A Spoonful of Pickle Makes Life Go Down Easy

At 2am on a cold, damp weeknight, the highway that connects Washington, D.C. to its Virginia suburbs was nearly empty. I had the run of its deserted lanes as I hurtled through the darkness towards home with this single tantalizing thought on my mind – a bowl of hot rice, ghee and spicy mango pickle.

The past several days and nights had been one unending blur at work and the next few weeks didn’t promise any better. To add to my misery, none of the standard take-out places around my office in Washington, D.C. offered the one quality I sought in the dinners I was forced to eat at my desk – they were not comfort food. Not to me.

Once home, I headed straight into the kitchen to put a pot of rice on the stove – one cup of basmati rice rinsed clean and two cups of water in a small sauce pan. As soon as the water came to a boil, I turned the flame nearly all the way down and closed the pan with its tight-fitting lid. In the ten minutes it took the rice to cook, I washed up and changed, and got the pickle and ghee jars from the pantry.  

A gentle crackling from the base of the rice pot was the reassuring sound I’d been longing for, the signal that the rice was perfectly cooked, soft, plump and fluffy. I lifted the lid off, letting the steam escape and I caught a warm, moist, starchy cloud on my face.

As I breathed in, I felt the wrinkles on my forehead give way. The creases around my eyelids softened and my cheeks eased back to their original stations. I could try to describe its aroma in culinary terms, but in its swirls the steam held the rustle of mom’s sari, it held the twinkle in dad’s eye as he told us one of his jokes, it held my brother’s cackling laughter – all of which I’d left behind in India. At that moment, that aroma was home.

Too impatient to let the rice cool as it should, I scooped some up into a bowl with a wide, nearly flat spoon (known in literal translation from Kannada, my mother tongue, as the ‘rice hand’) I’d brought from India for that purpose.

Then, on top of the rice, a swirl of a teaspoon of ghee, its color and bouquet betraying its origin in butter.

Finally, my pickle of choice, the mango pickle. A couple of teaspoons did nicely for all of the rice in my bowl.

Chunks of raw mango nestled in a thick sauce of oil and pickling spices. The deep red of the chili powder (made from a special type of dried red chili prized for its intense color, called Byadgi, native to central India) combined with the rich yellow of the turmeric and powdered mustard seeds to form a tint and taste all their own.

Bright red with flecks of black. Tangy with the muted bitterness of roasted fenugreek and asafetida. Spicy with layers of heat from the chili and the mustard. Salty.

Unmistakably pickle.

I held the bowl in my left hand and – in true South Indian style – dug the fingertips of my right into the bowl, working the ghee and the pickle around and into the rice. There is a premium on serving and eating hot food in South India, and my fingers were proof of having lived up to that standard for years – they hardly felt the heat of the just-cooked rice.

That or the endorphins popping in my brain at the sight and smell of the ghee and pickle numbed my fingers.

Aided by the moistness of the ghee, rice and pickle came together in perfect union. The heat of the pickle, tempered somewhat by the ghee, and the now-warm rice blazed their way past my ravenous taste buds. Simple, starchy, buttery rice infused with the salty, spicy, sour, slightly bitter flavors of the pickle. The mango chunks, having marinated in the pickling spices for a good long time, provided sudden, crunchy bursts of intense flavor.

It was sublime.

On any other day, late night infomercials would give me company through a bedtime snack, but that day, with the occasional swish of a car whizzing past the house for company, I stood barefoot in the kitchen and polished off the entire bowl.

Not for the first time, I wondered what it was that drove me to seek this particular combination of foods in times of distress. I didn’t bother then to press for an answer, just content in the knowledge that for the moment all was right with the world.

It is only recently, when dad was irretrievably lost to me, that my mind made the connection.

Memories of dad flicker in and out these days, the rumble of his guffaws, the way he would fling his towel over his shoulder, his relentless haggling with the vegetable vendor, the games he would make up for our gang of cousins and friends, his voice when he called my name. I bounce around, in my mind, through the many homes we lived in at various points during my childhood.

Some recollections, however, refuse to leave, waiting patiently until I acknowledge and examine them. One of those is of our mealtimes when we were growing up.

Dinner was the one meal during the weekday when everyone sat together. We ate on steel plates, in the kitchen, on the floor. All of the plates had raised edges so they could contain the many dishes of South Indian cuisine that had the consistency of gravy. Mine was oval in shape, my brother and parents had circular plates. Even after all these years, when I go back to mom’s home I still reach for ‘my’ plate.

My brother or I would lay out the plates in a circle on the floor with enough space in the center for the containers of rice, Rasam (a soup-like lentil and tomato dish), a vegetable curry, assorted condiments such as pickles and spice powders, ghee, and curd (yogurt).

