SPAN Jan/Feb 2020

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020 Rs. 20

Years of Building Bonds Through the

The Power of Paint A Perpetual Learner Giving Wings to Natural Interests

Fulbright Program

January/February 2020

V O LU M E L X I N U M B E R 1

https://span.state.gov

Courtesy Ajay Joshi

CONTENTS 2

34

2



International Inspiration

26



Protecting Biodiver(city)

10



From Trickle to Stream

29



Not a Musical Tourist

13



Studying the Climate

32



The App of Conversations

16



Exploring the Nano World

34



18



The Dancing Queens

20

36



Full, Bright Memories



38



Electing the U.S. President

40



The Power of Paint

A Perpetual Learner

Courtesy USIEF

29

Far right: U.S. Fulbright-Nehru Environment Leadership Fellow Noah Sachs (right) and his son, Adam, haul bananas near a forest reserve in Karnataka.

Editor in Chief Conrad W. Turner

Reviewing Editor Karl M. Adam

Editor Deepanjali Kakati Associate Editor Suparna Mukherji Hindi Editor Giriraj Agarwal Urdu Editor Syed Sulaiman Akhtar Copy Editor Shah Md. Tahsin Usmani

Art Director/ Production Chief Hemant Bhatnagar Deputy Art Directors / Production Assistants Qasim Raza, Shah Faisal Khan

Courtesy Augustina Droze



Courtesy Payton MacDonald

24

Giving Wings to Natural Interests

Learning Through the Act of Exchanges

40 Front cover: The Fulbright (later Fulbright-Nehru) program in India celebrates its 70th anniversary in 2020.

The cover features Indian and American students, scholars and professionals who have participated in its programs, and helped strengthen people-to-people relationships between the United States and India.

Photographs courtesy USIEF, collage by Hemant Bhatnagar.

 Articles with a star may be reprinted with permission. Those without a star are copyrighted and may not be reprinted.

Contact SPAN at 011-23472135 or editorspan@state.gov

Printed and published by David H. Kennedy on behalf of the Government of the United States of America and printed at Thomson Press India Ltd., 18/35 Delhi Mathura Road, Faridabad, Haryana 121007 and published at the Public Affairs Section, American Embassy, American Center, 24 K.G. Marg, New Delhi 110001.

Opinions expressed in this 44-page magazine do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Government.

The FulbrightNehru program opens doors to once-in-a-lifetime global educational opportunities.

International

Inspiration

By MICHAEL GALLANT

When Indians and Americans study together, conduct joint research and engage in educational exchange activities, they lay the foundation for better relations between the United States and India.

A

s a college student, Adam Grotsky traveled from the University of Wisconsin in the United States to Varanasi, witnessing firsthand the amazing, life-changing potential of studying halfway around the world. Now, he helps hundreds of American and Indian students create their own priceless and inspiring international experiences each year.

Grotsky is the executive director of the United States-India Educational Foundation (USIEF), a commission that oversees the coveted Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship program.

Created in 1950 and expanded in 2008, when India became a full financial partner in the program, the Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship provides study, research and teaching opportunities for Indian citizens in the United States, and for American citizens in India. The ultimate goal? “Promoting mutual understanding between both nations,” says Grotsky.

In India, this means that citizens can apply for opportunities to learn and grow in the United States. Under one Fulbright-Nehru grant, Indian students earn master’s degrees at American institutions in subjects ranging from public health and environmental science to urban planning and women’s studies. Under another grant, the Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowship, students travel to the United States to further their Ph.D. work in history, international law, neuroscience, performing arts and other fields.

There are several other grants to support Above left: U.S. Ambassador David C. Mulford (second from left) and India’s Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon (second from right) sign an agreement on July 4, 2008, whereby India and the United States committed to fund the Fulbright Program as equal partners, and the core programs became FulbrightNehru Fellowships.

Left: U.S. Fulbright-Nehru Visiting Lecturer Christine Bernie (center) demonstrates the use of an iPad as a teaching aid to children at a medical camp in Chennai.

4 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

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Fulbright-Nehru Fellowships https://bit.ly/2P6HjdB

Photographs courtesy USIEF

Left: Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral and Professional Research Fellow Vidya Ramkumar participates in an antisexual violence campaign project at Kent State University, Ohio.

Below: Fulbright-Nehru Master’s Fellow Rohit Tak (center) makes a presentation at the University of California, Berkeley.

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Fulbrighters are ready to share their expertise and knowledge, are open to new ideas and are committed to international engagement.

Indian professors and professionals who wish to learn and teach in the United States, accomplished researchers looking to complete American postdoctoral fellowships, and educators who want to bring lessons from the U.S. higher education system back to their work within India. And the list goes on.

The most recent class of Indian fellows comes from a wide range of backgrounds.

Sampreeti Malladi, for instance, is an awardwinning dancer and architect from Hyderabad.

She has won a grant to bring to life her original project, titled “Dance, Space and the Viewer Connect in Indian Classical Traditions,” at the University of California, Berkeley. Karabi Pathak, a climate expert from Abhayapuri, Assam, has received support to research energy, carbon output and cleaner agricultural production at The Ohio State University. And Kaushal Kishore Chandel of New Delhi has gained sponsorship to look deeply into the policies and strategies of Chinese cyber warfare, at The New School in New York City.

“The Fulbright-Nehru grant enabled me to experience a world-class lab, work with the latest technology and collaborate with pioneers of interactive media,” says New Delhi-based filmmaker Anandana Kapur. A 2017 FulbrightNehru Doctoral Research Fellow, she studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“This helped me gain critical rigor in addressing the changing contours of cinema practice,” says Kapur. “I was also able to screen my films for an international audience.”

The Fulbright-Nehru program has tripled in size in the last 10 years, with a $6.7 million budget. And for Grotsky, that’s money very well spent.

“Through the Fulbright program, thousands of students, scholars, teachers and professionals from across the world engage in meaningful dialogue and develop lasting friendships and partnerships with their peers and counterparts in other countries,” he says. And while alwaysnew innovations in digital communication can certainly make international collaborations Above left: U.S. Fulbright-Nehru English Teaching Assistant Joshua Jordan (front, center), with his students from the Vivekananda School, Dehradun.

Left: U.S. Fulbright-Nehru Student Researcher Saswathi Natta (center) teaches students at Udyam Trust in New Delhi.

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Photographs courtesy USIEF

Above: Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Researcher Muthamilarasan Mehanathan (left) and another Fulbrighter prepare a paper model time machine at Russell Elementary School in Atlanta, Georgia.

Left: Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Scholar Ashok Kumar Pattanaik at the companion animal laboratory at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020 7

Left: Adam Grotsky (front, right) during a predeparture orientation program for 12 Indians selected as Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistants for teaching Hindi, Bangla and Urdu in U.S. colleges and universities.

Below left: Dedication of the Fulbright House on November 28,1965, in New Delhi by (from left) Dr. Robert Brooks; U.S. Ambassador Chester Bowles; Dr. Olive Reddick, director of the United States Educational Foundation in India; Dr. Zakir Husain, the then-Vice President of India; and Prem Kirpal, secretary, Ministry of Education, Government of India.

Participants gain an understanding that there’s far more to people than their areas of academic expertise and more to a nation than its politics and policies.

8 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

possible without the need for visas and airports, technology can never “replace the power and potential of face-to-face interactions,” he continues.

With strong support for Fulbright-Nehru coming from both the American and Indian governments, such powerful international bonds will continue to be forged in the years to come.

“When Indians and Americans study together, conduct joint research and engage in educational exchange activities, they lay the foundation for better relations between the United States and India,” says Grotsky.

“Through programs like Fulbright, participants gain an understanding that there’s far more to people than their areas of academic expertise and more to a nation than its politics and policies.” Arguably, he adds, the U.S.-India relationship has been sustained and enhanced over the years by the exchange of students and scholars through initiatives like the FulbrightNehru program.

For those interested in creating their own unforgettable educational experiences abroad, hard work, teamwork and curiosity are key.

“Fulbright-Nehru Fellowships are for outstanding students, academics and professionals who demonstrate leadership qualities, expertise in their academic discipline and the potential to develop long-lasting professional collaborations and personal contacts with their peers and counterparts around the world,” says Grotsky. “Fulbrighters are ready to share their expertise and knowledge, are open to new ideas and are committed to international engagement.”

Michael Gallant is the founder and chief executive officer of Gallant Music. He lives in New York City.

Photographs courtesy USIEF

Top: Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Scholar Usha Raman (center) interacts with school students during a talk show about social media, on Zumix Radio, a youth-led community radio station in Boston, Massachusetts.

