india currents - december 2015

Celebrating 29

Top Ten 2015 Bollywood Filmsby Aniruddh Chawda

The Veena Makerby Anirudh Prabhu

Noushad and the Plum Cakeby Jeomoan Kurian

A Migrant’s Holidaydec’15 - jan’16 • vol. 29 , no .9 • www. indiacurrents.com

by Rajesh C. Oza

A travel adventure that challenges long held beliefs

List with DeLeon Realty

b e f o r e D e c e m b e r 1 5 , 2 0 1 5 f o r t h e

S p r i n g 2 0 1 6 m a r k e t a n d y o u w i l l r e c e i v e :

6 5 0 . 4 8 8 . 7 3 2 5 | i n f o @ d e l e o n r e a l t y . c o m | w w w . d e l e o n r e a l t y . c o m | C a l B R E # 0 1 9 0 3 2 2 4

®

• a $1,000 gift card to The Home Depot.

• 25 hours of handyman time.

• a special pre-marketing plan* for your

home, including:

- exposure on DeLeon Realty’s Spring Showcase website.

- inclusion in DeLeon Realty’s newsletter (65,000 copies).

- inclusion in newspaper inserts (64,500 copies).

• our industry-leading marketing plan, including:

- full-page newspaper ads.

- Google & Facebook ads.

- Chinese newspaper & radio ads.

- 12 or 28-page custom brochures.

- a professional-quality video.

- a 3-D tour.

This is in addition to the complimentary services

we provide to all our sellers, including:

• free property inspection.

• free pest inspection.

• free staging**.

*Pre-marketing for Spring Showcase will roll out the first week of January 2016.* *Includes all fees associated with design, delivery, set-up, de-staging, and the first month of furniture rental. Disclaimer: This offer applies to listings with a signed listing agreement between Nov. 1, 2015 through Dec. 15, 2015. This is a limited-time offer for homes which will be listed to the MLS by May 1, 2016. Past listings and transactions are excluded from this offer.

Dec ‘15 - Jan ‘16 | Northern California | www.indiacurrents.com | 1

2 | INDIA CURRENTS | Northern California Dec ‘15 - Jan ‘16


Tackling ISIS: Use Social Media!

When Subhash Chandra Bose arrived in Germany in 1941, desperately seeking new strate-

gies and alliances to drive the British from India, he was already in the eye of the holocaust.

In early 1942, soon after the infamous Wannsee Conference, held in a Berlin suburb, during which senior Nazi lead-ers decided on their “final solution” of genetic cleansing, Bose had established his Azad Hind Radio (Free India Radio) in Berlin and begun propagating his vision of an organized resistance movement that could release Britain’s tight fisted hold on India. It was in May of 1942 that Bose engineered a meeting with Hitler to enlist Germany’s assistance in India’s struggle for independence.

Let’s be clear, despite British efforts to paint Subhash Chandra Bose as a Ger-man stooge, he was anything but. Bose abhorred and was openly critical of the German Fuehrer’s genocidal policies.

Bose was myopically obsessed with his own vision of delivering freedom and liberty to Indians in India. His contextual lens was the scores put into prison by the British for articulating nationalistic ideas and the thousands who were beaten and subjugated and made to feel less than hu-man in their own country.

Subhash Chandra Bose was willing to make a deal with the man he called the “bada pagal” (Biggest crazy) for the sake of independent India. To that end, Bose, the strategist, believed that he could channel Hitler’s mad ambitions to defeat a com-mon enemy—Britain.

Ultimately not much came of the pro-posed alliance and Bose became a hotly contested, as well as a deeply admired, figure in India’s independence movement. But Bose’s actions in Germany led to this moral consideration: Is it terrible to forge an objectionable alliance for a worthy cause?

Today, we are seeing a fractured focus when it comes to tackling ISIS. Each of the nations at the center of this war has its own agenda and reasons for unsavory alliances. David Von Drehle, in his Time magazine story “Beating Isis,” describes it as a failure to arrive at a consensus.

In short, America does not want to

engage in a ground war from which there can be no out; Turkey wants to annihilate the Kurds who are a thorn in their flesh; The Kurds are fighting ISIS to establish their own Kurdistan; Russia is intent on helping Assad (now that may change with the bombing of the Russian jetliner) in his fight against Syrian rebel groups; Israel sees Iran as a bigger threat than ISIS; France and Belgium do not have the resources; Saudi Arabia is intent on main-taining its ethnic upper hand, especially against Iran; and Iran is more intent on keeping the Saudis in check.

With all these mixed motives in play, it is no wonder that ISIS has been underesti-mated thus far. Their war is not limited to western countries or non-Islamic nations. Theirs is a war against peace, multicultur-alism and co-existence.

ISIS’s single-minded objective is to prey on the vulnerable. They pose more of a threat to Muslims across the world than any one nation. It seems to me, therefore, that nations across the globe

must obsessively pursue the only worthy goal—preventing the conversion of dis-possessed youth to a barbaric ideology. To that end, the process of rehabilitation of a marginalized people must begin with a clear understanding of their history, and their place in the world.

In order to answer the question, how do we morally reconcile the strange bedfel-lows we align with? Would it be all that terrible if the United States, France, Rus-sia, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia banded together to rout a common enemy? It’s been done so often in the past that there seems little need for justification.

President Obama described ISIS as “killers with good social media” skills. Let’s pause there and consider that we, in the west, invented social media. So why are we not better at using a platform that we gave the world?

