Kashyap Deorah, IITian and Returning Indian Entrepreneur,  with a yen for start ups from his college days through to his sojourn in Silicon Valley is now back to his roots in hometown, Bombay. Here are his views on 'Maximum City - Bombay Lost and Found', a 542 page tome by New York based journalist and writer, Suketu Mehta. More »

By Gaurav Rastogi

Yada Yada, desi style
In Chapter 4, Krishna describes the lineal tradition by which the secret knowledge has been passed along. Arjuna protests the logical error in this statement (see opening lines of the previous blog entry). In reply, Krishna describes the concept of multiple births, and why he keeps coming back.

whenever there is a decline of dharma, bhaarata,
an ascendency of adharma, then myself I manifest
for the deliverance of the good and for the destruction of the sinners
in order to establish dharma, I come from age to age

Tough job, but someone’s gotta do it! More »

By Rohini Mohan

Are you one of those people who dream of being on a floating Bohemia, your every need catered to, while you lie on your deck chair in the sun, sipping your margarita, with miles of deep blue ocean to feast your eyes on? Or do you belong to the category that develops a rash at the thought of being confined to a ship for days on end, herded together with a loud, milling crowd, your only respite being unbearably touristy, over-commercialized ports of call? My husband used to be a die hard category 2, but after a 5 day tryst with a Carnival Cruise vacation, he is slowly inching his way into category 1 - well, kinda…

More »

By Rohini Mohan 

Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and pie. Warm toasty fires, mom’s big dinner table, delicious aromas, family fun, great conversation and good times. That’s what this yearly American holiday is all about. Everyone knows that this tradition started with the Pilgrim Fathers, who gave thanks for the harvest they reaped after a harsh winter. Their original feast was not elaborate, but the thanks were loaded with gratitude, because a bountiful fall harvest meant food on the table for the next few months. More »

By Vidya Pradhan

“Why don’t we help our own people?” asks Amrita Lokre, who along with friends organizes bone marrow drives in the Bay Area. If you live in this community, chances are that you have received an email from this bunch of committed people about a drive somewhere close to you.

The big push to get Indians to join the bone marrow registry started when friends of Vinay Chakravarty and Sameer Bhatia started an online campaign to encourage members of the community to come and get typed for a possible match. Both Vinay and Sameer suffer from Acute Myelogenous Leukemia( AML) a cancer of the blood which is treated with a transfusion of healthy cells from a matching donor.

For a Caucasian, the chances of getting a hit from the nationwide registry are 1 in 15 whereas an Indian American has a 1 in 20,000 chance of finding a match. Given our population in the US, the numbers are already against us (there is no registry in India yet and the few data that are available are not connected to the registry here).

What stops us from becoming donors? WNI attempts to demystify the process of bone marrow donation to address the concerns typical donors have. More »

By Vidya Pradhan

It has always been a puzzle why American schools cannot replicate the dominance and the reputation for excellence demonstrated by American universities. US students have always performed rather shamefully compared to students from other countries. In an international math assessment of 15 year olds in 2003, American students came 29th out of 34 places. The outrage reports like these have generated was the driving motivator for the No Child Left Behind(NCLB) act, President Bush’s accountability-laden education policy unveiled just a year after he took office.

Linda Perlstein, who has been covering the education beat for the Washington Post for several years, decided to spend a year with an elementary school in Maryland to study the impact of NCLB on the school system. What emerges is a gripping tale of heroism, sacrifice and uncommon bravery on the part of the principal, teachers and staff of Tyler Elementary as they attempt to deal with the new standards and punitive threats that NCLB brings in its wake. More »

Water No Ice is in the business of good writing. It is also in the business of expressing an opinion. We have had many young writers communicate their views through Water No Ice in the last months; Arvind Srinivasan, Samyukta Suresh, Aparna Balakrishnan, Shalini Ramachandran, Shana Dhillon, Divya Valluri…

The very first of our literary events, WNI is kicking off its annual essay writing contest for pre teens and teens. Here are the details;

Category 1:
For students in Grades 5, 6, 7, 8
Topic: If I were President of America

Category 2:
For students in Grades 9,10,11,12
Topic: Is America ready for a minority president?

Word limit: 1000 words

1st prize: Gift Coupons/ books of a total value of $50
2nd prize: Gift Coupons/ books of a total value of $30
3rd prize: Gift Coupons/ books of a total value of $20

Each category will be judged separately
There is no entry fee, but entries must reach us by January 15 2008 to be included in the contest

You can upload your entry directly on this website using our feedback form or email it to rohini at waternoice.com or vidya at waternoice.com ( please substitute the relevant character to make the email address work). Online and emailed entries must have all the details required in the entry form below. For those opting to send entries by snail mail, please make sure you include the entry form details. Here is the address for the mail entries. Entries by mail must be postmarked no later than January 13, 2008.

Water No Ice
34972 Newark Boulevard #164
Newark
CA 94560

Entrants must be residents of Continental USA (Hawaii and Alaska are excluded) and must be studying in the grades specified. The Judges’ decision is final.
All winning entries will be published on Water No IceSo sharpen your pencils and your imaginations and get started. What do you have to lose?

Water No Ice is interested in the writer in you…

WATER NO ICE ANNUAL ESSAY WRITING CONTEST ENTRY FORM

NAME:

DATE OF BIRTH:

SCHOOL( with phone number):

GRADE:

FULL ADDRESS WITH ZIP CODE:

EMAIL ADDRESS:

PHONE NUMBER (1):

PHONE NUMBER (2):

ESSAY TOPIC:
TO BE FILLED IN BY PARENT/GUARDIAN:

I CERTIFY THAT MY CHILD/WARD ___________(SPECIFY NAME) WHO IS PARTICPATING IN THIS CONTEST IS A RESIDENT OF USA (EXCLUDING HAWAII & ALASKA) AND IS CURRENTLY A STUDENT IN GRADE ________

NAME OF PARENT/GUARDIAN:

SIGNATURE :

By Rohini Mohan 

Boy, Sanjay Leela Bhansali really has it in for Dostoevsky. Either that, or ‘Black’ sucked all the creativity out of him.  More »

By Vidya Pradhan

For a parody to work, everyone in the film must play it absolutely seriously.

And this is the basic problem with Om Shanti Om. Like a couple of other over-hyped movies I can think of, (Ocean’s Twelve and Jhoom Barabar Jhoom come to mind), if the cast and crew look like they are having too much fun, the movie-goers begin to feel it is at their expense; they tend to scratching  their collective heads and wondering if they’re also supposed to be in on the joke.

As a lover of mainstream Bollywood, I found OSO incredibly frustrating at times. More »

By Rohini Mohan 

1980 – 1990; my wonder years. No rat race, no decisions to make, no fires to put out. Oh it was fun growing up in the 80s. So many defining moments in history that we were a part of.  The Berlin wall, Rajiv Gandhi, Reagonomics, Ravi Shastri of the ‘Chapatti Shot’ fame with his six 6’s in the over and the Audi, Boris & Steffi, Paul Simon’s  Graceland. More »