Above: Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Scholar Chochong Vareichung Shimray (right) at the National Science Teachers Association Conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Left: Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellow Chitra Gopinath (center) teaches lab techniques to middle school students in San Diego, California.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020 9

Photographs courtesy Pramod Deshmukh

From Trickle

W

ater is a precious resource, especially for farmers in India, where agriculture is primarily rain-fed. Competition over finite water resources, compounded by climate change, has raised concerns about India’s food security, the livelihoods of farmers as well as the country’s economic development. The changing climate is affecting not just rainfall, but also the retention of soil moisture, which is essential for cultivation.

However, a number of individuals and organizations are working to improve the situation. One such environmentalist is Pramod Deshmukh. He is the chairman of

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Sanskriti Samvardhan Mandal (SSM), a nonprofit organization founded in 1959 by his father, Keshav Deshmukh. It has a 60-year track record of improving the lives and livelihoods of over 30,000 families.

“We initiated our Watershed Development Program in 1992,” says Deshmukh, “with an aim to ensure sustainable rural development.

Since then, four major watershed projects have been completed, impacting 6,000 families in 19 villages. Ten additional villages will be served through an Integrated Watershed Management Project, jointly administered by SSM and the Maharashtra

Pramod Deshmukh, part of the 2010-11 Fulbright-Nehru Environmental Leadership Program, develops water conservation projects in rural India.

to Stream

By HILLARY HOPPOCK

contribute, by voluntary labor, about 20 percent of the total cost of the project, with all fieldwork done by human labor. Equal weight is given to technical and social components, such as community organization, where women of the village take the leadership role.” SSM also works to empower rural communities, especially women and girls, through vocational training, and afforestation, social housing, sanitation and water literacy campaigns.

Deshmukh notes that many of SSM’s projects involve regeneration of natural resources, rainwater harvesting, recharging

Fulbright-Nehru Fellowships

https://bit.ly/2P6HjdB

Sanskriti Samvardhan Mandal

https://ssmandal.net

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government. The climate change adaption project, approved by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, empowers farmers to mitigate the effects of climate change on their land.”

According to Deshmukh, the key to success and sustainability is to design an integrated program, with family as the nucleus for development. Essential to the program is training and skill development with whole community participation to ensure ownership by the stakeholders dwelling in the watershed.

“Shramdaan, sweat equity, is a unique feature of the program,” he says, “as people

Left: Pramod Deshmukh (above) works on employing soil and water conservation techniques, like this gabion. The structure, a wire mesh cage filled with rocks, is used for erosion control.

Photographs courtesy Pramod Deshmukh

Above: Pramod Deshmukh’s Sanskriti Samvardhan Mandal helps desilt dying lakes to restore their waterholding capacity for drinking water and agricultural use by rural communities in Maharashtra.

Above left and top left: Deshmukh (right) participated in several cultural programs and farmer’s festivals during his Fulbright-Nehru exchange visit to the United States.

Deshmukh used networks developed during the FulbrightNehru Fellowship to implement Trickle to Stream, a project to conserve and provide clean drinking water to beneficiaries in Sagroli village in Maharashtra.

12 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

the groundwater table and increasing water infiltration rates in the soil. “People are the primary cause of environmental degradation and must be part of the solution,” he says. “As was the case in the small village of Kedar Wadgaon, where over the years, a lake created in 1972 had filled with silt. The village community came together to manually relocate the sludge to the farmland, to be used as fertilizer, and the water-holding capacity of the lake was restored for drinking water and agricultural use by 2014.”

A 2010-11 Fulbright-Nehru Environment Leadership Program Fellow, Deshmukh studied innovative soil and water conservation as well as recycling technologies in the United States, at Purdue University. He used networks developed during the fellowship to implement Trickle to Stream, a project to conserve and provide clean drinking water to beneficiaries in Sagroli village in Maharashtra. Deshmukh also obtained support for his water conservation projects from Kimberly-Clark, an American corporation he got acquainted with during his tenure at Purdue University.

Employing soil and water conservation techniques, the project activities have resulted in significant positive impacts on the water table, perenniality of water in wells, and water availability for crops, cattle and other domestic uses. It also registered a fourfold increase from about 0.15 million liters to 0.60 million liters in water conserved per hectare, strengthening the water supply for about 10,000 villagers in Sagroli.

With the same determination his father displayed in founding SSM to meet the development needs of the region, Deshmukh views current-day challenges as opportunities.

“The farming community is frustrated with climate change and the increasing costs of agricultural inputs and decreasing profit margins,” he says. “But we can divert our focus from traditional agriculture and reinvent group farming by setting up farmer producer companies.” Deshmukh suggests that villagers can use the positive results of watershed development and start new agro-enterprises like dairy or fishery development, with an aim to “encash” the increased natural resources.

“We need to offer skill development programs in mechanization,” he adds, “and train our disaffected youth in automation in the agro sector.”

Hillary Hoppock is a freelance writer, former newspaper publisher and reporter based in Orinda, California.

Climate

By JASON CHIANG

Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellow Tamanna Subba explores the links between aerosols, air pollution and climate change, to build a better understanding of the Indian summer monsoon.

Photographs courtesy Tamanna Subba

Studying the

T

amanna Subba is a doctoral scholar in atmospheric science at Dibrugarh University, Assam. She was one of the three scholars selected out of 22 applicants for the FulbrightKalam Climate Fellowship in 2017-18. Her work during the fellowship at Pennsylvania State University focused on aerosols, air pollution and climate change, with a goal to build a better understanding of the Indian summer monsoon.

Excerpts from an interview with Subba about her research during the Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowship and how this experience is helping to advance her work in the field of atmospheric science.

Photographs courtesy Tamanna Subba

Could you share a bit about your background, and how you became interested in atmospheric science?

I was aware about the concepts of global warming and climate change since my childhood. When I used to notice forests burning on the way to Darjeeling from Kalimpong, my hometown, I used to wonder how much heat and ashes that produced, besides causing the loss of trees.

As a student of physics, I was also curious about the initiatives taken by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to study air pollution and air quality. I joined as a Junior Research Fellow for the Aerosol Radiative Forcing over India (ARFI) project, under the

ISRO Geosphere Biosphere Programme in November 2013, and never looked back.

My research interests include the use of ground and satellite measurements, in addition to model simulations, to learn about aerosols, clouds and precipitation, and then applying them to regional and global air quality research.

Why is it important to study topics like aerosols and air pollution to understand the Indian summer monsoon?

It is very important to realize that humankind has a major influence on the atmosphere. Extensive study of atmospheric parameters in all fields—ground, model and satellite-based—is absolutely vital for a better understanding of the present atmospheric scenario.

Well-characterizing air pollution in South Asia, and especially aerosols, is important, as aerosols may significantly affect the seasonal evolution and long-term variability of the Indian or Asian summer monsoon.

What were some of the biggest takeaways from your work at Pennsylvania State University, as part of the Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowship?

Beyond academic and professional involvement, the Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowship is also meant for building

I got to work with and learn from some of the world’s leading experts on climate science, and also attended some of the biggest conferences in this field.

Since you began working in the field of atmospheric science, what are some of the biggest changes that you’ve noticed?

It’s been around six years that I have been involved in research. In the past few years, I have noticed several changes in the field. For example, the use of climate models has become more common to understand the atmospheric processes and their contribution to the climate and climate change. The number of ground observation stations has increased. Also, the subject of atmospheric science has itself become more diverse, where new studies have been started, involving the

biosphere, hydrosphere and land-atmosphere interaction.

Apart from this, the instruments involved in aerosol and trace gas measurements have been upgraded. This has allowed researchers to get valuable and reliable data sets for scientific studies, even over complex terrain and oceans where the observations are inadequate or, rather, absent due to inaccessibility.

Do you have any advice for someone who wants to get involved in the field of atmospheric science?

In order to get closer to the truth, the aerosol-climate interaction studies require robust data sets, adequate measurements and complex modeling. However, the bright side is that the world has a lot to offer.

The most important thing is to find people who inspire us. Look for the opportunity to work in an active research group, where we can continue to develop the knowledge that we need in order to understand the fundamentals of the problems related to climate change, to identify the most promising ideas and to efficiently pursue research on them. Most importantly, always be grateful to all the helping hands and support we get in this journey.

Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowship https://bit.ly/2LGpMId

Pennsylvania State University www.psu.edu

Dibrugarh University www.dibru.ac.in

Jason Chiang is a freelance writer based in Silver Lake, Los Angeles.

Far left: Tamanna Subba (fourth from left) with other Fulbright Fellows at the World of Coca-Cola museum in Atlanta, Georgia.

Left: Subba (right) during a scientific discussion with professors Binita Pathak (left) and Pradip Kumar Bhuyan (center) at the Centre for Atmospheric Studies, Dibrugarh University.

Below left: Subba presents research work on the regional climate effects of aerosols over South Asia, at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting in New Orleans.

Above right: Subba at the Fulbright Global Health Innovations Seminar 2018, which brought together about 90 international Fulbright Fellows at Georgia State University.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020 15

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understanding between the citizens of the United States and India. This program intends to develop strong international strategies for fighting against climate change.

