Penalty Shoot-outs: Not for the Faint Hearted

All I can say is that it's a good thing the semi-final encounter between Italy and Germany was settled in extra time (Italy 2, Germany 0). Because I don't think I could have watched a penalty shoot-out if there was one.

I used to be one of those people who could watch a penalty shoot-out with a mind of steel and a hardened heart. It was part of the game and I rationalized it on the thought that since the same set of rules applied to both teams, it was perfectly all right to decide a game via penalties.

Of course, that rationale still holds true, but my approach to the shoot-out changed drastically as I watched the duel at midnight between England and Portugal.

I was perfectly fine during the Germany-Argentina shoot-out a couple of nights earlier. In fact, I sat there on my couch prodding N, who had dozed off, to stay awake in the waning hours of that Friday so he could watch it as well. We tried to guess who would miss and who would score. I was right on the money with the Ayala miss (more than guessing right, I was hoping he would miss given the way he was manhandling Ballack during extra time).

The Germany-Argentina shootout was enjoyable, the England-Portugal one was not.

The sense of unease began at the end of extra time. The match referee, Elizando, was waiting for something. But what? Players seemed to get increasingly nervous as the clock ticked away. The two goal-keepers, Robinson and Ricardo, after receiving last minute instructions from their coaches, walked up to each other, held each other at arm's length and exchanged a few words, wishing each other well, I presume.

They were suddenly in the limelight, no longer just another player in the team, forlorn at their ends of the field. They were it, now, the cynosure of all eyes, the names in the prayers of their team mates, the hero or the villain, depending on the result, although it seems like a hopeless task to stop a football from sneaking to the infinite number of corners within the posts of a goal.

The players were pacing around trying to get into their team huddles. Simao, the first Portuguese striker to take a shot walked around in the penalty area, spitting on the green grass. Robinson took a few swigs from a water bottle, then spat a few times as well. The crowd was going wild, chanting, booing, whistling. Little lightning bugs seemed to be swarming the stadium as camera flashes popped with undying frequency.

The English coaching staff was in its own huddle, but the Portuguese coaching staff was entwined with the players in their huddle. The tension was palpable. Camera close-ups showed sweaty brows; foreheads creased with worry lines; some eyes fierce in their determination; some eyes unfocused, not knowing where to look, many choosing to look down on the ground; even trembling fingers as the ball was nudged onto the perfect spot on the circular white chalk mark across from the goal.

Finally it was time. Elizando walked up to Robinson, gave him a reassuring (at least I felt reassured) pat on the arm walked away from the goal to about midway between the striker and the goal-keeper and blew the whistle. Simao did a little two-step with his feet, perhaps trying to throw off the goal-keeper with the false motion, ran up confidently to the ball and the punched it into the left corner. He scored.

Next up, Lampard for the English team. The commentator supplied a little nugget of information that did not bode well for Lampard. He had missed a penalty against Hungary two years ago. "Surely, he won't disappoint," intoned the commentator. Lampard positioned the ball, walked back, ran up slowly, almost as if he was dragging his feet, and picked the right corner of the goal to kick the football into. Ricardo read Lampard perfectly, both the nervousness on his face (surely Ricardo's research must have brought up Lampard's past failures) and his placement of the ball. He lunged to his left and saved Portugal a goal. Gerard, Lampard's team mate could not hide his disappointment as he grimaced in reaction.

Hugo Viana up next for the Potuguese, with the opportunity to go up 2-0 against the English. Another little nugget of information from the commentator. "England have never won a World Cup penalty shootout." Uh. Oh. Viana looked good to go, confident, but to no avail. He even spared Robinson from having to save a goal, ramming the ball into the goal post. England had a reprieve.

After three penalty shots, the score was still 1-0 in Portugal's favor. Hargreaves got ready to take England's next shot, spending some time trying to get the ball right on the chalk mark, fingers trembling. But he did his job and England was back in the game. Not for lack of Ricardo trying though. He had guessed the general direction of Hargreaves' kick, but could not stretch himself far enough.

The minute the camera focused on Petit, who was going to take the next shot for Portugal, you knew he wasn't going to make it. Nervousness writ large on his face, he did not look at anyone or anything but the ball. Robinson had his one save of the entire shootout. Petit's face crumpled as he walked away, eyes glazed over.

Following this, the rest of the shoot-out settled into a pattern. A confident Ricardo, an inept Robinson, an English side shaking in its boots and a by now cocky Portuguese side meant there could be only one result - Portuguese victory over the English. Ricardo was right on the money with his lunges to save goals from Carragher and Gerard's shots. Robinson was left stranded as Postiga and Cristiano Ronaldo found the net. Carragher's little snafu (he jumped the gun and kicked the ball even before Elizando had blown the whistle) reinforced just how jittery the English side was.

