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US Round-Up Pratibha Kelapure At one time Pratibha's signature line read, "a mother, a poet and an engineer-- in that order." At the age of fifteen, she completed Rashtrabhasha Prachaar Samiti's Pandit degree with first place in the state of Maharashtra and discovered her passion for literature. Later on though she followed well traveled road to a science degree, marriage and move to bay area - California, where she has lived for past 22 years. She is a software engineer by profession, and a piece of code with imaginative, meaningful variable names moves her to tears. She retains a child's naivete, curiosity and sense of wonder about the world around her. Kindness is her philosophy in life.

Sydney Olympics News:

NEW DELHI: Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) president K.P.S. Gill on Tuesday said that hockey is the only sport in which the country could hope for a medal at the September Sydney Olympics, and exhorted youngsters to take to the game.

"We need to get the best talents to play hockey. No other discipline can ensure a place in Olympics," he told reporters here at function to felicitate the Indian under-16 hockey team that won the sub-junior Asia Cup hockey tournament in Singapore over the weekend. Gill said that India's triumph at Singapore was reminiscent of the golden period of Indian hockey. India remained unbeaten at the eight-nation inaugural edition of the tournament and defeated Bangladesh 5-2 in the final on Sunday to lift the inaugural trophy. India made its Olympic debut at the 1920 Games in Antwerp, though it did not form an Olympic committee until 1927. The following year in Amsterdam, India competed in hockey, its national game, for the first time. The national team's victory was the first of six consecutive gold medals in the event. Between 1928 and 1956, India won all its matches (25), scoring 178 goals and allowing only 7. The runner Milkha Singh, known as the Flying Sikh, is an Olympic legend in India. Though most of the country's medals have been in hockey, Indian athletes have also had success in wrestling.

Fund set up for shooting victim:

Sandip Patel, A university graduate from India with a degree in business, was visiting his sister in Pittsburgh in April when he was gunned down as he worked the counter of his sister's Indian grocery in Scott. A customer, Anil Thakur, of Bihar, India, was killed. Police say the shooting was part of a two-county rampage by Richard Baumhammers, a self-professed immigration lawyer from Mt. Lebanon, who began his shooting spree months after founding his own political party to oppose non-European immigration. In all, five people -- including two Asians, a black man and a Jewish neighbor -- died in the spree. Patel was the only survivor. Patel went to his sister's home yesterday, leaving hospitals after four months of surgery and rehabilitation, but not recovery.

To live the rest of his life, Patel needs a mechanized "puff-and-sit" wheelchair that allows him to start, stop and steer it with puffs of breath. He does not even have limited use of his hands. The chair is likely to cost between $15,000 and $20,000, according to Mohan L. Chabra, a Franklin Park cardiologist who is heading up a drive to raise money to help Patel. An ordinary man in an extraordinary need, Patel will need a special mattress, a special lift to move him from chair to bed, a modified van to move him around, ramps for the house, and, possibly, money for a nursing home.

In all, the Sandip Patel Medical Fund, organized by the Hindu-Jain Temple in Monroeville, will need more than $50,000 to get Patel started on a new life. The fund is also hoping to contribute money to Thakur's family in India. The slain man left behind a wife and two children. Contributions to the Sandip Patel Medical Fund may be sent care of the Hindu-Jain Temple, 615 Illini Drive, Monroeville 15146, or telephone 724-325-2073.

Director took long journey to 'The Cell'

HOLLYWOOD - Tarsem Singh arrived in Los Angeles in1983 from a remote Indian village in the Himalayas. He wanted to become a movie director. He survived the LA bus commute and bussing the tables in a chic Beverly Hills restaurant, and his lack of knowledge about the film industry. Today he is one of the highest-paid and most celebrated commercial and music video directors. Tarsem has his first feature-length movie out. A $40-million thriller, starring one of the hottest stars of the moment, Jennifer Lopez.

''The Cell,'' released by New Line Cinema, meshed perfectly with the 39-year-old director's wild imagination, over-the-top drama, love of color, and visual daring.

The movie, which opened Aug. 18, deeply divided critics. Roger Ebert called it an ''astonishing debut'' and ''one of the best films of the year'' and Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan assailed it as ''creepy and horrific,'' a film that ''puts viewers through as much misery as the people on the screen.''

His voyage to America, he explained, began with a con. He told his father, an engineer, that he was going to Howard University to study business. His father paid his way. Once safely on North American soil, Tarsem called his father and told him he was actually going to film school.

''I had $64, a Greyhound bus ticket, $1,800 in travelers' checks and three bags, and I headed to LA.''