My experience as a Fulbright scholar has been an extremely enriching one. During those nine months in the United States, I got to work with and learn from some of the world’s leading experts on climate science, and also attended some of the biggest conferences in this field. One memorable experience during this period was when I got the opportunity to visit NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and present my work before [senior research scientist] Ralph Kahn’s research group. I can still recall my heart pounding so fast! It was really one of my dreams come true.

Sabu Thomas,

a participant in the 2017 Fulbright-Nehru International Education Administrators Seminar, works on using nanotechnology to develop useful products in diverse sectors.

Exploring the

Nano World

S

By NATASA MILAS

NONGKRAN_CH/iStock/Getty Images

abu Thomas is the vice chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi University (MGU), in Kottayam, Kerala. A professor of polymer science and engineering at the School of Chemical Sciences at MGU, he is also a founding director of the university’s International and Inter University Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology.

Thomas participated in the Fulbright-Nehru International Education Administrators Seminar in 2017. He has also developed collaborations with companies like Apollo Tyres in India and General Cable in the United States, which use his research and technology in their production.

Excerpts from an interview.

As a professor of polymer science and engineering at Mahatma Gandhi University, what kind of research do you conduct?

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I have been teaching in the School of Chemical Sciences at Mahatma Gandhi University for the past 32 years. I also teach polymer nanoscience and nanotechnology to master’s students and research scholars at the university.

My research group basically works on the following areas.

• Conversion of natural resources into products such as wound-healing scaffolds, water purification membranes, green EMI [electromagnetic interference] shielding materials, all derived from nanocellulose, a green polysaccharide derived from plant fibers.

• Development of toughened high-performance epoxy materials for aerospace applications.

• Development of high-barrier tire inner liners for next generation tires.

• Fabrication of high-performance materials for battery applications.

Photographs courtesy Sabu Thomas

Right: As a Fulbright Scholar, Sabu Thomas (right) attended academic and administrative meetings with U.S. universities, colleges and other institutes.

Below right: Thomas (center) with other participants of the Fulbright-Nehru International Education Administrators Seminar, near the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.

Could you tell us about your work in the fields of nanotechnology and nanoscience?

We primarily focus on the key aspects of using nanotechnology to develop products that can be used in diverse sectors, such as health care, automobile, aerospace and defense.

We have extensive collaborations with Apollo Tyres, a major tire company in India, and have patented a technology for developing high-performance tire inner liners.

We have also developed a formulation for high voltage cables with General Cable in the United States.

What are some of the major ways in which you plan to make Mahatma Gandhi University more international, whether through your role as a vice chancellor or your academic work?

My vision is to upgrade Mahatma Gandhi University to a world-class university. All

activities will be guided by the principles of equity, social justice, inclusiveness and diversity.

I wish to build a world-class center of excellence in teaching, learning and evaluation process, producing high-quality, socially committed and highly skilled manpower for nation building, with the support of all the members of my university.

I want to transform Mahatma Gandhi University into a truly international researchoriented institution, with excellent faculty members and infrastructure.

Fulbright-Nehru International Education Administrators Seminar https://bit.ly/36m1U4M

Mahatma Gandhi University www.mgu.ac.in

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How was your experience of participating in the Fulbright-Nehru International Education Administrators Seminar in the United States and how did this program help enhance your work in India?

I got the opportunity, as a senior Fulbright Scholar, to have academic and administrative meetings with 15 U.S. universities, institutes and colleges. I visited many U.S. institutions to have high-level academic meetings with their presidents, vice presidents, deans, provosts, senior academicians and administrators. I was also able to acquire a lot of information about the educational systems in various institutes in the United States.

This trip was very useful in my effort to take MGU to a higher academic level. I did an orientation lecture soon after I returned from the program and have encouraged the young scholars to apply and use this golden opportunity.

What are you currently working on?

My research group works extensively on interdisciplinary areas. We work with industries in India and abroad for translating our research findings into products that can be of use to everyone.

I firmly believe that nanotechnology has the potential to place our country in the forefront of technological advancement in the future. And, many cutting-edge products can be formulated with the help of nanotechnology.

Natasa Milas is a freelance writer based in New York City.

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The

Dancing Queens Photographs courtesy Jeff Roy

By MICHAEL GALLANT

F

Through Fulbright Fellowships,

Jeff Roy

explores the artistic expression and identity politics of Mumbai’s LGBTQ communities.

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or many of India’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, hijra, intersex, ally, nonbinary and other gender/sexual nonconforming individuals (LGBTQHIA+), life has changed dramatically in different ways over the past 10 years, says Jeff Roy. It’s an exciting yet complicated period of change, something that the American scholar wanted to witness and understand firsthand. Roy is an assistant professor in the Department of Liberal Studies at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.

Over the last decade, the LGBTQ activist movement has been “gaining speed and growing in numbers,” said Roy in an mtvU interview. His work focuses on the politics and performance of queer, transgender and hijra identity formations at the intersections of race, class, caste and religion in South Asia.

As a scholar and researcher, Roy specializes in ethnomusicology, film and media research, gender and sexuality studies, and more. He is also an accomplished classical violinist in both Western and Indian traditions and a filmmaker.

His writings appear in scholarly journals like Ethnomusicology, MUSICultures, QED, Asian Music, Transgender Studies Quarterly, World Policy Journal, as well as the books, “Remapping Sound Studies in the Global South” and “Queering the Field: Sounding Out Ethnomusicology.” He has also produced, directed and edited seven documentary film projects with community collaborators and production support from Fulbright-mtvU and Fulbright-Hays, Film Independent, Creative Capital, Godrej India Culture Lab, Solaris Pictures and the India HIV/AIDS Alliance. In 2012, Roy won a Fulbright-mtvU Fellowship— a program that supports projects on an aspect of international contemporary or popular music as a force of cultural expression, activism, learning and beyond—to spend a year in Mumbai.

Roy’s grant-winning project featured the creation of a documentary about “how music and dance within Mumbai’s LGBTQ communities help empower and strengthen their individual and collective voices,” he wrote in a blog post for the Godrej India

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Far left: Jeff Roy (right) works with the chair of the Dancing Queens troupe for his Fulbright Fellowship project.

Left, below left and right: Roy worked closely with LGBTQ and hijra performers, documenting their art and filming their process, as part of his Fulbright Fellowships.

Fulbright-mtvU Fellowship https://bit.ly/2tpf3eY

Fulbright-Hays Program https://bit.ly/2ErVtRD

Jeff Roy’s blog bit.ly/JeffRoyBlog

Culture Lab. Roy worked with several queer, transgender and hijra music and dance practitioners. In many parts of India, hijras are commonly referred to as “third gender.”

Despite negative stereotypes in the media and public discourse, the LGBTQ and hijra communities are now “defying once-held beliefs and superstitions about queerness through the practice of newly emerging music and dance, as well as the presentation of more traditional art forms in new performance contexts,” wrote Roy in the blog.

In practice, this means changes of music and dance performed by LGBTQ and hijra individuals, which synthesize elements of current Bollywood, Western pop and rock music, and classical and folk Indian traditions. These performances are shared during concerts, gatherings, protests and religious rituals alike, Roy wrote, “simultaneously contesting and reaffirming [the artistes’ and communities’] marginalized status within mainstream Indian society.”

During his Fulbright year, Roy worked closely with LGBTQ and hijra performers, documenting

their art and filming their process. One resulting video shows Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil, a harmonium player and activist, preparing and presenting an inclusive concert that sought to raise awareness surrounding both HIV/AIDS and the disappearance of classical Indian music forms. A second video showcases the Dancing Queens dance troupe, which includes many hijras and gay men, as they combine art and activism in preparation for a major public performance.

Roy’s fascination with the LGBTQ and hijra art didn’t end with the conclusion of his Fulbright-mtvU program. In 2014, he received a second Fulbright grant, the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Abroad award, to return to the Godrej India Culture Lab in Mumbai and continue his research. In 2015, his work culminated in a musical performance and screening of his documentary, “The Dancing Queens: A Celebration of India’s Transgender Communities.” The event gained widespread attention. It was the first time a transgender performance ensemble took the stage at a major Indian corporate campus.

Roy feels grateful for the opportunities offered by the Fulbright Fellowships and “humbled to belong to such a vibrant and talented community of students, scholars, artists and citizens of the world.” He adds that the connections he forged during the fellowships continue to inspire him and inform the work he does today. “My collaborators and I were able to accomplish a lot of meaningful work together,” says Roy. “We’re incredibly thankful for the opportunities, support and assistance we received along the way.”

Michael Gallant is the founder and chief executive officer of Gallant Music. He lives in New York City.

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20 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

Photographs courtesy Isaac Kehimkar

Isaac Kehimkar, known as India’s Butterfly Man, talks about his work and his takeaways from studying American NGO’s as part of his 2006 Fulbright Fellowship.

