By Ritu Jha
Culture, tradition and mental health will all be featured at SALA-2024, the South Asian Literature and Arts Festival, taking place Sept. 28-29 at Stanford University’s Encina Commons.
The SALA Committee (Art Forum SF) has partnered with the Stanford South Asia Center to present an event featuring exhibitions from the contemporary South Asian art collection and panels on art, literature, poetry, and film. The festival, themed “Diversity Within the Community,” is now in its fifth year.
Ambika Sahai, executive director of Art Forum SF, told Indica that the theme of diversity emphasises that South Asians are not one group.
“Just as there are no two people the same, there are no two communities the same,” she said. “At the same time, communities connect us, they move us forward and teach us the true essence of life. That’s what we wanted to achieve with SALA 2024.”
When asked if it has something to do with the growing dissension within communities in the United States in recent years, Sahai said, “I feel like there’s a need to bring different ideologies and ways of thinking together. If someone says, ‘I am this, this is my ideology, and I don’t want to talk to anyone who thinks differently,’ that’s not a community. A community is a place where people come together at the same table to talk. We talk and share food, laughs, ideas. But in all of that, there has to be an underlying respect and belief in community and humanity. It’s all intertwined. You can’t say one is separate from the other. SALA is that kind of place. It’s a moment where everyone is together, while acknowledging their differences.”
“India is also known for its unity in diversity, but are we living up to that expectation,” she asks. “We’re not just talking about India here, we’re also talking about Sri Lanka, Pakistan, the Caribbean, which has South Asian influences and history. So it’s not one place, and the diversity is emphasised once again.”
Organizers expect 1,500 people to register, 500 more than last year.
This year, SALA made a strategic change and partnered with the Stanford Center.
“We typically collaborate with Montalvo Arts,” Sahai says, “and we have a similar collaboration with the Stanford South Asia Center. This partnership is a very natural fit because Stanford and the South Asia Center are all about asking questions. We’re both very committed to asking questions, so it’s a great fit.”
SALA 2024 will also see the appearance of senior Congress politician Shashi Tharoor.
Sahai said Tharoor was invited because though he is a politician, he is also a former UN Under-Secretary-General, former Minister for Human Resource Development and External Affairs and has written 26 best-selling books, both fiction and non-fiction.
Participants will also have the opportunity to interact with Indian film director Imtiaz Ali through talks, discussions and sessions. Ali is best known for directing some of Bollywood’s biggest hit films such as Jab We Met (2007), Love Aaj Kal (2009), Rockstar (2011), Highway (2014), Tamasha (2015) and Amar Singh Chamkira (2024).
Discussing increased Sri Lankan participation in SALA 2024, Sahai said that while the organisation has a strong focus on arts and culture, politics is not taboo.
“Politics is not just civics education. It goes beyond that,” Sahai said. “What we’re trying to see is a culture change.”
The event will feature three panels of mental health experts, including therapist Sahaj Kaur Kohli, who wrote “What Will People Say” about the South Asian community’s reluctance to talk about mental health, and the panel will also address the differences in attitudes that impact the quality of care therapists provide to people from South Asian communities.
“To give the right mental health advice, you have to understand South Asian culture,” Sahai said. “That’s the conversation we want to have.”
