Desiness personified!
The first thing that strikes about Sunny Moza is his stark lack of American accent in his English – “What, how come, after so many years?”, I ask. “That was a conscious decision,” He says, “I speak fluent Hindi, Kashmiri, and Punjabi, and after I moved here, I made sure that...
...
Last night the train came to sudden halt at the subway station. It didn’t start for a while and we heard an announcement that said something is wrong with the electricity and that it might take a while. Unfortunately, even after hearing this my thought was, “What if this is...
Sundar Viswanathan, born in a South Indian family, is an accomplished Saxophone player, who explores the merging of notes in Hindustani and Western music. His journey into this musical exploration was ridden with various obstacles and one of them was of race. When his father moved to Northern Ontario in...
Jairam Hathwar, the winner of the National Spelling Bee says through spellings he learnt about various careers and professions. The word that got him the title – Feldenkrais – the word is used to define a system of aided body movements intended to increase body awareness and ease tension. According...
In today’s world where most of us are ridden with insecurities, Rohini has not only risen beyond that but continues to spread positivity and happiness everywhere she goes! She first rocked Singapore and now is back in Mumbai spreading her “Nasha” with her breakfast show on Radio Nasha at 91.9FM....
Lavanya Rajesh moved to Canada in April 2007. In 2006, Lavanya won the title of Mrs India (FRu) and had over 15 years of experience in the Indian entertainment industry as a model/ actor/ singer /performer. So when she moved to Canada she wanted to share her culture and experience...
What is Yoga? – It is a balanced way of being. Siva is the first Yogi or the Adiyogi, who attained this balance. This is the foremost understanding to be gained before practicing Yoga. If you have ever practiced any form of meditation, especially Vipassana, it is very clearly told...
In this day and age where life style diseases are rampant, it becomes important to take care of one’s health regularly. But which system of medicine should one follow? There are several, but this article focuses on the Ayurvedic system of medicine. Allopathy is a quick-fix medicine, which one should...
Zbigniew Chertlur, fondly known as Bujji, started singing in Jan 2016, inspired by his father Sharath, who noticed his potential for picking up songs. He was singing a Spanish song which he heard on TV just once! His father, who is Telugu, then encouraged his son to pick up long...
Indian dance, yoga and other performing arts from India have self- exploration or realization as their ultimate goal. Dance, yoga, music are all different paths to attaining the same goal. Hindu philosophy, therefore has a pantheon of gods for people to realize that there is no specific way to be...
Having influenced singers of several generations like Elton John, John Lennon, Beyonce, Christina Aguilera and others, Nina Simone now inspires a young, fifteen-year-old, Carnatic vocalist, Sagarika Chidella with her powerful music. Here is Sagarika’s cover: Sagarika chose “Feeling Good” to be her first cover because she feels the song has...
My first introduction to anything Chinese was through its cuisine which is widely available in India – the tasty, oily Indian Chinese. Other than that, most Indians have a strange distant feeling for China. After the war in 1962, I guess the popular saying was the Chinese are expressionless, so...
Picture credit:Wikia.com If you watched the recent episode from Family Guy, “Road to India”, you would be reminded of an India almost fifteen years ago. It was great to see women in call centres wearing half-sarees and sarees, a rare occurrence in most parts of India and definitely not New...
If any of you watch this show called, “Kuch Rang Pyaar ke Aise Bhi” on Sony TV, you will know how “Haldi Dhoodh” or Turmeric milk is not exactly considered of great value. The show is definitely one of the better ones in terms of drama content, but when I...
Arranged marriages and South Asian culture are quite synonymous with each other. Here a couple of videos of Indian and Pakistani non-residents, choosing to have an arranged marriage, while reviewing its positives and negatives. The two videos in this post give context to the concept of arranged marriages. If one...
Clipart from Clipartheaven.com I am even appalled at the question, because Vedas are from India but we don’t chant them anywhere else except at specific rituals or in ‘permissible’ spaces, not like this. There was a time when knowing to chant the slokas from the Vedas were considered very prestigious,...
Image courtesy: World Bank I have come across several South Asians while traveling and also while staying in LA and now in Toronto. Just by the colour of their skins I have felt close to them, because they all look like people back home. On further enquiry it is revealed...
Being white is everyone’s dream, especially of people from South Asia, because from the time one is born, one is check-marked for marriage. Going to go on the usual rampage that points fingers at society that keeps promoting the idea of fairness and whiteness is kind of passe, so let’s...
We desis have a culture of eating freshly cooked food, perhaps other cultures too have that, but since the advent of technology we have got into the habit of storing left-overs. Even though we have left overs, there is always a 20-minute conversation at least on what to have for...
“Being a man” is quite a universal notion that emphasizes on certain ‘masculine’ traits. Here is an interesting discussion between British Asian men who try to understand the idea of Asian masculinity with which they have grown up. It is not uncommon to see a man in South Asia being...
It’s not uncommon to see cattle being hoarded in trucks to take them to different places. We (third world people) are just amazing in terms of possibilities because there aren’t rules for a lot of things and bearing difficulties are common. When I returned to India after being the US...
India’s philosophy is very beautiful if we dig deep. We have all the religions in the world there. Every few kilometres our food, language, and even attires change. We have so much diversity, that if we ever want to become our best selves, it should be there. But as sometimes,...
Something stirred in me when I saw this image posted on Facebook. The sculpture is so powerful, that it depicts exactly how a lot of us feel. In India (single) In the US as a student (single) In Canada (double and new immigrant) Wake up to noises of traffic, TV,...
When can someone say, “You don’t belong here”? In fact can someone say that to another person at all? This fear is always there in the inhabitants’ minds when a prosperous geographical location welcomes new residents. There are several questions that arise, “Will these new people take our jobs?” “Will...
Indian ragas are quite complicated and require years of training before ears can decipher the kind of raga being rendered. It is quite uncommon nowadays to see youngsters flocking to a Carnatic or a Hindustani music concert because it does not appeal to the pop western-influenced audiences. Even for a...
