[Reader-list] FINANCE: Neel Kashkari/MBA, Soft Drink, Electric Car, Kashmir

[Aditya Raj Kaul]

Kashkari family just memories under a bridge
*Muzamil Jaleel <http://www.indianexpress.com/columnist/muzamiljaleel/> -
Indian Express

**Srinagar, October 7 * The 35-year-old Indian who has been tasked with
bailing out the US economy from the credit crunch has his roots in
Srinagar's Safriyar locality. But nobody in this rundown neighbourhood knows
Neel Kashkari. His identity here is through his grandfather Sudarshan
Kashkari, a former head clerk in the Electric Department, the well known
Kashkari clan, a brick house on the banks of the Jhelum and a Kashkari
neighbourhood which no longer exists.

Neel Kashkari's family once lived in this Kashmiri Pandit locality around
the Somyar temple. "We remember Sudarshan Kashkari and his three sons," says
Bashir Ahmad Wani who has been running a shop in the area for over 50 years.
"We were neighbours."

Their house and the rest of the Kashkari neighbourhood were dismantled in
2000 to make way for a new bridge. "The temple is still there," says Wani,
pointing towards two brick houses. "These are the houses of the Sadhu
family, the only remnants of the time other than the memories."

The only Kashmiri Pandit shopkeeper in the neighbourhood, 65-year-old
Manohar Nath Chrungo, now has just a few bales on the wooden shelves. A
neighbouring shopkeeper, 75-year-old Noor-ul-Hassan, sits next to him. "Are
you planning to buy any property," Chrungo asks when The Indian Express
inquires about Kashkari family. "There is nothing left. The entire Safriyar
locality came under the bridge project."

But Chrungu, Hassan and Wani are surprised to hear that we were searching
for the roots of a young man who has become news worldwide. "For years, only
people interested in buying the property would come. But we are happy to
know one of our sons will bring fame to this neglected neighbourhood," says
Wani, before joining the other two to figure out how much $700 billion would
be in rupees.

Neel Kashkari's father Chaman Nath Kashkari left for the US soon after
completing his engineering in 1950. "It was a big family with a house right
on the banks of the Jhelum," says cousin Sham Lal Kashkari, who now lives in
Jammu. "Both his brothers are dead. We have met Neel's father a few times.
He used to attend marriages in the family. We haven't seen his children." In
fact, Neel Kashkari's uncle Som Nath Kashkari was a known city doctor.

Chrungu and Wani, meanwhile, walk towards the bridge. "This is where the
house stood," says Chrungo, pointing at an iron electric pole at the river
bank a few feet away, the Somyar mandir, one of Srinagar's ancient temples,
stands in all its grandeur. It is surrounded by bunkers and spools of barbed
wire. "There's no Kashmiri Pandit here. It is just us," shouts a CRPF jawan
from behind the sandbags.

Link -
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/kashkari-family-just-memories-under-a-bridge/370559/2

On 10/10/08, Naeem Mohaiemen <naeem.mohaiemen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The folks at South Asian Journalists Association (New York) have
> rounded up coverage of Neel Kashkari, head of $700B bailout plan, in
> US media, and here are some brief excerpts.
>
>
> 1. NYT: "Bailout Role Elevates U.S. Official" by Charlie Savage and Ben
> White:
> Samuel L. Hayes, an emeritus professor of finance at Harvard Business
> School, said Mr. Kashkari will face tremendous pressures. "It's
> amazing to me that a guy who is only six years out of business school
> has been given this kind of assignment, because it would be an
> enormous challenge for someone with 30 years of experience," Mr. Hayes
> said.
>
>
> 2. WSJ blogger Heidi N. Moore's post, "What Neel Kashkari Learned in
> MBA School":
> Since 2006, Kashkari has been one of Paulson's regular advisers,
> sharing with his mentor a hairstyle, Midwestern roots, a Goldman
> alumni card and even the same taste in popular soft drinks.
>
>
> 3. "Morning Edition" profile on NPR by Yuki Naguchi:
> Back in the 1990s, Tom Dautel worked on a team led by Kashkari to
> design a solar car called the Photon Torpedo at the University of
> Illinois. He says Kashkari worked like a slave, often even on projects
> he wasn't directly overseeing.
>
>
> 4. Gilbert Cruz's "Two-minute Bio" of Kashkari in Time.com:
> "When he does anything, if you ask him to make an electric car or ask
> him to plan an outing to Niagara Falls, he is so meticulous."—Chaman
> Kashkari, father, USA Today, October 6, 2008
>
> "I'm a free-market Republican."—Kashkari, at an American Enterprise
> Institute conference, Sept. 19, 2008
>
>
> 5. "Rakesh Kaul, a leader in the Kashmiri-American community and
> chairman of Spherenomics (he knows the Kashkari family)" on SAJAForum:
> "I view Neel's appointment in some ways as even more important than
> the signing of the Nuclear deal. It is the final rubber stamp of how
> our Indo-American community has achieved acceptance at the highest and
> most critical positions in the land. If there is a change in
> administration then we should think long and hard and see if Indians
> on both the Democratic and Republican side, in a spirit of
> bipartisanship, can ensure that he has the support to continue in his
> job."
>
> "Interestingly the name Neel means the color blue but also it stands
> for the blue sapphire in Sanskrit and as your readers may well know
> the best sapphires in the world came from Kashmir. Finally as a
> postscript. To all the Kashmiri Pandits who have been ethnically
> cleansed from their land and are suffering either in refugee camps or
> have been scattered into environments that are below their dignity and
> human potential. Neel is one inspiring story that took two generations
> from Kashmir to the US to happen but there will be many others. We
> will return back to our homeland from a position of strength, a
> strength founded on a 5,000-year culture that can produce a Neel, a
> Jawahar, an Abhinav Gupta, a Kalidas and many more!"
>
> And finally a photo:
>
> http://sajablogs.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/10/07/photo_100608_001_2.jpg
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