13 year old Vivek Ramakrishna moved to the Bay Area from Madison, Wisconsin last summer. Leaving your friends, your home, your school, your comfort zone and move half way across the country can definitely cast a cloud over your life. But Vivek soon discovered the silver lining – that the Bay Area is a veritable paradise for the table tennis buff.Set in the 1970’s, the Namesake chronicles the experience of early Indian immigrants to this country and their children and how each generation deals with the challenges of assimilation differently.
By Vidya Pradhan
Imagine your backyard as a canvas. The flowers and the greenery provide the color while the architectural details form the composition of the painting. If you have a vision for your garden and want help transforming it into a work of art, then Laxmi Natarajan of Bagicha is the artist for you.
By Rohini Mohan
A two-part series on adoption
From diaperdom to grandchildren, from soccer practice to graduation, from the tooth fairy to teenage, parenthood is one wondrous, heady, incredible journey. Sure there are tense moments and crazy moments and hectic ones and frustrating ones. I have felt more than once that I am just not equal to the job. But I do know for a fact that I never want to get off this treadmill, because raising a kid is just so worth it. There are those who will not have kids which is a matter of choice. But where do you turn when you want to have kids and cannot?
The after school Hindi program is run by the US Hindi Association (USHA), the brainchild of Prerana Vaidya and Ruchita Parat.
Growing up in India, dancing Bharathanatyam was part of my life and spirit. At first it was forced on me by my mom. After several teachers and my mom’s failed attempts at motivating me to be the famous dancer that she could never be, we hit the jackpot with my aunt.
I learned early on that there were no special privileges for being a ‘niece’. I had to call her aunty or ‘ma’am’ like the rest and there was a line of reverence that you never crossed. Well, never say never!
Travel tip No. 1. If vacationing in winter, make sure your connections are not through blizzard prone areas. I learnt this the hard way when we missed our connecting flight through Denver the week of the big snowstorm. After scrambling around for alternate flights we finally found some tickets on Southwest 2 days later. Of course we did get snowed by the full price fares. Sigh! Anniversary and birthday presents are on indefinite hold now.
San Antonio is such a little known holiday destination among my friends and acquaintances that everyone I told about it assumed we were visiting relatives. But the idea came from some website which assured us that kids would have plenty to keep them entertained. And raising a couple of Gen Z kids with low attention spans and boredom thresholds made that the most important criterion.
During that rare overseas trip, we would be dazzled by the glitz, glitter and the profusion of material wonders that were strewn temptingly in our paths. We would assiduously convert all prices to Indian rupees and cluck in horror on discovering that the tiny purse cost the same as a two bed room apartment in Bombay. We would return to India bemoaning the lack of choice and the poor quality of the stuff in our shops. The kids would show off the Mickey Mouse mechanical pencil to all the classmates and the ladies would flaunt the fake Gucci bag at every function.
In the Bay Area, Sujit Saraf is best known as the founder, director and creative head of the Indian theatre company Naatak which recently celebrated its 25th production. But Sujit also works full time at Lockheed Martin as a research scientist and has recently published a novel. He has also directed feature films.
An author, a playwright , a director and a scientist… Sujit Saraf wears many hats and wears them all well.
I met him for lunch at Dee Dee’s, a no-frills place in Mountain that is authentically Indian, not unlike the subject of my interview.
We had just an hour so I jumped right to it. My first question was, “Who do you see yourself as – a scientist an artist or a director?”
His unassuming reply was, “I’m a writer. ‘Artist’ is a pompous term. And my directorial skills would not stand scrutiny when set beside the skills of others known for that. However, I believe I compete with distinction in the art of writing”. His novel “The Peacock Throne” has just been picked up by Sceptre for distribution in Europe and India.
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By Vidya Pradhan
The scene is now a pretty familiar one in the Bay Area. A group of would-be Bollywood dancers waits patiently as the instructor performs the move of a well know Hindi film song. Then the dancers attempt to mimic the instructor with varying degrees of success. What’s different? All the dancers are between 60 and 75 years old and the best of them perform in a dancing troupe known as ‘Jollywood’!
Water, No Ice 