Giving Wings to

Natural Interests

By CANDICE YACONO

I

saac Kehimkar, known as India’s Butterfly Man, is a tireless environmental conservation advocate, who draws on natural beauty to make his case. “Butterflies never fail to fascinate us with their colors, graceful flight and fragility,” he says. “They are the best [way] to attract attention toward nature appreciation.”

Kehimkar’s love of nature was instilled at a very young age. When he was a child growing up in Mumbai, his parents encouraged him to keep pets and read animal picture books. They gave him a camera when he was in eighth grade. “This hobby of photographing nature got me hooked!” he says.

Kehimkar graduated from the University of Mumbai in political science and psychology.

Far left: Isaac Kehimkar at TreePeople, an environmental nonprofit organization in California, with which he spent most of his time during the Fulbright Fellowship.

Center left and left: The great windmill and the blue oakleaf, two of the about 1,500 species of butterflies found in India.

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https://bit.ly/2P6HjdB

iNaturewatch Foundation https://inaturewatch.org

Isaac Kehimkar describes his Fulbright Fellowship as an eye-opening experience, in which he got to learn about team management, fundraising and media relations.

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“However, my affinity toward nature remained strong as ever,” he says. He then got the opportunity to volunteer for the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and, later, to work there as a library assistant.

For Kehimkar, the library was a paradise.

He was especially pleased to meet Salim Ali, known as the “Birdman of India,” at the library. When Kehimkar approached Ali, ostensibly to compliment his handwriting, what Ali told him became the guideline of his life.

“He said that he had worked hard to acquire that style in his handwriting and advised me [to] always let the world see the best side of [my] work,” says Kehimkar.

“And that some opportunities come just once,

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Fulbright-Nehru Fellowships

and people should give their best to them.”

Kehimkar got his life-changing opportunity when Bittu Sahgal, the editor of the then-new Sanctuary Asia magazine, offered him a chance to write an article on butterflies.

“Then began my chase after these winged jewels,” says Kehimkar. He began traveling to remote parts of India in search of them.

“And then I really saw how beautiful and diverse India is. I realized that just one lifetime is not enough to see and know it.”

After the article was published, WWFIndia asked him to co-author a beginner’s book on the butterflies of India, which became a bestseller.

“And then, BNHS asked me to write a bigger book on butterflies,” he says. The

Photographs courtesy Isaac Kehimkar

Left: The gaudy baron butterfly.

Above: Isaac Kehimkar at TreePeople’s Yurt Village office in Coldwater Canyon Park, California, during the Fulbright Fellowship.

Above right: Laurie Kaufman, Kehimkar’s mentor at TreePeople.

Right: Bittu Sahgal (center), editor of Sanctuary Asia magazine, at the book release of Kehimkar’s (right) “Butterflies Of India.”

Far right: Kehimkar has captured photos of some of the rare butterflies found in India.

book broke all BNHS sales records, ensuring Kehimkar’s place as India’s Butterfly Man. In 2006, Kehimkar traveled to the United States as a Fulbright Fellow to study how American nongovernmental organizations (NGO’s) work to protect the environment and make people more environmentally aware. He describes it as an eye-opening experience, in which he got to learn about team management, fundraising and media relations.

“This was possible only because of the assistance the Fulbright Fellowship provided me,” says Kehimkar. “And, I shall always remain greatly indebted for the valuable training I got during the fellowship.”

He brought the lessons he learned there back to India and shared them with other NGO’s, before founding his own, iNaturewatch Foundation, in 2014, with another Fulbright Fellow, Dr. V. Shubhalaxmi. The Mumbaibased organization focuses on urban biodiversity and citizen science, and conducts workshops, nature walks, camps and other courses. It also sets up butterfly gardens and

habitats, which serve as popular tourist attractions.

Kehimkar notes that India is home to about 1,500 species of butterflies. “Butterfly gardens are meant to bring people closer to nature,” he says. “Once they fall in love with nature, then they will protect it. And that is the need of the hour.”

Kehimkar is thankful that younger generations have displayed a renewed interest in studying and preserving nature. For its part, iNaturewatch has set up corporate-sponsored open-air butterfly gardens at schools and colleges, which serve as living laboratories for students.

Butterflies can indicate whether an environment is healthy, detect climate change patterns and pollinate crops. “That makes them the best ambassadors of the natural world,” says Kehimkar, “and symbols of freedom, love, tranquility and beauty.”

Candice Yacono is a magazine and newspaper writer based in southern California.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020 23

A Perpetual Learner

L

By RANJITA BISWAS

akshmi Ramaswamy, a noted bharatanatyam dancer, describes herself as a perpetual learner. “I tend to wear a few other hats—that of an academician, a performer, choreographer, researcher and teacher,” she says. Her institute, Sri Mudhraalaya Academy for Bharatanatyam, in Chennai, celebrated its Silver Jubilee in 2019.

Ramaswamy was a Fulbright Arts Fellow in 1999-2000 at Golden Gate University, San Francisco, focusing on bharatanatyam in arts and culture management. “It opened the doors to international exposure for me,” she says.

The field of arts and culture management may seem a bit confusing to people exposed only to traditional art performances. “As long as the teacher and the taught are in an informal space, a class in a house setup, and the performance opportunity comes only through the teacher, there is not much requirement for ‘management’ as such,” explains Ramaswamy. “But when the teaching space becomes a formal learning space, an institution, and the performance space a typical presentation venue, the requirement of management becomes significant. In fact, crucial.” She adds that

Lakshmi Ramaswamy

just as any corporate house, where there are various sections for communication, administration, correspondence, etc., “in this area, too, training schedules, performances, accounts, organizing events, etc. come under management principles.”

Talking about her experience during the Fulbright Arts Fellowship, Ramaswamy recalls, “Everything was new to me—the country, the university, which was completely different from the college I graduated from in Tirunelveli, a town in Tamil Nadu.” She says that every concept related to art had to have elements of logic and analysis. “The challenge for me was to understand the formal handling of an institution, and apply it in a setup which was not present back home.” From the small requirement of creating a mailing list for the organization to conducting a huge dance festival, “I got a good hang of the methods that could be used to systematize an art organization,” she adds.

This exposure, she feels,

shares her experience as a Fulbright Arts Fellow and how that has influenced her practice and management of the art of bharatanatyam.

24 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

Lakshmi Ramaswamy www.lakshmi ramaswamy.com

Photographs courtesy Lakshmi Ramaswamy

https://bit.ly/2P6HjdB

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Fulbright-Nehru Fellowships

Left: Bharatanatyam dancer Lakshmi Ramaswamy has performed in various countries, including the United States.

Above: Ramaswamy (center) with colleagues during her Fulbright Arts Fellowship in the United States.

Above right: Ramaswamy (center) teaches bharatanatyam to her students.

helped her when she decided to go for a master’s degree, followed by a Ph.D. The huge library at the Golden Gate University also gave Ramaswamy access to new authors and books. “I was surprised to see articles that were outcomes of research on the ‘advantages of art’ done way back in the 1950’s.”

Ramaswamy also got the opportunity to conduct a lecture demonstration on her art as part of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival 2000. “I got to meet many experts in the field—Gloria Unti, who uses art for development of special needs youth; Valerie Baadh and Michael Garrett, with whom I had memorable interactions on stage presentation and lighting techniques; and Anne Smith, then-chair of arts administration, who was such a lively person, with knowledge and wit.”

How has she incorporated her fellowship experience in her work back home? “I

am trying to use what I learned there in my workspace,” says Ramaswamy. “I have introduced more systematization than what I used to do earlier; like documenting my work, labeling files and scripts, etc. I have learned to process paperwork, apply for government grants and also teach my students and researchers with a clear methodology.”

In recent years, graduation and master’s programs in art education have been introduced in some Indian institutes. But, Ramaswamy feels, “Arts management has not geared up as much as business management.”

Sharing an anecdote on the subject she says, “I wanted to visit the San Francisco Ballet company and fixed an appointment to meet the director. I was pleasantly surprised to find that he came down six floors to welcome me to his office. He walked me through each and every space—the dance floors, the administration office, the printing unit, the choreography chamber, the accessories closet and much more. I was in awe and I told him, ‘It is overwhelming that you have so many hands to help. Back home, I teach, I practise, I research, I present programs of myself and my students, I spend from my own pocket on books to costumes and even climb up the landing to set up lights.’

He listened to me and commented, ‘Then I should probably come on a Fulbright to see how a single person handles that much!’”

Ranjita Biswas is a Kolkata-based journalist.

She also translates fiction and writes short stories.

To share articles go to https://span.state.gov JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020 25

Protecting Biodiver(city)

By CANDICE YACONO

Fulbright-Nehru Research Scholar

Daniel Phillips

Photographs courtesy Daniel Phillips

moved from Los Angeles to Bengaluru for a year to study city ecology and urban infrastructure.

