NRGs on right side of history

The gmail chat status of Shayna C Parekh reads 'On the right side of history' . The phrase aptly goes with her display picture showing Shayna with president-elect of US Barack Obama, whom she met during his campaigning.
Parekh is one of the several second generation Gujaratis here who slogged day and night contributing their bit for shaping the future of the country.
Tirelessly making phone calls, knocking on doors, conducting debates , donating funds, they have done all that and more. So when news of Senator Obama winning key states started pouring in, they too were ecstatic and shared the sentiment with thousands of fellow Americans.
Anhoni Patel, 32, writer and chair of Bay Area chapter of South Asians For Obama (SAFO) as well as national media chair and spokesperson for the group, calls it the happiest day of her life.
During the 'get out the vote week' she was stationed in Ohio, one of the hardest to win states for Obama. "I have worked for two years on this campaign sacrificing my personal and professional life. This is history, we fought to create for future," she says. Commitment to the cause went to the extent that Patel hardly remembers meeting her husband for 10 minutes a day for last two months of the campaign. This is apart from taking leave of absence from work.
It's a similar story for Parag Mehta, 31, director of external communications for Democratic National Committee (DNC). Three years, six months and ten days into the job, he was at it till the verdict was out at polling stations. At times he even got rap singers, jugglers and football players from University of Pittsburgh team to keep the huge student population entertained in long queues so that they stayed back to vote.
Positioned in Pennsylvania, considered mother of battleground states this election, he shares the pride every American felt that evening.
"Senator Obama's victory validates the notion that in America anything is possible. There are no barriers . One big thing that hit me was that for the first time in US history the percentage of youth votes superceded that of senior citizens. I saw college students squatting on ground doing their homework while waiting in queue to vote. At 8 pm, not a single person from 500 in queue budged even after hearing that Obama had won Pennsylvania. They said that their single vote will count. It was worth the effort," he says.
Siddharth Desai, 31, a management consultant at Accenture based out of Atlanta worked extensively with Georgia Obama campaign. He is also a member of Obama's Asian American and Pacific Islander Council.
"I think president-elect Obama in his victory speech rightly said that the job ahead is more challenging than winning the election. It shouldn't stop here, and we all must take the energy we all brought to the campaign and keep it going ," he says.
The memory of being a part of this historic campaign is bound to stay afresh in their minds for years to come.
"The campaign of Barack Obama had energised all generations of south Asian community in the US like nothing else in recent history. It seems like our community is only just now realising the power it can wield over American politics," sums up Parekh, a tax associate with law firm Skadden Arps.