So let me give you my personal Journey Think about you close your eyes and You're a four-year-old kid and you're Playing soccer on a hot day in India or Football as we call it and you have this Very deep and loving friend and you go To his home and his mother calls you a Horrible word spits at you and tells you To stand outside the house and call you Shudra okay and gives you water in a Different cup you have never experienced It you're just an innocent child how Would that make you feel whether you're A Brahman non-braham and it doesn't Matter what you are just on a pure human Level so that was my first introduction To this Behavior so my friend and I Overnight we're no longer friends I Asked my mother what this meant my mom's Name was also Mina my mom said oh yeah When we used to go to the well we used To get shoot away like pigs and then she Went to explain to me about this thing Called a cast system now I got very Deeply moved by that but I wanted to Understand this as a child so I started Reading you know India used to have Those old books the very small comic Books it's very cool system I don't know If they have it but these comic books You could read about Sebastian or Bose Or you could read about all different People it was very cool so I started Reading all of those books about every
Revolutionary leader I could get hands On left wing right wing and I really Wanted to understand and these systems Of power as a child because it really Hurt me in a deeply annoyed me in Bombay Where I grew up you had people of all Religions all casts everyone seemed to Get together but there was this Underlying set of circumstances and then The other aspect of my life and a lot of Indians probably don't get to experience This anymore but not only did I grow up In Bombay but I grew up in a deep south Indian village where there's no running Water no electricity dirt roads very Beautiful very primitive and my Grandmother was a village healer in that Village and my grandmother had no Degrees but her house every day was Filled up with people on Saturdays who Would come to her asking her for help About their health and she had learned All of her methods from wandering sages And rishis where she grew up in Burma And she would empirically I saw her help People she could observe their face she Practiced an ancient system of Indian Science known as samudrika lakshanam Face analysis and the theory was Everything is reflected in everything Else so your health is reflected in your Pulse it could be reflected in your eyes In your face Etc and then she gave Wasn't just food or herbs sometimes it
Would be a mantra or a massage or prayer Or she would Channel different Spirits It's quite extraordinary I thought Everyone had a grandmother like her so I Was fascinated by on the one hand Political systems but also Medical Systems what may seem like very Different things but if you look at the Archetypes of vaidier in the traditional Word of someone who heals and also a Warrior so in many ways I became that a Warrior to understand these systems of Power and also wanting to be a Healer Like my grandmother and if you look at Many of the archetypes if you look at Murugan look at again in the Indian Religion he represents both those Energies he's the Healer and he's also The warrior in the Christian religion of The Archangel Michael who represents Both of those deities and to me Interesting enough those are the two Deities I actually connect with so Anyway I grew up in this very Interesting circumstance it was quite Extraordinary that my mother even ever Got a degree as a woman coming from that Quote unquote low-caste environment and A time when women in the 1940s they're Supposed to stay at home and have babies And she grew up in a broken home where The father ran off with another woman And she became homeless when she was Nine years old the whole family got
Separated which is also extraordinary in India there's no sense of divorce in India so she always felt extremely Outcast she couldn't tell children in School that she didn't have a father Because that was looked down upon so my Mom became an extraordinarily Independent woman my dad on the other Hand grew up in Burma he never saw a Book until he was 12 years old and he Got trained by a local Village School Teacher under a mango tree with old word And chalk and he ended up becoming one Of India's leading Engineers to work for A guy called gopala singhania who sent Him here for training but my dad knew so Much they wanted to hire him here so Anyway so my parents came here in 1970 And if you think about in 1970 the United States is undergoing massive Chaos it's got the Vietnam war going on It's got the culture Revolution taking Place the hippies sex drugs and rock and Rolls what symbolized the United States And this very traditional Indian family Who came to the United States for a Better life when I came here I asked my Dad why did we come here and he said oh There's something called freedom in America that's all he told me I remember Getting off the plane in TWA JFK and That's what he said so Freedom the Freedom to think the freedom to voice Your opinion my mom on the other hand
Said in India you can get discriminated Nine different ways in America around Three she said you're still gonna have To work very hard if you get an A They're going to give you a c so you're Gonna have to get like an a triple plus So I worked very hard extremely hard but Not only academically but also as an Athlete in 1975 when I went briefly back To India that's when I realized the Deep Divisions between what I saw in America Paved roads a whole different world than What I saw in India and that's when I Decided when I went back to my Grandparents Village and I saw the Stark Difference that I should do something With my life and I was 12 years old then And I had a deep inside feeling that if I didn't do something because I would Have all these privileges that my Grandparents couldn't even afford choose They were poor Village Farmers that if I Didn't do something that I'd actually be A parasite so I was very much moved by This Injustice I saw the Stark Differences in wealth and this deep love I had for my grandparents that's what Really motivated me and the fact that When I went back to the United States I Grew up in these very poor working-class Neighborhoods a lot of immigrants who Worked very hard were painters were Landscapers but all of them worked very Hard so those things moved me so by the
Time I was 14 I had finished up calculus Was accepted into a special computer Science program at New York University Today 40 students were selected I was The only Indian kid the only dark kid The only kid from New Jersey and in that Program I graduated number one this is 1978 when a computer would occupy two Big buildings were you also following Politics closely at that time all yeah I Used to watch all the political shows Like to me people like Sebastian their Boss were interesting I had a deep Hatred for Gandhi because I thought he Sold out even as a child I thought how Could this guy talking about Non-violence when people are being Beaten up this never made sense if You're seeing a bully beat up someone Your instinct is to go protect that Person not say beat me some more so in My deep bones even as a child I thought Gandhi was a fraud didn't make any sense To me so I had a temperament which was Different because it was coming from This deep sense of justice and I think Most young people have that and they're Put through a mill of propaganda which Takes it out of them but it's deep still In there I never lost it I remember when I was very young some guy came to my Home and he was telling me about these People fighting in other Villages Because they didn't have any food and I
Said well that's pretty good they're Fighting well then this guy tells my Father oh your son is a communist he's An it doesn't make any sense people have No food what do you want them to do die And my dad said oh my son will improve You'll get better but I never did my Hatred for Injustice actually has gotten Even deeper but my life has been one of Living this Injustice and fighting it It's not like I'm some politician here's Talking about oh I'm going to do this For you I've had to live it