26 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

Top: Schematic conceptual rendering of three-stage Provisional Green Infrastructure intervention, consisting of simple modifications to existing stormwater channels to lower the concentration of harmful contamination.

Above: Daniel Phillips (center), ATREE’s Dr. Priyanka Jamwal (left) and Shubha Ramachandran secure sampling ports at a test site near Sowl Kere in Bengaluru.

Left: A model drain, part of Phillips’ field-based experimental setup near the inlet of Sowl Kere, for examining filtration processes at a larger scale, a longer timeframe and using actual wastewater flows from the city.

D

aniel Phillips grew up building mud forts and catching bullfrogs in the outdoors of California. But when he got older and began reading about urban planning issues, he found himself interested in the built environment.

Phillips attended the Otis College of Art and Design in California, from which he graduated in 2008. While there, he met Kim Karlsrud, his future wife and creative partner. They co-founded Commonstudio, a creative collaborative practice. “Design isn’t just a profession, but a call to action,” says Phillips.

Today, he has married his twin passions for cities and nature in a career at the intersection of these worlds. Phillips is a landscape architect and urban ecologist. His passions also brought him to India in 201617, as a Fulbright-Nehru Research Scholar.

For the Fulbright-Nehru Student Research grant, he and Karlsrud lived in Bengaluru for a year. Phillips examined city ecology in collaboration with Jana Urban Space Foundation (Jana USP) and the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), nonprofit organizations involved in shaping India’s urban future.

“As an American designer interested in the future of cities, I was fascinated by Bengaluru because it remains one of the fastest-growing urban agglomerations in the world, and as such is marked by a number of ‘wicked’ challenges, which render its future livability increasingly uncertain,” says Phillips.

For his Fulbright-Nehru project, titled “Biodiver(city) in Bangalore: Exploring

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Photographs courtesy Daniel Phillips

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Above right: Samples of urban wastewater from Daniel Phillips’ experimental setups.

Above left: Research Assistant Ramya B. analyzes collected water samples at ATREE’s Water and Soil Lab. Left: Phillips (center) and other team members collect water samples.

Below left: Lab-based study, with ATREE’s Dr. Priyanka Jamwal, to test and compare the decontamination potential of various locally available material aggregates.

Fulbright-Nehru Student Research award www.usief.org.in/ USC-Fulbright-Nehru-StudentResearch.aspx

Commonstudio

thecommonstudio.com

28 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

Models for Collaborative Urban Resilience,” Phillips worked with a transdisciplinary team to come up with the concept for new forms of wastewater infrastructure retrofits, called Provisional Green Infrastructure (PGI). He likens the efforts to “urban acupuncture,” because it draws upon “natural principles of water filtration to lower the concentration of harmful contamination in urban wastewater.”

To prove the approach’s viability, he organized a series of experiments in small-scale studies at labs and in the field. The findings were published in the “Water Science & Technology” journal.

“Based on the success of this initial experiment, I returned to Bengaluru to help orchestrate a larger field-based study using live urban wastewater,” says Phillips. The ultimate goal is to implement larger versions of this work citywide.

“In addition to contributing new knowledge to the field of green infrastructure,” he adds, “we also believe the approaches we are developing for Bengaluru will be broadly applicable to many other South Asian megacities dealing with similar issues of urban watershed contamination.”

But Phillips recognizes that his position as an American requires

reflection on his part.

“Throughout the course of this research, I have had to confront my role as a cultural outsider, and as someone from a comparatively privileged class, race and gender,” he says. “Rather than impose my own values onto this context, I’ve yielded to new ways of thinking.”

Most of the collaborators on the project are Indian women, Phillips notes. “I am honored to continue to engage with them as interdisciplinary collaborators, colleagues and coauthors. I look forward to opportunities to host them in the United States with the same warmth they hosted me during my sojourn in India,” he says.

Inspired by his experiences, Phillips is completing a Ph.D. at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability.

“We are in an era of fast-paced global changes that will challenge our capacities to collectively adapt,” he says. “We can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube, but we can try to be smart about how we move forward.”

To that end, he recommends that everyone begin evaluating their part in the environment.

“If we only think of nature as an ever-diminishing resource comprised of pristine and unpeopled places, we are doomed to failure and depression,” he says. “If we define it as something more intimate— something we interact with every day, even in our urban lives, something we can create and manage—it totally changes our perspective.”

Candice Yacono is a magazine and newspaper writer based in southern California.

P Courtesy Payton MacDonald

ayton MacDonald travels effortlessly from the West to the East and vice versa in the world of music, absorbing different influences and performing across the world.

A Western percussionist and composer, he has studied the tabla and sings Dhrupad, a form of Hindustani classical vocal music. Currently a professor of music at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey, MacDonald is also a Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Awardee. His Fulbright-Nehru project in India aimed to improve his knowledge and practice of Dhrupad, while teaching a course on American experimental music composers who have been heavily influenced by North Indian classical music.

Excerpts from an interview.

Payton MacDonald, Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Awardee, connects Indian classical music with Western musical traditions.

Not a

Musical Tourist

By RANJITA BISWAS

To share articles go to https://span.state.gov JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020 29

Photographs courtesy Payton MacDonald

Above: Payton MacDonald (center) with his family at the Taj Mahal in Agra.

Above left: MacDonald (right) learns from Umakant Gundecha of the Gundecha Brothers.

Left: MacDonald (right) with students of William Paterson University during a hike-in musical event, in which he sang Raag Todi in Dhrupad style and used a drone box up for tanpura.

As our world becomes increasingly connected, it is more important than ever to foster intercultural dialogue in all disciplines.

How did you get interested in playing the tabla?

I first heard the tabla when I was 11 years old. I used to go to the Idaho Falls Public Library, where I found a large stack of LP [long playing] records with the likes of Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, G. S. Sachdev and many other major artistes of Hindustani music.

My love affair with this music was immediate.

I find it to be the most complete and satisfying form of music ever created. I learned the tabla for 10 years under Pandit Sharda Sahai of the Benares gharana.

What are some of the commonalities you find in the percussion instruments across the world, many of which you play?

Groove, touch, tone, the connection to dance, the spirit of rhythmic flow...The

30 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

grammars are very different, but the underlying ethos is the same: getting the heart, mind and body to flow and dance.

How did you become interested in Dhrupad?

I was always attracted to Dhrupad, but never had access to teachers. In 2011, my tabla guru passed away. I was also having some physical issues with my hands and was thinking of going in a different direction. I had taken some group Khayal vocal lessons with Mashkoor Ali Khan. He and one of his American disciples, Michael Harrison, both commented that I have an excellent voice for Hindustani music and encouraged me to pursue it. I, then, serendipitously found out that Ramakant Gundecha of the famous Gundecha Brothers duo was teaching Dhrupad

via Skype, so I started with that. My first six months with the gurujis were on Skype!

What were some of your key takeaways from the Fulbright-Nehru experience?

I can’t overstate how much the Fulbright experience changed my life for the better.

Since returning to the United States, I’ve performed over 100 Dhrupad concerts and workshops, made four YouTube videos, and I’m now embarking on a project of four fulllength Dhrupad audio recordings. I’ve exposed thousands of Americans to Dhrupad, trying to further my gurus’ mission of spreading Dhrupad around the world.

I still go back to India every other year for more taalim [training] and to perform. Going deep into sur opened my ears and my mind to an entirely new universe of sound, the primordial naad; something fundamental to the human experience. Singing Dhrupad every day is a kind of yoga, naad yoga, and the practice has focused my mind, calmed my body, and given me much strength through difficult times.

I also worked on my Hindi while I was there. I can read and write the Devanagari script, which has been most helpful in polishing my pronunciation of the bandishes.

My speaking skills are still poor, but I work on it when I can.

How do you bring the Indian classical style of vocal and percussion into the Western musical tradition?

I use the rhythmic solkattu system almost every day with my students. I also teach classes on Indian music that include a lot of singing. So in that way, it is quite direct. I also frequently perform pieces that bring the traditions together in meaningful ways. For example, during this [autumn] semester, I’m conducting a piece I commissioned from Akshaya Avril Tucker, a very gifted American composer and cellist who has also studied Indian music and dance. Akshaya wrote a wonderful concerto for tabla and Western percussion quartet. I have a local Indian playing the tabla part and my students play the percussion parts. It’s a fabulous experience for everyone.

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William Paterson University www.wpunj.edu

Dhrupad Institute https://dhrupad.org/ dhrupad-institute/

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You were a Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Awardee in 2013-14. Could you please tell us about your project in India?

I was awarded a research/teaching fellowship to spend nine months at the Dhrupad Sansthan in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.

My award was 80 percent research and 20 percent teaching.