If dad was particularly hungry, he would get started as soon as he sat down. He could never resist the temptation of hot rice, ghee and pickle. He would mix them in his plate and feed us siblings first, then mom and then himself, repeating the cycle until mom, who would still be bustling about the kitchen trying to get all the dishes on to the floor, was done. She would protest that she was busy but it fell on deaf ears. Everyone would then settle down for the second course of rice with Rasam and curry (beans, cabbage or eggplant curries were staples), ending with rice and curd or buttermilk.

Juicy family and work gossip served as an ever-present accompaniment. Dinner was a raucous affair.

It still was, every time I traveled back to India with my own children in tow. My brother and I would promptly revert to our roles as children and there would be at least one re-enactment of our dinner ritual from our childhoods complete with dad feeding us. Over the years, the circle on the floor just grew wider and noisier with more plates and more voices. Until the biggest part of the circle was no more.

In my own home, in my own kitchen so far away in time and space from the kitchens of my childhood, my bowl of rice and pickle is my ticket, the only way I know to transport myself, in an instant, back to that circle of my childhood.

It is magic.

Why Does the Higgs Particle Matter?

Physicist Frank Wilczek's essay is absolutely lovely to read, and inspiring, because it considers not only the science but also the human aspects involved in an inquiry of this magnitude:

The scientific work leading to the Higgs particle discovery involved thousands of engineers and physicists, not to mention billions of taxpayers, from all over the world co-operating to pursue a common goal. For most of the highly gifted participants, it involved long, often frustrating and sometimes tedious labor, with modest prospects for personal reward. They did it, anyway, because they wanted to understand the world better, and to be part of something great. They did, and they were. In this we have seen, I think, an example of humanity at its best.

Plus it helps that it's written in language that even a lay person like me could at least try to understand the concept.

The entire essay is here.

When All That's Left of a Pressure Cooker are Fragments and Hurt

As an intern at a communications consulting company many years ago, I had to get familiar with the firm's documents and their various formats and templates. The resident tech guru pointed to the computer screen and said, "Click on that icon." Try as I might, I couldn't see an image of Jesus, Mary or any other religious figure. I turned to him and shook my head. "The icon. Here." He pointed to a very specific spot on the screen. I clicked on what looked like a folder and we were on our way.

That was the first time I had heard the word 'icon' used in that context. I had taught myself basic word processing at my grad school's library a few months earlier and was a neophyte when it came to tech jargon. It was not long before the list of words whose original meanings slowly merged with the meanings they acquired in the tech industry grew longer and longer. Mouse. Drive. Memory. Bug. Virus. Chip. File. Folder. Save. Recycle Bin. It was discombobulating at the beginning but not by the time Link, Tag, Navigate, Cloud and Friend came along.

It is only natural that this sort of co-opting of existing words and giving them new meanings must occur every time a new industry tries to find its footing. My favorite example is of the use of the word 'broadcasting' in the radio and TV industries. It originally referred to the way seeds were sown on farms - they were either 'broadcast', i.e., cast over a large area, or 'narrowcast'. These days, however, one hardly ever thinks of agriculture when that word is used.

Over the last few years, a newer enterprise - the terror industry - has been busy usurping words and their meanings. And it is accomplishing this feat not by using the words differently, but by commandeering mundane objects for its lethal purposes and wresting control of how we view those objects and the words we use to denote them.

Ordinary, everyday implements have always come in handy in committing crimes on a small scale - kitchen knives, arsenic, baseball (or cricket) bats, hockey sticks, pillows, etc. For acts of terror the tools of choice have expanded to cover fertilizers, nails, batteries, ball bearings, bleach, nail polish removers and cold packs. The original meanings of these words have not changed much, but a new, somewhat discomfiting connotation has layered itself on top of the original meaning. Belts, shoes, loose change in pant pockets, jackets, watches, lotions, gels, nail clippers - memories of security lines at airports attach themselves to thoughts of dressing up to go out. I can never think of box cutters (a term I'd not heard before) without also thinking of 9/11.

While our awareness has expanded to accommodate the understanding that some of these objects may be deployed to cause large-scale destruction, they hardly evoke the sort of memories that the latest entrant to this rather ignominious list - the pressure cooker - does.

To most people who've ever used it, the pressure cooker comes packaged with good, warm memories of the sights and sounds of home, of family, and of home-cooked food. Home cooks hold on to their pressure cookers for as long as they can because once they have mastered the nuances unique to each unit, it's hard to want to let go and start all over with a new one. The whistles of the cooker blend into a family's early morning rhythms. The aroma of steamed vegetables, rice and pulses is a harbinger of meals to follow.

Until a few years ago, a shiny new pressure cooker (along with detailed recipes) occupied a large portion of suitcases when kids in South Asia left home to go away to college abroad. It was too expensive an item to purchase on a student's (non-existent) budget. These days it is more widely available here in the US, and with people willing to try their hand at a variety of cuisines, it's not a rare item on wedding registries either. And it is not the sort of thing that would trigger a thorough sweep of your luggage at airports.

That was then.

