Desi Making Waves

By Elaine G. Flores

Style And Substance

Sikh businessman Sonny Caberwal is a Model Citizen

In the back of a taxi, hurtling down New York's Fifth Avenue on my way to work one morning, my attention was focused on nothing other than how long it would take my driver to navigate the perilous commuter sea and get me to my office before The Boss showed up. My obsessive clock-watching was totally forgotten when I glanced out the window and caught the arresting image of a dapper, black-turbaned young man sort of teasingly giving me the come-hither from behind dark glasses. He looked Hollywood dreamy, affluent, A-list. Well, the only sensible thing to do was to hop out of the cab and go-thither. But my driver, cruelly sped past Rockefeller Center and, really, it would have been silly. You can't run off with a window display, and how would I explain it to my extremely patient and good-humored husband?

Besides, I already knew who it was: Sonny Caberwal, a Sikh entrepreneur featured in one of Kenneth Cole's signature, consciousness-raising fashion campaigns. The accomplished gentleman is a graduate of Duke University and Georgetown University Law Center. He was a practicing attorney residing in Manhattan when he opened Tavalon, a gourmet tea bar. Caberwal now helps develop start-up businesses in the Bay Area, where the newlywed resides with wife Preeti, a fashion buyer in women's contemporary. (Sorry ladies!)

Caberwal had first come to my attention a few days earlier when my editor assigned me the story and we'd already e-mailed back and forth about arranging an interview, but that morning was the first time I'd actually seen the display. Late last week, I finally got to speak to Caberwal over the phone.

So, Sonny, can you tell me a little bit about your background? Where were you born?
North Carolina, a very small town called Asheboro.

So you're a Southern boy.
Yes, I am. I grew up there and I went to college in North Carolina at Duke.

What did you major in?
I actually designed my own major. I studied globalization and how that impacted the culture. I graduated in 2001.

Was it an unusual course of study at the time?
I'm the only person who studied it. I basically got permission to study outside the normal course of curriculum from the administration.

That is so cool.
I just don't think you should take classes that you don't want to take. You're paying a lot of money to go to school; you shouldn't have to pay money to take classes you are not interested in taking.

Tell me about your family.
They're open-minded people, certainly. My parents were born in India. They moved here 35, maybe 37, years ago. A long time ago. My father is a doctor. My mother, she raised us—that took up most of her time.

So, I was speeding down Fifth Avenue, and I saw your Kenneth Cole ad. Had you done professional modeling before?
This is a first. They hired an agency to cast for this particular campaign, which they were doing for the 25th anniversary. The idea is to kind of challenge ... They wanted to use people in this campaign who they thought were creative individuals beyond the traditional sense. They wanted to use a Sikh man and went looking for a Sikh man, but obviously the agency didn't have it, so they started contacting different Sikh organizations to solicit people to send in pictures. My brother-in-law decided to send me the e-mail and said, "You should try this. You fit this profile." I thought it was a good idea. I think it's great for our community, and I wanted to do it. The biggest significance is that it's able to present the image of a Sikh man in a positive fashion. And it has a number of different, important implications. For a lot of people, yeah, there's a stereotype of what a turbaned man must be like. And a lot of times that stereotype is incorrect. The more important implication is how those stereotypes affect young children, and that's where the biggest gains can be had. It's really important for young kids to feel they're represented and people like them can be proud of how they feel and how they are represented.

You have said that keeping your distinct, visual identity is important. Have you ever questioned it or not wanted to do it?
No, I haven't ever. I can understand how someone might feel that way, but for me the identity part of my religion is something I'm really proud of. I look at it as a constant reminder of both your religious values, and also your cultural traditions and where you come from. I want other people to feel that they can be proud of that as well.

So, I know you have many irons in the fire. What are you working on now?
Right now I'm working with a start-up company called Going.com, it's a social network, which helps you find out what's going on in your city and who else is going. It's really cool—it’s in New York, Boston, Chicago, L.A. San Francisco. And that's a really interesting project for people to check out. I'm also working with a mobile media company, but that has not launched yet. I'm working on another couple of projects as well, so I'm keeping fairly busy. And I'm also actually blogging for Kenneth Cole. I'm going to start contributing to that blog on a regular basis. I actually want to implement a widget so that people can implant it on their own Web pages.

Any interesting, fun facts you'd like to share?
Nothing too out of the ordinary. I'm involved in different businesses. I like to play music. I'm a tabla player. A cool fact is I played with Thievery Corporation. [You can hear Caberwal play on the album The Richest Man in Babylon.]

Is there anything else that you'd like to say?
I think it's important to highlight the significance of the campaign. That to me is the important thing here. You want people to be proud of their culture and identity; as it relates to your readers, that's the critical thing—that they can do whatever they want to do. Being who they are is something they should be proud of and use to their advantage. The younger members of your audience hopefully will be able to look to people who are creating a positive impact for the community and draw some inspiration from that. There are a lot of people—and you do a good job highlighting this—there are a lot of people who are doing things of that nature, but there are people who feel that they can't because of who they are. And that's unfortunate. I think that's not the case; I think anyone can. They just have to apply themselves and go for it.

For more on Caberwal, go to kennethcole.com or check out awearnessblog.com.

Elaine G. Flores is a feature writer for Soap Opera Digest, columnist for the St. Louis American and freelance writer. She is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and lives in New York.

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