Chai is an elixir of life in India. This sacred beverage in Indian households is an integral part of the Atithi Devo Bhava belief in India. Tea that the British introduced in the colonized India does sell like a hot cake and hit the jackpot across the globe today. It went through naturalization for decades before it became an iconic Indian beverage. These days, the world is cashing in on Indian Chai with ginger aroma and other flavors. Brook Eddy, a social entrepreneur in the US state of Colorado, has built a multimillion-dollar business empire by selling Bhakti Chai.

Back in 2002, Brook Eddy took flights to India from Denver, Colorado and joined a social-justice movement then. She was offered tea most of the time during her visit to villages in West India. She wholeheartedly fell in love with chai and its different flavors varying from one region to the other depending on ingredients used. Unlike other foreign travelers who take home handcrafted artifacts as souvenirs from India, Brook Eddy’s takeaway from India was her love for tea.

The myriad flavors of Indian chai that had spellbound her senses were missing from the cafés in Boulder, Colorado. She went on to brew a unique flavor of tea and named it Bhakti Chai. What started as a humble attempt to spread her love of Indian chai around has evolved into a multi-million dollar business over the years.

By 2007, she started selling jars of her version of tea from her car in and around Boulder. Her homemade brew became a favorite of her friends and neighbors who often took away jars of iced tea from her refrigerator and put the money on the table. It made her realize that her version of fresh ginger tea (which she called Bhakti Chai) could be produced and monetized for cafes and retailers.

A single mother of twins, Brook Eddy quit her fulltime job and focused on commercialization of Bhakti Chai. With the first round of investment in 2008, she employed two brewers, built a team, bought a ginger press and zeroed in on the packaging of Bhakti Chai. Thus, she laid the foundation of Bhakti Chai on what she experienced in and borrowed from India.

Also Read: Indian-origin Siblings Make New York Fall in Love with Chai

Today, Brook Eddy’s Bhakti Chai brand also sells tea-based products which are mainly Indo-American fusion beverages, like Green Chai Smoothie, Chai Latte, Chocolate Chai Energy Bites, and Chocolate Chai Truffle. Just brewing chai and selling chai-based fusion beverages is not her final destination. Looking at a bigger picture, she wants to extend the horizon of Bhakti Chai from a beverage line to a global lifestyle brand.

Bhakti Chai founder Brook Eddy’s GITA philanthropy

Brook Eddy’s Bhakti Chai is not out and out a commercial venture. Driven by the ethos of social entrepreneurship, it is one of the first certified B Corps in Colorado. GITA (Give, Inspire and Take Action) is a vehicle of social change that Bhakti Chai supports and promotes actively. As she says, “Bhakti is more than brewing tea and pressing ginger,” the DNA of her brand is steeped in social justice, sustainability, girls’ education, and women empowerment.

Brook Eddy makes monthly automated payments to several nonprofits, including OneProsper International, which work for community wellbeing and development in India, Afghanistan, Nepal, and other countries. OneProsper International works for the welfare of girls in the Thar desert of India, who drop out of school as they walk miles to fetch water daily. Bhakti Chai’s philanthropic wing – GITA Giving supports OneProsper International’s projects for clean water, education, and smart farming for economically disadvantaged communities in the Thar region of India.

Capturing the chaos and vibrancy of India, which she loves to her heart’s content, Brook Eddy’s Bhakti Chai continues to make profits and earn reverence. Born in Colorado and raised in Michigan, Eddy feels a strong connect with India where she seeks to experience something new whenever she visits.

The post After a trip to India, She Quit Job, Launched Bhakti Chai in USA, Built a Multimillion-Dollar Tea Brand first appeared on Indian Eagle Blog | US-India Travel News | Diaspora Stories.

The post After a trip to India, She Quit Job, Launched Bhakti Chai in USA, Built a Multimillion-Dollar Tea Brand appeared first on Indian Eagle Blog | US-India Travel News | Diaspora Stories.

“Dreams do not always wear lab coats. Sometimes, they wear sarees and reach Mars.” More than a decade after India’s ‘Mars Orbiter Mission’ success stunned the world, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC honored ISRO Scientist Nandini Harinath by displaying the saree she wore during the historic mission. The recognition has sparked global curiosity about Nandini Harinath and her contribution to India’s first mission to Mars.

Who is Nandini Harinath?

Nandini Harinath is one of India’s most respected scientists and among the key brains behind ISRO’s successful Mars Orbiter Mission, popularly known as Mangalyaan. She worked as Project Manager, Mission Designer, and Deputy Operations Director for the mission that elevated India’s place in global space exploration. Over the past two decades, she has worked on around 14 ISRO missions and become famous as one of the rocket women of India.