Kitchen disasters with pressure cookers are not uncommon, usually due to faulty gaskets or weights. But there is an unbridgeable gulf between accidents and wanton acts designed to kill and maim other human beings. Many more words in our vocabulary have now mutated to acquire a slightly different shape and have settled somewhat uneasily in our collective memories. Marathon. Boston. Finish Line. Pressure Cooker. They trigger sad thoughts for lives lost and pain suffered; they bring thoughts of good human beings, of a situation that could have been worse but for many kind-hearted people; they call up anger at the senseless attacks on innocent lives. But no matter what, they trigger thoughts that never were before.

This is now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Update - April 29, 2013

This essay was published at The Aerogram.
 

How Does the 2013 Immigration Reform Proposal Compare to the 2006 and 2007 Senate Bills?

Via e-mail from the DC-based Migration Policy Institute:

The Migration Policy Institute has completed an analysis of the major provisions in the bipartisan group of senators' 2013 immigration reform framework, comparing them to provisions in the earlier 2006 and 2007 Senate legislation.

The side-by-side comparison's topics include border security and enforcement; visa reforms; earned legalization of unauthorized immigrants; strengthening of the US economy and workforce; and immigrant integration.

As this Issue Brief was completed in advance of today's release of the Senate immigration bill, the side-by-side will be updated in the coming days, as our experts comb through further details of the 844-page bill.
 

Here is the link to the comparison (pdf file): http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/CIRbrief-2013SenateFramework-Side-by-Side.pdf

If you are interested in immigration issues and human migration in general, the Migration Policy Institute is a great resource. Here is a link to their site: http://www.migrationpolicy.org/

ForbesLife India: Altruism Everyday

This essay appeared in the Winter 2012 edition of ForbesLife India.

In a material world, working for nothing can bear unexpected rewards - especially for heritage volunteers.

I must have dropped the nails about 10 times. In my defence, it was a typically freezing day in February in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. I had two layers of t-shirts underneath my hooded sweatshirt, a heavy jacket on top, thermals under my jeans, a hardhat, boots and gloves. Even a tool belt. I looked every inch the construction worker I was pretending to be. Through the gloves, I could barely feel my fingers. I was lucky it wasn’t the hammer I dropped.

Along with two other somewhat better coordinated volunteers, I stood on the top level of what would eventually be a house. Our task that day was to frame the inside walls that would section off the various rooms.

About an hour into the lifting, aligning and hammering, a man who I’d seen walking around in the lower floor climbed up the creaky wooden stairs, waved a cheery hello and proceeded to thank everyone. I don’t recall his exact words all these years later, but they added up to something like, “Thank you for building my home.” I stared at him open-mouthed. As far as I knew, I was just going to help build a home; I hadn’t expected to actually meet the family who would eventually live here. The sudden rush of delight I felt – a volunteer’s high, if you will – just about managed to thaw my icy fingers. Or at least make me forget about them for a while.

I had volunteered on a whim, through a network of Indian professionals in the Washington, D.C. area, on a project for Habitat for Humanity, a Christian organisation that pairs affordable housing and no-interest mortgage loans with families in need.

To me, it seemed like an excellent way to make connections within the Indian community while spending an afternoon on a worthwhile cause. But this, my first encounter with volunteering, led to many more hours spent helping people and organisations, both with groups of like-minded friends and on my own, in food banks, at local libraries and, as my children grew older, on sports teams and in schools.

Over the years, I have found that for immigrants, volunteering is the synapse that can fire off quite a few connections. Having grown up in other countries, immigrants can feel the lack of exposure to the American institutions that will inform their lives and those of their children. And having moved away from their home countries, connections to their own heritage are rendered tenuous. Volunteering in government agencies, schools and on sports teams allows them a peek into the inner workings of these institutions and helps build relationships within their new communities, while donating time to cultural organisations and places of worship allows them to remain connected to their heritage.

Anu Iyer, 59 and a first generation immigrant, is a Montessori school teacher, and coordinator of the PR committee at the Sri Siva Vishnu Temple in Lanham, Maryland, a voluntary position. “Volunteers are the backbone of the temple, which serves thousands of devotees from nearby communities and neighbouring states,” she says. “They play a very, very important role.” The temple has a few employees (managers, priests and cooks), but relies on several hundreds of volunteers for everything else, from keeping track of donations, maintaining various databases, selling food at the canteen, procuring flowers and making garlands, making and maintaining the saris that adorn the idols and manning the reception desk to teaching children Sanskrit shlokas every weekend. Many of the volunteers donate their time because it allows them to socialise with other Indians and replicate the feeling of home, says Iyer.

As a young girl, she watched her father working on various projects within the airport colony in which they lived in Mumbai. He founded a credit union for airline employees and ran a school for their children, both on a purely voluntary basis. It felt natural to Iyer when she moved to the US to want to volunteer at the two institutions she interacted with regularly – her children’s school and the temple.

