India Currents - April 2016
7
Before We Visit the Goddess by Chitra Divakaruni Recipes with Spirits by Praba Iyer Elderly Women Choose Their Own Futures by Suraksha Giri ating 30 Years of Excellence Erasing the Accent Erasing the Accent april 2016 • vol. 30, no .1 • www. indiacurrents.com by Geetika Pathania Jain Why does the ABC show Quantico remove cultural markers from our desi girl Priyanka Chopra?
description
This is a free sample of India Currents issue "April 2016" Download full version from: Apple App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id724241349?mt=8&at=1l3v4mh Magazine Description: India Currents is an important facet of America's emerging multicultural identity—a monthly publication devoted to the exploration of the heritage and culture of India as it exists in the United States. You can build your own iPad and Android app at http://presspadapp.com
Transcript of India Currents - April 2016
Before We Visit the Goddessby Chitra Divakaruni
Recipes with Spiritsby Praba Iyer
Elderly Women Choose Their Own Futuresby Suraksha Giri
ating 30 Years of Excellence
Erasing the AccentErasing the Accentapril 2016 • vol. 30 , no .1 • www. indiacurrents.com
by Geetika Pathania Jain
Why does the ABC show Quantico remove cultural markers from our desi girl Priyanka Chopra?
650.488.7325 | [email protected] | www.deleonrealty.com | CalBRE #01903224
Romantic French EstateTransport your guests to the south of France within this magnifi cent custom home of 5,494 sq. ft. (per plans) with 5 bedrooms and 5 full and 2 half bathrooms. Formal gardens join a garage with an additional guest suite with 1 bathroom on these gated grounds of 1.05 acres (per county). Only two years old, this breathtaking construction blends Old World charm with modern luxuries. Hickory fl oors, frieze molding, and intricate wall and ceiling treatments mingle with chandeliers, antique doors, and marble mantelpieces imported from France. The interior includes formal living and dining rooms, four fi replaces, a wine cellar, and a sumptuous kitchen. A family room opens to a columned loggia, while a gorgeous master suite awaits upstairs. The grounds include water-conserving landscaping, while a breezeway connects to a three-car garage and a spacious guest suite. This home features easy access to Holbrook-Palmer Park, Caltrain, and prestigious institutions like Sacred Heart and Menlo School, plus excellent schools like Encinal Elementary (API 930), Hillview Middle (API 950), and Menlo-Atherton High (buyer to verify eligibility).
185 Fair Oaks Lane, Atherton
www.185FairOaks.comOffered at $7,988,000
For video tour & more photos, please visit:
April 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 1
2 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | April 2016
3550 Thomas Road
Santa Clara, CA 95054
Tel: 408-727-0099
Large inventory in stock
Tiles from Spain & Italy
Natural Stone
Quartz & Granite Counter Tops
Kitchen Cabinets & Bathroom Vanities
625 Bayshore Boulevard
San Francisco, CA 94124
Tel: 415-467-8563
www.BestTileSF.com
April 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 3
Rehman Farishta, BrokerCall
These rates based on 10 days lock & for owner occupied, purchase or refinance, single family homes, without cash out or second loan on the subject property. Borrower with minimum 740 FICO and 70% CLTV or below with Escrow/Impound account: Rates as of 03/18/2016. Rates subject to change without notice. Please call to qualify for best rate. CA properties only!
ALL ZERO COST MORTGAGE RATES!
Loan Program RATE APR
Home Advantage Corp& Googain Inc
MBA, Real Estate Broker
NMLS # 378252DRE # 01339085
510-386-1033
MARKET IS HOT. Ask me about a FREE UNDERWRITER APPROVAL to beat all cash buyers in this market with no loan contingencies. Ask me about a PRINCIPLE REDUCTION program. CALL ME
TODAY FOR A APPOINTMENT TO CHECK YOUR RATE! We CAN close LOANS in 15 DAYS!
702 Brown Road, Fremont, CA 94539
ATTENTION FIRST TIME HOME BUYERS! LET ME PAY YOUR CLOSING COST!!
CALL ME
TODAY!