I took daily classes with my gurus, the Gundecha Brothers, learning all aspects of Dhrupad, including voice culture, raag structure, sur, swaar-sthaan, bandishes, upaj and much more. At the end of my time there, I made my debut as a Dhrupad singer at a concert at Bharat Bhavan, one of the main stages in Bhopal.

In terms of teaching, I shared my knowledge of Western classical music with students at the Gurukul. I presented approximately one lecture a week on a variety of topics. But mostly, I worked through the history and general theory of Western music. The Indian students were very attentive and had a lot of fascinating questions.

It took me some time to get used to the cultural differences, but now I feel quite comfortable there. I have found Indian audiences to be very welcoming of me as a “foreigner” singing Dhrupad, and extremely supportive. The audiences can tell that I am committed to this art form for the rest of my life. I am not just a musical tourist.

I’m now performing as many concerts a year as a Dhrupad singer as I am as a percussionist. None of this would have been possible without the full immersion that I accomplished while on the Fulbright-Nehru program. I’m so glad that the U.S. and Indian governments continue to invest in this worthwhile program. I just hope that they invest even more over time. As our world becomes increasingly connected, it is more important than ever to foster intercultural dialogue in all disciplines.

Do you feel, as a teacher, you have been able to infuse more interest among your pupils about Indian classical music?

Oh, for sure! Recently, the Dhrupad Sisters [Amita Sinha Mahapatra, Janhavi Phansalkar and Anuja Borude] were at our university. They were singing a bandish in Dhamar raag, all of my students were able to keep taal perfectly. In 2015, I took five students to Dhrupad Sansthan for a month of taalim with the gurujis. I’d like to believe that I have been able to get the student community at the university keyed into Indian music through my interactions.

Ranjita Biswas is a Kolkata-based journalist. She also translates fiction and writes short stories.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020 31

The App of

F

By PAROMITA PAIN

Filmmaker

Anandana Kapur’s interactive mobile documentary app, developed as part of her FulbrightNehru research project, helps create conversations around women’s rights.

32 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

or filmmaker Anandana Kapur, documentary is her medium of choice because on the sets, “no one is a star.” Most moved by the “extraordinary in the ordinary,” she says, “the seemingly innocuous has so many layers to it. Also, the seemingly ludicrous in life can lead to laughter that reforms you and makes you open to seeing your own folly.” Her critically acclaimed films like “The Great Indian Jugaad,” “Blood on My Hands” and “Jasoosni—Look Who’s Watching You” explore a wide diversity of subjects. With her new project, an interactive documentary mobile application, Kapur is seeking to break down walls between stories and storytellers. She aims to give women in New Delhi a platform to control their narrative, preserve their voices and share how they navigate unsafe urban environments.

Deeply affected by the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape case in New Delhi and the ensuing protests, Kapur wanted to use a medium that would enable her to explore the stories of women who had bravely come forth to share their experiences. Using the concept of interactive documentary (i-doc), she created an Android mobile application called Conversations to enable domestic workers and

Photographs courtesy Anandana Kapur

Above: Anandana Kapur (second from right) with developers, UI/UX advisers, video and graphic artists, and project leads of the team that worked on Aashiyaan, during her Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship, at MIT’s Open Documentary Lab.

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homemakers in New Delhi to co-create video stories, as part of project Aashiyaan. “Interactive documentaries are a viewing experience where the viewer’s participation changes the narrative’s flow,” she says. “A recent Netflix special ‘Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’ from the series ‘Black Mirror’ called on viewers to make decisions on behalf of the character. Their choices, in turn, altered the arc of the narrative. That is an example of user interaction with film.” Kapur’s app will also help women record stories, which will be archived on a website for larger audiences. The app was designed and developed as part of her Fulbright-Nehru research project, Aashiyaan, in 2017-18. As part of the Fellowship, she spent a semester at the Open Documentary Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Kapur has also taught mass communication courses at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. “Academics allows me to ask difficult questions and philosophize, and film helps me find answers,” she says.

Currently pursuing a Ph.D. at Jamia’s AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Kapur says that her time at MIT gave her great insight into the developer’s mind and interaction design. “I learned a lot from my cohort,” she says. “They all presented cutting-edge work and demonstrated that art

Fulbright-Nehru Fellowships

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MIT Open Documentary Lab

http://opendoclab.mit.edu

Aashiyaan

www.aashiyaan.org/en

Conversations is shaped by addressing fundamental questions.”

Kapur’s experiences at MIT helped her go back to the basics in ways she had not imagined. “Being in Boston enabled me to be introduced to Code for Boston, a group that has volunteers working on finding technology-based solutions for civic and social issues,” she says. “I had no experience of coding, but they agreed to engage with the project [Aashiyaan] because of their ethical worldview and interest in the cultural nuances of the project.” Kapur worked with 25 core members and over 100 volunteers, who contributed to different aspects and helped create a prototype. “They taught me how I could harness digital technology as a filmmaker and creative artist,” she says. “The difference in cultural contexts led to a creative and collaborative process that resulted in an inclusive digital experience, which women with low literacy and technical knowledge can still interact with.” She says that, perhaps, without the Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship, the project would not have been developed like it is now.

Above and above left: Homemakers and domestic workers in New Delhi co-create video stories about their experiences of the city, using Kapur’s interactive documentary mobile application developed during her Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship.

As Kapur awaits the awarding of her Ph.D. degree to become a “Dr. Filmmaker,” she is seeking technology partners to scale the Conversations app and make it sustainable. Unlike a linear film, Aashiyaan cannot be distributed through pen drives or discs or in theaters. And therein lies the need to harness the potential of the Internet as well as to devise innovative distribution techniques. “I am open to transferring the app to a women’s organization,” says Kapur, “which might want to adopt or adapt it to foster conversations as well as positive action.”

Paromita Pain is an assistant professor of Global Media Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno.

To share articles go to https://span.state.gov JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020 33

Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellow

Dr. Ajay Joshi shared the intricacies of Indian theater with students and other community members in the United States.

Learning Through the Act of Exchanges

D

Photographs courtesy Dr. Ajay Joshi

By PAROMITA PAIN

34 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

r. Ajay Joshi lives by a simple philosophy. “I never say no to any opportunity,” he says. A dentist by profession, Dr. Joshi also holds a Ph.D. in theater studies. He teaches and researches theater and the performing arts in India. A 2018-19 Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellow at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Dr. Joshi also specializes in print journalism and communication, and is involved in theater appreciation, workshops, specialized classes and administration.

“I was very fond of writing. Two years into my practice as a dentist, I did my master’s in journalism and mass communication because I wanted to hone my skills as a writer,” he says.

Running his clinic in the morning meant that he could only take up writing assignments in the evening. Since most theater, music and dance programs happen in the evening, he developed a keen interest in the effective criticism of such art. “I am intrigued by all

aspects of theater, but I wanted to develop the idea of being an effective audience as well,” he says. “What is the role of the critic and how can we be effective in the whole theatrical scenario?” Dr. Joshi’s plays, translated from Marathi to English, have been performed globally. He also teaches post graduate journalism courses at the University of Pune.

In 2015, while collating material for his first book, his co-author told him about the Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship. “I was intrigued, but was initially skeptical,” he says. “I wrote to various universities that had performing studies courses and departments, kind of thinking I would never hear back.” His project, an amalgamation of the complexities and intersectionality of Indian theater comprising caste, class and gender, was extremely appealing, and he soon started receiving letters of invitation from universities.

He chose Rutgers, to teach a course on “Culture, Community and Theater: The Indian

Perspective.” Dr. Joshi opted for a teaching fellowship because he wanted to share the intricacies of Indian theater with students and the larger community at Rutgers. He also wanted to learn and understand how such complexities were addressed in a different cultural context. Dr. Joshi says the four-month fellowship was fantastic. “The diversity and vibrancy of Indian theater fascinated even students of Indian origin,” he says.

At Rutgers, Dr. Joshi met local theater groups, comprised of resident Indians. “I gave critical inputs to some and also moderated a play ‘Rakt Phera’ [Federico Garcia Lorca’s Spanish play, ‘Blood Wedding’],” he says.

Different departments of Rutgers, like nutritional and food sciences, sociology, social work, journalism and gender studies, approached him for collaborations. “I am partnering with them to share my work and

hear of theirs, apart from sharing my Fulbright experience,” says Dr. Joshi. He gave a lecture demonstration on Indian theater costumes. The students of Rutgers were captivated by the saree and the many ways it could be draped.

Dr. Joshi was deeply impressed with the rigorous training these students are given in all aspects of dramaturgy. “Students, before graduation, are taught how to give auditions and even manage money during lean times,” he says. Students are also taught to write applications. Dr. Joshi would like to bring that kind of thoroughness to how the discipline is taught in India. “I learned that students today are so well informed that the teacher is no longer the sole voice,” he says. “I am more of a facilitator and must encourage open interaction with my students.” He was also invited to give talks at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Delta State University and the University at Buffalo, among others.

