No matter how familiar the beats of dhaak, the fragrance of shiuli flowers (Nyctanthes arbor–tristis), the taste of festive food, the ambience of festive evenings, the feeling of sacred flower offering, the significance of Sandhi Puja and the joy of sindur khela are to those living abroad, they strongly feel drawn to home this time of the year. They brave the odds to come home and go on a celebration spree in the neighborhoods where they have grown up. Undeniably, Durga Puja is not just an annual festival but a homecoming occasion for NRI Bengalis. So strong is their umbilical cord with the roots that many Bengalis in the Indian American community book last-minute flights to India out of an overwhelming urge to get together with the family, friends, and relatives back home during the festival.

On the other hand, there are those who have never been away from home during Durga Puja. They wonder how Durga Puja is celebrated abroad, how culturally different the celebration is, how authentic the rituals are, how joyous the festivity is, if young Bengali NRIs flaunt traditional fashion, etc. A women-only group from the Indian community in the San Francisco Bay Area has the answer to all these. Ena Sarkar, the founder and CEO of WomenNow TV, a trend-setting South Asian talk show in the Bay Area, shares nitty-gritty of their all-women Durga Puja celebration in Santa Clara with Sourav Agarwal, the Editor of Travel Beats, a leading Indian American community portal. 

Initiated in 2015 by the WomenNow TV team, the Santa Clara Durga Utsav is one of the best Durga Puja events in California. The women-only group is prepared with a better and greater plan for the celebration which has become one of the most awaited Indian events in the Bay Area. Ena Sarkar and her team of women from different walks of life pull all stops to make various arrangements for four days of the festival from buying the idol to shopping for puja-special things to organizing cultural functions to making culinary offerings for the Goddess to distributing Prasad to managing the gathering of visitors in the marquee.

WomenNow TV founder & CEO Ena Sarkar at Santa Clara Durga Utsav

What made the WomenNow TV team come forward to organize Durga Puja in the San Francisco Bay Area was the idea of celebrating the collective power of ‘women now’ (today’s women) that they represent. It coincided with the tradition of invoking Goddess Durga or Shakti to bless her children with the power of good over evil. In addition, a cultural platform was needed for the Bay Area Indians to gather under one roof and interact with each other.

“The Santa Clara Durga Utsav is an interface between the divine purpose of this festival and the philosophy of WomenNow. We also wanted to provide a cultural platform for the Bay Area Indians to gather under one roof and interact with each other. Ours is not just a women-only celebration but a community get-together,” Ena Sarkar said.

WomenNow TV’s celebration of Durga Puja is an absolutely different picture of what appears a male-dominated activity in the patriarchal society of India. In aristocratic households from urban India to rural India, women prepare for the celebration and make arrangements for ceremonies on each day of the festivity behind the curtain, while menfolk gear up with their tasks and activities in the outer world. However, the scenario is changing for women among the urban aristocrats of Bengal.

In contrast to it, WomenNow’s Santa Clara Durga Utsav is a women-only celebration in terms of preparation and arrangement. Needless to say, Durga Puja is a mammoth celebration which entails a lot of doing from fund collection to venue management to cultural performance to immersion of idols. However, the WomenNow team has proven that nothing is impossible for the collective power of women by overcoming all initial difficulties and challenges including selection of the venue. Since the celebration is not limited to worshiping but comprises feasting and cultural functions, they required a venue with ample space to accommodate a considerable crowd of visitors during certain rituals like dhunuchi dance.

The Santa Clara Durga Utsav in the Bay Area is no exception to such usual contrasts as India vs USA, East vs West, the Oriental vs the Occidental, and Indians vs Indian Americans which often come up in regular discussions, debates and conversations. Ena Sarkar unhesitatingly bared her mind regarding if there is any cultural difference between Durga Puja celebration in USA and that in India.

“Definitely, there is. You can never compare the way Bengal celebrates Durga Puja to anywhere else in the world. What a grand, fabulous, joyous, incredible celebration in Bengal! But we try to get as close to home as we can by dressing traditionally, having the traditional food and observing the age-old rituals during the festival no matter how many thousands of miles we are away from Kolkata. There is no dearth of enthusiasm about the celebration in the Bay Area Indian community.”

When Ena talked about the boundless enthusiasm of Bengalis in the Bay Area, we at Travel Beats felt curious to know if young Indian Americans who were born in USA feel the same about Durga Puja and connect with it the same way as India-born Bengalis or Bengalis from India do in America.