Born and educated in Tamil Nadu, Nandini grew up in a family where education is a lifeline and science is a daily staple. Her mother was a mathematics teacher, and her father worked as an engineer. Science dominated the morning news, dining table conversations, and bedtime stories at home. It naturally shaped and nurtured her curiosity about technology and space. Interestingly, Harinath has often spoken about how the science fiction series Star Trek deepened her interest in space exploration.

Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)is the first organization Nandini Harinath ever applied to for a job. She joined ISRO’s Satellite Centre in Bengaluru and slowly built a remarkable career over years of hard work, mission planning, and spacecraft operations. Reflecting on her journey at ISRO, Harinath once said, “It’s been 20 years at ISRO, and there is no looking back.”

During crucial phases of the Mangalyaan-1 mission, she and her team worked 12 to 14 hours a day. In the final days before the launch, Harinath barely went home as the entire team focused on ensuring smooth execution and success of the mission, since it was a matter of India’s image to the world. When her daughter was preparing for Class 12 exams, she would wake up at 4 am to check the daughter’s lessons and preparedness.

The Nandini Harinath saree – a global symbol of women power from East to West

The women scientists of ISRO, who are collectively known as India’s Rocket Women, wore sarees while leading one of the world’s most complex space programs. They made news headlines not only for the successful mission launch but also for their elegance in six yards of draping. In addition of international dailies, fashion magazines featured them as modern scientists in traditional wears. It helped break stereotypes across the world by showing that not just modern outfits define women power at workplace.

If you visit the Great American State Fair in Washington DC, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum must be on your bucket list. The museum displays scientist Nandini Harinath’s striking red saree with a blue border, which she wore on the day Mangalyaan successfully left Earth’s orbit and began its 300-day journey to Mars. The Smithsonian Institute has acknowledged that the sarees worn by the women scientists of ISRO are not just regular workday outfits; they represent India’s success and glory in space exploration.

“From historical times to the present day, Indian Saree has been a ubiquitous symbol of women power. The Queen of Jhansi fought against the British, wearing a saree. In 1936, India’s first female pilot Sarla Thakral entered the cockpit wearing a saree. Kasturba Gandhi, Sarojini Naidu, Usha Mehta, Aruna Asaf Ali, and Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay were saree-draped political activists in British India. Indira Gandhi represented India, draping sarees on her 52 international trips,” said Sourav Agarwal, Senior Editor of Travel Beats.

The post Who is Nandini Harinath? Her Saree is Now a Global Symbol of Women Power from ISRO to US Capital first appeared on Indian Eagle Blog | US-India Travel News | Diaspora Stories.

The post Who is Nandini Harinath? Her Saree is Now a Global Symbol of Women Power from ISRO to US Capital appeared first on Indian Eagle Blog | US-India Travel News | Diaspora Stories.

Saas and Bahus are mostly at loggerheads from Indian TV family soaps to Indian households. Either mothers-in-law are dominating and daughters-in-law are submissive, or daughters-in-law are scheming and mothers-in-law are suffering. In times when their “kitchen politics” grab eyeballs to raise TRPs for TV serials, a real-life saas-bahu duo – Sushila and Aishwarya – have bonded over food as friends and business partners though they are thousands of miles apart from each other.

Sushila cooks Marathi flavors in her kitchen in Mumbai and her daughter-in-law Aishwarya serves the same from New York. The saas creates culinary magic in India and ships to New York with dollops of nostalgia. The bahu packages it and sells to Indian expats across the United States where all Indian things are available these days, except authentic Maa ka Khana. Their bond is called and celebrated as Namkeen Queens.

Before Namkeen Queens was born, Sushila Aai would send her handmade sweets and snacks to her son and daughter-in-law in New York on festive occasions like Diwali. Engaged in the American rate race, their only comfort of home away from home was Sushila’s besan ladoo, rava ladoo, and chakli from India. Festive boxes of homemade savories on flights from Mumbai to New York blossomed into a full-blown business – Namkeen Queens in the US.

For Aishwarya Shankar, a Keralite of Tamil descent, the Marathi snacks with touches of Kolhapur cuisine tasted completely different; however, the love, warmth, and care that Sushila Aai cooks with felt familiar to her. Little did she know then that they, in-laws by relation, would bond over food as daughter and mother, and business partners. With the neighboring Indians showing interest in her mother-in-law’s snacks, Aishwarya hatched a business idea.