Loan above $200,000 and below $417,0005/1 ARM 2.625% 2.625%7/1 ARM 2.75% 2.75%10/1 ARM 3.00% 3.00%15 Years fixed 2.99% 2.99%20 Years fixed 3.625% 3.625%30 Years fixed 3.625% 3.625%Loan above $417,000 and below 2 Million5/1 ARM 2.75% 2.75%7/1 ARM 2.875% 2.875%10/1 ARM 3.125% 3.125%15 Years fixed 3.00% 3.00%20 Years fixed 3.625% 3.625%30 Years fixed 3.75% 3.75%
• Free pre-approval with Underwriter for a purchase loan in 2 DAYS.• Cash out loan for remodeling or for paying high interest credit cards loans.• NO COST Loans for your second home or for your investment property .• Convert 30 years Fixed loan to a ARM loan for cash flow.• Apply for Line of Equity on your property.
THINKING OF BUYING, SELLING OR REFINANCING?
www.HomesByFarishta.com.
Fax: 510-797-7876
Get the Spelling of Gandhi Right, Please!
Browsing through the display at Ber-lin’s Black Box museum (depicting the impact of the Berlin Wall on the
history of Germany), I happened upon a reference to T. N. Zutshi, an Indian, who traveled to East Berlin in 1960 wearing a placard proclaiming, “The first step toward freedom: Get rid of your fear and speak the truth!” The picture of Zutshi with the crude German signboard slung around his neck standing in front of barbed wire was particularly stark and greatly inspiring, for I’d heard about this man, who considered himself a “citizen of the world,” and had courted arrest and fought for those he had no real affiliation to, other than that they were, like him, humans.
In the picture, Zutshi was standing along with Carl-Wolfgang Holzapfel, both of whom were arrested by the East Ber-lin police for five days, according to the little information bulletin alongside the pictures. Both men were described as fol-lowers of “Ghandi,” and, what’s more, as I skimmed through the texts of other languages, I noticed that our Mahatma’s name was spelt correctly in all but the English translation!
This was not the first time I have come across this misspelling of Gandhi’s name and it has never failed to irk me.
But, standing there in a dimly lit mu-seum passageway in Berlin, peering at the English massacre of Gandhi’s name, it seemed more than a sloppy error.
Surely, there were editors involved? Surely one of them knew the correct spell-ing of one of history’s greats? And then there was the curious behavior of the Germans, who did know what the correct spelling of Gandhi was, but yet had not elected to correct the English version.
So what compels our English speaking brains to substitute a gh for a dh?
In most English dialects, there is a digraph for gh, which is either silent as in “fright,” pronounced as an “f,” as in “cough,” or said with a slight exhalation for the “h” as in “ghost.” So yes, there is a phoneme for gh. And, too, there is a marked difference from the way that phoneme is used and the way Gandhi is pronounced.
Though the common English word “bathing” is a close enough comparison
to the way Gandhi is uttered, there is no English phoneme for dh.
For sure, spelling mistakes are easy to make and so are typos. Much depends on how we phonetically sound them out
To me, learning the spelling of words is a product of reading—a process of captur-ing the spellings of words like images onto my brain.
In fact, Catherine Snow, an expert on language and literacy development in chil-dren, says that “Spelling and reading build and rely on the same mental representation of a word.”
When it comes to foreign names that we rarely come across, careful research and attention must be allocated to get the spelling right. Many proper nouns do not adhere to typical orthographic constructs, like Schwarzenegger or Dmitry Medvedev.
Errors with names that we see or read frequently are rather revealing. I feel com-pelled to make assumptions like perhaps the person hasn’t read anything since Stu-art Little; perhaps he lives buried under broken up bedrock; perhaps his tv remote
is embedded into his hand. When museums, articles, books and
public forums misspell certain famous names it is a consequential error. It can result in reinforcing and perpetuating the mistake.
And it’s pretty egregious that Wik-tionary, UrbanDictionary, Wikiquote and RaceandHistory have entries for “Ghan-di!”
The argument to be made is that those who misspell Gandhi’s name rarely mean him any disrespect. So, perhaps, the Black Box museum wasn’t being disrespectful. It’s a matter of precision and attention to detail: touted German qualities.
Gandhi is quoted as much as Martin Luther King is, but I have not encoun-tered anyone spelling Luther as Lhuter, have you? When we make the effort to spell people’s names right, we show that we care. Take the time and get it right, folks!