Jaya Padmanabhan, Editor

4 | INDIA CURRENTS | Northern California Dec ‘15 - Jan ‘16

INDIA CURRENTSNorthern California Edition

www.indiacurrents.com

Find us on

December 2015–January 2016 • vol 29 • no 9

PERSPECTIVES

3 | EDITORIALTackling ISIS: Use Social Media!By Jaya Padmanabhan

8 | FEATUREA Year in Review

15 | WORDS AND THINGSSnoring Shanmugam, and Other Cautionary TalesBy Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan

30 | EDUCATIONSo You’ve Hit the Send Button on Your College App? What Now?By Sarah de Sousa

40 | DESI VOICESBombay BusBy Ravibala Shenoy

44 | PERSPECTIVEThe Lingering Flavors of HomeBy Kamala Thiagarajan

76 | YOUTHThe Veena MakerBy Anirudh Prabhu

108 | ON INGLISHA Palanquin of Wedding BillsBy Kalpana Mohan

110 | THE LAST WORDWe Were Midnight’s DaughtersBy Sarita Sarvate

LIFESTYLE

78 | Cultural Calendar

86 | Spiritual Calendar

26 | BOOK EXCERPTDid Someone Say Second World War?By Raghu Karnad

26 | BOOKS Editor’s Book Shelf—2015 Picks

28 | RELATIONSHIP DIVA Five Qualities Women Find IrresistibleBy Jasbina Ahluwalia

36 | TAX TALKTax Deductible Gifts and DonationsBy Rita Bhayani

92 | HEALTHY LIFEA Diet Plan for Weight Loss By Nishtha Chawla

98 | DEAR DOCTOR How to Shore Up Your Inner ChildBy Alzak Amlani

106 | RECIPESA Holiday Food Canvas: Roasted Sweet Potato Chaat, Veg Momos, Cheese logsBy Praba Iyer

DEPARTMENTS5 | Letters to the Editor9 | Popular Articles

WHAT’S CURRENT

32 | Ask a Lawyer33 | Visa Dates

Encountering mindfulness and mindlessness on a trip to Europe

By Rajesh C. Oza

16 | A Migrant’s Holiday

Flying Daggers, Avenging Widows and Ocean Mo-tion—2015 Top Ten Bollywood Films

By Aniruddh Chawda

59 | CommentaryNoushad and the Plum Cake

By Jeomoan Kurian

67 | Films

74 | Music

2015 Bollywood Music Countdown

By Priya Das


Fully indexed by Ethnic

Newswatch

facebook.com/IndiaCurrents

twitter.com/IndiaCurrents

Now published in three separate editions

HEAD OFFICE2670 S White Rd., Suite 165, San Jose, CA

95148Phone: (408) 324-0488

Fax: (408) 324-0477 Email: [email protected]

www.indiacurrents.com

Publisher: Vandana [email protected]

Managing Director: Vijay [email protected]

Editor: Jaya [email protected]

(408) 324-0488 x102Events Editor: Mona [email protected]

(408) 324-0488 x103Social Media Editor: Ritu Marwah

[email protected] Manager: Anu B

[email protected](408) 324-0488 x 104

Advertising [email protected]

Northern California: (408) 324-0488 x 101Southern California: (714) 523-8788 x 101

Graphic Designer: Nghia Vuong

WASHINGTON, D.C. BUREAU(Managed by IC New Ventures, LLC)

910 17th Street, NW, Ste# 215Washington, D.C. 20006Phone: (202) 709-7010

Fax: (240) 407-4470Associate Publisher: Asif [email protected]

(202) 709-7010

Cover Design: Nghia VuongINDIA CURRENTS® (ISSN 0896-095X) is published monthly (except Dec/Jan, which is a combined issue) for $19.95 per year by India Currents, 2670 S White Rd.,

Suite 165, San Jose, CA 95148. Periodicals postage paid at San Jose, CA, and at additional mailing offices. POST-

MASTER: Send address changes to INDIA CURRENTS, 2670 S White Rd, Ste. 165, SAN JOSE, CA 95148

Information provided is accurate as of the date of going to press; India Currents is not responsible for errors or omis-sions. Opinions expressed are those of individual authors. Advertising copy, logos, and artwork are the sole responsi-

bility of individual advertisers, not of India Currents.

Copyright © 2015 by India Currents All rights reserved.

IND

IA C

UR

RE

NT

S G

RA

PH

ICS

(40

8) 3

24-0

488

Experience, Integrity, Results

Direct: 408-219-9513 [email protected]

Call

Srinadh Kareti today!!

Please call for a confidential consultation!!

ASK ME ABOUT NO POINTS, NO COST REFINANCE AND SAVE $$

BEST RATES IN TOWN, NO POINT, NO COST!!!LOOKING FOR GREAT INVESTMENT PROPERTIES?

RESIDENTIAL & COMMERCIAL

Merry Christmas Happy New Year!

Realtor/ Mortgage Consultant

BRE# 01335971 NMLS# 318926

Loan Program APR1) 5/1 ARM 2.7502) 7/1 ARM 2.8753) 10/1 ARM 3.2503) 15 yr Fixed 2.8754) 30 yr Fixed 3.625

Loan Program APR1) 5/1 ARM 2.7502) 7/1 ARM 2.8753) 10/1 ARM 3.2503) 15 yr Fixed 3.1254) 30 yr Fixed 3.625

The conforming rate upto 417K The Jumbo Loans $625K to $3M:

india currents - december 2015

Documents