Arun Aguiar writes in News India Times.
THE EAGLE EYE COLUMN # 72
(March 2000)

THE WOMEN ARE COMING, THE WOMEN ARE COMING

If Sasian men don't watch it, Sasian women are going to be on top.
I'm not saying that in lip service to March's Women's Herstory Month. Just look around you.
Start at Ground Zero on the bumpy streets of New York City where Bhairavi Desai is organizing male cabbies ("cohorts gleaming in yellow and gold") in urban transportation wars against the cops and the Taxi and Limousine Commission.
However, it's not only in the taxi trade that Sasiannes are on the move. Invigorated as though by Oxygen, women are climbing into a lot of drivers' seats.
And that's how it should be.
Will it ultimately turn out better or worse for the human family? Keep reading the next three Women's History Month Columns for answers.

CASTING A SAWNET

WOMEN ON TOP

In the following alphabetized, edited list extracted from Sawnet's Who's Who, the asterisks indicate women who News India-Times has covered at some length in the past:

Anjana Appachana, writer Anita Rau Badami, writer (Canada) Shauna Singh Baldwin, writer (Canada) *Preeta Bansal, NY State Solicitor General Radha Basu, Silicon Valley entrepreneur *Alpana Bawa, fashion designer Bif Naked, rocker *Asha Blake, anchor, ABC World News Now Gurinder Chadha, filmmaker (UK) Sheila Chandra, pop star (UK) Kalpana Chawla, astronaut *Anita Desai, writer *Bhairavi Desai, activist *Kiran Desai, writer (UK) Nilimma Devi, Kuchipudi dancer *Daljit Dhaliwal, ITN anchor (UK) *Chitra Divakaruni, writer Indira Ganesan, author Vinita Gupta, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Minal Hajratwala, journalist, poet, performance artist *Madhur Jaffrey, author and actress Ayesha Jalal, historian Raji Jallepalli, fusion chef Ginu Kamani, author Sarita Kedia, celebrity lawyer Noor Inayat Khan, UK WWII spy (shhh: anyone spotted her recently? -- E.E.) Lata Krishnan, Silicon Valley entrepreneur *Jhumpa Lahiri, author *Sujata Massey, writer Manorama Mathai, writer (UK, Thailand) *Prema Mathai-Davis, CEO, YWCA Fatima Meer, freedom fighter (South Africa) *Deepa Mehta, filmmaker (Canada) *Gita Mehta, author *Bharati Mukherjee, writer *Mira Nair, filmmaker Kirin Narayan, author Indra Nooyi, Pepsi executive Uma Parameswaran, writer (Canada) Pratibha Parmar, filmmaker (Kenya, UK) Suneeta Peres da Costa, author (Australia) Uma Pemmaraju, FOX TV anchor Arati Prabhakar, scientist Chitra Ragavan, news correspondent Jayashri Srikantiah, ACLU immigrants rights lawyer Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, postcolonial theorist Bhama Srinivasan, mathematician Srinija Srinivasan, Yahoo's ontologist Meera Syal, author/actor/scriptwriter (UK) *Urvashi Vaid, gay rights activist

Men can't subscribe to the Canadian-originating, www-resident SAWNET (South Asian Women's NETwork) listserv.
However, the thoughtful moderators have left some chinks in the curtain: Open websites Pages.
Kind of like an updated, gender-switched Aurangzeb allowing his deposed father Shah Jehan an indirect gaze at his beloved Mumtaz's Taj Mahal tomb through a 1 cubic inch reflecting glass embedded in a wall in his gilded prison chamber.
Visiting her website, a couple of peeping toms learned that Sawnet was started in 1991 as a 40-subscriber fe-mail list, exists entirely and only in the electronic medium, has no bylaws, and is not registered as an organization anywhere.
Moreover, we must record that the website and the listserv continue to be run entirely by volunteers.
Sawnet's database of information is unique and invaluable. In fact, we referred to her entry for Arundhati Roy while writing up the Narmada Bachao Andolan in Col. 56. (Of course, we gave her credit.)
With her mailings now reaching 700 women across the globe, Sawnet's website is thick with links to and news articles about high-flying Sasiannes, their bios, and (mostly staid) pix.
Many of these women figure in a Who's Who Among South Asian Women. While it is long, Sawnet concedes that the list is idiosyncratic. Here's how Susan Chacko, who founded Sawnet together with Uma Subramanian, explains it:

This is not entirely by intent. History, lack of time, limited information are also partly responsible. The Sawnet website started as a collection of FAQ's about literature, film, and organizations. The Who's Who page was originally meant as a starting place to find women who were already mentioned on one of the Sawnet sections."