Ena Sarkar said in no uncertain terms, “It is somewhat difficult for young Indians in USA to feel connect with the festival as they have been growing up in a country where there are multiple cultures and religions existing side by side. They have not yet understood the value of surrender to a single divine power – the essence of Hinduism. However, children certainly visit the puja venue with their parents and enjoy the festivities. They may not groove to the beats of dhaak but they enjoy the festive music.”

On a closing note, Ena Sarkar acknowledged that the Santa Clara Durga Utsav would not have been a grand celebration in the Bay Area without her WomenNow team and that it has become popular with their American friends as well.

This article is part of the series, Indian Life in America, by Travel Beats, a leading community portal for Indian Diaspora. Travel Beats is a subsidiary of IndianEagle.com that thousands of Indians in USA have chosen as their reliable travel-booking partner for international trips. Subscribe to our newsletter for community stories, US-India travel news, visa and immigration updates.

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Let’s congratulate Indian American Sakshi Satpathy this Diwali for having received the 2018 National Gold Award from Girl Scouts of the United States. The way she took the bull by the horns in fighting against and educating people on such social evils as child marriage and human trafficking catapulted her to global limelight. She is among the 10 young women shortlisted for the National Gold Award 2018.

Sakshi Satpathy, a desi teenager from Palo Alto in California came out of the cocoon of her age and took up the issue of child marriage to combat. She initiated Project Greet – Girl Rights: Engage, Empower, Train. To execute the project across a great length and reach out to an international audience, she conceptualized and made documentary films on some heart-wrenching cases of human trafficking and child marriage.

The 2018 National Gold Award recipient, Sakshi Satpathy not only made documentaries but also created illustrative training programs to make people aware of how child marriage and human trafficking for sex slavery are destroying the gender ecosystem across the globe. Her ‘Guidelines to Rehabilitate Young Trafficked Girls’ have been appreciated by activists and helped nonprofit organizations to develop vocational training courses for rehabilitation of trafficked girls and exploited child brides.

The global impact of Bengaluru-born Sakshi Satpathy’s stand against child marriage and human trafficking is evident from the screening of her documentaries at 59 places in 15 countries. In addition, her Project GREET was applauded at the United Nations’ 62^nd Commission on the Status of Women.

While working with Amnesty International as the founder and president of the Gunn Amnesty International Club, San Francisco Bay Area-based Sakshi Satpathy came to know the shocking facts and figures of such inhuman practices as forced child marriages and trafficking of girls for sexual exploitation. In her interview with the Girl Scouts of USA, she condemned the violation of girls’ rights to dignity and liberty.

While India is infamous for the highest incidence of child marriage in the world, the United States witnessed legal marriage of over 200,000 minors, mostly girls between 2000 and 2015. About 27% of girls in India are forced to sit on the altar of marriage before their 18^th birthday, as per findings by Girls Not Brides, a registered organization for girls’ rights. In India, most child marriages are reported from Rajasthan and Bihar.

Any minimum age for legal marriage is not specified in 27 USA states. As of October 2018, there are exceptions in the law and order of 48 US states for minors to get married. Only New York and Delaware put an absolute ban on child marriage recently. Marriage of minors is prevalent in several US territories including Puerto Rico. Still, minors have no legal right to file divorce in some parts of the USA.

Meet America’s Youngest Biomedical Engineer of Indian Origin

“Many Americans remain unaware of child marriage in their own backyards,” CBC News quoted activist Fraidy Reiss saying. Though there is a decline in the numbers of child marriage under the age of 15, the number of girls at the risk of forced marriage above 15 and under 18 is increasing, according to Girls Not Brides.

Being a new-age fighter for girls’ right to justice in cases of gender inequality, child marriage and trafficking, Indian American Sakshi Satpathy made the most of social media platforms including YouTube to educate netizens on trafficking prevention laws and familiarize them with measures to stop child marriage in the name of cultural practices.

A few days before Dussehra celebrations this year, Indian American Minal Patel Davis was honored with the Presidential Award for combating human trafficking in Texas, the largest US state.

Among the National Gold Award 2018 winners, Sakshi Satpathy relates to Isabella, an energetic, optimistic, cheerful, quick-thinking, brave and independent character in Phineas and Ferb, an American TV show. One of the girl scouts in California, she has been participating in numerous activities and leading various campaigns in San Francisco Bay Area, like making of crafts for sale at winter fests, and teaching leadership skills to younger girls.