Jaya Padmanabhan, Editor
4 | INDIA CURRENTS | West Coast Edition | April 2016
INDIA CURRENTSPERSPECTIVES West Coast Edition
www.indiacurrents.com
Find us on
April 2016 • vol 30 • no 1
3 | EDITORIALGet the Spelling of Gandhi Right, Please!By Jaya Padmanabhan
8 | WORDS AND THINGSAnatomy of a MuggingBy Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan
14 | POLITICSWhat’s Driving Indian Americans for Trump?By Arpit Mehta
24 | PERSPECTIVEWhere Are You From?By Veenu Puri-Vermani
34 | OPINIONLove ya Arranged?By Shachi Patel
40 | COMMENTARYElderly Women Choose Their Own FutureBy Suraksha Giri
46 | PARENTINGMy Beautiful SiriBy Swathi Chettipally
48 | FEATURE12 Steps to Happily Ever AfterBy Eva Mendes
70 | ANALYSISLies, Damn Lies, and StatisticsBy P. Mahadevan
100 | ON INGLISHA Wholesome CongeeBy Kalpana Mohan
102 | THE LAST WORDWhy I Want to Hang Up My PenBy Sarita Sarvate
LIFESTYLE
72 | Cultural Calendar82 | Spiritual Calendar
26 | BOOKSA Review of Before We Visit the GoddessBy Jeanne Fredriksen
29 | RELATIONSHIP DIVA Five Tips for Flirting with ConfidenceBy Jasbina Ahluwalia
36 | TAX TALKWhat Filing Status is Right For You?By Khorshed Alam
66 | DEAR DOCTOR My Father Has Become EmotionalBy Alzak Amlani
68 | MUSICNourishing a Musical Legacy: Pt. Girish ChatterjeeBy Priya Das
90 | HEALTHY LIFEGot Water? An Ayurvedic Guide to Drinking WaterBy Ashok Jethanandani
95 | RECIPESRecipes with SpiritsBy Praba Iyer
DEPARTMENTS6 | Letters to the Editor32 | Popular Articles
WHAT’S CURRENT
30 | Ask a Lawyer31 | Visa Dates
The fast and racy Quantico, ABC’s hit show, has Priyanka Chopra captivating audiences in a riveting role.
By Geetika Pathania Jain
16 | Erasing the Accent
Reviews of Ghayal and Jai Gangaajal
By Aniruddh Chawda
28 | Excerpt
Before We Visit the GoddessBy Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
93 | Films
52 | TravelCharmed by Budapest
By Melanie P. Kumar
April 2016 | West Coast Edition | www.indiacurrents.com | 5
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!!!LOOKING FOR GREAT INVESTMENT PROPERTIES?
RESIDENTIAL & COMMERCIAL
Realtor/ Mortgage Consultant
BRE# 01335971 NMLS# 318926
Loan Program APR1) 5/1 ARM 2.7502) 7/1 ARM 2.9903) 10/1 ARM 3.125 3) 15 yr Fixed 2.7504) 30 yr Fixed 3.490
Loan Program APR1) 5/1 ARM 2.7502) 7/1 ARM 3.0003) 10/1 ARM 3.250 3) 15 yr Fixed 3.2504) 30 yr Fixed 3.500
The conforming rate upto 417K The Jumbo Loans $625K to $3M:
Your credit score, loan amount, appraisal, loan to value. Debt to income impound option, documentation verification may affect your interest rate andqualification. All loan programs are subject to underwriting approval, and rates may vary daily (above quoted rates as of Mar 21, 2016) and are subject tolender’s approval qualification.
Fully indexed by Ethnic
Newswatch
facebook.com/IndiaCurrents
twitter.com/IndiaCurrents
HEAD OFFICE2670 S. White Rd., San Jose, CA 95148
Phone: (408) 324-0488 Email: [email protected]
www.indiacurrents.com
Publisher: Vandana [email protected]
(408) 913-1612Managing Director: Vijay Rajvaidya
[email protected]: Jaya [email protected]
(408) 913-1610Events Editor: Mona [email protected]
(408) 913-1617Social Media Editor: Ritu Marwah
[email protected] Ambassador: Somanjana Chatterjee
[email protected] Manager: Anu Barman
[email protected](408) 913-1615
Advertising [email protected]
(408) 913-1619
Graphic Designer: Nghia VuongCover Design: Nghia Vuong
Cover Photo Credit: ABC
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]
INDIA 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 Road,
Suite 165, San Jose, CA 95148. Periodicals postage paid at San Jose, CA, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMAS-
TER: Send address changes to INDIA CURRENTS, 2670 S. WHITE ROAD, SUITE 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. Ad-vertising copy, logos, and artwork are the sole responsibility
of individual advertisers, not of India Currents.
Copyright © 2016 by India Currents All rights reserved.
