If you're an Indian living on the West Coast and haven't registered yet, you're out of it. August 17 is the last day to get invited for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's San Jose address on September 27.
The organisers are determined to beat the turnout and the verve of the Madison Square Gardens (in New York) triumph of Narendra Modi. This will be the first time in nearly 50 years that an Indian PM will go to the West Coast with the express intention of addressing the Indian diaspora.
The West Coast is studded with Indians. These are not only the owners of Mom and Pop stores, the Shahs and the Patels, but are highly-qualified professionals who are an influential group in the Silicon Valley.
As with all diaspora, all of them belong to different groups and they are a fractious lot, not always in agreement. They have, however, joined under an umbrella organisation, the Indo-American Community of West Coast, USA (IACWC USA) and the registration of this organisation itself was a big event.
Khanderao Kand is a familiar face for the Indo-American community in the US West Coast and he is a convener of the IACWC. Kand has been an office-bearer of the Hindu Sangam and the brain behind the Dharma and Yoga Day organised in 2013 in the US. Kand has been intimately associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) for most of his life. He is an indefatigable organiser of Hindus and Hindu causes including charity work undertaken by Hindu families in the US not just to orient younger members of families with traditional Hindu customs, but also to organise them.
Kand was overjoyed when Narendra Modi was elected Prime Minister in 2014. "We technological professionals are very happy that a development-oriented leader like Modi got such a decisive mandate. He eradicated corrupt, dynastic, caste and appeasement-driven politics that was ruining India," he said. He wears another hat: he is founder-president of Global Indian Technology Professionals of India. This is because Kand is Principal Technologist at Guavus working on its Big Data Analytics Platform.
Till recently, he was CTO technologist at Glomantra (personalised recommendation and relevant search platform) and architect at AdMaxim (DSP side ad exchange). His expertise includes leading technologies building applications and analytics with Big Data, NoSQL databases, and Cloud platforms. He holds nine patents and is an alumnus of IIT Powai.
However, Kand is clear that his political beliefs should be used to unite Indians, not divide them. At the launch of IACWC, he said: "We understand that the IACWC is a platform through which we must bring together the entire community, regardless of language, culture, religion or profession."
Kand is hoping to leverage the excitement in the US establishment about the upcoming Modi visit. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Desai-Biswal has said, the months ahead will be a "very intense time" in the US-India relations, as the two countries inaugurate the strategic and commercial dialogue in September in Washington. Everyone acknowledges that a US election (November 2016) could change the complexion of the White House. But even so, it helps to have friends. And, it is Kand's job to see Indians in the US, no matter what their religion, are united to present the best face of India.
