Category Archives: Features

iForum – Calling Indian Americans to political action

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By Vidya Pradhan

While Indian Americans have been quick to form groups that deal with the social, cultural and economic implications of being in the diaspora, there is one important aspect where we have lagged behind. Politically, our involvement has been mostly relegated to fund-raising for our candidates and making disparate attempts at having our voice heard with respect to Indo-American relations; this, despite the fact that our affluence and education labels us a model minority group in the US.

Started with the mission of encouraging and empowering Indian Americans in politics, iForum (previously known as the Indo-American Council) is a non-partisan organization that attempts to remedy this state of affairs. An inaugural conference in October 2007 invited prominent members of the Indian American community, from elected officials to entertainers, to speak about their experience with politics and offer suggestions on how to participate in the political process. That conference was a huge success with over 600 attendees. 

This year's conference takes advantage of the charged political climate of the primaries and features representatives from the Obama, Clinton and McCain campaigns elaborating on the theme of Indo-US relations. A panel discussion with distinguished guests like Prof. Sumit Ganguly and Ray Vickery is also included.

WNI spoke with Kamil Hasan and Talat Hasan, two of the trustees of iForum. Kamil Hasan, who is a charter Member of TiE, also happens to be a superdelegate to the Democratic convention in August this year. Talat Hasan, who is a Trustee of AIF and a charter member of TiE, is also the Chair, Board of Trustees, of the India Community Center. Continue reading →

Sitaare TV – A local alternative to Showbiz India

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By Vidya Pradhan

For those of us without satellite TV and needing a Bollywood fix on weekends, our only choices have been Showbiz India, anchored by the enterprising Reshma Dordi and to a certain extent, Namaste America, which covers weekly India news and entertainment.

Now a local mother-daughter team has put together a show called Sitaare( star) TV, that airs on Comcast and the Ohlone's network. The show, anchored by Kavita Arora and produced by her mom Poonam Bajaj, puts together Bollywood songs woven around a theme. Last Saturday, I enjoyed watching old Rishi Kapoor songs like "Ek Hasina Thi" and scenes from Bobby. Continue reading →

Book Review – Unaccustomed Earth

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By Vidya Pradhan

Reading a short story is like watching a compartment in a passing train or looking a set of pictures in an album; you get just a snapshot of a larger narrative and if done well, you get a real sense of time and place and character. In Unaccustomed Earth, a collection of short stories and novellas, Jhumpa Lahiri  returns to the metier that won her the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2000. 

While Indians may lay claim to this celebrity, Ms. Lahiri considers herself an American, having been raised here in the US since the age of 3. The Indian American characters in her story are as assimilated; there is only a mild cultural hangover that comes with having grown up in a semi-Indian home environment. Most of her characters are married to Caucasians( I was tempted to re-title the book "Mixed Marriages"!) and are comfortable in their American skins. Continue reading →

A Maneka of Indian group names

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By Gaurav Rastogi

Summer's almost here, and it's time to think of new ways to pass the time. Earlier this year, I read an excellent book called An Exaltation of Larks (Bay Area readers can get it from the Alameda County Library), which is essentially a collection of nouns of multitude. Basically, a collection of objects can be given a unique name, as in "a bevy of beauties", or "a pack of cards". Some of the more unusual ones from the book are

– an intrigue of politicians

– an addition of mathematicians

– an unkindness of ravens

– a shrivel of critics

– a score of bachelors

Now that India has arrived on the world map, it's time that all things desi acquire their right pride of place in the english language. Let's start naming typically desi things, just like that! Here are some to start us all off:

– A Hangal of filmy fathers

As in "I was at the  bollywood dance  party yesterday, and this Hangal of  unclejis was crowded around the front of the hall!"

– An Asthana of laughing yoga practitioners
 no laughing matter, this. As in…"when I reached the laughter yoga class, the Asthana was already bellowing with bellyfull laughs".

– A tashan of dalhi (yep, that's how we pronounce it) teens
As in…"Oy yaar…the other day I had gone to SouthEx with my tashan from college"

 A pampering of desi mothers
As in…"Boss, I went to my Mausi's house, and the place was crowded with a pampering of desi moms".

Ouch…An accent of desh-returning-NRIs (even a "crow luncheon", perhaps?)
As in…"My flight from Frankfurt into Mumbai was booked full with the crow-luncheon of NRIs returning back to India for good"

A clockwork of desi weddings (this one's in irony, in case you're wondering).
As in…On Nov 23, 2003, Delhi hosted a clockwork of weddings – in fact, 14,000 weddings in all in a singleday.

