| RAFIQ KATHWARI Enterprising multilingual freelance reporter and photographer, offering knowledge of American politics, economy, and culture (having studied and worked in New York for 30 years) as well as extensive field experience as business consultant in South Asia and war-reporter in Kashmir.
Education
Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, Columbia University, NYC, 2000
Master of Arts in Political Science, New School University, NYC, 1978
Bachelor of Arts, University of Kashmir, 1970
Publications (selection)
Book Reviews
Current History http://www.currenthistory.com/archivesep97/BookReviews.html
Washington Report on the Middle East http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/1095/1095toc.htm
Poetry featured most recently in The Literary Review, Tin House magazine and on National Public Radio (NPR); anthologised in Ravishing Disunities: Real Ghazals in English (Wesleyan University, 1999).
Translations, from the Urdu: http://www.drunkenboat.com/db3/kathwari/kathwari.html
Mantis (Stanford Univ., winter 2001).
Fiction: Columbia: A Journal of the Arts.
Letters to the Editor: The Times of India, Dawn (Pakistan), and The New York Times.
Editing: Co-edited an anthology of poetry, prose, and translations:
http://www.nycbigcitylit.com/contents/PoetryAsian.html (September 2001).
Op-Ed/Features: The San Francisco Chronicle, The Irish Examiner, Oregonian and Counterpunch
http://www.counterpunch.org/kathwari.html
War Reporting
December 1989 – August 1990
As a stringer for Agence France-Presse (AFP), reported from Kashmir on the ongoing militancy from its inception in December 1989 to Mid-august 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, and the Kashmir story became a hard sell.
Born and raised in Kashmir, I brought my fluency in Kashmiri and Urdu, my regard for cultural and religious sensitivities to bear on my stories at a time when New Delhi had banned foreign journalists from visiting Kashmir. I was, of course, unaccredited and hence worked under a nom de guerre (Rafiq Ahmed or Mohamed Rafiq), a fact that gave my stories a defiant edge.
During those eight months, I pounded the streets of downtown Srinagar, Kashmir’s summer capital, making it my regular beat. But, in those early months of the militancy, India’s para-military forces repeatedly clamped downtown under a dawn to dusk crackdown, which gave me an opportunity to experience first hand India’s ruthless response to the militancy – arbitrary searches and seizures; burning of homes suspected of harbouring militants.
I cultivated friendships with militants and religious leaders, gaining their trust by relating my own prior experience as a student activist in Kashmir, a teenage flirtation that had landed me in India’s jails for 11 months (don’t ask!)— the moment that triggered my subsequent departure in 1971 to New York.
Professional Development
1996-present, Consultant
The Family Crewels: Manufacturer, importer and distributor of fine hand-embroidered decorative fabrics. Combined indigenous methods of production with modern efficiencies, implementing a plan to revive the art of hand-embroidered crewelwork in the Kashmir valley, synthesising the best of Eastern craftsmanship with the demands of Western tastes, using modern marketing strategies.
Summer 1995, Consultant
Under the auspices of Bancomext, http://www.bancomext.com The Mexican Bank for Foreign Trade, which lends money to small and medium-size private enterprises, successfully completed survey of Mexican manufacturers of decorative home accessories, such as coloured glass, cast and wrought iron furniture, and wood sculptures. The objective was to assess the marketability in the United States under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
1975 -1989 & 1991-1995: Ethan Allen Interiors, Danbury, CT. http://www.ethanallen.com
Climbed the corporate ladder: Director of Merchandising, General Manager, Vice President - International Product Development. Created decorative woven textile programs, building each program from infancy to maturity, gaining inspiration from American and French Period designs, antiques and museums. Marketed those collections under a strong unified concept, at competitive prices representing excellent value.
Living and working over a ten-year period in rural communities in India and Pakistan, supervised production from twenty-two South Asian resources that had access to over 700 artisans, personally inspected hundreds of items for consistency in detail, increasing pride in craftsmanship.
Set high quality control standards, transforming inefficient, regressive manufacturing methods into progressive systems. For instance, perfectly good Indian wool (which has real value as it is sold globally) was woven into rugs so poorly made, of such ugly colours that all the spinning, dyeing, weaving, washing and clipping actually removed value from the raw material, turning virgin wool into the equivalent of door mats. Successfully overcame similar challenges in other cottages industries.
Exhibitions The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC: Contributor to Costumes of Royal India, Dec.’85 – Aug.’86
Cooper Hewitt Museum, NYC: The Golden Eye, 1986 (collaboration with Jack Lenor Larsen) Heimtextil, Frankfurt, 1991 – present
International Center of Photography, NY, Autumn 1980
Gallery 678 Broadway, NYC: Photographs
Affiliations:
The Asia Society, NYC http://www.asiasociety.org
The Textile Museum, Washington, D.C. http://www.textilemuseum.org
South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA), NY http://www.saja.org
Photography: http://www.KashmirRetextured.com: A Photo Essay
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