Compiled by Rohini Mohan 

Benazir Bhutto died a violent and tragic death earlier this week. Educated at Harvard and Oxford, Bhutto was a liberal leader and strong voice for democracy. Her grandfather was from Haryana and she was a keen proponent of bettering relations between India and Pakistan. Which makes this tragedy even more significant at a time when these ties truly need strengthening. Here are some snippets relevant to Benazir and India from news broadcasts around the world. More »

By Rohini Mohan 

There are some incredible people who have supreme confidence in themselves. They are totally secure in their abilities and require no accolades from those around them. They feel no need to promote themselves. They quietly let their work do the talking. And they always deliver. Aamir Khan is from that genre. Taare Zamin Par, Aamir’s first directorial venture shines as brightly as Lagaan and Rang De Basanti. Easily one of the best films of the year, it is simply not to be missed. It will touch you to the core. More »

By Vidya Pradhan

For the holiday season, WNI picks movies that can be watched with the entire family as you gather around the big-screen plasma TV with cups of chai and plates of mithai. In no particular order are the following More »

By Rohini Mohan 

My favorite thing to do in my pre-teen and teen years was to curl up on a sofa, with a nice, juicy, comfort oozing book. The actual reading of the book was the climax of the whole experience, generally preceded by a long drawn out ceremony, starting with a trip to either the second hand book store if my parents were feeling particularly generous or nine cases out of ten, to the library where I spent most of my meager allowance. Next would follow the deliciously painstaking process of locating just the book I wanted to read which itself could take an hour or more. There would be much conferring with the store keeper/ librarian, I would change my mind at least 15 times, and when I finally picked the chosen book, no-one was happier or more anxious to get started than me. More »

By Asha Chandra

Like so many young Indians at the time, my parents immigrated to the US in the 1960s to further their education and pursue the American dream. For the past 40+ years, they have worked and raised their family here. Now, as much as I try to deny it, they are reaching their senior years. Even though my parents have essentially “grown up” in the US, and today they are completely independent, and have created a savings net, live a very comfortable life, and in general, understand the American “systems and culture”, it will be inevitable that one day, there will be so many questions that they (and we), as adult children, will need to ask ourselves. Will they be able to live in their current homes? Will they need additional care? Will they have health insurance? For how long will they be able to continue to drive? And who can help us find out about the resources and services that exist in our local community to help make their lives comfortable as they become older? More »

By Vidya Pradhan

Let’s face it..to many Indians, exercise for exercise’s sake is often considered a waste of time. After all, our agrarian ancestors depended on hard work in the fields and back-breaking efforts in maintaining the household to work off the lassi and ghee. Middle class homes featured simple, low calorie food, rich in seasonal vegetables and local grain. Options for eating out were limited to the local dhaba or udipi joint.

Today, our environment has had an explosion of food choices, from processed to fast food, but alas, our mindset has remained the same; which may explain why the South Asian Heart Center in El Camino Hospital is chock-a-block with young Indians with heart disease.

Shobha Reddy, fitness guru from Mountain View, is doing her bit to shatter this mindset and get us sedentary Indians off our couches and on to the gym floor. Once a portfolio manager with a mutual fund company in Mountain View, Shobha traded in stocks and bonds till a meeting with a personal trainer in 1998 made her focus on an investment in the health of the body rather than the health of her client’s finances.

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By Vidya Pradhan

Zee TV’s Sa Re Ga Ma Pa is widely regarded as the best singing reality show on Indian television. Previous finalists like Shreya Ghoshal and Sunidhi Chauhan have successfully broken into the close ranks of the Bollywood music industry to make a name for themselves. Though their career track can be considered exceptional, there’s no denying that the show propels its contestants to their 15 minutes of fame in front of the best known music directors in the industry.

The finalists from this year’s competition were in town recently to perform at the Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2007 show.  WNI caught up with a couple of the performers and quizzed them on life during and after Sa Re Ga Ma Pa. More »

WNI reader Vikram sends in his review of the show's Bay Area performance.