Sonya Mazumdar, 29, a patent examiner in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in Alexandria, Virginia, also grew up watching her parents donating time and effort to their community in New Jersey. Mazumdar imbibed this ethic and tutored fellow students in math and science subjects for a nominal fee in high school, and later for college credit. “It is always good to help people,” she says. “Not everybody is as lucky as you.” Today she volunteers, along with her USPTO colleagues, at a local elementary school to devise and introduce science experiments to third-graders.

Mazumdar also donates her time as co-chair of the community service committee in the Washington, D.C. chapter of NetSAP (the Network of South Asian Professionals). She coordinates at least one community service project a month, from packaging food for retirement homes and painting school bathrooms to helping out at an Armed Forces retirement home. The volunteers particularly enjoyed this last project, she says, because they got to interact with Army veterans, a demographic that people from the sub-continent don’t usually get to meet.

For Madhu Maheshwari, 60, who moved to the United States as a new bride in the mid-’70s, the urge to remain connected to her heritage and pass on that legacy to the next generation drove her to gather a small group of like-minded friends to teach children the songs, dances and poetry of India. Years later, she still teaches Hindi, and produces and directs Hindi plays with children of other Indian immigrants in her community in Northern Virginia.

While Indian immigrants in the US and their children are busy putting down new roots in their chosen homeland, some in the second generation are digging deeper back in the old country, moving back to India for periods up to a year or more to volunteer on a wide range of development projects. The phenomenon has grown big enough to acquire a handle all its own – ‘heritage volunteering’ or ‘diaspora volunteering’.

According to a report published by the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank (Terrazas, Aaron. 2010. Connected Through Service: Diaspora Volunteers and Development), about one million Americans volunteer abroad each year, of which nearly 200,000 are first and second generation immigrants. Whereas the United States Peace Corps – an independent government agency founded in 1961 that matches trained volunteers with countries in need of their expertise – used to be the only organised option for Americans who wanted to volunteer in other countries not too long ago, Googling ‘volunteering in India’ elicits nearly 11 million results in less than half a second today. There are legions of agencies, foundations, and non-profit organisations willing to facilitate overseas volunteer journeys. While some agencies require the volunteers to bear all costs associated with the trip and the stay, others offer fellowships that cover the cost of the trip and basic living expenses.

Indicorps and the American India Foundation’s William J. Clinton Fellowship for Service in India (AIF Clinton Fellowship) are just two of the many prominent entities that offer fellowships for working in the non-profit sector in India. Indicorps restricts its fellowships to heritage volunteers and Indian citizens, but the latter is open to US permanent residents, Americans and Indians who want to work on development projects in India.

Indicorps fellowships have been offered to anywhere between three and 22 applicants every year since the non-profit organisation was founded in 2002, says Dev Tayde, executive director. The August 2011 batch, which finished its fellowship year at the end of July 2012, had a class of nine Fellows. According to Behzad Larry, a programme officer at the AIF Clinton Fellowship, 265 Fellows have been placed in India since the inception of the programme in 2001. For the 2012-2013 year, 40 Fellows will be placed among the 120-odd non-profit organisations the AIF Clinton Fellowship partners with in India.

For some second-generation Indians, their parents’ frequent holidays in India meant more than just time with extended family or a stronger than usual exposure to heritage. They allowed a germ of an idea for things to accomplish in the future to take root. Suchita Guntakatta, 42, for instance, visited India often while growing up in the US and returned as a mid-career professional contemplating a change from management consulting. Her decision to volunteer in India came easy. “I wanted to understand the issues on the ground because I was considering going into the non-profit sector,” she says. “And I chose India because it is close to my heart.”

Signing up with Cross Cultural Solutions, an organisation that matches volunteers with projects that address the needs of communities in Asia, Latin America and Africa, she decided to teach English to women in Dharmasala and help them to better their work prospects. “You could see that they were genuinely motivated to do better for themselves and their families,” Guntakatta says. While her planned six-month stint was cut short to just a few weeks as she received the offer of her dream job as deputy director of strategy, planning and management at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, it is obvious she cherishes the time she spent helping the women.

For Krupa Asher, 25, a 2011 AIF Clinton Fellow, her work at the Anudip Foundation in Kolkata teaching IT and other livelihood skills to unemployed rural youth and women was a good blend of service and opportunity for professional development. Northeastern University, where she got her degree in International Affairs and Human Services, offered a co-op programme that allowed students to take six months off from school to work in a particular sector to assess if it was something they wanted to pursue in the long term. Under the programme, she volunteered with a Bangalore-based non-profit, working to provide education to under-served children for about five months. “Bangalore was difficult, the logistics and bureaucracy were difficult. I was not confident in my abilities. I learned a lot about myself. I learned patience,” she says, but by the time her AIF Clinton Fellowship came along, “India was a battle I was ready to take on.” The fact that she was able to garner real-world experience while helping women and unemployed rural youth was crucial to her. She is sure it will pay off as she works towards a Masters in development management at the London School of Economics.

