Making the connection; American kids see their South Asian culture inside Kahani magazine
Boston Globe, Monday, December 19, 2005

By David Mehegan, Globe Staff | December 19, 2005

NEWTON -- As Monika Jain and Leena Chawla tell it, it makes perfect sense: If you can't find a magazine just right for your children, you might as well publish your own. That is what they did, and the result is a children's magazine unlike any other.

On several counts, Kahani is unusual. The founders knew nothing about magazine publishing when they started in 2004 but found their way with study, practice, and expert advice. They have no advertising; they've funded the project themselves, so far. Most unusual is the publication itself: the first children's literary magazine for South Asian kids in the United States.

Immigrants from South Asia and their American-born children are one of the most diverse, fast-growing cultural groups in America. But to Kahani cofounders Jain, of Newton, and Chawla, of Brookline -- both born in India -- there was nothing for their kids to read that acknowledged their appearances or family backgrounds.

When her daughter, now 10, was about 5, said Jain, ''I would take her to the library, and she knew exactly where the Arthur books were, where the Nancy Drew books were. But these stories were not relevant to her experience, didn't relate to her reality of being a South Asian, born and raised in the United States." The countries Jain and Chawla focus on include India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, and the Maldive Islands.

Kahani's mission, say Chawla and Jain, is to ''educate, empower, and entertain." It has a cheerful mix of short fiction, games, cartoon stories, reviews, and nonfiction articles for kids age 6-12, richly illustrated on glossy paper. Along with two stories, the current 28-page issue has a brain-teaser. There's also a poem, an arts-and-crafts feature, a profile of a New York-based children's book editor of Sri Lankan background, and the first young writer's contest.

Jain was born in India, grew up in Japan, and came to the United States to attend college in California. With degrees in journalism and broadcasting, she was based in Tokyo for the Associated Press (she is fluent in Japanese), became a TV producer for PBS, then moved to New York to produce documentary films for Japanese television. Chawla was a software engineer educated in India who came to the states 15 years ago to work for Digital Equipment. She got an MBA at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, then became a management consultant, mostly for clients in the financial services industry. Both are married with two children each. Three years ago they were taking time off from full-time careers to concentrate on their kids. Chawla started a play group at her home for mothers and their kids, and two mothers came: Jain and Radhika Ramdev.
''Like in any play group," Jain said, ''we talked about kids and also about going back to work. I brought up the idea that I wanted to start this magazine. Radhika had a graphic design background and Leena had the business background, and it was like spontaneous combustion." The idea captivated Chawla. ''I want to create a space for my daughter [now 3 1/2] growing up in this country that is welcoming, empowering, and also teaches her about her roots," she said.

With her background, Jain knew something about good writing. With her consulting experience, Chawla said, ''I knew how to make a business plan." When they got together after that first meeting, they hired a sitter to watch the children and went to work inventing a magazine. Jain is the editor, and Chawla is director of finance and marketing. Ramdev and Rameeta Khurana, another early partner, have since left the project to take full-time jobs.

''We talked to printers, to South Asian parents, to writers, illustrators, and started creating a pipeline and figuring out the numbers and trying to project how many subscribers we could expect," Chawla said. ''It took us a whole year to research the [magazine publishing] industry before we started in April last year." They soon learned that there was no exact model. ''We looked for another [magazine] like this -- an English-language publication for an ethnic community -- in the Chinese community, the Hispanic community," said Chawla. ''But we couldn't find it."

They did find mentors, however, and one was Nancy Gruver, cofounder and publisher of New Moon, a magazine for girls based in Duluth, Minn. While it has no ethnic focus, New Moon also has no advertising. It has 30,000 subscribers and an online store to help the bottom line.

''The most basic advice I gave them was to keep touching base with why they are doing this," Gruver said. ''I also said this is not going to be easy. They're entering the business at a time of upheaval. They have to be questioning and assessing all the time."

Kahani began as a bimonthly, but Jain and Chawla soon realized that was too ambitious and have cut back to a quarterly schedule. Their subscription list is small but growing. They believe 50,000 subscribers would be possible ($20 for four issues), given that there are large South Asian communities in many US cities, east and west. They also envision an eager audience in other English-speaking countries, most of which also have sizable South Asian communities. Chawla is busily networking among school librarians and other possible supporters.

''I liked the quality and thought it was fascinating," said Susan Raskin Abrams, children's librarian at the Newton Free Library, where Kahani is available for kids to check out. ''We have had a large increase in South Asians using the library, and I totally understand [Jain and Chawla's] objectives. It's another resource for South Asian children -- not only South Asians, but any children with curiosity about other cultures."

One look at Kahani -- glossy, with high-quality content -- makes plain that if all the contributors were paid, it would be difficult to support without ads, no matter how many subscribers it has. But Chawla and Jain have funded the printing themselves -- the writers, illustrators, website designer (kahani.com), and others have volunteered their work, in many cases because they believe in the project and because it's a way to network within the wider South Asian community.

''It's a unique situation, being between cultures," said Newton-based Mitali Perkins, who has written books for children and contributed stories to Kahani. Born in India, Perkins came to the United States with her parents when she was 6. ''I grew up in a white California suburb, a completely different planet from my home," Perkins said. ''Kids go back and forth, squeezed between those two worlds, and neither one understands the other. When I was growing up, there was no literature about kids like me. What I love about Kahani is that it celebrates that life."

Jain said firmly, ''We intend to keep it ad-free." Yet she and Chawla say they know that volunteerism is not a sustainable model over time, so they hope to draw sponsors to finance a particular issue in return for credit on the back inside cover. ''It doesn't have to be a company," Jain said. ''It could be a family or an individual."

While Indian culture seems to be the predominant flavor of Kahani, Jain and Chawla stress that there is no specific national, ethnic, religious, or racial identity to it. It's about the American life of kids for whom South Asian roots, of whatever kind, are close by. ''When our children read these stories," Chawla said, ''it's nice for them to know that 'I may be the only brown child in my class, but there are thousands of other kids like me going through the same thing.' "