India’s Shooting Star: In Talks With Deepika Kumari
With the changed dates of the Tokyo Olympics to July 23, 2021 - August 8, 2021, the livelihood of Olympians is in question. During this month of women's empowerment, let's underscore one of India's most prominent female athletes. Ranked World No. 1 archer at the...
Stay Fabulous At 50 By Staying Fit
Let us face it. In your 50’s your body is not the same as it was in your 20’s and 30’s, as aging changes many things internally. However, exercising after your 50’s can add healthy years to your life, and it is important that you exercise caution and the right thing...
Your Featured Life
A Challenging Yet Rewarding Journey For a Desi Jain in Zambia
(Featured Image: Nirav Shah with his family in Zambia, mid-Peace Corps service) Nirav Shah is a man on a mission. After his father passed away, 11-year-old Nirav and his mother left India and moved to Chicago. His mother wanted to live near two of her sisters, looking...
California: The Cure
Legends of Quintessence – a Science Fiction column with a South Asian twist. Chapter 1 In a tiny house by the outskirts of Fresno, the morning was very quiet. Twenty years ago such a lull would be constantly interrupted by the swoosh, swoosh, swoosh of the windmills....
COVID Slams Ethnic Minorities
As the COVID-19 vaccination program rolls out erratically across the US, research increasingly shows that health inequities underlying who gets infected will also affect who gets vaccinated. In telling statistics reported by the CDC and KFF, people of color are more...
Community
Osmo Announces $2,000 Mini-Grants For US Classrooms This Fall
Palo Alto-based Osmo for Schools, in partnership with Osmo Cares, the charitable arm of award-winning STEAM brand Osmo, announces one-time mini-grants consisting of $2000 worth of Osmo for Schools’ educational technology. A total of 20 in-kind mini-grants will be...
A Shot In the Arm Against COVID: On Record With Gavin Newsom
After one of the most challenging years of our lives, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel—the COVID-19 vaccines are here, and my administration is working to ensure that no community is left behind. The COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective. They are our best...
College Tuition Sparked a Mental Health Crisis
Then the Hefty Hospital Bill Arrived! Despite a lifelong struggle with panic attacks, Divya Singh made a brave move across the world last fall from her home in Mumbai, India. She enrolled at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, to study physics and explore an...
Letters to the Editor: 2/25/2021
Dear India Currents, On skin color... I am not an apologist for the Indians' penchant for fair skin. I merely want to say that different nations/ethnic groups have different criteria for beauty/handsomeness, mostly illogical. Why is a taller man considered more...
Voices
Love, Let Us Look At It Again
Love is supposed to be a generic term but we usually associate it with romantic love. Romantic love is distinguished from the rest of its cohorts because of the specificity of the age and stage of life when it arrives, its overwhelming tidal force when it takes over,...
Mountaineering With a Poetic Interlude
Poetry as Sanctuary – A column where we explore poetry as a means of expression for voices of the South Asian Diaspora. (Featured Image: Lalit Kumar skydiving) I am fascinated with adventure sports and I happen to like poetry. While adventure sports push us out of our...
The Boy Who Loved Vasant Panchami
The year was 1940. It was Magha in the Hindu lunar calendar. The Sun God was in Uttarayana. The Devas were offering their morning prayers. The portal to Heaven was open. On planet Earth, the mortals were stirring to welcome Vasant Panchami. A harvest festival flushed...
What Women in STEM Need
Desi Roots, Global Wings – a monthly column focused on the Indian immigrant experience. As I mark an important milestone in my scientific career, I notice that not much has changed since the time I joined the workforce making my goal of staying in the workforce sound...
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Culture
The Legend of Hanuman: India Currents’ Exclusive Review
I light the lamp and pray to Hanuman,” Aur devta chit na dhariye. Hanumat se hi san sukh kariye.” The phone rings. My grandson is on FaceTime. We are thousands of miles away but through the Legend of Hanuman series, we transcend the space-time continuum and are...
Aki Kumar Fuses Blues With Hindi and Makes It Familiar
Aki Kumar is a blues musician and artist from the Bay Area. Over the years he has developed his identity as a musician and what it means to be Indian in a traditional Blues world. Now as a well-established musician and artist, redefining and breaking the barriers of...
Does the Great Indian Kitchen Lead to the Great Indian Marriage?
While I ran about in the sprawling open courtyard of my mother’s house in a somewhat sleepy little village in rural North Bengal, I remember my granny sitting on a low stool cooking in the dimly-lit kitchen. It was already dusk and a few hours later, a tasty dinner...
Indian Couples Plan Their Own Big Fat Indian Wedding
Indians all over the globe are binge-watching the new Netflix series, The Big Day. The series focuses on big fat Indian weddings in exotic locales and I could not get enough! The Valentine‘s day launch was on point to woo the romantic notions of thousands of couples...
