, and produce assignments that met curriculum standards.

That’s my experience with tutoring. Then, there’s the experience of Anisha Lakhani, a former teacher whose novel “Schooled” was just published by Hyperion this summer. She taught (and was even the Middle School English Chair) at the high-profile NYC private school Dalton for a decade, but quit last year following her disillusionment with the culture of cheating in which she found herself.

Lakhani was raking in the dough (over 200 bucks an hour) for private tutoring sessions with the children of wealth clients on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Her closet was filled with the latest designer fashions and she was hanging with all the right folks. As the Jersey-born Columbia graduate sank deeper and deeper into this world, she discovered a vicious inner circle in which educators, parents, and students were enmeshed: Parents, eager to see their kids excel, hired tutors like Lakhani to help student swith school assignments. Students, accustomed to being treated with kid gloves and occupied with AIM, Juicy Couture, and their active social lives, expected Lakhani to essentially do their homework for them. And, teachers, intimidated by parents, knew not to give in-class writing assignments or to even raise the question of whether a paper was written by the student or a tutor, kept silent.

Based on her experiences as a tutor as well as those of her colleagues and parents, Anisha Lakhani’s “Schooled” takes us into the crazy world of Anna Taggert, a recent Columbia graduate who goes against the wishes of her parents (they could have been desi!) and takes up a job at a private school. Despite her initial idealism and desire to imbue her students with the spirit of literary greats, she is very quickly beset with a host of problems: pushy moms, low pay, a rundown apartment, and a school administration which warns her not to make her lesson plans too complicated (she’ll make the other teachers look bad). As the months pass, Anna decides to take up a tutoring gig on the side to supplement her measly income. That’s when things spiral out of control. Her values go whoosh and she falls head over heels with the all things Juicy and Chanel; with shopping sprees; with blonde highlights; and with the experience of being the “cool teacher” who gets invited to Kanye West bar mitzvahs. (Sidenote: The novel also features a desi character – a fellow math teacher – who also gets equally corrupted by the lure of tutoring.)

Eventually, things settle down and Anna looks in the mirror and realizes who and what she has become — and unlike Lakhani, who has quit teaching and turned into a full-time novelist and socialite — returns to the classroom ready to reform her students and herself. But until that happens, readers will get an unnerving look at the Upper East Side annals of overambitious, competitive, and heartbreaking private education. The novel follows in the footsteps of books like “The Nanny Diaries” which provide the insider/outsider point of view. In fact, by the end of this week, movie rights will be sold. And though it’s not literary fiction by any means, it is an intriguing sociological study into a culture of cheating with a dash of pedagogy and activism thrown in.

“I thought it was time someone spoke out. Yes, certainly there were many hardworking students and decent families, but so, so much cheating is occurring and it needed to be exposed.” Lakhani told me in our e-mail Q&A which follows below the fold. Maybe parents and teachers alike will cull some advice from this morality tale from someone who knows what it’s like to walk in their shoes. I certainly hope some conversations about reform emerge from this book, or else it will be just a fictionalized navel-gazing venture. (more…)

Though comics and graphic novels have been in the publishing spotlight in recent years, educational publishers and teachers still approach them with cold hands and tentative minds. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say, when presented with a worthy and quite literary comic book, “Oh, but it’s just a comic. We can’t give kids such watered down stuff to read.”

The summer 2008 issue of Teachers & Writers magazine speaks directly to these concerns, serving up a selection of articles which effectively make the case that yes, “writing and reading comics can strengthen writing skills, spur the imagination, and boost literacy in classrooms from kindergarten to college and beyond.”

As a former editor in the educational publishing industry, the “fearful editorial culture” that Sari Wilson describes in “The Comics Revolution in the Language Arts Classroom” was all too real to me. I too have encountered the same challenges and obstacles of which she speaks. Many of the graphic novel excerpts I pitched for inclusion in our product were rejected not because they were deemed not engaging enough, but because of concerns about them “looking too much like a comic book” or not appearing “meaty enough” in terms of sentence length.

At the end of the day, much of the industry seems to feel caught between wanting to provide students with “traditional” or “award-winning” literature (read: a high-enough lexile text) and “high-interest” content (read: cool illustrations and graphics). Somehow, the notion that the two can coexist in a single text (read: graphic novel or story) that tastefully blends the elements of storytelling with sophisticated visuals is still not an accepted one. This is unfortunate because as a result students may very well miss out on being able to dissect, critique, analyze, respond to, and enjoy many worthy works that are categorized in the comics section of a bookstore.

In my opinion, this “either-or”attitude results in somewhat of a vicious cycle: On one hand, publishers are nervous about featuring excerpts from works such as “American Born Chinese” by Gene Yang in their textbooks because they worry about the teachers‘ response -“Will he or she be able to handle student responses?” On the other hand, teachers are worried about introducing similar works to their students in the classroom as part of the curriculum because they don’t see them in textbooks, and therefore, don’t want to seem to be loosening curriculum standards.

