Yearly Archives: 2008

GiveIndia – donate without doubt

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By Vidya Pradhan

Another year has gone by and despite your best intentions, the barren lines 16 through 19 on Schedule A of your 1040 form are staring back at you accusingly once more. You want to give back; you mean to give back, but doubts over which organization is most deserving, how your money is going to be used, and the potential impact of your offering have led to unwilling procrastination when it comes to charitable donations to India.
Now GiveIndia, a non-profit venture conceived by Venkat Krishnan in December 1999, makes it easy for the charitable impulses that we all have to find a suitable home. Continue reading →

Community Ambassadors graduate

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By Barry Shatzman

Something wasn't right. The woman filled out the forms to start receiving Social Security benefits, and the money began to flow into her bank account. Yet she still was borrowing from friends for her day-to-day expenses.  
 
Not understanding English well, she didn't realize that she could withdraw the money.  
By the time Pragna Dadbhawala, a member of the city's Community Ambassador Program for Seniors (CAPS), stepped in to help, things had gotten even worse for the woman. The Social Security Administration noticed she wasn't using the money, so they cut off her payments altogether.     "She was depressed. A volunteer had helped her fill out form to get the Social Security, and then this happened. I helped her with her appeal. I spoke in her native language," Dadbhawala said.

Continue reading →

The Great Mathematics Experiment: ‘Real World’ Math

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By Enakshi Choudhuri

Do you find yourself staring at your third graders math homework wondering what it is all about, even though you have an advanced degree in mathematics? Does your child jump from topic to topic in math without ever being able to master anything?  Do the words spiraling, lattice multiplication, everyday math or conceptual math seem familiar? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of those questions your child may be part of one of the most lamentable education experiments ever conducted in the past 25 years. An experiment, that has parents, students and teachers up in arms in multiple states across the nation.

Yet, for many years, no one thought to conduct a randomized controlled study to understand whether this new ‘fuzzy’ math actually helps children learn mathematics. That is, no one until Dr. Kaminski and her colleagues at Ohio State University decided to challenge the common practice in many classrooms across the country of teaching mathematical concepts and facts by using “real-world” concrete examples. Continue reading →

Dhrupad in the Jungles: AnantVan Utsav

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By Vidya Pradhan and Ram Badrinathan

Imagine under a clear moonlit night, in the midst of a dense jungle, the silence that pervades the darkness is nudged with an alaap in raag Chandrakauns. As the shrutis (notes) ascend the higher octaves, the jungle opens up to the strains of the tanpura and to the musical expression of Dhrupad. The music is rendered Baithak style with only candle light and unplugged: one of the rare moments in modern India where the sangeetkar (musician), vatavaran (environment) and the shrota (discerning listener) are connected deeply.

There are no barriers such as time limits, poor audio equipment and other contemporary concert baggage. The artiste is free to share his music as long as his spirit and body allows him. Continue reading →

IPL tamasha – The Indian Premier League

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By Geeta Padmanabhan

Traditional cricket: five leisurely days (just days), white flannels, elegant shots, polite applause to copybook boundaries, verbal exchanges well within the parliamentary side of language, compliance to a flesh-and-blood umpire’s decision. Think David Gower. Or the great Sobers.

Radical cricket aka Indian Premier League’s 20T: evening & night shows, designer clothes, shots – over, above, across, beyond anything around the stadium (Elegant? What is it? Copybook? Which one?), verbal spats, fines, suspensions, sledging as an art form, electronic umpires, mind-boggling statistics and analyses, computer graphics, slick promos, glitz, movie glamour, cheerleaders, on-field commentary (yes, Parthiv Patel and De Villiers answered questions even as they were fielding, and controversies one-a-day.

Shock and awe for some. But for a nation thirsting for instant gratification, the IPL tournament is a perfect sun-downer. Continue reading →

Tashan – Yash Raj Films has lost its way

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By Vidya Pradhan

There was a time when movies from Yash Raj Films(YRF) were the most anticipated events of the summer. Tight scripts, sharp dialogues and crisp visuals were wrapped in a tasty confection decorated with chaste but gorgeous white-clad heroines and Swiss locales. YRF has been responsible for mainstream classics like Deewar and Trishul but lately, the prestigious banner seems to have gone into a prolonged slump.