After two years at LA City College, he received a scholarship to the Pasadena Art Center College of Design, where he began studying film in earnest.

He borrowed $7,000 from a friend and made nine commercials. His reel caught the eye of Suzanne Vega, who hired him while he was still in college to direct one of her music videos. Michael Stipe of R.E.M. saw that video and hired him to direct the ''Losing My Religion'' music video in 1991.

He won MTV's best video award. Later he won a Directors Guild of America award for commercials. Last year the British Academy of Film and Television Arts gave him a Britannia Award - the equivalent of an Oscar or an Emmy - for commercials.

Vajpayee's US Visit:

NEW DELHI - A week before he is scheduled to embark on a 10-day visit to the United States, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of India has declared a ''new understanding'' between New Delhi and Washington. ''Both countries have the potential for being natural allies,'' he said here. ''Both are democracies, believing in plural societies, committed to human rights. After our frank and friendly talks with President Clinton, whatever doubts were, there are no more.'' On the top of Mr. Vajpayee's agenda during his visit will be security issues.

Asked about India's relations with Pakistan and the crisis in Kashmir, the prime minister said in an interview late Wednesday that a ''conducive atmosphere'' would need to be established for there to be ''any meaningful dialogue'' with Islamabad. ''We have made our position clear,'' he said. ''We are ready to discuss all subjects with Pakistan including Kashmir.

''It is for Pakistan to restore the trust which has been severely violated in Kargil,'' he continued, alluding to Pakistan's sending military units into Indian territory last year. Asked if there was a possible role for the United States as mediator in talks between the two countries, Mr. Vajpayee said, ''No third-party intervention is required.''

During his visit, Mr. Vajpayee is scheduled to meet groups of Indian-American businessmen, part of a growing community in the United States. The number of Indians seeking work in the United States - many of them engineers and other professionals - has more than doubled over the last three years, a U.S. Embassy spokesman said. But in a measure of how relations have evolved between the two countries, India today has no objections when U.S. companies hire away increasing numbers of its best and brightest.

US recognizes India's need for a nuclear deterrent:

Washington: In a very roundabout manner, the US has begun to recognize that India feels the need for a nuclear deterrent because China has nuclear weapons. US president Bill Clinton on Friday acknowledged that if China builds more nuclear weapons, India might feel compelled to follow suit and then Pakistan will do the same.

However, Indian foreign secretary Lalit Mansingh told a press conference on Friday that there is no let-up in the US effort to persuade India to sign the comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT).

Ravi Batra Sues Pat Buchanan for copyright infringement:

Professor Ravi Batra, a veteran economics teacher at Southern Methodist University, has sued Reform Party presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan for copyright infringement.

Batra has also named Buchanan's publishers, Little Brown & Company, in the lawsuit filed, in Federal court, in Dallas Aug. 25. In it, Batra alleges that Buchanan plagiarized parts of his books, "The Myths of Free Trade" (MacMillan, 1993) and "The Great American Deception" (John Wiley, 1996). Buchanan's, book, is called, "The Great Betrayal: How American Sovereignty and Social Justice Are Being Sacrificed to the Gods of the Global Economy" (Little Borwn, 1998). Buchanan's book, like Batras', argues against globalization of economics, warning that it was not environment friendly and was depriving Americans of jobs.

Six Family Members Die In Arizona Auto Crash:

Six members of an Indian American family were killed, when their minivan was hit head-on by a shuttle van near Tucson, Ariz. Tucson hotel manager Mukeshkumar "Mark" Patel, 31, his wife, Panna, 26, and their two children, Shital, 4, and Abhay, 8 months, were killed instantly in the impact. Patel's sister-in-law, Kalpana, 24, and her 2-year-old daughter, Nirali, of Sacramento, Calif., were also killed in the Aug. 17 crash.

The 10:10 p.m. accident was caused when a Phoenix-based shuttle van, driven by Ruben Pulido-Reynoso, 60, headed eastbound in the westbound lane of Interstate 10 near Benson, Ariz., 40 miles southeast of Tucson. Reynoso was also killed.

According to news reports, all but one of the passengers of Patel's blue 1995 Chevrolet Lumina minivan were ejected as none of the passengers was wearing a seat belt. The children were not in car restraint seats. A report in the Arizona Daily Star stated that Mukeshkumar's driving record shows he had recently been cited for failure to use a child safety seat as required.

"We need to get the message out to the Indian community that we have to wear seat belts," said Manhar Patel. "So many accidents happen; we've lost so many loved ones because of this."