As I was going through the T&W comics issue, I was struck by the many examples provided of how comics can open for readers and non-readers alike, writers and non-writers alike. There are some amazing people doing some incredible work out there in this field. [more below the fold] (more…)

We stopped by at Walden Pond on the way to Maine this past weekend. Though I’ve read Walden; or, Life in the Woods many more times than I can remember, I’ve actually never visited Henry David Thoreau’s home in the woods, the place where he spent two years and two months living alone, in a house he had built himself, earning his living by the “labor of [his] hands only” engaged in an experiment to experience a “life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.” (After roughing it for those 26 months, Thoreau then spent nine years composing and revising his groundbreaking narrative about his experience.)

On the drive over, I sat in the passenger seat slowly flipping through and reading Thoreau at Walden, John Porcellino’s graphic novel interpretation of Thoreau’s story. Published by the Center for Cartoon Studies and Hyperion (2008), this brown and black ink illustrated edition brings Thoreau’s journey alive using carefully selected original text from Walden. The line drawings are spare and stark, allowing space for the crux of the philosopher’s words and ideas to come alive.

Porcellino is an astute editor who has culled and woven original language from Thoreau’s original, and organized it by the seasons into four sections: winter, spring, summer, and autumn. Just before we pulled into the driveway of Walden Pond, I re-read the “Summer” section, where Thoreau breathes in and relishes the season that, for most of us, is nearly over: “Many a forenoon have I stolen away, preferring to spend thus the most valued part of the day, for I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days … and I spend them lavishly.” (That is exactly what I plan on doing for the remains of these warm summer days.)

If you’re wary of this book just because it’s a graphic novel, don’t be. There’s a terrific introduction by D. B. Johnson, author of the picture book Henry Hikes to Fitchburg, a key to quotation sources (linking readers back to the original text), and an annotated “panel discussion” section which provides further background about Thoreau along with anecdotal details about objects in the illustrations (for example, Thoreau’s three-legged table pictured on page 13 gives Porcellino the opportunity to tell us more about the furniture in his cabin in the woods). [plus a teachers guide] After all this, readers will no doubt be tempted to return to the original edition of Walden, as I was.

But beyond all this, what I love most about the book was its nimble execution of Thoreau’s credo of “Simplify! Simplify!” Porcellino really gets it. He has taken the essence of Thoreau’s philosophy and poured it into an 88 page “comic” where wordless panels convey the silence of Thoreau’s journey, where nature is a key organizational device (as it was for Thoreau’s daily living), and where one man’s personal epiphanies urge us to take pause and figure out a way to render them our own.

Check out this interview with John Porcellino at School Library Journal for more on his work process.

Update: In his Democratic National Convention address, Barack Obama said, “All across America something is stirring.  What the nay-sayers don’t understand is that this election has never been about me.  It’s been about you.” This line somehow reminded me of this painting. 

Down on the corner of Stone Street and Coenties Alley, not too far away from the New York Stock Exchange, I came across New York portrait artist Geoffrey Raymond and his acrylic painting of Barack Obama. “The Annotated Obama” is an impressionistic work that screams for public participation. Raymond has been standing next to it all week long, encouraging pedestrians to inscribe their thoughts about Obama and the presidential race on the canvas, using color-coded magic markers (Blue for Democrats; Red for Republicans; Black for Independents). At the end of the week (Sat., i.e. the end of the DNC). , the artist will close his current auction on eBay.

Passersby, including me, were curious and tentative when they were first approached, but quickly warmed up to the idea of placing their personal touch on the work of art. People who haven’t grown up in democracies–and there were some that I did see–always ask, “Do we have to put our names on it?” To which the artist answered “no.”

Right now, the handwriting is mostly in blue but comments are in many languages. (Raymond said that he thought Republicans didn’t feel it was appropriate to write, and expects that more of them will come forward when he unveils his portrait of McCain during the Republican Convention).

This is not the first annotated portrait Raymond has created. His piece on ex-Bear Stearns CEO Jimmy Cayne fetched $12,000 on the eBay bid. And, his annotated Eliot Spitzer got a good deal of attention as well. [check them out here]

So, what do we call this? Citizen artistry? Public art? Democratic Impressionism? Whatever it is, I like it. Made me feel a bit closer in my own city to the goings on in Denver this week.

On my first day in India, we stopped at a huge food court on the Mumbai-Pune expressway. There’s only one thing I ever get there: vada pav. A crunchy yet soft potato fritter encased in a fluffy bread roll and “kicked up a notch” with a sprinkling of lentil-infused chili powder.

When I went to pay the Rs. 28 for my two plates of vada pav, I handed over two Rs. 20 notes to the cashier. He rapidly slid a Rs. 10 note and two Cadbury Chocolate Eclairs to me over the counter.

“Yeh kyaa hein, bhaya?” I asked. What is this? Do I get dessert with my meal?

“Rupees two ka change,” he said seriously, moving on to the next customer.

During my early school days in Pune, I would have traded a week’s worth of lunch for a single Cadbury’s Chocolate Eclair. A toffee wrapped in a sparkly purple and gold wrapper, this popular Indian toffee has a chewy caramel exterior and a dairy milk chocolate in its center. How pallates change. Now I can’t even imagine popping one of these into my mouth. How much floss and brushing would it take to get those flecks of caramel out of my molars?