I can almost pinpoint the beginning of the decline. The year was 1995, and young Aditya Chopra has just helmed one of the biggest Bollywood hits of all time, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge. Thrilled by the success of DDLJ, the elder Chopra passed the baton, content to direct the occasional movie under what was now, for all practical purposes, his son’s production house. Continue reading →

A musical meeting of communities – Jashan-e-Baharan

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By Vidya Pradhan 

Given the fact that South Asians in the US have much more in common with each other than they do with their American neighbors, it is rather surprising that Indians and Pakistanis rarely intersect in the social stream. We have different celebrations, different grocery stores and different gatherings.

Gungun Kapoor Padala and Tariq Masood are taking a small step on Friday, May 2nd to bring their communities together in the Jashan-e-Baharan Musical Dhamaka at Chandni Restaurant in Newark, CA.

Gungun, who has been singing since she was a child, came to the US from Canada to work for a public relations firm. She took a musical hiatus when she married till she was asked to sing at a wedding and got rave reviews. While looking for a keyboard player who could accompany her professionally for other wedding shows, she came across Tariq Masood and his wife Shani who were bowled over by her talent.

Now the two are collaborating towards a musical evening in the season of Basant (spring), a season celebrated in both countries. Calling themselves IndoPak Basant, the group has put together an evening of eclectic performances from Gungun and Harjeet Mehndi( Daler’s brother). They plan a 3 hour non-stop performance of a variety of music from the subcontinent – from ghazals  to Bollywood songs to dance numbers. Afghani singer Farhad  Zada will present Rafi songs while kids perform choreographed dances in the background. Poet Noshi Gilani, whose verses have been put to music by artists like Ghulam Ali, will recite some of her work.

Check out this musical ensemble on May 2nd. Tickets are available at major Indian grocery stores and also at Sulekha.com. Here is Gungun singing Tu Meri Zindagi Hai

[mp3]gungun.mp3[/mp3] 

Jashan -e- Baharan 

When:May 2, 2008 at 7 p.m.

Where: Chandni Restaurant, 5748, Mowry School Road, Newark, CA

Tickets:  Presale $40 adults/$15 kids. Door $45/20. Dinner Included. Contact Shani 510-461-8463/ Kanika 510-456-5121/ Tariq Insurance 510-744-6900 WNI readers, mention Water,no ice and get your last minute tickets for just $30.

More info on Gungun can be found here. 

The BIG move back…..

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By Rajeev Minocha

Perhaps the x= x+1 syndrome has been around from the time desis started coming to the US. For the uninitiated, the x is the year in which the desi targets to return back and of course the value on the right side keeps changing and so does the time to return!Of late, however the value on both sides has become a constant and many are actually taking the plunge to return and many more are actively exploring. It is difficult to estimate the actual number of moves that have taken place, but a couple of sources have pegged this as 20,000 to 25,000 in the last 2 years.

The reason for this desire to move back is not hard to identify. Although some may cite personal reasons such as ‘my parents are aging’, ‘want to get the kids to understand the Indian culture before they become too old’, etc. but that is NOT the true reason. Parents have always been aging and the kids have been growing older. Continue reading →

Trends in Hiring in India

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Shreyasi Deb examines the trends faced by employers looking to hire a professional workforce in India. She is the HR manager for a start-up in Mumbai. 

There is a sea change in the way the new generation of Indians is joining the workforce. Though the larger socio-economic changes have affected all age groups of workers, there is a distinct generational difference between those who started working in the last decade or so and are in their thirties and the ones who are entering Indian workplaces now.

Continue reading →

A crusader for street kids in India- ADAA

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By Vidya Pradhan

Street Kids helped by ADAAWhen your car stops at a traffic light in India, invariably a swarm of street kids collects around it. Maybe you are an IT professional. Maybe you are a tourist. Either way, your pockets are jingling with change from your last meal or chai; change that is, for all practical purposes, useless to you.

It is so tempting to hand over that change to one of the raggedy street urchins. Maybe it will buy them their next meal, save them from having to hold their hand out for an hour or two. You get the warm glow that doing a good deed creates; they get a reprieve from their unhappy lives, even if it is for a short while.

What is wrong with this picture? Continue reading →