Aishwarya quit her corporate career in the US and launched Namkeen Queens with Sushila Aai as a co-founder. She was a seasoned product manager with years of experience navigating the dynamic landscape of product development in digital commerce. Though located in different hemispheres, they teamed up with both ‘excitement and uncertainty’ – only to start ruling as ‘Namkeen Queens’ in September 2024.

When Aishwarya pitched the idea to the family, Sushila Aai did not turn averse to cooking savories at a commercial scale. Rather, she agreed to don a home chef’s hat for herself. Commercial cooking is not difficult for her, as she cooked for large gatherings and festive occasions for years – an age-old tradition in joint Indian families. Aishwarya’s brother-in-law also stepped in to supply logistics and provide any other support to Sushila Aai in Mumbai.

Piloted by the daughter-in-law’s business acumen, the mother-in-law’s culinary artistry began to take flights to USA from India, delivering an experience, a feeling, an authentic taste that Indians abroad long for.

“Namkeen Queens is not just a brand—it’s a tribute to the rich culinary legacy of my mother-in-law (Sushila Aai). Her cooking skills and authentic recipes are at the heart of our mission. She’s a remarkable woman with incredible culinary talent. I’m committed to preserving and sharing her culinary magic with the world, turning traditional Marathi flavors into a global sensation,” Namkeen Queens’ CEO Aishwarya told Travel Beats, a leading overseas Indian community portal.

Namkeen Queens’ authentic Indians snacks are equally popular with Indian expats missing the taste of home and other ethnic groups curious about Indian flavors. Yearnings for Maa ka Khana and value for the authenticity of ingredients used keep Namkeen Queens alive as a bridge not only between Aishwarya and Sushila, but also the US and India. Aishwarya defines Namkeen Queens as “a connection to heritage, a celebration of tradition, and a way of sharing the warmth of home…”

The post Namkeen Queens: A Heartwarming Story of Saas-Bahu Running a Kitchen between India and USA first appeared on Indian Eagle Blog | US-India Travel News | Diaspora Stories.

The post Namkeen Queens: A Heartwarming Story of Saas-Bahu Running a Kitchen between India and USA appeared first on Indian Eagle Blog | US-India Travel News | Diaspora Stories.

He came well-dressed. He arrived in a Limousine. He walked on a red carpet. He waved to everyone. The staff clapped and cheered with pom-poms. He received a hefty cheque and enjoyed a special dinner. His 40 years of service, dedication, commitment, and work ethic was celebrated like a big milestone. He is neither a CEO nor a corporate biggie. It was not his farewell party either. His American Dream has been as simple as a common Indian man.

Amid the regular news of layoffs in the US tech sector, the celebration of Balbir Singh’s 40 years of service at McDonald’s feels like a breath of fresh air. His employer, colleagues and other staff came together to celebrate it like a milestone in a grand manner in November. Not only those he works with, but also America’s immigrant community and media cheered his success – which made it bigger for him and his family.

The red-carpet welcome, the earnest camaraderie, and the $40K cheque were beyond the imagination of Balbir Singh who came to the USA in the early 1980s – before H1B Visa opened doors to the US for Indian techies in 1990 and Air India started nonstop flights to USA in 1993. Far from the skyscrapers of Silicon Valley, the rat race to the corporate ladder, and the volatility of startups, Pargan Balbir Singh quietly built a steady career at McDonald’s in Saugus near Boston.

He began working at McDonald’s in 1985. Initially, he took over kitchen duties with the same discipline and dedication as in his homeland, Punjab. After a few years behind the grills, he moved to supervisory roles. Today, he manages four McDonald’s outlets and leads the team to excel every day without compromising on his work ethics. Colleagues affectionately call him “papa bear” and admire him for his humility, empathetic leadership, and unwavering attention to details.

Celebrating Balbir Singh’s steadfast loyalty as legacy, Lindsay Wallin, who owns nine McDonald’s outlets in the US, spoke highly of him to the media, “Balbir has shaped the heart and soul of the organization over his four decades of service.” “One of the things I admire most about Balbir is that he embraced our company motto of ‘Why not?’ Why not try something new? Why not grow? Why not push for better? That attitude has fueled our success,” she added highlighting his rare dedication.

Wallin also shared memories of the early days when Balbir worked for her father, Bob King, the original franchise owner. “Many of the people standing here were part of that original team, including Balbir,” she said. She explained how her father wanted to build a ‘McFamily’, not just a business, and expressed pride in carrying forward that legacy. “I first started as a crew. I worked in the kitchen and helped in the back… I tried to do everything. I’m really a proud and happy member of this family,” Balbir said.

