Navratri is a Hindu holiday celebrating the Mother Goddess' triumph over evil. Over the past year, I've also been thinking of it as a celebration of the collective action of people to create liberating change in our world.

Navratri is a nine-night holiday my family has celebrated for generations. In their communities back in India, both my mom and dad's family were Brahmins--a historically established privileged priest caste. My father is from a small farming village in Gujarat. His was the only Brahmin family in the mostly-Hindu village. Families went to his house for pujas, and my dad's family often led religious celebrations in their community. My mom's family is from a small town in Gujarat, and her family served a similar role in her community. After immigrating to America, they continued to celebrate Navratri as their parents did, and still do today. It's the most important holiday of the year in my family.

The mythology around the holiday is a beautiful story of female power, and the collective action of people to create change in their world. In my family's version of the story, Lord Shiva granted Mahishasura, a devout man, the wish to be more powerful than anyone on Earth and any God in heaven. Over time, Mahishasura became corrupt with his power, and created an army to take control of heaven, and exile the Gods to life on earth. Without any power to take back their land, the Gods put all their best qualities together to manifest a single, powerful, female warrior. She led the Gods to heaven and waged a nine-night war with the Mahishasura and his army. On the ninth night, she destroyed Mahishasura, and the Gods returned home.

My family has mainly celebrated this holiday as reverence to the divine mother. Growing up and celebrating women's power had an immense influence on my feminist worldview. Celebrating a Goddess, that was much bigger than our world, and fought unfathomable injustice gave me pride in being a fierce ally to my mom, my sister, and all the women-identified people I'm close to. Celebrating the feminine power that lives in all of us is an important part of this holiday for me.

But another aspect of the holiday that I've been thinking more and more about over the past few years is the decision of the Gods during a time of turmoil. Being banished from heaven, and individually being powerless to fight, the Gods decide to put their powers together. They decided to put their minds and their bodies together...

I've been blessed to collaborate with some amazing artists on a performance work over the past year or so. I've composed sound for the ~30 minute work that will debut at Columbia's Dance Center as part of their Ten Year Celebration on September 25th.

It's been a really great experience collaborating with Ni'Ja and the performers. Creating this work has taken me to places emotionally that I didn't even know existed. It's been hard, scary and really exciting all at the same time. There are moments in the piece of a brutal fierceness of one fighting for their own survival, and moments of tenderness and real vulnerability. See the info on the show below, check out a sampler of the sound I created for the show, and come see the show next Saturday!

I Still Live Here is the premier work of Chicago-based African diasporic performance project, The Artisans of Alchemy (AOA). AOA's founder and director, Ni'Ja Whitson choreographs this eclectic and gripping interdisciplinary performance work, that locates and expresses body memory; a gesture boldly traversing the collection of scars and narratives stored between skin.

Supported by original compositions from sound artist nikhil trivedi, site specific performance for video composed by Whitson, and presented through expressive and dynamically moving bodes, the multimedia landscape of I Still Live Here questions our complicity and personal relationship to violence, connects the horrific reality of “corrective rapes” occurring in staggering numbers in South Africa, to shared histories of, struggles to overcome, and experiences within, collective trauma.

I Still Live Here
September 25, 2010
12:30 pm
1306: Ten Years Later - Dance Center of Columbia College
1306 S Michigan Avenue
FREE

Dear Cold Stone Creamery,

I love your ice cream. On hot summer days, I've treated myself many-a-time to your Peanut Butter Cup Perfection, Chocolate Devotion, or Cookie Doughn't You Want Some. How could I resist the smooth, creamy ice cream, freshly mixed with sweet, fun, tasty mix-ins right there on the spot? So, it really saddens me to write you this letter, just as summer is beginning to show her light in Chicago, to let you know that I will no longer be visiting your stores.

As you must already know, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer recently signed into law the harshest anti-immigration bill passed in the U.S. in more than a decade. As an American-born child of South Asian immigrants, I have experienced firsthand the negative repercussions of the oppression of immigrants, people of color, and those who are perceived as "foreign." Stereotypes and misconceptions of what an American looks like--and in particular what an American doesn't look like--made me grow up isolated, alienated and a survivor of violence committed against me by folks in the community I grew up in. Assumptions about my background and my right to be here were rooted in the same xenophobia and racism that are behind Arizona's new law.

Because of SB1070, I simply cannot in good conscience spend another dollar on a business that is based in a state that dehumanizes me and the very people I know and love. Governor Brewer, by signing this bill into law, has validated all of the irrational fears of people who are not willing to acknowledge the economic, social and cultural benefits of immigration to our country.

I feel like I'm breaking up with you, Cold Stone, but it doesn't have to be this way. I just need to know where you stand. I ask that you, Cold Stone Creamery, use your power and influence in the state of Arizona to publicly speak out against SB1070. Further, I ask that you publicly urge Congress to the do the right thing and pass comprehensive immigration reform. Until I know where you stand, I will not visit your stores again.

In hopes of your action,
nikhil trivedi
Chicago, IL

A few days ago, a devastating earthquake hit Haiti. Government buildings crumbled to the ground along with a countless number of schools, hospitals and homes. The pictures and reports coming to us can only convey a fraction of the pain that must be over there, making it all the more heartbreaking. Many of my friends are talking about how to donate to Haiti. Here's some thoughts on how to be more mindful of where and how you give.

Text message donations
Donations made via text message can take up to 90 days to reach the organizations. :-( mGive is the main company helping organizations like the Red Cross provide this service, and on their FAQ:

"How long does it take for a donor's gift to reach the intended cause or charity?

The distribution of funds is based on the quarterly carrier payout schedule. Every 90 days the carriers disburse the funds generated from your mobile donation campaign to The mGive Foundation which then passes those funds along to your organization along with a detailed remittance report for each donation campaign you have."
http://www.mgive.com/FAQ/Default.aspx

Ooooofff... This method of donating might be easier for us, but that seems to be about the extent of it... Although I'm sure your donation will still be much appreciated in three months, just be aware that you're money won't get to the ground as quickly as you're able to send the text message.

US-based orgs can *only* send goods overseas
The US has a policy that organizations that send aid to other countries cannot send that aid in the form of a bulk of money -- they must buy American goods and send them over. This might be good for our local economy and business, but it also means a big part of your donations are paying for fuel and freight costs. This may not be as much of an issue for Haiti, because orgs in Haiti may choose to get supplies from our gulf states anyway. They may choose to. The also may choose to get supplies from the Dominican Republic. Or Cuba. Or other places much closer, affordable, and economical for them to get supplies from. But this is an especially troublesome policy when our government and orgs want to help with disaster relief in Africa or Asia, like after the tsunami hit in 2004. Shipping bottles of water on a plane from the US...