As mentioned before, this past weekend I was invited to speak at the South Asian Alliance Network conference at the University of Michigan. The conference organizers, in what MUST have been a drug-induced haze, asked me to give the kickoff address for the day. The speaker’s packet that I was sent contained a brief note about what the kickoff speech should include. Here is an excerpt:

Attendees of my workshop (a.k.a victims)

This is a brief overview of what we would like you to discuss in your kickoff address. Please use your own expertise and background when creating this speech. The goal of this speech is to excite the participants for the upcoming day; the points that follow are simply ideas that are intended to guide your thought process.

  • An anecdote to energize/excite participants for the day ahead

  • Inspirational quote/saying

Whoa! As you can imagine I was nervous as all hell. I haven’t had to inspire or excite people since…well, ever I guess. The speech went alright however, and I did not trip getting on OR off the stage. I was then going to Live Blog the conference for the consumption of SM readers, but it was so damn engrossing that I kept my laptop in its case, and decided to selfishly attend the workshops instead. My workshop was titled “Get up, get out, and get moving”:

Authors, comedians, lyricists, poets, painters, and sculptors - the list goes on - are all part of the process to develop society. This workshop explores how these individuals find the inspiration to carry out such enormous tasks and whether these professions well-suited to activism. Learn from the very real stories of these accomplished individuals who have a dynamic role in society.

Obviously I fell into “the list goes on” category . It was a good workshop. I miss being an undergrad. These attendees were all smart as hell and a lot more engaged than I remember being. I think I have come to see the University of Michigan as a Utopian bubble where anything is possible, especially if you are a member of the South Asian community. I am going to make a bold (albeit biased) prediction that 20 years from now there will be many South Asian alumni from Michigan that are running this country. To give you an idea of how special this conference was, there was EVEN Ohio State representation.

Me and co-speaker Preacher Moss

I kneel in to listen to a small-group discussion

During the conference I met and got to know a great many of the other invited speakers. Some of them we have blogged about on SM before. They included author Mary Anne Mohanraj, MC Chee Malabar, and Ghopal Khanna, the keynote speaker. In fact, the interaction between Malabar and Khanna was an interesting plot line followed by many during the weekend. Malabar is an amazingly talented lyricist and performer from NY whose lyrics are of the liberal persuasion. One of his songs was titled “FourTwo More Years.” This was of course a reference to Bush’s remaining time in office. Khanna on the other hand is the former budget manager of the Executive Office of the President. During Malabar’s performance at the dinner formal, all eyes were on him and Khanna. To his credit, Khanna went over and expressed his sincere, and well-deserved appreciation of Malabar’s skills at the end of the performance. He then kicked it with the rest of the speakers and conference coordinators until 4a.m. at the Pizza House in Ann Arbor. It was actually kind of nice to see, and added to the overall warm fuzzies that seemed to be felt by everyone present. Another great workshop was the one run by Naheem Mohaiemen of Disappeared in America. He spoke both of radical Islam and about his new documentary highlighting the persecution of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Bangladesh (I had never heard of them and suddenly want to know a lot more). It was the discussion the followed his presentation that inspired my post earlier this week.

The true highlight of the conference was the SAAN board and their excellent coordination. Seriously. There aren’t a finer group of students around. I was thankful to be even considered as a speaker let alone invited.