American Fulbrighters to India find the country fascinating, academically promising, culturally vibrant and artistically alive. Most form lifelong friendships and bonds with people they meet. For some though, the pull of India is so strong that it brings them back every year or ingrains itself in every art piece that they produce, or a new course that they start at their home institution in US.

Annette Danto came to India in 2002 as a senior research scholar, studying Filmmaking in affiliation with the Gandhigram Institute of Rural Health and Family Welfare, Gandhigram. A professor in the Department of Filmmaking at City University of New York’s (CUNY) Brooklyn campus, she has brought back groups of her students every year since then. The groups have studied film and documentary making in New Delhi and Madurai as part of these educational visits.

CUNY group 2006

CUNY group 2009

Fulbright alumni Kathryn Myers, Julie Evans and Charlotte Cain incorporate Indian motifs and street life in their art work. They have exhibited their work in India and the US after their Fulbright experiences. The invite below is for their joint exhibition, Uncommon Signs, held Nov-Dec 2009 at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. Fulbright alumnus Robert Kirschbaum, who is a professor of fine arts at Trinity College, curated the exhibit.

Exhibit Invitation

Kathryn Myers and Robert Kirschbaum at the exhibit opening

Neena Roberts's 2006 Fulbright grant with the Ministry of Environment and Forests allowed her to evaluate experiences of youth participating in the National Green Corps Eco-Clubs. So impressed was she with the warm welcome and hospitality that USIEF and her mentor in India gave her that she decided to reciprocate it to every Indian Fulbrighter placed near San Francisco where she lives. In May 2009 she drove an hour to meet Indian Fulbrighter Seema Bhatt, affiliated with the Center for Responsible Travel, Washington DC, who was working at their west coast office based at Stanford University.

Neena Roberts (L) with Seema Bhatt at Stanford University

Richard Wolf, a music professor at Harvard University, is an ethnomusicologist who has devoted his career to the interdisciplinary study of South Asian musical traditions. He was the recipient of a Fulbright Doctoral Dissertation Abroad fellowship to India for studying the drumming traditions of South Asia, residing with Kota tribesmen for his research. Post-Fulbright he wrote The Black Cow's Footprint: Time, Space, and Music in the Lives of the Kotas of South India (2005 and 2006), which was awarded the Edward Cameron Dimock, Jr. Prize in the Humanities. His publications also include "The Poetics of Sufi Practice: Drumming, Dancing, and Complex Agency at Madho Lal Husain and Beyond" (2006) and "Double-ness, matam and Muharram drumming in South Asia" (2007). To the same set of 2000 Kota tribesmen who play the drums that their ancestors played, he returns each year to participate in the Carnatic music festival in Chennai from November to December. In 2009 his festival presentation outlined the Kota ritual-musical system. He explained some of the challenges Kotas face in learning this repertoire and maintaining it in the face of changing economic circumstances. Richard was ably assisted by eight male musicians and a female singer from Kota, who demonstrated their music live. He also presented some video clips.

Richard Wolf (sitting) with Kota drummers and singers during the Carnatic music festival