Date: Thu, 09 Nov 95 09:35:53 PST
From: "Sonya Pelia" <Sonya.Pelia-AT-gupta.com>
To: seminar-13-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: intro...


My name is Sonya Pelia (pronounced paylia--it's a Lobana Sikh name) 
and I have worked and lived in the Silicon Valley (San Francisco bay 
area) in the US for the last 10 years. I work in the software industry 
(I'm a technical writer). I'm 32 years old and yes I do have a Sikh 
"inder" ending formal name which I dislike. I answer to Soninder only 
in bureaucratic situations.

Was raised in an army family and lived in Kangra, Shimla, Calcutta, 
Jammu, Jammu, Pune, Siliguri, Jalandhar, etc. etc. (By the time I was 
in 10th grade I had been to 6 schools. I know a lot of army brats who 
can better my record.) Since moving here I feel like I've become a 
stick-in-the-mud living in one place but I find other places I've 
visited in the US and Canada have weather I cannot endure, or the 
place too provincial or homogeneous.

I'm happily married to a great Jewish guy and this is my second 
marriage. (I had an arranged marriage which did not work out.)

One of my passions is Maitri (a helpline and referral agency for 
S.Asian battered women). For the last two years I've been very active 
in the organization and spend a lot of my free time doing volunteer 
work.

Am addicted to reading and this combined with my leftist, 
bleeding-heart liberal, feminist leanings (my dad loves this 
description) has me deeply interested in women's issues and especially 
the different approaches in Western and S. Asian feminism. I also love 
to travel (US, Europe, and India) and am a culture vulture.

sonya pelia
sonya.pelia-AT-gupta.com