While professional aspirations may drive heritage volunteers to seek development projects, applicants of Indian origin frequently mention the need to establish a deeper connection with their parents’ home countries – and know what it is really like to live there – as deciding factors in choosing India, says Larry. Sometimes, this need must overcome parents’ discomfort at their children living thousands of miles away in a country they had decided to leave years earlier, as both Asher and Sumita Mitra, 24, a 2010 Indicorps Fellow, found out.

Mitra, a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, took numerous trips to India as a child. “I was about six or seven when I knew I would come back and work in India one day,” she says. Through her fellowship she worked with Hum Kisan Sangathan, a farmer’s collective in the Jhalawar district of Rajasthan. With a background in light Hindustani music and a passion for the performing arts, the project that used theatre and music for social change was right up her alley.

At the end of the first year, she felt like a lot was left unaccomplished and so went back to India with Piramal Fellowship, a programme designed to help participants ‘understand the power of business to do social good.’ She will continue to stay on, she says, even at the end of this one. “I feel like somewhere along the line of my life I made a commitment to fighting for social justice. The fact that there is so much change I want to see in the world keeps me here … and the fact that there is always hope. I think if I ever felt change wasn’t possible I’d leave, but I know change is very possible.”

By definition
For institutions receiving the service hours, volunteering is serious business. According to Volunteering in America, a report published by the Corporation for National and Community Service, an agency of the US Government, volunteers served 8.1 billion hours in 2010. The total estimated value of that service was $173 billion (at an average rate of $21.36 per hour).

But what does ‘volunteering’ or ‘volunteer work’ mean exactly? It is one thing to drive to the local library and help them shelve all the returned books. It is quite another thing if your volunteer project needs you to get on a plane for 20 hours and live in a strange country for six months, working to improve women’s health. Who bears the cost of the trip? If volunteering means you can’t get paid, does that mean that only rich people get to volunteer? And if you work the entire summer in your uncle’s restaurant washing dishes for no pay, is that considered volunteering?

Recognising how challenging it is to arrive at a standardised definition of volunteering, the International Labor Organization (ILO), in its Manual on the Measurement of Volunteer Work (2011), proposes the following definition:

Unpaid non-compulsory work; that is, time individuals give without pay to activities performed either through an organisation or directly for others outside their own household.

The manual goes on to explain that while volunteers cannot be remunerated for their service, “some forms of monetary or in-kind compensation may still be possible without violating this feature of the definition.” For example, reimbursement for out-of-pocket expenses such as travel costs or stipends that cover daily expenses (as long as the stipend is not tied to the local market value or the quality or quantity of work) do not constitute a salary or payment for work and such work will still be considered voluntary. And no, no amount of free work for family will qualify as volunteering.
 

A Playreading Group for Children, at Jagriti in Bangalore

Via e-mail:

 

This is open to children who would like to keep in touch with plays and drama. There will be one session at week—on Saturday at 4 pm—for three months. Through this time, the group will read plays, watch plays and meet with directors, actors and designers to understand the workings of a dramatic text.

This is not a class, where a syllabus is followed and a trainer is teaching. The course will be extremely rewarding for children interested in drama, and who will motivate themselves to work and bring something to the group.

To register for the program, do write to edu@jagrititheatre.com with the following details:

1. Name

2. Age

3. Name of school

4. Any previous theatre training - if yes, duration of course(s) attended

5. A few lines on why you want to take up the course

Please Note:

The programme will start on January 12, but children are welcome to join any time

There is no fee

The upper limit is 20 children, after which registrations will close

In Honor of Mardi Gras, A Little Slice of New Orleans

In just a few hours, Mardi Gras will get underway in New Orleans, one of my favorite cities in all the world. Over Christmas break, with the Sugar Bowl, a Saints game and New Year's parties all happening around that time, the city was buzzing with excitement and energy.

But what's a good party without food, eh? Each meal was an event in itself, as we tried to get our fill of the delicious Creole cuisine. And one memory that will stick around for a long time is that of biting into a piping hot, sugary beignet.

Not really knowing what to expect, we ordered one plate for the table, for two adults and two kids. One bite in, the consensus was to order two more plates. The chicory-rich coffee made for a heavenly accompaniment. We peppered our 20 year-old waiter with questions about the restaurant and the hugely popular dish (the lines went out the door for at least a block on all the days we were there). He invited us to take a peek into the part of the kitchen where the beignets were being made.

They must get the request a lot. Through huge glass windows that looked out onto a walkway at the back of the restaurant, we saw two men working silently and continuously, feeding the dough into a machine that sliced it and took it along a belt.

Starting from one end of the belt, the men would pick up the individual pieces, prime them in their hands and fling them across the air into the huge vats of boiling oil.

Each plate came with three or four beignets. Snowy mountains of powdered sugar rose precariously on top. Towards the end of the meal, that we had paid a visit to Cafe du Monde for the express purpose of devouring beignets was obvious. Our clothes, bags, and even parts of our hair bore the tell tale evidence.