His colleagues arranged a surprise bigger than the red-carpet welcome for Balbir at McDonald’s. It was a huge collage board featuring his old photos and celebrating his journey with them. On seeing it, Balbir could not help but let his tears roll down. For a moment, it took him back to the days when he came (legally) to America, a greener pasture of opportunities, leaving his mother (country) behind. He found warmth, love, family, stability…in his adopted home.

The post This Indian American Got a CEO-like Welcome on Red Carpet for His 40 Years of Service in USA first appeared on Indian Eagle Blog | US-India Travel News | Diaspora Stories.

The post This Indian American Got a CEO-like Welcome on Red Carpet for His 40 Years of Service in USA appeared first on Indian Eagle Blog | US-India Travel News | Diaspora Stories.

“Sometimes, the smallest spark in the darkest place can light up a world.” For 18-year-old Adarsh Kumar that spark came from a second-hand laptop his mother bought after months of saving. What began as a grit to rise over the gloomy state of poverty in childhood became an enlightening journey that has now inspired thousands. On the eve of Gandhi Jayanti in 2025, the world clapped for Adarsh Kumar for having won the Chegg.org Global Student Prize worth $100,000 from the United States.

This teenage startup founder and changemaker, who had once barely any money for a bus ticket, travelled internationally to receive the prize at an event held in London. The Global Student Prize 2025 winner Adarsh Kumar was selected out of nearly 11,000 nominations from 148 countries. Every year, Chegg Inc, a leading American educational organization, awards the Global Student Prize to “one exceptional student” who has made a real impact on society through education, innovation, and leadership.

Adarsh wants to invest the Global Student Prize money to multiply the socio-economic impact of his community welfare startup – Skillzo – through artificial intelligence and a fellowship. When he was 16 in 2023, he launched Skillzo that helps underprivileged yet meritorious students get scholarships and connects underserved rural youth with mentors for career guidance, as well as development opportunities. In just two years, Skillzo has supported 20,000 students and youths.

A part of the prize money would go into expanding Skillzo and supporting it with AI for better outcomes. He would utilize the prize money to introduce Ignite Fellowship for student innovators and run SkillzoX, a soon-to-be-launched upskilling program designed to empower the deserving youth with future-ready courses in communication, entrepreneurship, leadership, and of course, AI. Building on his experience of struggles to find mentors, he is eyeing improvements for more students and youths, irrespective of religion, community, and caste.

Raised by a single mother who worked as a domestic help to make ends meet; Adarsh Kumar joined the league of legends in Champaran, Bihar where Mahatma Gandhi started his Satyagraha Movement in 1917. Champaran, a historical place with stories of freedom movement, is also the birthplace of George Orwell, an English novelist of ‘Animal Farm’ fame; Manoj Bajpai, a National Film Award-winning actor; and Ramesh Chandra Jha, an eminent author and freedom fighter.

Education being the ultimate baton of ahimsa (non-violence) that Gandhiji preached in his lifetime encouraged Adarsh to dream big in a poverty-laden home where resources were scarce but aspirations were not. At 14, he left home in quest of better education opportunities beyond his village, with strong willpower and the old laptop that his mother had purchased for him. The laptop was his only outlet to access the outer world and explore free online courses until he left the village to make it big in life.

Eventually, he ended up in Kota, a city in Rajasthan, and the hub of prominent coaching institutes in India. Unable to afford paid classes, he studied in libraries, used free Wi-Fi, and continued to reach out to mentors for guidance. His hard work and persistence paid off when he earned a full scholarship worth INR 30 lakh to study at Jayshree Periwal International School in Jaipur.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Adarsh Kumar, then only 13, demonstrated leadership by launching a community initiative named Mission Badlao to improve education and healthcare in rural Bihar. The initiative helped secure land for a government school, organized over 2,000 COVID-19 vaccinations, distributed menstrual health products, and led plantation drives. His initiatives earned him recognition far and wide. He is one of the youngest Google Youth Advisors in India and has held leadership roles, including Chief Marketing Officer of Bihar Chhatra Sansad.

The Chegg Global Student Prize winner Adarsh Kumar’s story of grit and resilience, from the dusty streets of Champaran to the spotlight of international media, is a stark reminder – no beginning is too humble for a life to bloom and prosper. He does not define success in terms of wealth or fame but in the number of students empowered and communities uplifted. The award is not just another milestone in his journey, but a big opportunity to scale his mission and vision.

