In 2020, two Indian-American middle schoolers from Fremont and Cupertino saw the value in building strong connections within communities and decided to do something about it. In May that year, they formed Active Circle, through which they collaborate with other organizations and organize a variety of events in the Bay Area. Here is their story, in their own words: It All Starts with a Vision As two middle schoolers with a dream of creating positive change in our community, we envisioned a world where everyone felt connected and healthy. We saw an example of such a community as members of Kutc ..read more

Manzilat’s great-grandfather did On most evenings, Manzilat Fatima’s rooftop restaurant in South Kolkata, aptly named Manzilat’s, is packed with food connoisseurs waiting to taste the incredible dishes she prepares for them. But there is another reason foodies climb four flights of stairs to her quaint little eatery. An engraving of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah. Pic Courtesy/ Wikimedia Commmons What Manzilat does, is nothing short of remarkable.  Not only does she tantalize the tastebuds of food lovers with exceptional dishes such as Chicken Lazeez Shami Kebab, Lakhnavi Murgh Biryani, or the fame ..read more

The lost tigers For centuries tigers roamed the deciduous forests of Nauradehi, nestled among the craggy hilltops of the Vindhya ranges in southern Madhya Pradesh. It is unclear whether these wild tigers were lost to poaching. In the sixties, according to one account, you could shoot a tiger legally for 45 rupees. Nauradehi was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1975, and in September 2023 it became the Veerangana Durgavati tiger reserve, named for Rani Durgavati, the queen of Gondi people. Today Nauradehi is one of the largest wildlife sanctuaries in India, part of 5500 km of for ..read more

Fusion not Confusion As soon as our daughter, Simran, announced her engagement to John, my husband and I began planning for the wonderful wedding we were going to host for them. In any Indian family, a daughter’s wedding is a big deal, but in our case, it was an even bigger one. Our own wedding(s) had been such a fiasco that we wanted to make sure our daughter did not have to suffer through anything similar to our multi-ceremonial ordeal. My husband and I got married in 1989 in Delhi. Given that I was from a Punjabi Hindu family and my husband came from a Bihari Muslim family, there was absolu ..read more

Modi a shoo-in? The world’s largest, most complex exercise in democracy began on Friday, as India, –  also the world’s most populous nation – went to the polls to elect 543 representatives to its lower house of Parliament, the Lok Sabha. India has 968 million voters, more than the populations of the United States, the European Union, and Russia combined. Incumbent Prime Minister, Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is expected to win his third consecutive 5-year term, equalling the record of India’s first PM, Jawaharlal Nehru. The elections for the 18th Lok Sabha will be he ..read more

Is U.S. women’s cricket ready for its own league? These are exciting times for American cricket! The ICC U19 men’s (after a gap of 14 years) and women’s (inaugural) teams have both qualified for their World Cup tournaments this year. It is only the third time the men’s team has qualified for the tournament; it is a first for the American eves.  As franchise cricket has taken off worldwide, with T20 tournaments being played around the globe, the U.S. held its first edition of Major League Cricket (MLC) last summer. Women’s cricket too has started to make its presence felt. Women’s tourname ..read more

Recently, Bollywood has churned out several progressive movies touching various issues. Rocky Aur Rani, Jawan, and now 12th Fail, the story of IPS Manoj Sharma from India’s Chambal district in Madhya Pradesh – notorious for bandits – becoming a top officer of the Indian Police Service (IPS), have all been successful. Realistic themes about ordinary people 12th Fail isn’t a typical Bollywood action-packed movie or rom-com that boasts a big A-list Bollywood star cast. Nor does it fit into any of the other popular genres for Hindi movies. It’s a small-budget film about an ordinary person from ve ..read more

A team of archaeologists has unearthed a 5,700-year-old Harappan settlement at Padta Bet in the Kutch region of Gujarat. In 2018, the excavation of a nearby archaeological site at Juna Khatiya, which had over 500 graves, was key to the discovery of the Padta Bet settlement.  When the Juna Khatiya site was excavated, the archaeologists guessed that this must have been a burial site, and set out to find any nearby settlements, where the Harappan people might have lived. They found a settlement site on a nearby hillock called Padta Bet, about a mile away from the mass burial site of Juna Kh ..read more

That elusive cup of perfect chai… As I write this piece, I have a steaming cup of chai within reach. Sadly, it’s smack in the middle of average and awful.  I made it myself. It is better than chai tea latte but let’s not go there. I’ve been trying to make a decent cup of tea for years. It has been more elusive than true love even. And the task only got harder since I moved from Mumbai to California. I suspect it has something to do with the paradox of choice – in the U.S., there are one too many types of milk to choose from and I haven’t found the one best suited for chai yet.  Not t ..read more

In February, a documentary film called Sister Úna Lived a Good Death premiered on PBS Independent Lens. Yes, you read that right – the film follows a nun with stage IV cancer as she lives life on her own terms in her final months. She plans her own funeral, travels to see the people she loves, and maintains a sense of humor about her impending death, spitting a wisecrack a minute in this hour-long documentary.  Community Reporter Tanay Gokhale caught up with Indian-American filmmaker and storyteller Par Parekh, who directed the film. Speaking from his home in Red Hook, Brooklyn, he spoke ..read more