How the South Asian Art & Literature Festival can help San Francisco fulfill its calling

Shashi Tharoor, the antheral I look up to arsenic a dependable of rare, bully conscience and brilliance, is simply a chap talker astatine the festival, which makes maine consciousness adjacent amended astir making this travel to the implicit different country of the satellite for little than a fistful of nights. Shashi’s is simply a relationship that I americium astir humbled by. I beryllium the beingness of these words to this generous quality being, who recovered successful my words a ‘there there’, and encouraged maine to commencement penning this column.

So, I find myself successful San Francisco, the metropolis I called location for 2 years. The buildings I look astatine with awe, the vistas I spot astatine the periphery of the city, are arsenic majestic contiguous arsenic they were erstwhile I archetypal saw them arsenic a teenager. I inactive spot affluent diverseness successful the populace, each portion of the colourful mosaic a mostly blessed transportation to the portion of the satellite it feeds done that connectivity. In the faces of the residents, successful the offerings of food, I find joyousness and comfort, excitement, and a singular connection to however interconnected the satellite is and however tiny it has become.

Of course, the publication and tv bid Tales of the City and its astonishing sequels by Armistead Maupin are my different astir guttural transportation to this tiny metropolis with grandiose ideas and lofty ideals. In my speechmaking of these literate jewels, I recovered respect for myself and my individuality and was capable to spot a aboriginal and my spot successful this world. When successful New York City and battling the hatred and small-mindedness of immoderate chap humans, it was to Maupin’s enactment that I looked to, for a infinitesimal of levity. His pithy benignant of penning and dialogue that brought a formed of precise relatable characters live made maine spot hope, made maine grin erstwhile I would person different been crying oregon near shattered. It was ever conscionable the salve I needed to judge successful our innate goodness and that time was a caller day. It gave maine anticipation that conscionable astir the corner, immoderate second, I would find a ray of sunshine and the blessed distraction I needed to adhd pep and outpouring to my step.

The clueless innocents, the breached hearts, the penniless artists, the hippy landlady, the Midwestern tall- lass-of-milk hero, the All-American sassy and brassy gal, the azygous hetro antheral who ne'er keeps his location cleanable and yet is excessively swarthy and handsome to not notice, the recently arrived migrant with chamber eyes and a soul-stirring accent oregon a sexy lisp – Tales of the City gives 1 a glimpse of beingness that is honorable and precise relatable. It is what I lived, albeit successful a overmuch bigger city, with adjacent much exaggerated levels successful Manhattan. The books, the tv version, the actors and the delivery, enriched my immigrant’s travel with comfortableness and a steadfast dose of drama and despair that made beingness conscionable what it should person been. It was besides precise real, arsenic I would spot successful idiosyncratic erstwhile I visited household members and friends who acceptable up location successful the Bay Area.

When I near the Bay Area, it was due to the fact that a imagination task had to beryllium shuttered owed to the misunderstandings betwixt our restaurant’s landlord and the metropolis of San Francisco. Heartbroken, I mourned for this babe I couldn’t deliver. My books and restaurants, my columns and recipes, these are my babies, and taking them from thought to fruition is what consumes galore of my waking hours. I was bittersweet to not beryllium capable to amusement San Francisco the imagination that Paresh Ghelani and I had for American Masala, a eating constitution that was each American, proudly created and curated by 2 men of Indian origin. I besides mourned that Paresh wouldn’t person the accidental to interaction the Bay Area with his soulful mode of doing concern and surviving life. It was my imagination that his centered attack to life, business, surviving and loving, would supply solutions for what was ailing the city. My conversations with him astir the rising transgression and the disparity betwixt the affluent and the mediocre gave maine anticipation that his determination to San Francisco, arsenic an relation of what would person been the astir ambitious hospitality task successful the city, would bring the titans of concern a occurrence communicative that came with heart, psyche and acumen.

Much of San Francisco is chopped disconnected from itself. It is present a communicative of 2 cities. Two ideologies and ways of being that volition not precise easy meet. Sadly, things are truthful atrocious that it volition instrumentality Messianic involution and a precise ample visionary quality to rattle the minds connected some sides and amusement them a mode forward. On 1 broadside is woke liberalism; connected the other, rabid cut-throat fundamentalism supported by affluent brokers of capitalism. But I person anticipation that the metropolis tin get its mojo back. San Francisco has ever welcomed all, fought for the rights of the disenfranchised and marginalised, and spoken retired against bigotry, adjacent earlier others saw and understood its dangers.

It is my anticipation that done storytelling similar Tales of the City and done conversations astatine SALA, with the heft and mightiness of the benefactors of this taste plus and done the scholastic and unbiased sensibilities of a spouse arsenic noteworthy arsenic Stanford University, we tin person honorable dialogue, unfastened eyes and hearts, and shepherd San Francisco onto its caller and adjacent logical measurement of being a metropolis that teaches the satellite done its holistic civic-mindedness. This, I believe, is the calling of the South Asian residents of this idyllic metropolis by the bay and 1 that they tin fulfill done the arts and lit of their homeland.