Investigators quoted in the Daily Star said some members of the family would have survived the accident if they had been wearing seat belts.

Indian photographer's exhibition in US:

San Francisco: Much of India's recent history, including the struggle for independence, partition, and urbanization, was captured by Indian photographer Sunil Janah.

To commemorate his impact on India and the rest of the world, the Kalart Gallery here will hold an exhibition of his works from Sept. 14 through Oct. 12.

Janah's work ranges from historical events to the joys and sorrows of individuals. More than 150 photographs - from revealing portraits of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and other leaders, to urban riots, peasant uprisings and devastating famines; from the country's architecture and classical dance to the hidden world of its remote tribes - are included in the exhibition.

Janah, 82, first gained fame as a photographer when, as a young leftist working for the People's War newspaper, his work exposed the effects of the devastating Bengal famine of 1943-44. He went on to document the independence movement and partition of the country. During this period, he met and worked with Life magazine photographer Margaret Bourke-White, then on assignment in India.

In the 1950s and '60s, Janah's studio in Calcutta became a stop for Indian politicians, artists, writers and intellectuals as well as for visitors from the U.S. and Europe, such as Yehudi Menuhin, Martha Graham and W.H. Auden.

In 1972, Janah received the Padmashri, a national honor, for outstanding achievement in his field. He has had one-man shows in many countries, including a major show in 1998 in New York City, which received widespread public and critical acclaim. Janah has been living in England since 1979, where his wife, Sobha Janah, held a medical position. His son, a teacher, and his daughter, a technology journalist, live in the U.S.

An Excerpt from an Essay by Jhumpa Lahiri:

Jhumpa Lahiri is the author of Interpreter of Maladies. There were invisible walls erected around our home, walls intended to keep American influence at bay. Growing up, I was admonished not to "behave" like an American, or, worse, to "think" of myself as one. Actually "being" an American was not an option. I believe what first drove me to write fiction was to escape the pitfalls of being viewed as one thing or the other. As an author, I could embody any individual my imagination enabled me to, of any origin. This sense of freedom is one of the greatest thrills of writing fiction, and for a person like me, who has never been confident of what to call herself or of where to say she is from, it is a solace. But what I have discovered upon publishing my book -- Interpreter of Maladies -- is that authorial freedom is limited to the process of writing itself, in the private sphere of creation. Once made public, both my book and myself were immediately and copiously categorized. Take, for instance, the various ways I am described: as an American author, as an Indian-American author, as a British-born author, as an Anglo-Indian author, as an NRI (non-resident Indian) author, as an ABCD author (ABCD stands for American born confused "desi" -- "desi" meaning Indian -- and is an acronym coined by Indian nationals to describe culturally challenged second-generation Indians raised in the U.S.). According to Indian academics, I've written something known as "Diaspora fiction"; in the U.S., it's "immigrant fiction." In a way, all of this amuses me. The book is what it is, and has been received in ways I have no desire or ability to control. The fact that I am described in two ways or twenty is of no consequence; as it turns out, each of those labels is accurate.

I have always lived under the pressure to be bilingual, bicultural, at ease on either side of the Lahiri family map. The first words I learned to utter and understand were in my parents' native tongue, Bengali. Until I was old enough to go to school, and my linguistic world split in two, I spoke Bengali exclusively and fluently. Though I still speak Bengali, I have lost this extreme fluency. I was stunned, listening a few years ago to a cassette tape that had recorded the wedding of one of my parents' friends, in 1970. There I was, three years old, prattling confidently on in a way I no longer can. Still, my ability to speak the language made me feel less foreign during visits to Calcutta every few years. It also made me feel less foreign in the expatriate Bengali community my parents socialize with in the United States and, on a more quotidian level, in my own home.

While English was not technically my first language, it has become so. My knowledge of Bengali is spoken, colloquial -- above all, familial. It's hard for me to understand the formal elocution of a Bengali television newscast or the literary diction of a poem. I read with the humble prowess of a struggling young child. (Standard typeset letters are easier for me than penmanship.) My writing is at about the same level. Putting these skills to use was an isolated, occasional need: "Write a letter to your grandfather," my father would say. And then, "Try to read his reply." Still, my basic aptitude allowed me, in graduate school, to translate six short stories by a Bengali writer named Ashapurna Devi. The process was as follows: My mother would read the story aloud in Bengali, and I would simultaneously write a rough translation in English. Then I would go back and read the story to myself, at a snail's pace. The painstaking process made me realize that while I'd always liked to consider myself bilingual, this was hardly the case.

For Full Text of Her Interview, Click Here

• Compiled by Pratibha Kelapure.