This story is part of our continued series of inspiring stories about young Indians in USA, at Travel Beats, an Indian American community portal by Indian Eagle Travel. We not only strive to book cheap flights to India from US cities but also cater latest community, visa and immigration news to Indian Americans through our free newsletters. 

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With a lineup of glittering Indian events in 2017, California has become a springboard of entertainment for its Indian community. Recently, the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles 2017 came to an epic end after four days of cinematic and cultural extravaganza. Let the month of July come, and the Indian Academy Awards 2017 in San Francisco Bay Area will spell a high time for California Indians. The two-day ceremony will be followed by the San Diego International Film Festival in October 2017.

The California Indian community is already full of buzz about the first-ever 2017 Indian Academy Awards in San Francisco Bay Area. To be held on July 7 and 8, the Indian version of Academy Awards was announced by renowned actor Shah Rukh Khan at the US Consulate in Mumbai, and launched by eminent actress Madhuri Dixit in California in January this year.

Among the San Francisco Bay Area Indian events in 2017, the award ceremony will be soaked in the grandeur and glamor of glitterati from across the border: India and USA. Reportedly, Shah Rukh Khan himself will host the Indian Academy Awards 2017 in San Francisco Bay Area, and Madhuri Dixit will also grace the inauguration with her unmatched glamorous presence on the dais. The event schedule includes live performance by the crème de la crème of Bollywood, Hollywood and South Indian Cinema.

Asia’s largest production company Cineyug in India and Los Angeles-based Brainstorm Media joined hands to bring the first-ever Indian Academy Awards to Silicon Valley where many Indian American entrepreneurs and professionals are excited about this upcoming event. Indian American physician Dr. Sanjay Gupta from New Jersey, who became a social media celebrity having 2 million twitter followers, and who was the second most popular doctor of 2016 in USA, is a co-founder of the Indian Academy Awards 2017 in San Francisco Bay Area.

The Indian Academy Awards 2017 California is not just about entertainment, but an entertainment program for a cause. According to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, it will support Mijwan Welfare Society, an NGO run by eminent actress Shabana Azmi, legendary poet Kaifi Azmi’s daughter. Another objective of the award ceremony is to support the Women Achievers Awards for successful women in Indian Diaspora.

Launched on the International Women’s Day 2017 in March, the Women Achievers Awards felicitates women of exceptional caliber from the Indian community worldwide by recognizing their contributions as well as achievements and share their success stories. It is intended to encourage and inspire women in general with success stories of women philanthropists and entrepreneurs in India and abroad.

Music and fashion show are other two attractions of the Indian Academy Awards 2017 in San Francisco Bay Area. The event will be choreographed by Shiamak Davar who is known as the pioneer of contemporary dance in India. “The Indian Academy Awards 2017 California is a platform for real-time cultural exchange among cinema lovers in India and USA besides being a cinematic celebration for Indians in America,” according to Brainstorm Media.

Subscribe to our free newsletter or watch out this space for venue and ticketing details of the Indian Academy Awards California 2017.

Travel Beats is a community portal for Indians in USA by Indian Eagle, a US-based, leading travel organization booking the best flights to India from San Francisco for the guaranteed lowest airfares. Travel Beats publishes news and stories of the Indian community besides sharing the latest travel, visa and immigration updates.

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2016 is the year of our collective voice in support of women power and girls’ rising against all injustices of orthodox patriarchy in a ‘most populous, culturally and economically vibrant country like India. The release of Soojit Sirkar’s Pink that questions the age-old parameters of a patriarchal mindset defining the character of women in urban India is followed by the screening of We Will Rise documentary celebrating the International Day of Girls at the White House.

The upcoming screening of Indian American filmmaker Nyna Pais Caputi’s Petals in the Dust: The Endangered Indian Girls at the 19^th Annual United Nations Association Film Festival will continue the movement against gender violence, infanticide, sex-trafficking, dowry deaths, gang rapes and bride buying.

Petals in the Dust: The Endangered Indian Girls is one of the 60 films and documentaries to be screened from October 30 to 30 at the United Nations Association Film Festival 2016 in California. Directed by Nyna Pais Caputi from the San Francisco Bay Area Indian community, the film examines the condition of an endangered class of girls and women from different walks of life. (Watch the trailer below)

In this thought-provoking documentary, filmmaker Nyna Pais Caputi seeks to explore what led to the elimination of 50 million of girls from India’s population in the last century. She traces the cultural origins of crimes against women in India through interviews of social activists and gender experts from various organizations. She also shares the inspirational stories of brave survivors and the unnerving realities that they have undergone.