This article is brought to you by Travel Beats, a leading portal for Indian community stories and international travel news. Travel Beats is a subsidiary of Indian Eagle, the most trusted air-ticketing partner of Indians and Americans for 18 years. Subscribe to the newsletter and follow us on Instagram for significant updates on USA to India travel.

The post $100K Global Student Prize Goes to 18-year-old Adarsh Kumar Raised by a Single Mother in India first appeared on Indian Eagle Blog | US-India Travel News | Diaspora Stories.

The post $100K Global Student Prize Goes to 18-year-old Adarsh Kumar Raised by a Single Mother in India appeared first on Indian Eagle Blog | US-India Travel News | Diaspora Stories.

“I am proud of my daughter, Shivangi!” Those words, written in bold on a whiteboard at Microsoft’s global headquarters in the United States, became the highlight of a heartwarming video that recently went viral. Shivangi Reja, a software engineer, shared a short video of her parents visiting her coveted workplace at Microsoft’s headquarters in Seattle Metro Area, where her ‘American Dream’ career is taking shape.

Contrary to the age-old belief in small Indian towns that daughters don’t bring fame to their parents unlike sons, Shivangi’s parents invested in her education and career rather than a big fat destination wedding. Shivangi not only flew her parents out to USA from India but also gave them a ceremonial welcome to her new home near Seattle. Since their arrival in June, the parents have been on a memorable multi-city tour across America, garnering new experiences.

The best part of their trip to the US is the moment that doubled their happiness during a tour of Shivangi’s workplace at Microsoft headquarters. Their beamed with pride and joy beyond measure that words could hardly explain. The Instagram reel shows Shivangi walking her parents through the expansive Microsoft campus that sprawls across 500 acres and houses more than 125 buildings. She guided them through her workspace, meeting rooms, and the buzzing cafeteria.

Their Microsoft tour culminated in a touching moment when her parents wrote a message on a meeting room whiteboard, “I am proud of my daughter Shivangi.” A few months ago, another Indian-origin techie hit headlines for booking his parents’ first ever international travel to USA and giving them a tour of his Nvidia office in California. For Indian parents, moments like these are never just simple office tours at trillion-dollar American MNCs. Rather, a walk down memory lane – the days of their hard work, their sacrifices, their joy over simple things, their investments (of energy, time, and effort).

In the video caption, Shivangi explained the deeper meaning behind the tour. She wrote, “From a small town in India to showing my parents the place I call my workplace @microsoft. This isn’t just my dream come true, it’s theirs too. Every sacrifice, every prayer, every hope they carried has led me here. Today, I didn’t just bring them to my office, I brought them to the dream we built together. And honestly, what more could a daughter ask for than seeing her parents say, ‘We’re proud of you.”

Shivangi Reja’s video has garnered around 5 million views and thousands of comments, with many stating that the scene brought tears to their eyes. One of her followers commented, “The ultimate dream of every Indian kid working abroad, and the ultimate joy of every Indian parent!” Another wrote, “Parents’ happiness is the true measure of our success. The smile on their faces says it all.”

The post A Visit to Daughter’s Workplace at Microsoft Headquarters Make These Indian Parents Beam with Pride first appeared on Indian Eagle Blog | US-India Travel News | Diaspora Stories.

The post A Visit to Daughter’s Workplace at Microsoft Headquarters Make These Indian Parents Beam with Pride appeared first on Indian Eagle Blog | US-India Travel News | Diaspora Stories.

On his recent visit to the US as a guest speaker, Alakh Pandey – popularly known as Physics Wallah – motivated Indian students at Harvard University, Stanford University, and California University to reverse brain drain to India and be part of India’s growth story directly or indirectly. While delivering a keynote, he said, “Our country has many drawbacks; however, no country is perfect. Young Indians at home and abroad should work towards making it better.”

Ruchit Garg did 12 years ago what Physics Wallah told Indian students abroad to do now. Ruchit Garg, an ex-Microsoft program manager, quit his pursuit of American Dream, returned to the roots, and started working for the economic wellbeing of farmers in 2015. After a stint in the IT corridor of Hyderabad, he got an onsite opportunity to work at Microsoft’s Redmond headquarters. After 3 years in 2011, he left the job with a fat paycheck of INR 1 Cr per annum only to dabble as an entrepreneur in America’s thriving startup space.

He started feeling like a misfit there as his chase of American Dream lacked a noble objective for his native country. His grandfather was a farmer in Uttar Pradesh; therefore, his umbilical cord with fields and farming pulled him back home to transform the lives of smallholder farmers who belong to an underserved community though they grow crops for 80% of the planet. His compassion for farmers allied with technology for the launch of a field-to-market startup, Harvesting Farmer Network (HFN).