Trending
Each of Us Killers: Vignettes of Immigrant and Indian Lives
Jenny Bhatt’s debut collection of stories, Each of Us Killers brings us a sampling of experiences of a writer who has lived and worked in India, the United Kingdom, Germany, and now resides in a suburb of Dallas. Bhatt has worked as a writer, literary critic, and...
Choice and Democracy: Musings on Elections 2020
It is official. Joe Biden is the 46th man to occupy the Oval Office. Well, at least as official as it can get given the incumbent’s congenital aversion to concede. My first reaction to this victory was of course one of elation. Elation at the thought that policy by...
Ram-Rajya in America? Yes, You Heard it Right!
In October, I performed Kathak in celebrations to commemorate Dussehra, the Hindu festival that celebrates the victory of Ram over Ravan, Durga over Mahishasur, Good over Evil. As did all other aspects of our lives this year, these performances were moved online....
Insider to Outsider: Reversing the Trend in Hindu Discourse
This article is part of the opinion column – Beyond Occident – where we explore a native perspective on the Indian diaspora. Late last month, days before the US presidential elections, a prominent media outlet published an article on Indian and Hindu-American...
This Diwali, We All Could Use Some Light
From Surabhi’s Notepad – A column that brings us personal essays and stories, frivolous and serious, inspired by real-life events and encounters of navigating the world as a young, Indian woman living outside India. Dressed in an orange salwar kameez, donning a small...
Tirunangai Women ARE Women, J.K. Rowling
(Featured Image: Swetha, a transwoman and Founder of the nonprofit Born 2 Win, with actor Kamal Haasan, a supporter) Sarah McBride, Democratic candidate from Delaware, will become the first transgender state senator in the U.S. All over the world, including in India,...
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The Road to College Admissions
Lost for where to start your journey to attending a top U.S. college? Wondering if you're behind your peers? Confused about what step comes next? We have a map to help you find your way. There are steps you can take all four years of high school to improve your...
Register For Chabot College’s Spring Semester Today
Apply today for Spring Classes at Chabot College! Looking to train for a new job, transfer to a four-year university, or learn a new trade? Chabot College offers over 20 student and academic support programs to help you reach your educational and career goals. Chabot...
Opinion
Nose In Books, Feet In Socks: On Dr. Seuss
Growing up in the misty mountain valleys of South India, I relished every moment spent with my nose in books and my feet in socks. Nestled in the range of Nilgiri hills, in a place too small to merit a dot on the map, is a place I was lucky enough to call home when I...
Should Biden Steer More Left Given the Vocal Voices In the Democratic Party?
Forum – A column where you get eyes on both sides of a hot button issue. Should Biden Steer More Left Given the Vocal Voices In the Democratic Party? Yes! In a recent statement, GM pledged to stop selling Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles by 2035. This is not much...
Iconoclasm Is an Expression of Fanaticism
This article is part of the opinion column – Beyond Occident – where we explore a native perspective on the Indian diaspora. After he was killed by an assassin’s bullets almost 73 years ago on a cold January day in Delhi, the locals found a decapitated statue of...
It’s Just a Little Cancer. No Need to Make a Fuss.
Monday, December 1, 1967, 4:21 AM. Bombayites were rudely awoken from their slumbers as the world around them shook. It was the devastating Koyna earthquake. My mother recalled being panicked at the steel “Godrej” cupboards rattling together. “Aiyayo, what is...
Health & Wellness
Stay Fabulous At 50 By Staying Fit
Let us face it. In your 50’s your body is not the same as it was in your 20’s and 30’s, as aging changes many things internally. However, exercising after your 50’s can add healthy years to your life, and it is important that you exercise caution and the right thing...
Should South Asians Give Up Dairy?
I was raised in India as a vegetarian and our family's diet excluded meat. We did consume a lot of dairy products, mostly milk, yogurt and ghee, and eggs if they happened to be in store-bought cakes. When I entered my teens, my skin broke out into really bad cystic...
Why Should You and I Care About Palliative Care?
Sukham Blog – A monthly column focused on South Asian health and wellbeing. My wife’s oncologist recommended a palliative-care consultation during one of her checkups. This was the first time we heard about it and my wife, subsequently, received beneficial palliative...
Eat Yourself To Health
Viruses are smart, they are masters of survival. They can hijack our body’s own mechanisms to live and multiply. During a productive infection, viruses hijack, multiply and destroy the cell that they call home for a very short time. Bacteria and parasites have also...
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Lifestyle
‘I Want My Work to Encourage People to Stop & Think’ Says Michelle Poonawalla
(Featured Image: Michelle Poonwalla and Circle of Life Artwork) Artist, businesswoman, philanthropist, and socialite Michelle Poonawalla recently showcased a series of her new artworks at the Tao Art Gallery's exhibition The Tangible Imaginative for the Mumbai Gallery...
Youth
Love. Come. Go Away.
Love come, go away like curtains you fall back and forward in the golden hour of the darker lights hidden, open, quiet breathe, you’re loud, soft to touch hold me against your skin if only our eyes linger blue, your footsteps reside and awake like waves between our...
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From the Publisher
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