Monday January 29, 2007
Meeting point for women
By ANN MARIE CHANDY
Can’t tell the difference between turmeric and cardamom? Don’t know where to buy a silk sari? Not sure if you should use henna on your hair? Online community indusladies.com may just be what you’re looking for.
NOT so long ago, I read an article in The Hindu (an English daily in India) which piqued my interest.
It was about an online community and discussion board for Indian women all over the world. Called indusladies.com, the site suggested that one could learn – online – how to cook a curry, tie a sari or write a sloka.
Upon further research (start up computer, log on, key in address), I discovered that indusladies.com is a global online community of Indian ladies who share ideas, information and support. Women – who may or may not still be in India – but who find the resource helpful not just practically but in forming emotional bonds too.
 |
Staying connected: Through indusladies.com, women share their ideas, provide tips, ask questions and answer queries on various topics. |
Thanks to the Internet, I was able to access indusladies’ creator very quickly, even though she lived across the world.
Jey, via an e-mail interview, told me what it was all about.
“Indian ladies from different parts of the world come to discuss various topics that are interesting and useful to their day-to-day life,” she said enthusiastically (I could tell from how quickly her reply came back). “Our members come from far corners of the world ... from Boston to Botswana, Cyprus to the Republic of Congo and Scotland to Singapore. We have members from almost every continent.”
Sharing tips and ideas
According to Jey, women share their ideas, provide tips, ask questions and answer queries on various topics like beauty, diet and nutrition, cooking, health and wellness, movies and TV programmes, fine arts, pregnancy and parenting, marriage and relationship, career and money matters, religion and even spiritual discussions.
“It’s these discussions that make indusladies a unique place, As our members engage with each other on a daily basis, they end up forming strong friendships beyond the online space.”
And that’s precisely the reason the site initially came about.
“With so many Indians already in the United States, I thought that I would feel at home when I first moved there in 2004. However, the lack of people density, the eerie silence in US neighbourhoods and the inability to meet friends and relatives in person made me feel rudderless,” Jey said.
Even though her American neighbours were good, she felt lonely and isolated and felt the need to reach out to people she could identify with.
“That’s when the light bulb went on! If there was an online community for Indian ladies living in different parts of the world, wouldn’t it be a great place for all of us to hang out and share things?”
Jey self-financed the site in its initial stages and her husband helps her keep it running (“he funds this expensive hobby of mine,” she said).
“My husband works for Dell in the US and has good online marketing experience. I bounce my thoughts off him and he is also a constant source of new ideas and motivation for me. He believes that indusladies has serious potential and pushes me to keep accelerating my efforts.
“I also have hand-picked an amazing group of moderators who help me run the site. Each of them takes ownership of a particular sub-forum and ensures that the discussions there are worthy of our site. I also discuss all major ideas with them before implementing them.”
Over the past 18 months, indusladies has grown and now has over 1,800 members.
With an increasing stream of new members, mainly through the recommendation of existing ones, the site looks forward to continued growth. “The more members we have, the more benefit everyone gets from the discussions,” Jey said.
“We are also starting to have specific local forums for major cities. With these sub-forums, the range of topics that members can discuss has exponentially increased.
They can now ask about a good gynaecologist, a safe day-care facility, a job lead in a local company, a good guitar teacher, the right place to buy a rare item, the cheapest place to buy groceries ...
“They can expect knowledgeable and experience based responses from fellow members. They can also use these local forums to organise playgroups, plan get togethers and even host visiting members! We feel that these localised discussions will facilitate more membership growth.”
A quick check on the forum thread in Kuala Lumpur found ladies asking whether Indian paneer is available in this city, where to find good North Indian restaurants, and how to get a trustworthy travel agent.
One of the highlights for me, personally, is the cooking forums – such as Ashna Rosai – where you can find loads of recipes to some yummy Indian food, tips and tricks in the kitchen (e.g. how to cut a mango), as well as a beginner’s guide to spices (know what aamchur powder or adrak is?).
For all my genuine Indian blood, I don’t know asafoetida from Adam, and so maybe a site like this has something to offer a girl like me, who’s in dire need of getting in touch with her roots!
RSS