Dr. Joshi believes that his Fulbright-Nehru opportunity was life-changing. “I went in as a sponge and soaked up every opportunity that came my way,” he says. “The only advice I have for those wanting to apply is just do it.”

Paromita Pain is an assistant professor of Global Media Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship https://bit.ly/36qICv7

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey www.rutgers.edu

I learned that students today are so well informed that the teacher is no longer the sole voice.

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Left and far left: Dr. Ajay Joshi (left) leads a class on Indian costumes and saree draping for students of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (below left), during his Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship.

Below: Dr. Joshi (left) moderates a postproduction discussion with the cast of a local theater group, comprised of resident Indians in the United States, performing the play “Rakt Phera.”

Below right: Dr. Joshi (center) conducts a session with third and fourth graders in a school in Bronx, New York, on the topic of child labor in India.

For our 60th anniversary this year, SPAN is reprinting articles from past editions that reflect on issues we are reporting about today. For this edition focusing on the Fulbright program, we are reprinting excerpts of this article from March 1988.

Full, Bright Memories

By M.S. RAJAN

Among the first batch of Indian Fulbright scholars selected for study at U.S. universities, M.S. Rajan recaptures his memories of American hospitality and some initial problems he faced in adjusting to the new environment.

T

he other day I read a brief notice in Foreign Affairs (New York) about Loy Henderson’s memoirs. My mind immediately went back to the early 1950’s when he was the U.S. Ambassador to India. It was largely to him that I owe my first visit to the United States— on a Fulbright Fellowship.

I used to work at New Delhi’s Indian Council of World Affairs (lCWA) in those days.

One day, ICWA General Secretary A. Appadorai asked me to fill out a form for a scholarship to study in the United States. I did so, but without any expectation of success in what, I was told, was an all-India competition.

A couple of months later, I was informed by the U.S. Information Service that I had been selected for a Fulbright scholarship for admission to Columbia University in New York. I was naturally thrilled.

Just before leaving Delhi for New York, I called on Ambassador Henderson at the American Embassy, which was then located at Bahawalpur House, Sikandra Road. My happiness at getting the scholarship redoubled when he told me that my original application had been lost in the U.S. State Department which, in those days, handled the applications, and that he had sent them a stinker and insisted that I should, come what may, be offered a scholarship, because I was with the ICWA. He told them that I would fill out fresh application forms after arriving in New York.

36 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020

Although I was then older, at 30, than most Fulbright scholars of today, I was not as selfconfidently knowledgeable of America as students these days. The first thing that unnerved me on landing in New York was the fact that few understood my English pronunciation, nor I theirs! I had to often repeat myself—slowly—in order to make myself understood.

Before getting into a taxi at New York airport, I tipped the porter who had carried my heavy suitcase. Seeing the amount, instead of the customary “thank you,” he laughed and, putting his head and the hand with the tip into the taxi, said to the driver, “Hey, buddy! You’ll like it,” or words to that effect. I wondered what he meant.

M.S. Rajan (second from left) with the Deckmans, his Philadelphia hosts, their daughter and his young Indian friend Kochukoshy.

Many days later, having gotten used to American money, I understood the porter’s comment. For I had calculated the dollar equivalent of Indian rupees (in 1950, it was about Rs. 5 to a dollar) and offered him a measly 50 cents. At Rs. 2.50 that was twoand-a-half times what I would have offered an Indian porter at that time and I thought I was being generous! Actually, it was a ridiculously low tip for New York. But, instead of offending me by rejecting the tip, perhaps because he realized that I was a foreigner on my first visit to America, he had taken a good-humored view of the incident.

I had been put up at the YMCA Sloan House. Soon after arriving there, I felt terribly thirsty. Not finding a tap in the room or outside, I went to the reception desk and asked where I could get a glass of water. “Oh, every floor has a fountain,” I was told.

Puzzled at this rather curt reply, I went up to my floor looking for a “fountain.” I found none. I was feeling miserable and wondering how to quench my thirst, when I saw a young man go near something embedded in the wall and drink water that seemed to suddenly spout from it. This, I realized, was the American fountain.

In the bus to the university the next day, I offered my seat to a lady who was standing, and she reacted angrily in words I could not follow. Shocked and humiliated, especially because many co-passengers were staring at me as though I had offended the lady, I asked a neighbor, in whispers, what the lady had said, and he smilingly repeated her words, “I am not that old.” To her, my offer, by implication, referred to her age since people in America only offered seats to elderly women!

I had another encounter with this age factor at the home of an American family whose guest I was for the weekend about a year later.

The old American couple who had invited me to their place near Philadelphia had also asked their married daughter to join them for supper.

That young lady was enthusiastically explaining to me, and an Indian friend who was also with me, her exploits as a hockey player in her younger days. At one point she said, “Now that I am 38...” and suddenly stopped in her tracks.

“Oh, mummy,” she screamed and there were some moments of embarrassed silence till her mother tactfully changed the topic. My Indian friend, who had arrived in the United States just the previous day, nervously asked me whether he or I had done something wrong.

Better used to American customs, I was able to explain to him that she was shocked at her slip at having unwittingly blurted out her age.

After dinner, my friend, who saw a TV for the first time in his life, moved to the sitting room to watch a program. My hosts and I went into the kitchen to wash dishes. About an hour later, as we got ready to sleep, he asked me in a shocked tone, “I say, what were you doing in the kitchen?” I replied in a matter-of-fact manner, “Oh, I was helping them wash the dishes.” Incredulous, he asked, “But why did you do it? I would never do such dirty work even in my own house.” I then had to explain to him that a houseguest

helping a family wash the dishes after a meal is part of the American way of life. But this was something he just could not understand or get accustomed to.

One Sunday morning soon after my arrival in the United States, I went in search of a copy of The New York Times. I saw a young man hurrying by with a pile of papers and asked him for a copy. He was startled and said, rather curtly, “You get it there,” pointing toward a newsstand. I was puzzled at the boy’s reaction and wondered what I had done wrong now. Anyway, I went to the newsstand and asked for a copy of the paper. The man pointed to a tall pile and said, “There, pick up one.” I went near the pile and could not understand how I could pick up a copy—they all seemed folded together in one huge mass.

I continued to stand there, pretending to be looking at something else, till another young man came in, put the cash on the counter, picked up a huge bundle out of the pile and hurried off. It then occurred to me that a copy of the Sunday issue of The New York Times was a huge bundle, as much as four times the size of the paper during the week, which itself was five to six times the size of an Indian paper of those days. And, then, I also realized the mistake that I committed in asking the youngster whom I had met earlier for a copy. Seeing him with the huge bundle, I had mistaken him for a newsboy.

Among the best moments of my American trip were the visits to American homes. I would get invitations for meals and weekend stays even from people I hardly knew. I spent my 1952 Christmas with an American family in far-off Champaign, Illinois. On the evening of my arrival, the lights suddenly went out. My friend’s mother called for an electrician. He arrived within minutes. He was a tall, heavyset gentleman in his sixties. He took out a screwdriver from his hip pocket and moved around the house in a lordly gait, tapping the wiring here and there. On one such tap, the lights came on. The electrician smiled, took out a bill book, wrote out a bill and handed it over to the lady. She looked at the amount and exclaimed, “What? $10! You did nothing!” To which the electrician replied in a firm, dignified tone, “Look lady, you pay for what I know, not for what I do!” For some reason—perhaps the electrician’s dignity or my hostess’ immediate acceptance of his explanation—this episode is still vivid in my memory.

In my international relations master’s class, I was surprised to find young and

not-so-young men and women who had worked or who were still working as painters, musicians, nuclear physicists, haberdashers and so on. Intrigued, I asked some of them why they were studying a subject which was unrelated to their present or former vocation.

Invariably, their reply was that they were dissatisfied and were looking for a more rewarding career.

This willingness to start education all over again and to make midcareer changes in pursuit of happiness impressed me.

I was also impressed by the students working to pay for their education. In fact, the hostel and the cafeteria in our university were run with the help of students, who apparently managed to study even while doing these part-time jobs. (I could not join them, because I was getting a fellowship.) They would do my typing work, laundry and even supply ice cream, nuts and fruits late at night.

The money that these boys earned went toward their education and their availability helped the university reduce its establishment costs.

One serious problem faced in Columbia University was my vegetarianism. On the eve of my first Christmas, the maid cleaning my room asked me what I planned to do on Christmas. I told her that I had an invitation for dinner from an American family living outside New York City. “Ah! You will have lots and lots of turkey and cake!” she said. I explained that I wouldn’t eat turkey, because I was a vegetarian. “You are what?” she asked, surprised. When I explained, she refused to believe me. “You are kidding! How can you live without meat?” She was so astonished that she called some of the other maids and I had to give them a lecture on vegetarianism. I told them that millions of Indians, for hundreds of years, have survived on vegetables and so on. The maids were shocked. One of them blurted out, “And you look so healthy!”