And as always in New Orleans, music was never far away. Just outside the railing the separated the eating area from the sidewalk, this young man played the trumpet.

  

Profiting from Social Media

Sree Sreenivasan, a professor of digital media and dean of student affairs at Columbia Journalism School, has a new blog on CNET. His first post is on profiting from social media.

Jabberwock's Review of Katherine Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers

I recently heard an interview with Katherine Boo on radio and want to get her book, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, about life in Annawadi, a slum in Mumbai. This Jabberwock review seals the deal. And here's an interesting profile of the author in The New York Times.

Swimming Lessons in Bangalore at the Nisha Millet Swimming Academy

Olympian Nisha Millet runs the Nisha Millet Swimming Academy at various locations in Bangalore for many age groups and skill levels - from five year-olds to 70 year-olds, from beginners to competitive swimmers. Check out her Facebook page for more details. From first hand experience, I can say that she has a firm but gentle approach with the kids and gets them to love the water, which as many parents will tell you is first biggest hurdle on the road to learning to be a good swimmer. Happy swimming!

Theater Review: Adventure Theatre's A Snowy Day

There are few things more delightful than an afternoon spent surrounded by a gaggle of giggling five and six year-olds. And there was plenty of opportunity for that at a showing of Adventure Theatre's new musical production, The Snowy Day. Based on Ezra Jack Keats' Caldecott Medal winning children's book of the same name, the antics of the four main characters in the play provide plenty of action, adventure and food for thought for audiences young and and not-so-young.

Keats' The Snowy Day is the tale of a young boy, Peter, who wakes up one day to find snow blanketing his neighborhood. As young children are wont to do, he puts on his snow suit and dashes outside to make snowmen and snow angels and snow balls. The plot line is endearing in its simplicity and in the way it evokes the familiar pleasures of staying home from school to have fun in the snow, to stomp through it, to draw lines in it and knock snow off of trees to make your own instant, on-demand snowfall. The book is a stand-out for two reasons - for its art, and for the fact that it was the first children's book in which the main character was black.

In Adventure Theatre's production, Playwright David Emerson Toney and Musician & Lyricist Darius Smith have adapted Keats' book and expanded each occurrence in it to include more characters and sub-plots. We meet Harold the snowman, Roberta the crow, Peter's mother, two neighbors, a fairy, a pirate and a hawker who sells snow flakes in a very warm and sunny place.

Peter has never seen snow before, and he is full of wonder at this white, crunchy stuff that has covered everything as far as he can see. The snowy day is packed with promise as he heads out in his bright red snow suit. There are hills to climb, slopes to slide down and snow pirates to vanquish. He marvels at the possibilities and pretends he's Peter the Great. Peter's mother has nourished his body and soul and Peter has no problem letting his imagination run wild. He wants someone to play with and in Harold and Roberta, he finds playmates but they also need his help to get where they need to go.

Without giving away too much of the plot, suffice to say that the music and lyrics had the children swaying, and the dialogue had them nodding in complete understanding of the boundaries imposed by mothers everywhere.

As a parent, the most revealing aspect of the production was the fact that the children in the audience absorbed the story within the context of a play. The sets, the props, the fact that there was no actual snow on the ground or that Peter's role was portrayed by someone obviously much older than a six year-old - none of these seemed to matter to the little ones. The children seemed to respond to the characters, to their fears and their joys, much as they would in a realistic movie or in a real-life situation.

Adventure Theatre's production of The Snowy Day brings to life a popular children's book (it's a staple in elementary school libraries) and is a marvelous introduction to musical theater for young kids. I have it on good authority: my five year-old declared it was "the best play" she had ever seen.