I tried to slide the candies back. “Mein toffee nahin khati,” I argued, trying to explain to the cashier that I don’t eat candy. There was no point. It was quickly obvious that this was a moot discussion. The customers behind me urged me along. “That is how it is,” one man grinned.

I moved forward, trying to wrap my brain around this barter system where I, the client, have no choice about what I can receive in the stead of money. If they’d asked me, I would have bought another vada pav or maybe a salted lassi.

After eating, I walked under a rainfilled canopy over to the STD/ISD/PCO booth, made a phone call to my husband in the US, and paid the two eclairs forward to the telephone operator.

“Yeh kyaa hein?” he stared at me in confusion when I doled out Rs. 40 and two eclairs.

“Two rupees,” I giggled. The telephone guy looked down at his palm and back up at me. He giggled too.

I wonder how far those two eclairs have traveled since then!

For your enjoyment, a Cadbury Chocolate Eclair (the crunchy version) ad. It’s a play on those old Bollywood movies of the 1980s where “hero and heroine” ran through fields of flowers!

I just got back from my cousin’s wedding in India. Though the past month has been light on the blogging, in my defense I’ve been working real hard on some work projects and … an intense yet fun photobook project using the print on demand site Lulu.

I was a bit unsure about which book creator to use when I got started, so I experimented with photo book sites such as mypublisher, kodak gallery, and a new one called inkubook. At the end of the day, Lulu offered me a supereasy interface that required no additional downloads, the option to use licensed stock images from Getty for a very reasonable fee, and a range of attractive templates that allow for long blocks of text … so I went with it, even though its major shortcoming is that it doesn’t load very easily on India connections (so my cousins there couldn’t participate in the bookbuilding project).

The final product was gorgeous. Glossy paper. High definition images. And solid binding. All for the price of $46, including shipping (and delivery within less than a week).

My first self-created picture book. I look forward to more. Here’s a picture of the happy couple when they received the gift.

It rained heavily this morning, but this portrait of Obama and Hillary by Jordan-born sidewalk artist Hani Shihada can still be found on Broadway and 109th Street.

Hani has been making public art in NYC since 1985. He can be found all over New York City from April to October. Part of the Italian tradition of madonnari, street painters who typically use charcoal, white chalk, and bits of roof tiles, he started his career in Perugia, Italy. His works last for this long because he makes his pastels himself and then, applies a thin film of acrylic to the finished work. Yet, like the Tibetan sand mandala, his works also eventually fade and vanish.

I’ve been enjoying walking by this particular work over the last several weeks. Though I didn’t get to see Hani work on the painting, it was interesting to watch people’s responses as Obama began to appear next to Hillary (she was there first), how they make sure to walk around the art, to not step on it. (Granted, this is the liberal, left-leaning Upper West Side!)

I checked in with Hani. If you want to catch him at work, he is currently creating an outdoor mural on 10th Avenue and 40th Street, from now through the 17th of August or thereabouts. (Incidentally, it was a commission he received from someone who had seen his Hilobama piece.)

My original post first appeared at Sepia Mutiny, from where it was also picked up by Salon.com’s blog on globalization, “How the World Works.”

Meet Giju John, 33. Born: Thiruvananthapuram, India. Lives: Silicon Valley. Employer: Intel. He’s an electical engineer who’s got his groove on.

Fascinated by the salsa dancers at night clubs in downtown San Jose, he started taking classes several nights a week. He was so good that his instructors, members of SalsaMania, a Bay Area dance group, invited him to join their professional team and compete in the US, Europe, and Mexico. This was back in 2001.

Today, John has a successful solo Hindi/salsa career. By way of the San Jose Mercury News:

John loved making microchips tick, but he loved his dancing, too. He remembered the Indian dance steps he learned as a boy. He noodled around, adding them to salsa steps and coming up with his own Hindi/salsa genre. He’s left Salsamania for a solo career. Yes, a Hindi/salsa solo career. Why not? John was in Silicon Valley - a place with a prominent Latino population and tens of thousands of Indians and Indo-Americans. He produced a CD, “Rang Rangeeli Yeh Duniya,” … It is a CD of Hindi language songs set to the pulse of salsa, cha-cha and rap. He shot a music video. He launched a start-up, Beyond Dreamz, to produce his music. And he continued to focus on the reliability of the next generation of Intel chips.

In February, John spent five weeks traveling through India offering Hindi/salsa dance workshops and promoting the genre and himself. But he didn’t take vacation.“During the day I’d go around and do my salsa workshops,” he says, “at night I’d log onto my network.” He says his bosses are very understanding. [full story]

Giju John is back in India right now, on a three month sabbatical. He’s giving his salsa career his all, shooting music videos, performing, and attending … the 3rd annual India International Salsa Congress in Bangalore from the 14th to the 20th of August. Who knew Salsa was so big in India?!

Next up, maybe we’ll spot Giju in a Bollywood flick set on the streets of San Jose?! I think we’ve definitely got a Hindi movie there. In the meantime, here’s a salsa music video from his first album.