
Watering Our Roots, Planting Seeds:
Exploring South Asian Lineages and Collective Futures
Saturday, July 11th 2026
12:30pm Doors and altar-building
1-4pm Program
4-5pm Social time
In-person at EBMC (2406 Webster St., Oakland CA)
Together with Access to Zen, EBMC is excited to invite everyone to attend our biggest summer event, “Watering Our Roots, Planting Seeds: Exploring South Asian Lineages and Collective Futures”! Join us for a very special afternoon dedicated to uplifting the South Asian histories of Buddhism, music, dance, and yoga. We’ll also look at what it means for a diverse community to practice with these lineages today and in the future.
Let’s join together to celebrate past and present, our personal and shared heritages, and an afternoon of joy in community!
Featuring:
- Live Indian classical music concert with Srinivas Reddy (sitar) and Ferhan Naheeb Qureshi (tabla)
- Panel discussion with Srinivas Reddy, Jyoti Argade, and Anjali Rao, moderated by Rahil Rojiani
- Opening ritual with Sakkshi
- Interactive altar-building
- Music and snacks from community members – details to be announced!
PLEASE NOTE THE ADDRESS OF EBMC’S NEW BUILDING:
2406 Webster St., Oakland, CA
[If you are using a navigation/map app, DO NOT type in East Bay Meditation Center. That will take you to our 285 17th St. location instead.]
Doors open 12:30pm. Program begins at 1:00pm and ends at 4pm. From 4-5pm, enjoy music, snacks, and mingling!
In person attendance: Space is limited to the first 200 people who register.
Please allow time for parking! We recommend using public transit if possible.
Cost
We’re continuing to fundraise for EBMC so that we can keep our center sustained. We humbly request that folx give at the highest level they can for the benefit of the collective. If you are able, please purchase a Generosity Ticket for someone who cannot afford to buy one for themselves. The tickets are sliding scale and there is an option to name your own donation amount. Thank you!
Our Organizations
Learn more about Access to Zen here.
SPECIAL GUESTS!

Srinivas Reddy (musician & panelist) is a scholar, translator and musician. He studied classical sitar in the traditional guru-shishya style with Pandit Partha Chatterjee, a direct disciple of the late sitar maestro Pandit Nikhil Banerjee. Srinivas also trained in classical South Asian languages and literatures at Brown University and UC Berkeley. He has released three CDs and published five books including the latest Illuminating Worlds: An Anthology of Classical Indian Literature (Bloomsbury 2024). Srinivas is currently Associate Professor of South Asian Studies at Nayanta University in Pune, India. www.sankalpana.org

Ferhan Najeeb Qureshi (musician) is a senior disciple of the legendary tabla master Ustad Tari Khan. Prior to his ongoing training with Ustad Tari Khan, Ferhan took his initial lessons in Hindustani music theory and practice with Surinder Singh Mann. Ferhan studies the Punjab gharana of classical tabla which both of his teachers represent. In addition to performing tabla lehra (tabla solo), Ferhan Qureshi has also accompanied numerous distinguished classical artists (vocalists, instrumentalists and dancers) both in the United States and in Pakistan.

Anjali Rao (panelist) brings an intersectional and decolonial feminist lens to the study of philosophy and religion integrating storytelling, art and poetry. Deeply influenced by her yoga practice and dance training, her work emphasizes an embodied approach and explores how spirituality, power and politics intersect. Her first book, Yoga As Embodied Resistance: A Feminist Lens in Caste, Gender And Sacred Resilience in Yoga History, North Atlantic Books was named as one of the 10 most inspiring, insightful and seriously worthwhile books of 2025 by Yoga Journal and “a scholarly work and a deeply personal journey” by L.A Book Review.
She is on the faculty of multiple yoga education programs. She considers herself a first, foremost and forever a student and is currently pursuing a PhD in Philosophy and Religion (Women’s Spirituality) in California Institute of Integral Studies.