Children younger than three might find the proximity of the action a bit overwhelming. The stage is intimate and the action is up close (which is fantastic for the older pre-schoolers and the younger elementary school-age children).
~~~~~~

The Snowy Day is playing at the Adventure Theatre in Glen Echo, Maryland from January 20, 2012 through February 12, 2012. Tickets may be purchased at Adventure Theatre's website. More information about the play is available here and about the cast and production crew, here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Updated January 26, 2102 to include a note from Adventure Theatre:

Due to the demand for Snowy Day tickets, Adventure Theatre has added the following performances:

Sunday, January 29th at 4:30pm
Friday, February 3rd at 7:00pm
Sunday, February 5th at 4:30pm
Friday, February 10th at 7:00pm
Sunday, February 12th at 4:30pm

Forbes Article on D.C. Pedicabs

The nose wheel makes an acute turn and plants itself in the six-foot-wide gap between two cars idling at a traffic light on 14^thStreet. Before we have time to analyse just how our driver would steer the rest of the 10-foot-long ‘pedicab’ into that space, we’re straddling another lane line a few feet down the road between a big, red tourist bus and a truck. A few more zigs and zags later, we are in front of a bank of vehicles at least 30 cars deep, clear of all the exhaust. Our driver looks back at us and declares triumphantly, “Like I said, this is not my first day on the job!”

For the past two years, Will Visbeck has been honing his skills as a driver of a pedicab – known to the rest of the world variously as cycle rickshaw, cyclo, becak or trishaw – on the streets of Washington, D.C. It has no roof, doors, seatbelts, airbags, rear-view mirrors or stereo systems (though headlight, taillight and turn signals are in evidence) but we do get to make leisurely circles around statues and monuments as our driver keeps up his commentary of the sights.

Originally published in ForbesLife India. A link to the pdf version is here.

Travel Essay: Budapest

Ajay Devgn. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. His stark white suit. Her lusciously rich red sari. The earthy tones of the concrete and metal of Chain Bridge. A maudlin song wailing in the background. Their meeting on the deserted bridge. Her limpid eyes. His sad face. And…you know the rest.

The scene plays out in slow motion in my mind’s eye as we gaze at the majestic Chain Bridge from the low wall that separates a bustling promenade from the expanse of the Danube (known as the Duna in Hungary). The late afternoon breeze is soothing. We catch snippets of conversations in many tongues, familiar and unfamiliar. Buda’s Castle Hill rises on the left bank of the river on the far side. On the east bank where we stand, Pest sprawls as far as the eye can see.

The rest in last weekend's Mint Lounge.

Travel Essay: Vienna

The drone of early morning traffic trickles in through the thick double-paned kitchen windows and into our apartment in the heart of Vienna. I hear buses, cars and a couple of motorbikes, usual fare for a modern city. Then, distinct from the mix, I hear a familiar sound from a long time ago—the clip-clop of a horse’s hooves. In an instant I’m transported to my grandmother’s house in Mysore, to the sounds of jataka gaadis packed with children going off to school.

The memory propels me to look outside. I leave the water for the tea to boil on the stove and open the windows wide.

A shopkeeper spruces up the display case
in a candy/pastry shop.
There are no bars or screens and I can lean out far enough to see the ends of the street on both sides. Crisp sunshine bathes the multi-storeyed building across from our window. The air is fresh and holds the promise of pleasant weather. Stylishly dressed women walk briskly on the pavement, jackets and sweaters swinging on one arm. The owner of the art store downstairs rolls up the shutters. A couple of taxi cabs roll by and then the horse carriage comes into view.

The driver, sitting straight on his perch, guides his two horses and the carriage between rows of parked cars on either side of the street. A bus and two cars follow slowly behind, their drivers seemingly patient, their pace forced but stately. Then, as the carriage slows for cross-traffic at the intersection to my right, one of the horses decides to answer nature’s call and deposits copious amounts of waste in the middle of the street.

The sight rings a discordant note in the otherwise harmonious tableau outside the window, only because the street is otherwise spanking clean. The carriage continues on out of sight, as do the cars and the bus, leaving a messy street and making me wonder how the street manages to stay as clean as it does.

Half an hour later, I get my answer. An enormous machine slowly rumbles up the street, spraying water, scrubbing the street clean and scooping the mess right up into its bowels.

The new has figured out a way to live with the old.

When the Viennale, Vienna’s highly anticipated annual film festival (first held in 1960, this year will see the 48th event), lights up movie screens from 21 October-3 November, judges and film buffs new to the city are likely—in addition to settling disagreements on their way to crowning the winners—to notice one or two or 10 such discordant notes. They are bound to discover, however, that in a city so comfortable in its skin, such dissonance merely forms happy interludes in the mellifluous magnum opus that is Vienna.

Nowhere is the push-and-pull of the old and the new more obvious than at St Stephen’s Square (Stephansplatz) in the old city. The jaw-drop inspiring 12th century church of the Gothic variety dominates the pedestrian-only city centre. Straight across the cobbled street stands Hasshaus, a modern edifice of the shiny glass variety, whose catoptric facade offers a resplendent mirror image of the church.

Vienna’s most visually striking (and popular) example of departure from the norm, however, is Hundertwasser-Krawinahaus, an apartment complex designed by Austrian architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser.




