Dubbed as “Amul of the next generation”, Ruchit Garg’s Harvesting Farmer Network strives to increase the sales turnover of various farm produces by helping farmers get better deals directly from buyers. Precisely, he has eliminated the role of intermediaries who would take a significant chunk of farmers’ sales proceeds, and thus, helped nearly 40 lakh smallholder farmers in India since the launch of his startup.

Harvesting Farmer Network’s Kisan app is an all-in-one guide for farmers like a lighthouse on the seashore for sailors. It disseminates updated information in various regional languages about government schemes for farmers, modern farming methods, the sourcing of high-quality seeds and various raw materials, and likes. The app is a growing network of farm producers and buyers, and a platform for listing crops for sale. Ruchit Garg and his HFN team also provide scientific, financial and legal advice to farmers and those involved in farming some way or the other.

Ruchit’s agri-tech startup had a humble beginning. What he started on WhatsApp a few years ago has grown into a one-stop solution for farmers. Recently, he brought commercial banks with the ambit of his startup to help farmers seek finance at reasonable interest rates. He opines that the financial service offering is an under-penetrated market in the agricultural sector. Given that technology is yet to reach some parts of rural India, he set up more than 17000 offline kisan centers across the country, where non-tech-savvy farmers can connect with buyers and seek information, help, and/or expertise.

Like USA-returned barefoot billionaire Sridhar Vembu, Ruchit Garg believes in the virtue of giving back to society. His empathy for farmers at the grassroots level stems out of the hardships he had in his growing years after his father’s untimely demise. He was raised by a single mother who was a clerk at the Indian Railways library in Lucknow. While she could not afford to buy books for him, her job at the government library gave him unrestricted access to books and magazines. Reading case studies in Harvard Business Review magazines, which he considered a “fun pastime” back then, sowed the seeds of entrepreneurship into him.

The post Raised by Single Mom who was a Clerk in Indian Railways, Ruchit Garg is a Real-life ‘Swadesh’ Hero from USA first appeared on Indian Eagle Blog | US-India Travel News | Diaspora Stories.

The post Raised by Single Mom who was a Clerk in Indian Railways, Ruchit Garg is a Real-life ‘Swadesh’ Hero from USA appeared first on Indian Eagle Blog | US-India Travel News | Diaspora Stories.

Contrary to the popular belief that children from India leave their parents helpless in their pursuit of ambition and success abroad; an Indian techie not only flew his parents out to the US but also took them to his office where his ‘American Dream’ career is taking shape. It was a transcendent moment for the parents who could not hold back tears for being proud of their son and happy for his success. The US-based Indian techie’s sister shared the heartwarming story that resonated with Indian Diaspora on social media and went viral.

The Indian techie works at Nvidia’s headquarters in California. It is his parents’ first trip to the United States from India. Since they arrived in California a few weeks ago (in May), they have been on a multi-city tour across the US starting from Mount Madonna with a hilltop Hanuman temple in Santa Clara County. Naturally, their excitement and joy doubled during a visit to their son’s workplace, the Nvidia office in Santa Clara. “Big smiles on their faces,” their daughter who lives in Amsterdam said in a tweet.

The parents who taught their children to dream big and blessed them to make it big in life were overwhelmed to see the spaceship-like buildings spanning more than 1 million square feet – close to the total area of the Taj Mahal complex in India. At Nvidia’s headquarters, world-class meeting rooms, fully-equipped canteen, flamboyant entertainment areas, sprawling workspace, top-notch gym and other state-of-the-art facilities left them in awe of the promising career and the bright future that they had imagined for their son (and the daughter).

For them, it was not just a simple office tour at one of the trillion-dollar American MNCs. Rather, a walk down memory lane – the days of their hard work, their sacrifices, their joy over simple things, their investments (of energy, time, and effort). All these have resulted in good things for their children. This very thought gave them absolute peace of mind and a profound sense of fulfilment that most Indian professionals working abroad and their parents can relate to.

The daughter’s social media post on her parents’ visit to her brother’s Nvidia office in California has gone viral melting hearts and evoking positive emotions in the global Indian community. One Indian from London commented, “I did the same with my parents 2 years ago in London. Great refresher!” It resonated with Indian immigrants in the US, one of them wrote, “Great deed! My parents are visiting me next month. I will surely take them to my office.”

This is part of our continued series of inspiring stories of Indians in America, at Travel Beats, your favorite community portal for Diaspora news, US-India travel updates, airport guides, transit visa queries, etc. Travel Beats is a subsidiary of Indian Eagle, the most trusted travel-booking partner for Indians and Americans.

