Alan Roland is a counselor from New York City who arrived in India 35 years ago to learn how Westernization and modernization is impacting urban, educated youth.

Roland quickly realized that he had a lot to learn before he could find answers to his questions and he dove into a study of Indian society while he treated Indian patients and supervised other counselors. He dialoged with anthropologists, sociologists, poets, novelists, philosophers and teachers. He discovered that culture and social patterns shape the inner lives of people in more profound ways than he had ever imagined.

What Roland discovered is that his Indian patients had a significantly different idea of themselves than anything he encountered in Euro-American patients. He calls the Indian self a we-self, by which he means that the idea of the self that is common in India is integrated with the extended family. According to Roland, having a familial we-self has profound implications on how honor, loyalty, nurture and non-verbial communication are dealt with in contrast to his own Euro-American Society.

Roland returned to New York City where he works with Asian American patients. He observes two cultural selves in clients who were born in India and moved to America in childhood. One part of his clients live as a we-self with their families at home and another part of them adapts to a more assertive and individualistic self in American schools and work places.

In recent times, Roland observes Indians in New York who live in an Indian social context within America. Many of them have a home in India to which they often travel and some hope to move back to India. Roland calls these kinds of Indians in America transnationals rather than immigrants.

Roland tells many stories and insights from his experiences with Asian American patients in his book published by Oxford University Press titled, Journey to Foreign Selves: Asians and Asian Americans in a Global Era.

Ashis Nandy (right in picture) is an intellectual in Delhi who writes about life in modern India. He was interviewed by the Iranian philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo (left).

Nandy hopes that India will offer the world something that is uniquely Indian and not just try to beat the West at its own game. He laments that, “We would rather suffer from the problems of the world’s richest and most powerful country, than from the problems of the poor and the peripheral. We don’t want to die of starvation; we want to die of obesity and over-consumption.”

Nandy and Jahanbegloo’s conversation traverses the thoughts, religions, cultural diversity and politics of Modern India’s communities. They fly through topics like the relationship between Indians and Pakistanis, the future of democracy in South Asia, globalization, the survival of Indian culture and traditions, Gandhi, industrialization, secularism, development, the flaws of the nation-state and nationalism.

The transcript of the series of six interviews is published by Oxford Press in a book titled, Talking India: Ashis Nandy in Conversation with Ramin Jahanbegloo.

Musicians celebrate the winter festival of Lohri with a song. Lohri is a popular festival in North India that marks the passing of winter and the coming of spring. Its celebrated in mid-winter with a bonfire, singing and dancing. In some areas, children collect sticks from their grandparents and relatives and build a bonfire for their family and friends to enjoy.

A player flicks his white striker across the carrom board to knock a colored disc into the far left pocket. He is playing carrom with three others in a dimly lit room in a neighborhood of Fort Cochi in Kerala.

Carrom is a popular game in all of the countries of South Asia. The game was invented in either India or Sri Lanka and its rules were officially codified in Chennai in 1988 by the International Carrom Federation.

Games similar to carrom are played throughout the world.

Click and listen to Sonam Kalra sing Mahatma Gandhi’s favorite hymn, Abide With Me:

Kalra is a musician from the Sikh community. She was asked to sing at the birth anniversary of a Sufi. That experience was the beginning of a journey for Kalra to sing prayers. She calls her endeavor the Sufi Gospel Project.

On the screen behind Kalra are lines from a poem written by the 15th century mystic poet Kabir:

Are you looking for me?
I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours.
You will not find me in the stupas,
Not in Indian shrine rooms,
Nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals:
Not in masses, nor kirtans…
When you really look for me,
You will see me instantly…

Pakistan is perceived as a dangerous place to many people in India. Former governor of Kashmir, Shri Jagmohan, opened a discussion asking what motivates Pakistan and what led to its present condition?

Pakistan’s root problem is a crisis of identity said the former editor of the Hindustan Times and Indian Express, B. G. Verghese. Pakistan was formed by people who did not want to be Indian and their identity is now a negative one. To defend the idea of Pakistan is to oppose India.

What began as a separation from India continued with further separations within Pakistan between minorities, sects and ethnic groups. Leaving India was like riding a tiger and now the tiger cannnot be declawed.

India’s former Foreign Secretary, M. K. Rasgotra (left in picture) disagreed with B. G. Verghese. “The issue of identity is false and a non-issue,” Rasgotra said. The heart of the idea of Pakistan is Islam and its identity goes beyond India. Pakistan’s goal is to assume the leadership of the Muslim world and extend its influence over Afghanistan and into Central Asia.

Where does India come in? Rasgotra believes that until Pakistan establishes a sense of parity with India it will have no reason to claim leadership in the Muslim world. Pakistan initiates conflict with India in a quest for parity with India on the road to leadership in the Islamic world.

The discussion about Pakistan was triggered by the launch of a new book, Explaining Pakistan’s Foreign Policy: Escaping India by Aparna Pande.

A question that remained unresolved in the course of the evening’s discussion is if a person in Pakistan is not a Muslim then who is he?