Top contestants of Zee TV’s hugely popular music reality show Sa re ga ma pa Challenge 2007 were on stage at the Oracle Arena in Oakland on December 8th as part of a world tour organized by Safdar Hussain and sponsored by Mehta Entertainment in the Bay Area.  The 3- hour concert allowed Sa re ga ma pa aficionados an opportunity to watch their favorite contestants up close and live in action. 

The show featured individual performances by contestants later followed by a brief group performance. Harpreet from Vishal-Shekhar’s  Hit-it Gharana was the first to perform.  He kicked the show off with an appetizing rendition of ‘Channa Ve ghar aaja ve’, and followed it up with an energetic Aaj Mera Jee Kardaa from Monsoon wedding and Soni De Nakhre from the latest Govinda flick, ‘Partner’.  Harpreet established an immediate connection with the audiences and brought a lot of energy to his performance.  He was a very different singer from the shy and subdued Harpreet from the TV show. 

Harpreet’s performance was followed by those of Sumedha Karmahe, Junaid Sheikh, Mussarrat Abbas, and Mouli.  Sumedha and Junaid were unimpressive, but Mussarrat and Mouli held their own. Mussarrat struck a chord with the audiences with his trademark Sufi-style rendition of Rahat Fateh Ali’s and Himesh Reshammiya’s numbers.   In an organic reponse to Mussarrat’s singing of ‘Jiya Dhadak’, audiences started waving their cell phones in rhythm –creating a moving pattern of LCD backlights in the darkened auditorium.  Mouli impressed with her ‘by-now-famous’ performance of Maiyya Maiyya from the movie, Guru. 

The highlight of the show was Diwakar, the Runner up from 2006’s Saregamapa Little Champs series.  His graduation into the ‘big’ league was quite evident through his performance.  His soulful ‘Tadap Tadap ke is dil’ from Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam was stunningly mature. He followed it up with Tu hi re from ‘Bombay’, and Chand Sifarish from Fanaa.  He had the audiences on their toes for his ‘Chappa Chappa’ from Maachis.Raja Hasan and Aneek Dhar followed Diwakar, and were received by the audiences with wild cheering.

Raja made a rousing entry with Kailash Kher’s ‘Allah Ke bande’, followed by ‘Teri’ Deewani’, another Kher number that had Raja stamped all over it.  Aneek, the winner of the TV contest, was the last to come on stage. He performed ‘Main agar kahoon’, a Sonu Nigam song from the latest blockbuster, OSO.   There was a group performance towards the end that degenerated into chaotic free-form singing that was both muddled and out of rhythm. 

For many people, the biggest disappointment was the absence of Amanat and Poonam on stage.  Their absence left many in the audiences feeling disgruntled and cheated.  One spectator went hoarse yelling Amanat’s name. 

Overall, the individual performances were enjoyable, but the quality of singing was much below what we saw on the actual TV show. 
 

By Rohini Mohan 

I suppose the concept is different. It’s like reading a book of short stories as opposed to a full length novel. Dus Kahaaniyaan is 10 different short films which have no connection to each other, each a little self contained feature on its own with its own cast of actors and directors. More »

By Salil Chaturvedi

I’ve had this itching allergy for about seven years now. My eyes swell up and get all puffy and raw-like and the skin around the eyes itches in a strange way from the inside. A skin specialist told me to think about how I spend my day, what I eat, what I use, what I wear, etc. So, my plan was simple, list the things that I use on a daily basis and try and isolate the problem ingredient. How do I spend my day? I begin by brushing my teeth with the extra whitener toothpaste. I picked up my favourite toothpaste and listed the ingredients.

Colgate Advanced Whitener: Silica Sorbitol, Glycerine, Sodium fluoride.

I decided to go after sodium fluoride and googled it on the laptop. I found that kidneys can eliminate only about 50% of the daily fluoride intake. The rest gets absorbed in calcified tissues, like bones and teeth. For the average individual, a retention of 2mg/day would result in crippling skeletal fluorosis after 40 years. Small children, even if pea-size amount is used, will still absorb the same, more if the child is younger and has less swallowing control skills. Half a tube of toothpaste can kill a child. So my toothpaste was safe. Sodium Fluoride didn’t cause any allergies. And now I knew how to pop off irritating children. Not bad, for ten-minute’s worth of research. I scratched my eyes a bit and moved on. More »