A San Jose Mercury News (Local News section) feature article titled “Staying Currents”, published on April 7, 2011, highlighting the 25th anniversary of India Currents, the longest-running Indian American magazine on the West Coast.
Written by Lisa Fernandez, the article profiles publisher Vandana Kumar, tracing the magazine’s history from its founding in April 1987 (with an eight-page first issue) to its growth into a significant cultural, political, and community publication for the South Asian diaspora.
The feature emphasizes:
India Currents’ evolution into a key platform for South Asian voices
Its role in documenting immigrant stories, social issues, arts, politics, and identity
The magazine’s influence in shaping community cohesion and representation in the Bay Area
The dedication of its editorial team, including editor Nadia Maiwand
The magazine’s ongoing mission to reflect the diversity and complexity of Indian American life
Positioned in the Local News section of a major metro paper, the article demonstrates mainstream recognition of South Asian ethnic media and validates India Currents’ civic and cultural importance within Silicon Valley.
A short station liner from Bolly 92.3 FM (KSJO San Jose) used to identify the station on air. The phrase “You Talk the Talk” captures Bolly FM’s lively tone and multicultural Bay Area voice. This clip illustrates how South Asian radio brands itself within mainstream U.S. media, blending local energy with global Bollywood culture.
This audio clip is a station identification used in Radio Zindagi’s broadcast programming. These short audio elements establish the station’s on-air identity and reinforce its role as a South Asian community radio outlet serving the San Francisco Bay Area.
12 Varsha 9 Mahine 6 Diwas reimagined the romantic-comedy structure of When Harry Met Sally within a Marathi cultural framework. Adapted and directed by local playwright Vikram Watave, the play traces the evolving relationship between two individuals whose lives intersect repeatedly over time. Their conversations, disagreements, and shifting emotional boundaries explore whether intimacy between a man and a woman can remain purely platonic. By relocating a familiar Western narrative into Marathi language and diasporic sensibility, CalAA demonstrated how adaptation becomes a form of cultural translation. The production situates global popular storytelling within regional linguistic performance, reflecting the hybridity of South Asian life in Silicon Valley.
This audio clip is a station bumper used in Radio Zindagi’s broadcast programming. These short audio elements establish the station’s on-air identity and reinforce its role as a South Asian community radio outlet serving the San Francisco Bay Area.
This audio clip is a station bumper used in Radio Zindagi’s broadcast programming. These short audio elements establish the station’s on-air identity and reinforce its role as a South Asian community radio outlet serving the San Francisco Bay Area.
This audio clip is a station bumper used in Radio Zindagi’s broadcast programming. These short audio elements establish the station’s on-air identity and reinforce its role as a South Asian community radio outlet serving the San Francisco Bay Area
Presented in April 2022, 221B is a contemporary Bengali suspense thriller written by Arindam Mukherjee and adapted from his 2010 play originally staged in Kolkata. The drama centers on a renowned economist and avid admirer of Sherlock Holmes, whose carefully ordered world begins to unravel within the confines of his home. BAAT’s production introduced Bay Area audiences to a modern Bengali theatrical work that draws on the conventions of psychological mystery and detective fiction.
Instead of enacting Tagore's plays, ENAD adapted Ranjon Ghoshal's one-act play into a multi-cast play, and brought to the audience a glimpse of how Tagore's philosophy of universal brotherhood emerged. Drawing from Bengal's simple rural life and folk traditions and his own faith in embracing humanity irrespective of differences, Tagore stood firmly against narrow definitions of nationalism. ENAD's productioon is as relevant today as it was when Tagore espoused his philosophy of universalism. The play was in English and included Tagore's songs in Bengali.
Rural Bengal, with its long history of spiritualism, sang melodies that celebrated nature and its gifts. Tagore drew on such traditions, composed lyrics, and recognized the oneness of all living beings, big and small.
This image depicts the wedding dance of Keshav and Naveen in the play, which is a is a romantic comedy about a traditional Indian family in the Bay Area navigating love, identity, and cultural expectations when their son brings home an unexpected partner.
The folk tales of Akbar Birbal have tickled and taught us for centuries. The spectacle of the Akbar Birbal play is in the humor and drama of court banter, romance of Akbar & Jodha, and is interspersed with live music & dance sequences that add to the charm of Akbar’s court.
Emperor Akbar handpicked the brightest minds of his vast empire to create the illustrious Nau Ratan (nine gems) of his Mughal court. Foremost among them, and some say Akbar’s closest friend, was Raja Birbal - a man of wit, courage and sagacity.
Akbar Birbal brings together over 75 of SF Bay Area’s best
actors, dancers & musicians for the first time in East Bay.
Anahita Mukherji — Journalism that Connects India and the Diaspora
Anahita Mukherji is an award-winning investigative and features journalist whose work spans social justice, environmental issues, education, and South Asian diaspora politics.
At The Times of India (Mumbai, 2003–2014), she gained recognition for her deeply reported stories on inequality, gender rights, education reform, and environmental justice. Her investigative pieces on child rights, urban poverty, and the Right to Information Act highlighted voices often ignored in India’s mainstream press. She received multiple national journalism awards, including the Sanskriti Award (2010) and Wind Under the Wings Award (2016) for environmental reportage.
After relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area, Mukherji began writing for Scroll.in, Quartz, and The Morning Context, where her reporting explores the cultural and political intersections of the Indian diaspora in the United States. Her essays and features often examine the complexities of identity, immigration, and belonging, capturing the experiences of Indian Americans navigating both Silicon Valley’s success culture and the sociopolitical realities of post-2016 America.
Her Scroll.in stories, such as “As MAGA creeps up on Silicon Valley” and “A Berkeley walking tour brings alive a century of radical South Asian activism,” illustrate her distinctive ability to weave historical memory with contemporary politics. Through these works, she has helped document the growing civic consciousness of South Asian communities in California.
Mukherji’s writing is marked by empathy, historical depth, and a transnational lens that links India’s social struggles to the diaspora’s ongoing quest for equity and voice in the Bay Area and beyond.
Aniket (one who has no home) stages the expectations and disillusionment of a young couple who returns to India from the United States only to find they are not 'at home' in the land they grew up in, either.