Pedestrians walk easily past shuttered shops in Delhi’s Chawri Bazaar on the day after the Hindu festival of Diwali.

Chawri Bazaar is a wholesale hardware and paper market that is normally so congested that customers battle to move through it. The market shuts down on the day after Diwali.

This is a day when tradesmen, architects and engineers worship a mythological architect and carpenter. On this day professionals lay down their tools and stop their machines to honor the tools of their trade.

A boy walks with his parents along the base of one of the seven wonders of the world.

The Taj Mahal is tragic, the Taj Mahal is beautiful. It is a symbol of lost love through death. It is the tomb of the wife of the 17th century Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan.

Shah Jahan named his wife Mumtaz Mahal, which means “the chosen one of the palace”. She was the jewel of Shah Jahan’s life and his close confidant. She accompanied the emperor on his journeys and military campaigns throughout the empire.

Mumtaz Mahal passed away at the age of 39 when she encountered complications while giving birth to her 14th child. The Emperor in his pain of loss pledged to build a mausoleum of the greatest beauty over her grave. It took over 20,000 workers and over 22 years to complete the Taj Mahal.

The English poet, Sir Edwin Arnold described the Taj Mahal as “Not a piece of architecture, as other buildings are, but the proud passion of an emperor’s love wrought in living stones.”

Click and listen to the qawwali:

Khusrau was born in 1253 to a Turkish father and an Indian mother. He is remembered for his Persian poetry about the ruling sultans and his devotional poetry in a language that developed into today’s Hindi and Urdu. Khusrau contributed to the integration of Central Asian and North Indian culture.

Khusrau died in 1325 and is buried near the sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya in Delhi.

A woman crosses the main street of a town in North India with purpose. In a minute she is gone leaving behind dozens of men to crowd the street. Men frying omelets, men waiting for a bus, men driving rickshaws, men selling sunglasses, men hanging around.

Whose town is it and what’s it like to be a woman in a space where there are only men? Those are questions that filmmaker Sameera Jain asked herself when she produced her film “Mera Apna Sheher,” which means, “My Own City”.

Jain had a young woman step into and remain in public spaces in Delhi where typically only men are. Jain had her protagonist stand near a paan shop, sit on the grass in a city park, pick up food from a dhaba stall and ride a packed city bus at night. Jain used a hidden camera to record on film the reactions of men to a woman occupying public spaces.

A panel discussion followed the screening of Jain’s film. Jain explained that being a woman in public spaces in North India means being an outsider who is either treated as invisible or is given too much scrutiny.

Being invisible or being scrutinized is also the experience of anyone who is outside the majority, whether by caste, class or ethnicity, explained Jain.

Danish Husain spins a riveting tale with open hands as Mahmood Farooqui waits his turn. The two story tellers use an ancient Urdu story telling form called dastangoi to tell a classic Rajasthani folk tale.

The folk tale is about a princess, Princess Chauboli, who vows to marry the man who can make her speak four times. Seventeen times twenty-four princes have tried and failed and are locked away in a dungeon. One more brave man approaches the princess to try to make her speak.

Centuries before televisions flickered in living rooms people were enthralled by the telling of epic tales of adventure, war and love by storytellers who knew their craft.

Click and listen to Husain and Farooqui’s story telling:

Sanjaya Baru (right) launches Sumit Ganguly’s new book (left). The book is titled India Since 1980.

Sanjaya Baru is the editor of The Business Standard and Sumit Ganguly is Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington.

At the book launch, Baru and Ganguly expressed competing perspectives on India’s role in the world in the second half of the 20th century.

Baru does not believe that India’s relationships with other countries were motivated by ideology. India, says Baru, did not position itself between the Soviet Union and the United States for the sake of promoting an ideology of third-worldism. The bottom line that drove India’s international relationships was a quest for regaining the space in the global economy that India lost under British rule.

India had been a major civilization for centuries before colonialism, says Baru. After independence, India was pragmatic during the Cold War like a clever calf who learns to drink milk from two cows. India’s motive was pragmatic rather than ideological.

Ganguly disagrees with Baru. India’s first and longest serving Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, related to other countries with strong ideological beliefs, says Ganguly. Nehru had a deep commitment to decolonization and to discrediting colonialism on moral grounds.

Nehru served as Prime Minister at a time when Portugal and France had colonies in Africa and Nehru played a vital role in delegitimizing colonial rule. India sent significant numbers of peace keeping troops to flash points like Congo and Indo-China out of ideological grounds, says Ganguly.

After Jawaharlal Nehru, India departed from its principles and India was marginalized in the global order. During the era of Indira Gandhi, the gap between stated ideology and practical behavior grew and India’s role in the world diminished, says Ganguly.

Ganguly’s book chronicles four remarkable transformations that have taken place in India since 1980. The four transformations took place in India’s foreign policy, economy, politics and secularism and they are four transformations that ensure India’s significant role on the world stage.

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai

Cities are booming in India. Mumbai and Delhi are two competing centers of metro life.

A professor of history at Princeton, Gyan Prakash, launched a book titled, Mumbai Fables, in which he explores the myths that create the persona of the city of Mumbai.