Born in India, Nyna Pais Caputi traveled to the United States in 2002 to pursue filmmaking at the New York Film Academy. Then she settled in the San Francisco Bay Area. She dons several hats: a filmmaker, a blogger, a startup founder, a crusader of gender equality and a speaker on expat life. Nyna has worked on many award-winning short films including Desi Confused by America, Gentle Lovers, and Able.

She is at the helm of the Global Walk for India’s Missing Girls, an international awareness campaign which she founded in San Francisco in 2010. This campaign has been conducted in 25 cities and five countries to gather support against male chauvinism and genocide of women.

The Expat Woman is one of the initiatives by Indian American filmmaker Nyna Pais Caputi. A recipient of the ‘Woman of the Year 2015’ title from California State Assembly, she launched this online platform for women who have moved to USA from different parts of the world. The Expat Woman strives to help expat women with various aspects of life in USA.

Nyna Pais Caputi not only produced, edited and fundraised for her latest feature-length documentary films but also went extra miles to interview the representatives of several non-profit organizations in India and USA, including Maitri, Global Girl Power, Bal Ghar Orphanage, Navjyoti India Foundation, and Empower People, on gender discrimination and violence against women.

Petals in the Dust: The Endangered Indian Girls voices Nyna Pais Caputi’s message, “Unless immediate concrete actions are taken, India’s girls will become an endangered species. By 2020 there will be 20 percent more men than women.”

The film will be screened on October 22 at the 19^th Annual United Nations Association Film Festival in Palo Alto, California. Nyna Pais Caputi herself will attend the screening for a panel discussion. 

The post Indian American Nyna Pais Caputi’s Film on Crimes against Women in India Selected for UN Film Festival appeared first on Travel to India, Cheap Flights to India, Aviation News, India Travel Tips.

MasterChef India Season 5 has already gathered lots of steam raising temperature of the culinary world. Adding flames to it are 16 contestants including Indian American Anagha Godbole from Fremont in San Francisco Bay Area, who will outshine each other in the kitchen of MasterChef India in the coming episodes.

Among the MasterChef India Season 5 contestants, 44-year-old Anagha Godbole has already managed to impress the judges with her exclusive recipes and unique cooking techniques. A senior product manager at Xoom Corporation, a PayPal service, she finds kicks in cooking which has nothing to do with her profession.

The only contestant from the Indian American community, Anagha Godbole chose to surprise the audience with a fusion of Indian and western flavors in her dishes which gave a tough competition to the other contestants of MasterChef India Season 5. She cooked and spiced up her dishes with an enigmatic mix of ingredients from India and other countries.

Though not a professional cook, she took up every culinary challenge with a winning attitude in the first two episodes of MasterChef India Season 5 on Star Plus. Aiming to make any dish better with her secret formula of mixing Indian and western ingredients, Anagha Godbole has given an amazing show of her culinary skills.

The first dish named Saoji Chicken from her repertoire gave goosebumps to the taste buds of the judges: Michelin-starred Chef Vikas Khanna and celebrity Chef Kunal Kapoor. Saoji Chicken is a spicy delicacy from the cuisine of Maharashtra and very popular in Nagpur. She gave the dish her signature twist by blending Indian ingredients with Tex-Mex flavors and served it with freshly cooked jowar tacos on it. Chef Vikas Khanna went gaga over it.

In one of the episodes, Anagha Godbole had to cook something tasteful with such ingredients as beetroot, spinach, coriander, chilies, bananas, almonds, chicken, oranges and mustard oil, she came up with beetroot halwa and smoky chili cilantro ice cream with orange sauce to the utter amazement of the judges. She named her preparation “East Meets West” which left Kunal Kapoor in awe. Beetroot halwa is an Indian dessert.

Indian American non-professional chef Anagha Godbole clicked with the judges in the next round too. She gave another impressive presentation of her culinary prowess by cooking val ravioli with saffron cream sauce. It earned her kudos from Chef Vikas Khanna who said, “Close to perfect dish.” She won the top dish challenge and got herself immunity for the next week.

The viewers including foodies and aspiring chefs have held on their breaths to see what culinary magic this Indian American engineer from California would cast on the judges in the coming episodes of MasterChef India Season 5. If cooking is her passion, dance is her hobby. Anagha Godbole wishes to own a boutique restaurant and be its chef.

Travel Beats is an Indian Community portal by IndianEagle, a leading travel organization for Indians in America. Travel Beats publishes latest news, stories and events from USA and India. Sign up for our free newsletter and stay updated about Indian Diaspora.

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