The post Indian Techie Takes Parents to His Nvidia Office in USA; It Leaves Them Teary-eyed out of Pride and Joy first appeared on Indian Eagle Blog | US-India Travel News | Diaspora Stories.

The post Indian Techie Takes Parents to His Nvidia Office in USA; It Leaves Them Teary-eyed out of Pride and Joy appeared first on Indian Eagle Blog | US-India Travel News | Diaspora Stories.

Let your bucket list feature the Sankurathri Foundation if you’re traveling to India, especially Andhra Pradesh this summer. A visit to the Sankurathri Foundation campus in the coastal town of Kakinada is no less divine an experience than a pilgrimage. At the entrance of the campus, your attention will be caught by the larger-than-life statue of three human beings underneath a sprawling tree. Their unpleasant demise in the 1985 bombing of an Air India flight gave birth to the extraordinary journey of Dr Chandrasekhar Sankurathri, who has been named a Padma Shri awardee this Republic Day 2023. 

Padma Shri Dr Sankurathri, 79, is a living embodiment of what Helen Keller said, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” His life of success and happiness in Canada turned upside down after the crash of Air India flight 182, from Montreal to Mumbai, over the Atlantic Ocean near Ireland took away his wife and two children. However, unlike tragic heroes in literature and cinema, Dr Sankurathri transformed the darkness of grief and loneliness into a beacon of light for the underprivileged in rural India.

After three years of bereavement, he left Ottawa where he was a celebrated biologist for two decades, and returned to his roots in Andhra Pradesh on a quest for a new purpose of his life. He was also a scientific evaluator for the Ministry of Health, Canada. On seeing rural folks of his hometown and beyond mired in poverty due to the lack of education and healthcare, he rose over his personal grief to uplift them. He braved the tragedy to live for a bigger cause – breaking the cycle of illiteracy and physical ailments for the needy.        

In 1989, he established the Sankurathri Foundation in memory of his family ushering in a new era of empowerment for Kakinada. He also set up the Manjari Memorial Foundation (Manjari was his wife) as a registered charity in Ontario, Canada. Both the foundations have their goals aligned towards improving the quality of life for the poor. With all his savings, he started working on several projects through the Sankurathri Foundation, including free education to poor children at Sarada Vidyalaya that he consecrated to his daughter in 1992.

So far, the high school has educated over 5000 children from the economically weaker households, at a zero-dropout rate. The children are helped with study materials, meals, and health check-ups at the school. In its exclusive article on Dr Chandrasekhar Sankurathri, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) lauded Sarada Vidyalaya as “a ticket out of poverty for these kids”. The article also reads, “Ask them how many have parents who cannot read and write. Most of the hands go up. Ask them what they want to be when they grow up? They answer: Teacher, doctor, police officer….”

The Institute of Ophthalmology that the Sankurathri Foundation has been running since 1993 is named after his son, who was only 7 while traveling on the ill-fated flight. The mission of providing free quality eye care to the visually impaired living below the poverty line is inspired by his son’s dream of becoming an ophthalmologist. The Srikiran Institute of Ophthalmologist has restored vision to nearly 300,000 patients of vulnerable age-groups through cataract surgeries, 90% of which were conducted for free. The institute also holds free medical check-up camps in remote areas of the state.

“15 million Indians are living without vision,” according to Dr Sankurathri’s Srikiran Institute of Ophthalmology located on a serene five-acre site near Kakinada and equipped with modern equipment. There are 10 outpatient clinics, 4 operation theatres, a pharmacy, two optical shops, a cafeteria, and an auditorium. Interestingly, the institute is recognized as the best NGO in ophthalmology by the state government. The institute continues to get support from the University of Ottawa Eye Institute, Rotary International, Infosys Foundation, Eye Foundation of America, the Canadian International Development Agency, and Arvind Eye Hospitals Tamil Nadu. Moreover, the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce adjudged him as the “Humanitarian of the Year 2013”.

“The demise of his wife and children was the culmination of the family tragedy that had begun in his childhood. When Chandrasekhar Sankurathri was only 7, his mother died of an unidentified illness. His elder brother went missing after two years of his mother’s untimely death. The fate continued to be hostile against the family as the Godavari floods left many village households including theirs penniless the next year. He lost his only sister when he was 13.

However, he defied to be at the mercy of his fate and became a ray of hope for others. After the air incident in 1985, his stoicism became his strength. This reminds me of the concluding dialogue from “Riders to the Sea”, a popular Irish play, “No man at all can be living forever and we must be satisfied”, said Sourav Agarwal, the Editor of Travel Beats.