Prakash believes that Mumbai exemplifies a cosmopolitan metropolis, and by contrast, Delhi exemplifies a secular city.

In Mumbai, says Prakash, cosmopolitan movements of intellectuals, artists and politicians grew organically from the urban fiber of Bombay, without the involvement of the state. The basis of relationships between intellectuals in Bombay was their social solidarity.

In contrast to Mumbai’s cosmopolitan fabric, Delhi is a labyrinth in which elites wander the corridors of state power and draw their identity from proximity to state power. Elites in Delhi are connected with each other through institutional affiliation.

From his own research experiences in Delhi and Mumbai, Prakash recalls Delhi as the kind of city where the first question asked is about state funding rather than social solidarity.

Delhi is a secular city because the state professes to be neutral towards religious communities while in Mumbai the social solidarity between intellectuals gives Mumbai a cosmopolitan persona.

A man announces to his wife that he is leaving her to go to the big city of Calcutta to find success.

The wife feels devastated. Added to the thoughts of loneliness and poverty is the anxiety that her husband will pursue a parallel life of relationships in the city while she waits for his return to the village.

Men who leave home for work and the women who are left behind in the village forms the plot of Bidesia, a folk drama written by the Bhojpuri poet, singer and actor Bhikhari Thakur.

Thakur’s dramas highlight tensions in society between tradition and modernity, rural and urban, and the rich and the poor. Thakur combines acting with folk music and dance. Click and listen to a musical excerpt from Bidesia:

Wajahat’s drama tells the story of an elderly Hindu woman who is left behind in a large mansion in Lahore when her family flees to India in the midst of the confusion and violence that surrounded the partition of India and Pakistan.

A Muslim family fleeing in the opposite direction, from India to Lahore, discovers the seemingly vacated mansion. The family is dismayed to find an elderly Hindu woman living in one of the mansion’s rooms and their first reaction is to try to evict her. With time, however, the Muslim family comes to cherish the company of the Hindu woman.

The play contrasts bigotry with reaching out to fellow human beings with love and compassion. It emphasizes that our shared humanity is greater than the communal lines that divide us.

Asghar Wajahat is Professor of Hindi at Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi and has published five collections of short stories, six collections of plays and four novels.

Circled by people hoping for an autograph, Arun Shourie signs a copy of his new book at its launch.

Shourie titled his book Does He Know a Mother’s Heart? The question is directed at God. Shourie asks how a kind and all-knowing God could allow suffering in the world.

With a wife suffering with Parkinson’s Disease and a son born with Cerebral Palsy, Shourie describes the pain in his family’s experience. He re-interprets sacred texts with a critical eye and believes that suffering refutes religions. In the place of God, Shourie puts his faith in science and a godless practice of life.

What Shourie struggles with is the triteness and meaninglessness of rituals and platitudes that demean the sacredness of suffering.

As soon as the question-answer time of the book-lauch began a young man sprang to his feet and questioned Shourie. If evil is real where does goodness come from? Shourie’s reply was that virtue is hard-wired in our brains. Shourie’s answer lacks transcendent beauty and does little to explain why we can hope for anything good to happen at all.

The young man’s second point was that God himself has suffered deeply and if God suffered then he does know a mother’s heart.

The clarinet is rarely used in Indian classical music.

Pandit Ram Krishna encountered the clarinet at an early age in his family’s band in Allahabad. The instrument was pushed on the young Krishna when others found it difficult to play.

With practice Krishna grew proficient on the clarinet and he decided to take up classical music training. He studied classical Hindustani music and blossomed into one of the leading performers of the clarinet in Hindustani classical music.

Pandit Ram Krishna is employed as a staff artist at All India Radio in Jaipur and at Doordarshan.

Click and listen to Pandit Ram Krishna play the clarinet:

Guitarist Aditya Balani left India, traveled to Boston and studied music at the Berklee College of Music with his brother Tarun.

After completing their studies, the brothers returned to Delhi and founded a music school that immerses students into a community of musicians. The new school is called the Global Music Institute.

The faculty of the music school performed their first concert in Delhi. Click and listen to Aditya play the guitar:

Arvind Gaur introduces the caste of his socially relevant theater group, Asmita, after a performance of Mahesh Dattani’s play, Final Solutions. The play dramatizes conflicts in India’s society.

Gaur hopes for the day when there are no problems in society to dramatize. Until that day comes, Gaur is directing plays that spark discussion about the social challenges that people face.

Click and listen to Gaur express his dream of a changed society through drama:

India’s 11th president, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, descends from stage after reciting poetry.

Kalam developed India’s first vehicle to launch satellites into space. He is known as India’s “missile man” from his work on the Agni and Prithvi missiles.

Kalam encourages the pursuit of science among children for the development of India. One of his books is titled, Ignited Minds – Unleashing the power within India.

Here is an excerpt from one of Kalam’s poems:

As a young citizen of India,
Armed with technology, knowledge and love for my nation,
I realize, small aim is a crime.

I will work and sweat for a great vision,
The vision of transforming India into a developed nation