Jyoti Argade (panelist) is a bharatanatyam artist, scholar, and educator whose work sits at the intersection of devotion, embodied practice, and critical inquiry into South Asian performance traditions. Born into a family of bharatanatyam teachers, she trained under her mother, Srimati Veena Argade, and later with V.P. and Shantha Dhananjayan in the Kalakshetra style. She has performed at The Asia Society, The Brooklyn Museum, The Guggenheim, The Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art, and the American Dance Festival, among others.
Jyoti holds a PhD in Performance Studies from Northwestern University and served as Chair and Associate Professor of Dance at the University of East London. As a producer, she produced Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company’s historic first tour to India, where she chaired public dialogues on diaspora, identity, and the politics of contemporary South Asian dance. Her scholarly work examines the historical, devotional, and political dimensions of South Asian dance traditions, with ongoing research into the devadasi lineage and bharatanatyam’s modern reconstruction for nationalist and global stages. She runs a bharatanatyam studio in Berkeley and leads The Actual Project, a consultancy focused on leadership and organizational development. Jyoti is also the mother to two extraordinary humans.

Rahil Rojiani (they/them) (panel moderator & planning team) is a queer, genderfluid, South Asian facilitator and healer, currently swimming the waters of capitalism as an abolitionist trauma-oriented psychiatrist. They are committed to a path of weaving together the many threads and contradictions of their life, spanning decades of community organizing, neuroscience research and medical training in ivory tower academia, contemplative and somatic healing practices, and a primary orientation toward Spirit. Rahil’s spiritual lineages include Mahamudra and Dzogchen schools of Buddhism, the esoteric tradition of Ismaili Islam in which they were raised, and Hindustani classical music through sitar under Srinivas Reddy and the Ali Akbar College of Music. They feel most alive when supporting queer and trans BIPOC communities in healing complex trauma through conscious use of psychiatric tools, liberatory somatics, shadow work, and reconnecting to Spirit for the sake of our collective liberation in apocalyptic times. When not making long lists, you might find them climbing, gardening, reading, or deliciously lost in deep conversation and cuddles with their dear ones.

Sakkshi (she/her) (opening ritual & planning team) is a Queer immigrant rooted in Indian lineage and the living tradition of Sanathana Dharma the eternal Vedic path she has walked alongside her family for over three decades. Her practice is supported by the rhythms of ancestral ritual and the wisdom of Jyotish aka Vedic astrology, where our energetic footprint becomes a way to explore the relationship between karma and dharma, a journey she holds space for through her Jyotish practice, Cosmicdesi. In her work as the founder of a boutique residential design firm, she brings this same philosophy into the spaces people inhabit, understanding that the places we build are extensions of the lives we are creating. She is a devoted student of ancestral veneration and healing, understanding that the wounds and gifts carried in our bloodlines are portals to collective liberation. For the past four years, she has been co-facilitating weekly meditations at East Bay Meditation Center. At the heart of her work lives a single conviction: that separation is an illusion, and that through conscious creation, our remembering, and aligned action we can return to a living relationship with our metaphysical existence as our birthright.

Sarwang Parikh (he/they) (planning team) is a decolonial psychotherapist and meditation teacher based on unceded Ohlone land in the SF Bay Area. Born into a devotional Indian lineage with an immigrant, working-class background, Sarwang has been practicing and studying the Dharma for over 25 years through their ancestral traditions of Vedic yoga, Theravāda, and Indian Vajrayāna. They have completed various multi-year teaching and study programs, including East Bay Meditation Center’s (EBMC) 2-year Spiritual Teacher Leader program, and are currently in Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leader cohort. Sarwang teaches with Dharma Homies, East Bay Meditation Center, Braided Wisdom and Inward Bound Mindfulness where they also serve on the board. Rooted in a liberatory approach to mindfulness and healing, Sarwang integrates deep ancestral wisdom with contemporary practices. They find joy in playing their handpan, frolicking with friends in nature, and getting free on the dance floor.


