
Born in India, Aanchal Sharma has a cosmopolitan upbringing helping her embrace multiculturalism. By profession, she is a physical therapy and alternative medicine. On the day, Aanchal Sharma completed her first year; she won the title of Miss India Canada pageant. Happily she tells me “I did want to win but I never expected to win” and “perseverance and my positive attitude” was a key to Miss India Canada’s success.
HSC Annual Garba Raas on the evening of 23rd January, 2010, attracted students from various cultural and religious backgrounds. The Garba Event is the largest South Asian event at U of T organized by HSC. This event, held at Hart House is attended by over 400 students every year. The Garba is a traditional dance originating in Gujarat, India. The dance is conventionally performed during the nine-day Hindu festival of Navratri. The night is anticipated to be entertaining and exciting with students adding colour and dance to the Great Hall of Hart House.
Newcomers often bring many traditions as they immigrate to new lands. For the Tamil Canadian community, Thai Pongal is one such tradition. Falling on January 14, Thai Pongal is typically marked in Tamil Canadian households across Canada. Equivalent to Thanksgiving, Thai Pongal is also celebrated across generations, from Tamils who immigrated to their children and grandchildren born in Canada.
I first met with Melanie Kannokada last year in summer. She seemed extremely nice, but a little reserved. When I returned back to the office, I decided to Google her. On her official website
The biggest challenge for our generation is “lack of understanding between parents and kids,” says Ami Pathak, Miss India Carassauga 2008-2009. She says parents should not judge their kids by what people are saying. “This is unfair for kids.” By the same token, kids should take their parents in confidence when they are up to something. Talking about being her joining the pageants, Ami says pageant industry is very different “in a good way.” “All you need is a little sense of how to carry yourself,” she adds. Ami is officially permitted to teach dace. She has choreographed for people who want to perform at shows or at auditions. Aside from being involved in entertainment, Ami is also involved in community. She is the Chair of Youth Committee of Shrigaud Brahman Group of Toronto. This group works new immigrants to settle in Canada. Their job starts even before an immigrant lands at the airport in Canada. The group encourages not only Gujratis and Brahman to join the organization, but is open to everyone. Other than this, Ami works for City of Toronto at Councillor Raymond Cho’s office. When she joined she was not at all interested in politics; however six months later, she finds politics “very intriguing” where two people with different viewpoints hold their ground and yet are fighting for what they believe in. This is not all Ami does. She is also a third year student of Biotechnology at UOIT. And is iffy about her career path. Her dilemma lies between choosing medical school, going for masters or to be radiologist. When it comes to religion, Ami feels that most youth do not believe in religion because our elder generation does not do a good job of explaining why the youth should believe in what is preached to them. In ten years, Ami sees herself as well settled in her career, maybe as a politician too. About her being politician she says “I won’t be surprised to see myself as a politician.”
Posted on 03 February 2010
PANORAMA India, celebrated the 61st Republic Day of India at the Pearson Convention Centre on January 31st, 2010. The event was jointly organised in association with the Consulate General of India, in Toronto to showcase India’s unique cultural unity in diversity. The day- long celebrations were conducted in a [...] Continue Reading
Posted on 03 February 2010
Washington, D.C. – Congressman Keith Ellison will hold an Inter-Faith dialogue with leaders of the various faith communities on Monday, February 1st, 2010. The purpose of the event is to bring together the myriad of faith leaders to discuss legislative issues of interest, and approaches to achieving them. “We are so fortunate to live in the [...] Continue Reading
Posted on 03 February 2010
The only recourse for the President is to go on the offensive in pushing for a more populist agenda. If Democrats cower after losing Massachusetts and muddy their reform agenda, there will be more losses in November, but if they fight back and project a clearer message, they might get something done between now and the mid-term elections. Continue Reading
Posted on 03 February 2010
A Muslim women’s study conducted by Yuka Nakamura, who is a doctoral candidate in physical education and health at the University of Toronto in Canada stated that there’s a great need for a modest athletic wear beyond Muslim communities. She further said, an increasing number of non-Muslim women desire and embrace modest clothing when sporting. These non-Muslim women who are Christian and Jewish feel they too, don’t need to display body parts in participation of sports. These women are striving to be modest as well. Continue Reading
Posted on 03 February 2010
Preparing your resume/CV The first step on the road to working at Google is submitting your resume/CV. It’s important that your resume/CV accurately reflects your skills, experience and capabilities. If you graduated from a university within the last five years, include a copy of your transcripts (unofficial is okay), a list showing individual coursework completed and [...] Continue Reading
Posted on 03 February 2010
The story begins with a recipe, a mixture of “Rice Krispies, Planters peanuts and chopped red onion. She adds salt, lemon juice, thin slices of chili pepper…” (pg 1). This really is the best way to describe this book—the result of two worlds coming together. In an Interview, Jhumpa Lahiri says that “though I’ve never [...] Continue Reading
Posted on 03 February 2010
I have to confess that most rubbish tweets are by Shahid Kapoor (shahidkapoor)... The most entertaining tweets are by Preity Zinta (realpreityzinta)… Pooja Bhatt’s tweets are thought provoking (PoojaB1972). Shahrukh Khan (iamsrk) tweets like a morning bird and his tweets have the congeniality factor. Abhishek Bachchan (juniorbachchan) is spontaneous while the classiest tweets are by Rahul Khanna (R_Khanna). Continue Reading
Posted on 03 February 2010
Most experts agree that the tragedy of the Haitian earthquake isn’t going to go away anytime soon, and that the reconstruction efforts are likely to take years to complete. This is why it is so important to keep up the momentum that has been started by millions of people and hundreds of charitable organizations around the world to bring relief to the Haitian people. Continue Reading
Posted on 03 February 2010
Some pray to Jesus. Some pray to Allah. Some to Ram. Some don’t pray at all. I’d probably fall into the last category. I don’t pray to anyone. Then again, perhaps ‘pray’ is the wrong word. Belief, or faith, might be more apt. I don’t believe in God – though not from a lack of [...] Continue Reading
Posted on 03 February 2010
Buried beneath the soil of ruin, watered by the drops of tears , the faded flower of India’s past breathes. This flower, the God of Ahimsa (non-violence), Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, comforts mourners who bleed tears about the violence above the soil, the soil of ruin. This flower once blessed India with the fragrance of freedom. [...] Continue Reading