Shikshayatan Cultural Center Inc.: 146-29 Hawthorn Ave., Flushing, N.Y. Circa 1990.
Staple-bound wrappers. 100 pp., b&w illus., 8 pgs. of ads. Some text in Hindi, most in English. CONDITION: Very good, adhesive from old price sticker remaining at upper corner of front wrapper, wrappers minimally worn.
The apparently unrecorded first volume of a periodical documenting the spiritual and cultural life of modern South Asian immigrants to New York City, edited by a South Asian American woman.
This magazine, issued by the Shikshayatan Cultural Center, “advocates…children studying…great works” of India, religious and literary, in their native languages. Among the “great works” transcribed and described here are the “Mahamrityunjaya Mantra,” numerous songs in praise of Shiva in both Hindi and English, and an essay by one Swami Jagdishwaranand on the cultural significance of Shiva worship in the subcontinent and among the diaspora. As the publication features text in Hindi and a number of advertisements by Punjabi-American businessesmen, we presume that the readership of the journal were first and second-generation immigrants from the Punjab living in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of New York City.
The journal announces that the Shikshayatan Cultural Center also offered Hindi-language classes, and that their forthcoming issues would be a “Music Book for Beginners in English and a book on Shlokas.” Advertisements for South Asian businesses include listings for the astrologer and “Computer Pundit,” P.D. Sharma; Popular Saree, a Jackson Heights store “specializing in Saris, Suitings, and Fabrics” on 37- 29 74th street, and Kali Travel, a company based inJamaica, Queens, “specializing in group travel to INDIA and the WORLD,” including Guyana, Trinidad, and Puerto Rico.
OCLC locates no holdings. We find no documentation of this cultural center at NYU, or major South Asian ephemera collections such as Princeton or the University of Pennsylvania.
Shikshayatan Cultural Center Inc.: 146-29 Hawthorn Ave., Flushing, N.Y. Circa 1990.
Staple-bound wrappers. 100 pp., b&w illus., 8 pgs. of ads. Some text in Hindi, most in English. CONDITION: Very good, adhesive from old price sticker remaining at upper corner of front wrapper, wrappers minimally worn.
The apparently unrecorded first volume of a periodical documenting the spiritual and cultural life of modern South Asian immigrants to New York City, edited by a South Asian American woman.
This magazine, issued by the Shikshayatan Cultural Center, “advocates…children studying…great works” of India, religious and literary, in their native languages. Among the “great works” transcribed and described here are the “Mahamrityunjaya Mantra,” numerous songs in praise of Shiva in both Hindi and English, and an essay by one Swami Jagdishwaranand on the cultural significance of Shiva worship in the subcontinent and among the diaspora. As the publication features text in Hindi and a number of advertisements by Punjabi-American businessesmen, we presume that the readership of the journal were first and second-generation immigrants from the Punjab living in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of New York City.
The journal announces that the Shikshayatan Cultural Center also offered Hindi-language classes, and that their forthcoming issues would be a “Music Book for Beginners in English and a book on Shlokas.” Advertisements for South Asian businesses include listings for the astrologer and “Computer Pundit,” P.D. Sharma; Popular Saree, a Jackson Heights store “specializing in Saris, Suitings, and Fabrics” on 37- 29 74th street, and Kali Travel, a company based inJamaica, Queens, “specializing in group travel to INDIA and the WORLD,” including Guyana, Trinidad, and Puerto Rico.
OCLC locates no holdings. We find no documentation of this cultural center at NYU, or major South Asian ephemera collections such as Princeton or the University of Pennsylvania.
