Los Angeles, March 10, 2005
Gurmukh Singh
Only a few people know that America became the first
country after India to honour Mahatma Gandhi by issuing
two postal stamps in his memory in 1961.
Still fewer know that America is the only country
where the Mahatma's ashes are enshrined at the Lake
Shrine run by Paramahansa Yogananda's followers in
Los Angeles.
And now the UCLA (the University of California, Los
Angeles) has become the first American university
to have a full-fledged Indian History Chair dedicated
to promoting Gandhian and Indian thought.
Established at the initiative of a local Indian businessman,
Navin Doshi, the Chair has already invited scholars
to discuss issues ranging from the Indian Constitution
to the ayurvedic system and to the Indian nuclear
programme.
``From India, we have invited Ashis Nandi and Rajmohan
Gandhi. I know Gandhi is more relevant today than
ever before,'' says Doshi who became a follower of
the Mahatma after a chance meeting with him in the1940s.
A former classmate of noted Indian psychologist Sudhir
Kakkar at Ahmedabad in the 1950s, Doshi says Gandhi
exerted a huge influence on the West. ``When we came
here as students in the 1950s, people used to respect
us because we came from Gandhi's country. The Mahatma
was a role model for so many Americans, including
Martin Luther King. I was so impressed by their interest
in Gandhi that when I took my initial English test
in Michigan University, I wrote an essay on Gandhi.
The opportunities we Indians got in this country are
due to the high esteem in which Americans held Gandhi.
The first generation capitalized on that goodwill
and built a reputation for Indians. The current generation
is cashing in on that reputation,'' says Doshi.
Interestingly, this former aerospace engineer made
his fortune by catering to American craze for India
velvet patchwork fabric in the swinging seventies.
``The Beatles introduced India to America in the
1960s. They brought Mahesh Yogi and Ravi Shankar to
this country. Their arrival spawned a huge interest
in Indian classical music and transcendental meditation
here because America was in the throes of the counterculture
due to the Vietnam War. So eastern tastes -- classical
music, yoga, meditation, incense and patchwork quilts
and velvet fabrics -- became very popular among Americans.
Those were Nirvana times,'' he recalls.
In this so-called Nirvana boom in America, Doshi,
who was on the verge of returning to India in 1971,
saw a huge business opportunity for selling Indian
patchwork textiles.
``For about 15 years, we did a great business is
selling patchwork quilts. My velvet boom lasted till
the Nirvana boom into the early 1980s before Ronald
Reagan came on the scene,'' he says.
From the velvet boom, Doshi went on to cash in on
the bond/stock market boom. ``Simultaneously, I entered
the real estate business and benefited a lot,'' says
the multimillionaire Gujarati businessman. (Hindustan
Times)