Nestled in a quiet street off Weissgerberstrasse, amid street upon street of identical, monochromatic, linear buildings, the apartments of Hundertwasser-Krawinahaus are a world apart. They appear to be stacked whimsically one on top of the other—we don’t detect straight lines other than in the window frames—the walls and pillars coloured in as if by a child. The interiors are closed to visitors (a note on the front door politely explains how discombobulating it is to have strangers traipsing through their homes), but a few blocks away, Kunst Haus Wien, a museum, is a visual and tactile journey into Hundertwasser’s philosophy. The floor is bumpy and uneven; the walls are wavy; colours seem to explode, rarely ending in straight lines.

Hundertwasser-Krawinahaus confirms what we have been feeling ever since our jaunt around the old city on the day of our arrival in Vienna—this city likes to have fun. And it doesn’t hesitate to call upon monuments and other historical landmarks in its pursuit of modern versions of entertainment.

So what if Vienna is not on the sea? Its denizens are not about to pass up a day at the beach. The 21km-long Danube Island, the by-product of Vienna’s elaborate flood protection system, is the go-to place for summer fun.

For year-round fun, the city boasts an expansive fairground for children and adults alike, the Prater. The century-old Giant Ferris Wheel which has come to symbolize Vienna dominates the Prater. Not only is it not cooped up in a museum, it still functions well enough to offer rides. More than 60m off the ground as you reach the highest point, it offers a bird’s-eye view of the tile-roofed, chimneyed, steeple-chased inner city, the glass and steel high-rises and the apartment buildings in the outer reaches.

At Schönbrunn Palace, the magnificent summer residence of the Hapsburgs—itself an ode to the good life—we find workmen constructing a massive stage with floodlights and speakers for a concert the next day. Inside, the private rooms, salons, galleries and reception rooms are a remarkably well-preserved window into the life of an empire that lasted six centuries. They offer a view of a monarchy appreciative and encouraging of the arts—Mozart performed for Maria Theresa in the Hall of Mirrors when he was six years old.


Schonbrunn Palace

The gardens and the expansive grounds of the palace
Perhaps one may find warm, welcoming cafés, lively city centres, rich museums and palaces or a prolific artistic legacy in other world cities. But to find them all, and to find a love of tradition, an enthusiasm for innovation and a hankering for fun, all in one neatly wrapped brown paper package tied up with strings, is a tall order indeed.

The essay was originally published in Mint. The trip planner (by Ahmed Raza Khan of Mint) is here.

Book Review: The It-Doesn't-Matter Suit, by Sylvia Plath

A few weeks ago we were at the library and I came across a book by Sylvia Plath in the children's section. I had never heard of Sylvia Plath writing books for kids. Out of curiosity, I picked it up. The jacket was bright and colorful with a happy-looking kid and his cat populating the front cover. The jacket blurb said that the book had remained "undiscovered for years within the Plath collection at Indiana University..." and that "Parents and scholars alike will also cherish this glimpse into the mind of a literary genius."

So did Calvin. He wrote about it for his book review column. Here's the review in its entirety.

Max Nix is seven years old and lives in a town called Winkelburg with his huge family. Everybody in Winkelburg has a suit. Every body except Max.

One day, a gigantic box arrives in the mail for the Nix family. Inside the box is a … bright mustard-yellow suit! First Max's father tries it on because it looks about his size. But he is a banker. No banker wears a suit like that! It's too yellow and bright.

With a little bit of stitching from Mama Nix, Max's eldest brother, Paul, tries it on. He says that he'll wear this suit for skiing the next day, but he changes his mind because he thinks his friends will laugh at him as the suit is too yellow.

This goes on and on. Each brother has a reason to not want the suit. Mama Nix has to keep on snipping and cutting at the edges until Max gets the suit. Max is very happy. He has his own suit! He says he will wear the suit "today and tomorrow and the day after that."

Everywhere Max goes and everything Max does, the suit is perfect for it. If the suit gets wet, it dries up immediately. If hay gets stuck to it, it's OK because hay is yellow too. Not a single person in Winkelburg has ever seen such a suit. If Max slides on ice, the suit doesn't tear because the cloth is extra-tough. If rain falls on it, the water slides right off. If anything happens to the suit, it doesn't matter because the suit is conditioned for everything. Max has the perfect suit!

The It-Doesn't-Matter Suit, illustrated by Rotraut Susanne Berner, is vivid and interesting. Sylvia Plath describes each of the brothers' situations in detail. Emil, one of Max's brothers, for example, likes riding the toboggan. But none of the other tobogganers wears such a bright suit. Emil thinks he'll look like a big show-off if he wears it.

It's a feel-good story. You feel happy when Max finally gets his suit. In the beginning, the book starts out with Max desperately wanting a suit, a suit that has uses all year round.

But I have questions about the book. Who sent the Nix family the package with the suit, and why did they? If it was meant for Max, why did they send it in such a big size? I'm inferring that this was a big set up and that the package was originally for Max. His parents probably sent it to themselves, and Paul and all the other brothers were forced to give the suit to Max and Mama Nix did all that cutting and snipping on purpose. I think they wanted it to be a big surprise for Max because he was the only one without a suit and because they loved him.

If you like a lovely, warm story, this is absolutely, one hundred percent, the book for you.

Article first published as Book Review: The It-Doesn't-Matter-Suit by Sylvia Plath on Blogcritics.

The-It-Doesn't-Matter Suit makes for a fantastic first foray into Sylvia Plath's writings. When Calvin gets to read her poetry, how wonderful for him to be able to recall this heart-warming story he'd already read years earlier! She has written other books for children as well, as I've now discovered - Collected Children's Stories and The Bed Book.