Thus, while dacoit-turned-legislator Phoolan Devi stars, Mrinal Gore, the labor leader and Ram Lohia's Praja Socialist Party (PSP) legislator who agitated successfully to improve the living standards of the Bombay slums and was dubbed the "Paniwali Bai" (woman who brings us water) is lost in the cascade.
Mother Teresa is in, but bad luck bhajan lovers, Mirabai is not. Finally, it seems unlikely there'll be a picture of a This Day In Sasianne Music History candidate to rival Jennifer Lopez at the Grammy's any day soon.
From the Who's Who list, we extracted some of the names with which the general reader is likely to be familiar (see Box).
Below is an introduction to a couple of women, one of whom is on The List. We can see the other being anointed soon, if our eyes didn't deceive us.

WELCOME, RADHA BASU

Take a surf ride through the high-tech, high-testosterone, cyberspace world of the Internet start-up.
Here's how Mark Compton wrote up Radha Basu in Salon:

As a young girl in India, Basu rebelled against the wishes of her parents and secretly enrolled in the engineering program at the University of Madras when she was 15. After graduating with honors, she foiled her mother's best-laid marriage plans by jetting off to the United States for graduate school. In her mid-20s, Basu joined Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, and became the first woman ever to lead an R&D project there. Twenty years later, Basu was heading up HP's 1,400-person e-business software department when she called it quits to join a new start-up.

In recent months, Basu's been popping up in electronic and print magazines more often than an AOL advertisement banner.
Soon she'll be all over the IndAm media. As usual, an eagle-eyed (eagle-eyed?) reporter will spot an Indian name in an arcane publication. And there we go again.
Us desi journalists, we're good that way. We're never longer than a few weeks behind mainstream media after they uncover one of our own.
Basu plans to shake up the way companies think about their customer support. And it's a field where she thinks women have an edge. Here's a Q&A extract from Basu talking to Compton:


COMPTON: The number of senior women executives certainly has increased significantly in recent years, along with the growth of e-commerce. Do you see a relationship?
BASU: I certainly do. I think the Internet is a medium that rectifies a lot of inequities. You have 22-year-olds launching companies, you have women achieving very senior positions in a short period of time. And that's all quite different from the more entrenched brick-and-mortar world.

CHAITIME AFTER TIME

Want more?
Two months ago, a bunch of cigar-chomping venture capitalists gave Bhana Grover's Chaitime.com, an Internet portal aimed at Sasians everywhere, a nice, little $5 million.
Come IPO time, Madam Grover's gonna be worth a nice, little bunch.
No, we do not have her family phone number. Nor would we share it if we did.
Grover started out as a designer, with a degree from Drexel. She went on to the Sorbonne, to Parsons, and to Wharton.
Alas, Chaitime's ambitious website contains plenty of kitsch. This is a website where chat is often pure gossip and "Roadside Romeo" type " conduct "Eve-teasing" to coyly receptive teeny wannabes.
Here's Grover flaunting her wares to Shubada Deshpande for Rediff.com:

Beauty and health are going to figure prominently in the coming year. A singles party is being organized, and in March we are having a wedding special, focusing on South Asian weddings -- from the clothes to be worn to the actual ceremony".

Where do we go from here?

We've Got Mail
YOU'VE GOT GAEL (AOL T-W's Women's Channel) Courtesy Chaitime.com we picked up the following postings to our write-up on Bhairavi Desai:
DEFINITELY one of the bravest, strongest, and kindest persons I've ever known, Bhairavi never ceases to inspire me! From Namita
MORE POWER to Bhairavi. Hope she fulfills her dreams and the dreams of thousands from the subcontinent who come here looking for a better life. Says Kashyap Saraiya
KUDOS to Bhairavi for championing the cause of drivers in NYC. Much needed. Writes Agnes
To post your comments on any of our Columns, e-mail WeAreEagle@HotMail.com anytime.

A DIFFERENT E-MAIL GROUP

Ms Chaumtoli Huq, a lawyer, and four professionals in allied fields, have started the South Asian Action and Advocacy Collective (SAAAC) as a group e-mail resource for community organizing efforts by "fostering vibrant information exchange and dialogue". In January, SAAAC organized a tenants' rights workshop for low-income and underrepresented Sasians. That will be followed this week by a workshop on labor and employment. It will address questions like: What are my employment rights if I am Undocumented? What if my Employer does not pay me? What if I face Discrimination? Saturday, March 11 11am to 1 pm Queens Public Library, Elmhurst 86-01 Broadway. Info: Sunu Chandy at 212-748-8498. Ideas for future workshops? Contact Chaumtoli at Majnun1@yahoo.com

ONE PICTURE, CAPTIONED: SOUTH ASIAN WOMAN'S HISTORY TO DIE FOR: This family will be occupying the White House if Senator John McCain becomes President: >From right to left: Standing: Daughter Meghan, 15; wife Cindy; McCain; son Jack, 13; Sitting: Son Jimmy, 11, Daughter Bridget, 8. Bridget is an adopted child from Bangladesh.