The post Padma Shri Chandrasekhar Sankurathri: His Tragic Loss in Air India Plane Crash 1985 Made Him a Hero for the Poor first appeared on Indian Eagle Blog | US-India Travel News | Diaspora Stories.

The post Padma Shri Chandrasekhar Sankurathri: His Tragic Loss in Air India Plane Crash 1985 Made Him a Hero for the Poor appeared first on Indian Eagle Blog | US-India Travel News | Diaspora Stories.

“A son’s true success is measured not by what he achieves, but by what he gives back to the hands that raised him.” While many senior citizens are ending up at old age homes in India, Krishna Kumar took his mother on a pilgrimage spanning four countries – without international flight tickets. He rode his late father’s old scooter with his mother sitting behind him for over 93,000 kilometers. His devotion and duty that go beyond any child’s basic responsibility of looking after his/her mother has earned him the moniker – a modern-day Shravan Kumar.

The story of Krishna Kumar and his mother’s epic pilgrimage started in January 2018. Once his mother casually mentioned she had never seen the temples of Hampi and Halebeedu. This made him realize that she had never traveled beyond Mysuru. “How small her world has been for so many years! She spent her whole life serving the joint family.” After his father passed away in 2015, she hardly stepped out of home. With this thought lying heavy on his mind, Krishna took a vow to take her to the places that she had ever dreamed of visiting.

Krishna Kumar, an engineer, quit his corporate job in Bengaluru, dusted off his late father’s 2001 model Bajaj scooter, and set out with his mother on a countrywide pilgrimage that extended to Nepal, Bhutan, and Myanmar. To make her see the outer world, taste freedom, and live a carefree life became his life’s only mission. He named it ‘Matru Seva Sankalpa Yatra’, meaning a pledge to serve mother. While even traveling to religious places has become a leisure or luxury, this Shravana Kumar transformed it into a diving offering.

Their journey began on 18 January 2018 when he kick-started the nearly two-decade-old scooter after modifying it for his mother’s comfort. To make the road journey comfortable for her against uneven surfaces, he got the scooter upgraded with extra cushions and a backrest. For almost 6 years (excluding two years of the pandemic), they had been on road travelling more than 93,000 kilometers, from several states of India to Nepal, Bhutan, and Myanmar.

“I was just the charioteer. My parents were the pilgrims,” Krishna said, feeling his father’s presence with them at every step of the pilgrimage. “The sooter is not just a piece of my father’s legacy, it is his blessing for me,” he added.

You might wonder how they managed to live on the road for so long. Krishna and his mother kept things simple. They never checked in at hotels; instead, they took shelter at temples, ashrams, and dharmshalas along the way. Most of the time, temple prasad kept them on the go. Sometimes, their fulfilling meal was a most humble staple like rice and dal cooked on a small stove they carried.

Also Read: Geetha Feels Like a 20-year-old in Her 60s while Traveling with Her Son

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, they got stranded near the Bhutan border for almost two months. Krishna made sure his mother stayed safe and healthy, relying on the kindness of local people who treated them like their own. “We never felt alone, wherever we went, people became our family.” Krishna said in media interviews. Even in the most uncertain times, his focus remained clear: protecting his mother and continuing their sacred journey.

In the first year of their pilgrimage, their travel story became an inspiration for many. Even Anand Mahindra, the Chairman of the Mahindra Group, was deeply touched by it. He could not help but express his admiration through a social media post and offered him a brand-new Mahindra SUV. Krishna Kumar gratefully accepted the gesture but made sure that the SUV was not going to replace his father’s Bajaj scooter. “My journey is complete. I wanted to give my mother the experience she missed. That scooter gave us more than any SUV ever could,” he said.

Throughout their travels, Krishna never took donations, nor he turned their yatra into a social media campaign. His motivation was simple and pure: to give his mother the dignity, happiness and freedom that she deserved. His mother, who is now 75 years old, would hesitate to travel even to a relative’s house. Today, she is a travel inspiration for many. She bathed in the Ganga, climbed sacred hills, visited historic places she had only heard about in stories, and met people from various cultural backgrounds.

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The post This Modern-day Shravan Kumar Quits IT Job to Take His Mother on Pilgrimage across Four Countries on Scooter first appeared on Indian Eagle Blog | US-India Travel News | Diaspora Stories.

The post This Modern-day Shravan Kumar Quits IT Job to Take His Mother on Pilgrimage across Four Countries on Scooter appeared first on Indian Eagle Blog | US-India Travel News | Diaspora Stories.