Saris to Suits calendar aims to help South Asian women

Email: director@raksha.org

Part-time Atlantan Patti Tripathi was looking forward to a speaking engagement near the city of Pune in India, but she decided to cancel after her family raised concerns about the safety of women traveling alone.

Within the past year or so, there have been several highly publicized cases of rape in the South Asian nation.

In June, a U.S. female tourist was raped and robbed by three men after she accepted a ride back to a popular tourist destination. A young photojournalist was gang raped while on assignment. And, in a case that stunned the world, a woman was brutally raped by several men on a chartered bus and later dumped — along with a male friend — on a highway. She later died of her injuries.

The assaults “hit a chord and made me want to become proactive to save some lives — just one life,” said Tripathi, a former television reporter and anchor in Atlanta. She founded TriPath Media and the organization Saris to Suits, which seeks to empower women, both here and abroad. She hit upon the idea of creating and selling a calendar showing a range of South Asian women in various professions, with the money raised being used to benefit organizations that help women.

For its inaugural issue, Tripathi, who splits her time between Atlanta, Florida and Washington, D.C., selected South Asian women, including several from the metro area, to be included in "Saris to Suits Empowered Women." The calendar will raise funds to support two organizations that work to empower women and fight to end sexual abuse and domestic violence, including DeKalb County-based Raksha.

Aparna Bhattacharyya, executive director of Raksha, an 18-year-old organization that served about 220 individuals last year, said no culture or ethnic community is immune from domestic violence. Raksha also provides education and outreach to community members and trains criminal justice and social service providers on working with immigrants and those with limited English proficiency. Bhattacharyya was recently recognized as a "Champion of Change" by the White House for her work in the immigrant community.

“We’re not even making a dent into how many people need the services given that we had five deaths as a result of domestic violence in the South Asian community in Georgia,” she said.

Domestic violence and sexual abuse are particularly hard to discuss in the South Asian community. After the attacks in India, some people blamed the victims. Others say it was only after public pressure that those who allegedly committed the crimes were arrested.

Raksha will sell the calendars for $20 apiece as a fundraiser. The money will be used to fund services, Bhattacharyya said.

“Anything around sex or sexual assault is going to be difficult to talk about because it goes back to the whole idea of a woman’s virtue and her ability to get married,” Bhattacharyya said. “People say it’s a private issue or that it brings shame upon the family.”

But the group’s work also focuses on empowerment. It wants to send a message that women can continue to break down cultural barriers.

“I felt a deep sense of calling to do something to raise awareness about the abuse that comes in many different forms in our community,” Tripathi said. “Verbal abuse leads to invisible scars, too.”

Tripathi doesn’t dictate how the organization spends the money.

According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, one in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime.

The cost of intimate partner violence reaches nearly $5.8 billion a year in the U.S., most of which goes to direct medical and mental health services.

The calendar features “role models” who have struggled, worked hard and persevered. “I hope it inspires and empowers young women and girls to stand up for equality and justice,” she said. So that they “can leap across the barriers that may seem like stumbling blocks in their paths.”

Groups like Raksha help, she said, because staffers understand the language, culture and religion.

“I think this is a serious conversation we need to have,” Bhattacharyya said.

But the focus is also on empowerment.

One of the women participating is Lalita Balakrishnan, a 23-year-old Cobb County-based tabla player and hip-hop artist. She has also been active in supporting Raksha by performing at its fundraisers and through her involvement in a South Asian sorority, Sigma Sigma Rho.

Another is Dr. Aarti Pandya, an ophthalmologist and classical vocalist. A third is Sonia Moghe, a former Atlanta television reporter, who recently accepted a job in New York.

“I think it’s a way for me to communicate to other young women out there that it’s possible to pursue careers outside the normal path,” said Balakrishnan, who owns her own label. When she told her parents she wanted a career in music, they were very supportive.

But she knows that may not be the case for everyone.

Still, she says that just because a field tends to be male-dominated, that doesn’t mean women should avoid it.