Working for an Affair Close to the Heart

When I got the call in December asking if I would co-chair the press and media segment of the South Asian Heart Center’s 2011 Scarlet Night Gala in March, I dithered for a few days. During the prior years, I’d heard that South Asians–those of us who trace our ancestry to India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka–had a fourfold risk of heart disease than the general population. I had seen enough friends affected personally by the reality of heart disease; it strikes South Asians at a much younger age and sneaks up on us without prior symptoms or warning.

I wanted to help. And while I consider myself altruistic, I’m aware that I've not given enough of my time to causes that affect the larger community. My excuse, until now at least, has always been that I have so many causes inside my home that need tackling that I have little time to fight world problems.

Inside my three thousand square-foot home, there’s always mutiny rising in every quarter. On many days the red Gigi chair in our living room is like the Gaza strip. My husband wants it. I want it. My son has planted himself in it. Finally, no one really gets it but we’re all using the chair as ammunition to spark other wars in different parts of our home. I’m always roaring through my house fighting fires. My daughter’s passport just expired. Guess who has to figure out how to get a new one? Oh, and my son needs to have his jaw fixed–for a third time. And who gets those six second opinions? Elsewhere, my husband is screaming silently for help: he needs to be wheeled into Facebookers Anonymous. And, in a flight of fancy, my visiting daughter decides she needs a halter sari blouse for an upcoming social at school. Nalli’s of Mountain View says it will make her a skimpy blouse for fifty whole dollars–a vulgar amount of money that in India could buy us twenty better blouses to clothe a battalion of breasts, not just two. My son, in the meanwhile, is trying daily to not be tardy for the second period at school. Then my husband is, once again, unable to fix the garage door. He blames it on dysfunctional wiring resulting from sunrays falling on the sensor at specific times of the day.

With so many landmines derailing the onward trajectory of my domestic life, I told myself that I simply did not have any time left to dedicate to the larger humanitarian causes. But when my friend talked to me about the heart effort and about how the South Asian Heart Center in Mountain View–the first nonprofit committed to reducing the incidence of heart disease–was emerging as a center of excellence in preventive care, I was convinced that I should make the time and give my skill to the effort.

Asian Indians have the highest rates of hospitalization in California for Coronary Artery Disease (CAD). Watch the South Asian Heart Center's program for heart health. At Mountain View’s El Camino Hospital, over the past two years, five percent of the patients who showed up at the emergency room with a heart attack were of South Asian origin. Mind you, the South Asian population of the area is just over three percent–even though Google, Oracle, Fry’s Electronics and Subway Sandwiches seem to be run and overrun by South Asians. South Asian women also have one of the highest mortality rates due to CAD. According to the 2000 California Census data, all ethnic minority women were living longer except South Asian women. For the last point, I will run a study on South Asian husbands the results of which I will publish soon in a separate blog post. The irony here is lifestyle: most South Asians are lifelong vegetarians, are not smokers and are not overweight; unfortunately, many South Asians still believe that walking the length of their home constitutes exercise and that their vegetarian diet is low in saturated fat. And here is another zinger: by 2010, India will bear sixty percent of the world’s CAD burden. I believe I have gathered enough personal stories to write a book with many (continuing) volumes.

Given the jarring statistics, I felt that I must help out even though my opinion of fundraiser galas in general is this: too much money that should really have gone to the have-nots is being spent by the haves on eating, gossiping and merrymaking. I also had an angle on the sartorial choices at galas; the sari blouses didn’t exactly endear me towards supporting big causes. The previous year, I had been invited to other Indian-American fundraisers and the sari blouses at these events raised so many collective eyebrows that I began fearing for my bank account. From what I gathered, judging by those blouses, the more we gave away to charity or to a favorite cause, the less we had left on our own backs. If this were the truth, must I commit and expose myself to more trouble?

   

Still, after mulling over the matter, I agreed to help out my friend because I felt that if I could alert one more South Asian about heart disease, I would have done one good thing to offset my accumulating bad karma. And after all is said and done, I enjoyed helping out the organization in my own small way.  I met many talented and generous people. The meetings, all done by conference call, were efficient. In fact, they were so smooth that on one occasion I sat in on another meeting that sounded exactly like the meeting I was supposed to be at except no one asked me for deliverables and I slunk out of the meeting without announcing my entry into or my exit from the conference call.

My experience with the South Asian Heart Center benefit taught me lessons about project management that I can use in my writing life. The gala chairs this year were mostly women; almost all of the women who worked for the cause had daytime jobs and packed lives at home and yet they managed–getting past bureaucratic plaque, unclogging the stumbling blocks in their path, investing heart and soul into their piece of the action– to keep the pace and hoist a memorable gala on March 12th, where, by the way, they managed to raise some $200,000 for this worthy cause.

Comments

[Farukh Basrai]

Great article, Kalpana, as always. I can certainly relate to the subject matter having been rushed off to the hospital (a year ago) for an emergency angioplasty and the insertion of a stent. This after a life of regular exercise and relatively healthy eating habits, which include kale, collard greens and other stuff my friends sneer at :-)

[Kalpana Mohan]

Farukh, I had no idea you are a patient. You don't fit the profile at all! I'm happy to see you doing well and wish you many, many happy and healthy years! Thanks so much for your comment.

[Farukh Basrai]

Kalpana, thank you for your good wishes. Besides my South Asian heritage, my father had suffered a couple of heart attacks over the course of his life, which probably trumped my healthy lifestyle. On the other hand, he lived to be a very active 90 year old; so there's hope for me :-)

[Jana Seshadri]

Nicely written, Kalpana. Heart disease is no stranger to our family! Thanks to the outreach efforts of the South Asian Heart Center and people like you who publicize their fine work, people like us who are predisposed to coronary disease are made aware of our risks and ways to manage our lives in a healthier fashion.

[Kalpana Mohan]

Jana, Thank you, as always. Appreciate your commenting right here. Most people tend to comment on FB and that  is not as useful!

[Rameysh]

I love the way you take serious (and depressing) topics and then infuse delectable humor to make it such an appealing read. And, you never miss an opportunity to ding poor Mohan along the way too :-)

[Kalpana Mohan]

Rameysh: Thanks so much, I really appreciate the kind words. I try not to write the who/what/when/where/why stories. Enough of that was done post event. Its likely Ive offended a lot of the women who were strapped for cash (I mean they were wearing mere straps on their backs because they gave away so much cash) and I may be in danger of being unfriended. But I love them all and they know it.  I DONT want them to change.

[raji]

Great article kalpana. Enjoyed it.This subject is so close to my heart.Lost two of my siblings to heart Attacks in this country .

[Kalpana Mohan]

Raji,
So many people have been touched by this disease in our community. Thanks for the kind words, hiking friend! 

[Ashish Mathur]

Kalpana, missed you so much last Friday at the get together of kindred souls on the Scarlet Night. Well said. I did not quite understand the power of packing in the stress of skimpy blouses to the high incidence of heart disease in South Asians. Are you OK with publishing this link on the newsletter?

[Kalpana Mohan]

Ashish:
Skimpy blouses can stress the heart and SAHC may want to factor that in the stats:-) Please go ahead and link it in, no problem. Thanks for getting back. My interview the afternoon of your lunch was very long (and with someone very important to my sari project. I dont know if you know Im working on a book around the iconic sari). Sujatha told me it was fun and that I missed an enjoyable lunch.

Thanks for your note, Ashish.

Kalpana