A bevy of biwis
As in…"I was out to lunch at M52 in Greater Kailash, and the place was chock-a-block with a bevy of biwis at their "kitty party"'

On the same notes, what would you call a collection of…
– masala movies
– pooris
– dosas
– desi TV serials (saas-bahu variety, of course)
– Indian sportsmen
– Air India air-hostesses (I'd recommend "an aunt-hill")

Let's see what you've got, readers!

Saffron Tree – What to read to your kids

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By Vidya Pradhan 

Do your kids get excited when they see dark haired children in their picture books? Are you tired of reading Barney and Elmo stories? Wish you could find books that spoke to your children’s multi-ethnic experience? Like the Little Engine that could, a small blog called Saffron Tree takes on the challenge of pointing parents to multicultural gems that help the kids deal with their unique and diverse world.

Started by Praba Ram in October 2006, Saffron Tree immediately took off with enthusiastic support from Meera Sriram of Bay area,  Praba's close friend since childhood.  Saffron Tree’s original idea was to find and review books that had an Indian flavor. The two friends, who live on opposite sides of the American continent, often shared their favorite reads when they became new mothers. They found that they both had trouble finding suitable books written by Indian American authors and delightedly shared their successes when they did. Over time, the blog has drawn membership from a small community of like-minded parent bloggers. The team's passion for children's books has helped Saffron Tree establish itself as a viable resource in the world of "kidlit".

“My older daughter Kirtana was very interested in reading stories from different cultures when,” says Praba. “I was surprised at how many questions a 4-year old had and how often they seemed to be about identity issues and color.” The differences between Praba’s family and her neighbors was accentuated when they moved from L.A. to Tulsa, Oklahoma. (They live in Washington D.C these days.)

“I felt it was important for me to start reading stories to my children that were written by Indians and Indian Americans,” adds Praba. Books by Pooja Makhijani and Uma Krishnaswami were eagerly devoured. “Closet Ghosts" was a favorite as was “Mama’s Saris". "Why should I only read books to her about kids with names like Jennifer and Jessica?”

One of the challenges of reviewing books from India is their limited availability. Today the friends have added other multicultural books like African American and Japanese to their review list. Readers are encouraged to post their own reviews and a weekly newsletter keeps parents up to date with new reviews and releases. Meera and Praba and their team of contributors also tackle books dealing with parenting issues and learning concepts.

The team has also done a successful book drive for a non-profit organization in Chennai. They are looking for ways to make it a regular event and send a steady stream of books to India. Becoming a non-profit organization may be one way of making their dreams possible. Author interviews and book readings are also in the pipeline.

Check out Saffron Tree for a quick guide to good reads for the kids. If you enjoy reading and reviewing kid’s books you could even become a regular contributor to the site.

Ask the grammar expert – Capital letters and family relationships

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Reader Seema asks:

My students mess up in their writing using capital M for Mom and D for dad in all places. How can I teach them (first graders) when to capitalize mom and when not to. How can I make it easy for them?

Geeta Padmanabhan answers: 

Family relationships are capitalised when used as proper names.

I sent a thank-you note to Aunt Sarah, but not to my other aunts.

Here is a present I bought for Mother

.Did you buy a present for your mother?

If the kids are capitalizing “mom”, they can do it in two situations.

1] When they are addressing “mom”. For example:

Mom, are you there?

[2] When they use it as a proper name.

You know who is in that room? It is Mom. Here the kid thinks her mother’s name is Mom. That’s how the kid has always known her.

You will notice there is no ‘whose’ marker (my, your, his, her, their) before the word “Mom”. If the sentence establishes the relationship with that marker, “mom” starts with a lower case letter. Once the relationship is established, she is just my/your/her/his/its “mom”.

Example: “Is that your mom?” 
So if a kid writes:
“Mom makes me do all the work” or “I buy a gift for Mom” we have to accept it as right.
It becomes wrong only when the sentence goes, “My Mom drives me to school.”

Children learn through drill work. Some of the work we have for beginners:
[1] Write your name on the corner of every page of your workbook.
[2] Your city, district
[3] Names of parents, friends
[4] Then move on to sentences. The sentences are simple first and then have proper names.
Example: River Nile flows through Africa.
Exercises could be
[a] Fill in the blanks
[b] Correct the sentences.
[c] This simple letter has mistakes in capitalization. Can you fix it? Kids get familiar with letters as well.
[d] Game of tic-tac-toe for capitalization
[e] Kids pick a capital letter from a box of cards. Then write a word using it as the first letter.
[f] Make it clear there are no capital letters in the middle of a word. Give a list (fish, fiSh). Which one is right?
[g] Building sentences. Break sentences into three parts. Put them in three columns. Ask kids to form sentences using capital letters as clues.

Hope this helps. 

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 →