Even the university doctor believed that eating meat had something to do with healthy living.

When I fell ill, the doctor insisted that it was because of lack of nutritious foods, and insisted that I supplement my diet daily with at least an egg or two. When I told him that I could not do so, he threw up his hands in despair, and recommended some tonic!

M.S. Rajan was Professor Emeritus at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), and was formerly director of the erstwhile Indian School of International Studies, now the School of International Studies of JNU.

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Electingthe U.S. President

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By CARRIE LOEWENTHAL MASSEY

hen Americans take to the polls on election day every four years to select their next president, they do not really vote directly for their chosen candidate. They actually vote to select their states’ electors, who will then decide the presidency through the Electoral College process.

This process was established in the U.S. Constitution, signed in 1787 by the founders of the United States, laying out how the government will be structured and how it will run. The Electoral College process was meant to be a compromise between electing the U.S. president solely through a popular vote or having the U.S. Congress, the legislative branch of the government that consists of the House of Representatives and the Senate, select the president outright.

Electoral College vote.

Above right: Capitol Hill staff unpack folders of Electoral College ballots before a joint session of the U.S. Congress to count the votes in Washington, D.C., in January 2017.

Right: Senators sign off on official tallies following a joint session of the U.S. Congress to count electoral votes in Washington, D.C., in January 2017.

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Selection of electors

Photographs by ZACH GIBSON © AP Images

American voters don’t exactly elect their next president; they select the electors who represent them in the official

The Electoral College process has three key steps: the selection of the electors, the meeting of the electors to choose the president and the vice president, and the counting of the electoral votes.

The Electoral College has 538 electors.

Each state, plus the District of Columbia, has an allotment of votes equal to the number of senators and representatives it has in the U.S. Congress. Each state gets two votes for its senators in the U.S. Senate plus a number of votes equal to the number of its members in the House of Representatives. For example, California has 53 members in the House of Representatives and two senators, so it has 55 electors. Washington, D.C., is allotted three electors, despite having no voting representation in the U.S. Congress.

To begin the selection process, the political parties in each state first nominate a group of potential electors. This process varies from state to state. Sometimes it takes place at state party conventions or is done instead by a central committee vote. Potential electors may be state elected officials, party leaders, people who have personal connections to the party’s presidential candidate, or those the party wants to recognize for their service. Through this nomination process, presidential candidates obtain their own slate of electors.

Next, on Election Day, voters from the general public select their states’ electors, simply by voting for their chosen presidential candidates. The electors slated for the winning candidates become the states’ appointed electors. All states, except Maine and Nebraska, have a winner-take-all policy where the state looks only at the overall winner of the statewide popular vote. Maine and Nebraska, however, appoint individual electors based on the winner of the popular vote for each Congressional district and then two electors

ROGELIO V. SOLIS © AP Images

https://bit.ly/38X2vf4 based on the winner of the overall statewide popular vote. Following the general election, each state’s governor creates a Certificate of Ascertainment, which lists the names of the electors chosen by the voters and the number of votes received, as well as the names of all other candidates and the number of votes received.

Meeting to choose The presidential election takes place every fourth year on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. It is truly decided, however, on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, when the electors meet in their states to cast their votes. They vote for the president and the vice president on separate ballots, even though the candidates run on joint tickets. Electors record their votes on a Certificate of Vote, which the state sends to the U.S. Congress and the National Archives and Records Administration to become part of the official records of the election.

The U.S. Constitution and federal law do not require electors to vote in accordance with the results of their states’ popular votes.

However, some state laws do demand it. In other cases, political parties require binding pledges to vote for their nominees. “Faithless electors”—those who do not vote according to their state law or party pledge—may have to pay fines or can be disqualified and replaced

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Electoral College Electoral College member Joe F. Sanderson (right) casts his electoral votes in the 2016 general election for the president and the vice president of the United States, at the Capitol in Jackson, Mississippi.

with other electors. Since the founding of the United States, more than 99 percent of electors have voted as pledged. As a result, the country can most often trust that the predicted victor, named unofficially on election night, will indeed take office.

Counting electoral votes On January 6, following the December in which the electors meet to vote, the U.S. Congress gathers in a joint session of both the House and the Senate, in the House chamber.

The acting vice president, who serves as the president of the Senate, presides over the meeting. There, the congresspeople officially count the electoral votes. Two appointed “tellers” announce the votes, in alphabetical order by state. To win, candidates must receive a majority of 270 electoral votes.

Following the count, if two candidates prevail, the president of the Senate announces the newly elected U.S. president and vice president, who take office at their inauguration on January 20.

The Electoral College process was meant to be a compromise between electing the U.S. president solely through a popular vote or having the U.S. Congress select the president outright.

Carrie Loewenthal Massey is a New York Citybased freelance writer.

To share articles go to https://span.state.gov JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020 39

The Power of Paint

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American artist

Augustina Droze created

socially meaningful artworks and murals in India, during her Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship.

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ince 2017, visitors to Nagpur’s Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport have experienced not just security lines and baggage claims, but also a stunning work of public art—a 230-foot-long mural depicting a bright-eyed Indian girl, flowing braided hair forming a beautiful mandala and much more.

Created by American artist Augustina Droze, with the help of 46 volunteer artists from the local community, it is more than an interesting artwork. The mural reflects the theme of female empowerment against societal inequities, says Droze, especially in terms of young women’s access to education.

Droze created the mural as part of her Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Award in 2016-17. She was thrilled to receive the award to travel to India to bring her Community Mural Empowerment Project to life, creating art while raising awareness about important issues like equality, class and gender.

“As an artist, my research was in the form of a series of art and community

By MICHAEL GALLANT

empowerment projects to address societal inequities for females in receiving education in India,” says Droze.

Her research led her to work with local communities and create socially meaningful art around the country. In Varanasi, for example, she describes painting eight large portraits of local girls, “adorning them with puja [worship] flowers to highlight their strength in the face of adversity. These paintings are now on permanent display at the Varanasi airport.”

Beyond these portraits and her Nagpur airport work, Droze created four additional large-scale public paintings. One particularly meaningful mural lives on a wall of an old house in Varanasi.

While walking near the city’s Assi Ghat, Droze told The Times of India in 2017, she met an illiterate young girl begging for money.

After receiving permission from the girl’s parents, Droze took pictures and began dreaming of a mural with this girl, empowered and reimagined, as the centerpiece.

Photographs courtesy Augustina Droze

Left, above far left and far left: Murals created by Augustina Droze during her Fulbright-Nehru project, including “Braided Hope,” her 230foot-long mural on girls’ empowerment and education, at

Nagpur’s Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport.

Above: Droze with one of her artworks. The portrait includes puja flowers to highlight the child’s strength in the face of adversity.

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With the help of fine arts students from Banaras Hindu University, Droze created a sprawling painting that showed the girl “wearing a turban and crescent tilak, a reminder of legendary warrior and Queen of Jhansi, Rani Lakshmi Bai, whose birthplace was Varanasi,” said Droze in her Times of India interview. “She is also wielding a manuscript while being surrounded by a lotus and swans, believed to be vehicles of the goddess of learning, Saraswati.” The resulting work is as beautiful as it is symbolic, and Droze hopes that those who see it will realize the importance of education of girls.

During the Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship, Droze also taught Indian students about painting and drawing through a series of workshops.

Long before she planned to craft large-scale messages of social empowerment in India, Droze was drawn to painting murals for the artistic as well as the community-oriented

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potential of the format. “I like the idea that art should be for the people, not just in a gallery or museum,” she says. “Murals also have the ability to spread social messages and give voice to those not always heard.”

Droze is currently pursuing a doctorate degree based directly on the work she did in India. She plans to create similar mural projects in other countries, evaluate their social impact and, hopefully, continue her work in India, a country she describes being drawn back to, again and again.

“I completely fell in love with the children I worked with, especially the girls at a local school,” says Droze. “Their stories and resilience were inspirational. I felt my heart tear in two when I left them. I look forward to seeing them again someday.”

Michael Gallant is the founder and chief executive officer of Gallant Music. He lives in New York City.

Right: A series of portraits of Indian children, created by Augustina Droze as part of her Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship project, at the Varanasi airport.

Below right and below far right: Artists from local Indian communities work with Droze to create large public works.

Below: “Her Power,” a mural in Varanasi depicting a young girl reimagined as a symbol of power and education.

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Augustina Droze Photographs courtesy Augustina Droze

https://augustinadroze.com

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Fulbright-Nehru Fellowships

Murals also have the ability to spread social messages and give voice to those not always heard.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020 43

Courtesy Augustina Droze

Registered under RNI-6586/60

A mural created at the ashram at Aghor Foundation, Varanasi, by American artist Augustina Droze and a group of boys from the ashram. As part of her Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship, Droze created murals in several Indian cities to highlight themes of children’s empowerment and education.