The half-smile that played over Ronaldo's face before he took his shot gave some indication of just how much the young striker was loving the whole experience. A few quiet steps after he landed the ball in the goal, he vented his energy in a full-blown war cry as Scolari gave him company with a war dance on the field, quite appropriate for a coach who swears by Chinese General Sun Tzu's book, Art of War.

Come penalty shoot-out time, the Portuguese were clearly the aggressors, the English merely trying to hang on to their confidence, which had already taken a hit when Rooney was sent off with a red card.

Ricardo said it best,

I could see in the eyes of the English players that they were not okay.... The goal was shrinking for them. I just had to prolong their suffering.

Perhaps it was all this fear that made watching that shoot-out a nerve wracking experience. Perhaps with two confident teams it won't be so bad.

Perhaps there is hope, yet.

Childbirth Classes in Bangalore

I received the following commment on my post, Childbirth: Preparation is Key and I thought it might be useful to put it up here for those who visit Blogpourri looking for childbirth classes in Bangalore.

Hi Sujatha
For the information of people who contact each other on this blog, 'Positively Pregnant' offers prenatal classes in Pune since June 1999. We're into our 43rd batch of couples at present. Positively Pregnant classes will start in Bangalore in August 2006. We use the Lamaze method largely but subscribe to the Bradley viewpoint as well.The sessions are interactive, use a support group setting and believe in the principle of family supported maternal care. For more information I can be contacted at nlfre@yahoo.ca.

If you are expecting a child in the coming months, taking childbirth prepartion classes is a great idea, but please investigate the classes, run the idea by your doctor and make absolutely sure you are comfortable in the classes and with the instructor before making the decision to join one. Good luck!

Having a Baby in Bangalore: Some Notes

Updated June 17, 2009 to add a link to this post - Complications during VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) and a terrible tragedy.

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For those of you considering having babies in Bangalore (especially those that have had babies in other countries and are wondering how your experience compares with that here), here are some quick notes:

1. We had our baby at one of the bigger, multi-speciality hospitals in Bangalore that offers "birthing suites". Unfortunately, the day little N was to be born, all the birthing suites were taken. We were repeatedly told in the days leading up to the due date that birthing suites could not be booked in advance, but on the day I was admitted to the hospital, we were told that one of the suites was booked by one of the head honchos at the hospital, for, get this, a non labor and delivery procedure!

So I got admitted to the general labor and delivery (L&D) ward, which had three beds in a row in a room and two other beds in the room next door. Adjoining the three-bed room was the delivery room with two beds on which the delivery would take place. There was one bathroom for the five beds, which, in my opinion, was inadequate, especially because the hospital, as a rule, administers enemas to all women who come to deliver babies. I leave the rest to your imagination.

The L&D ward also pipes in Indian classical music in the early hours of the morning which can be pretty irritating when you are going through pain and contractions.

There is one on-call doctor (I guess an intern or a resident, I'm not sure, but rather on the young side) manning the L&D ward, monitoring the progress of labor and assisting the OB/Gyns with the delivery with about two or three nurses administering drips, injections, hooking up the fetal and contraction monitors, etc.

2. Whether you like it or not, you will get a thorough shaving in preparation for the delivery. Most hospitals in the US have discontinued this practice.

3. Almost all OB/Gyn practices here are single-doctor practices. In the US, my OB/Gyn practice had five doctors, each of whom I had to consult during my pregnancy and each of whom was familiar with my case file. So on the day N was born, it did not matter to me which doctor was on call because I knew all of them and they all knew me, so we were all comfortable with each other.

With a single-doctor practice, there is always the danger that your doctor may not be available on the day you go into labor and that after nine months of seeing one doctor, you could, in all likelihood, get stuck with a doctor you haven't seen even once during the last nine months.

If little N had come a week later (i.e., the following weekend), I could have found myself in the delivery room with a doctor I had never visited before. My doctor had plans to be out of town that weekend. I had asked her in the initial months of the pregnancy what would happen if I went into labor and she was not around. She had said, quite simply, that she hadn't taken a vacation in 3 years so there was no likelihood of that.

4. There is a paediatrician ready and waiting to check the newborn in the delivery room itself (whereas N's paediatrician only showed up the following day to check on him).

5. Once you have your baby, you are moved to a ward (room) of your choice - private or semi-private, again depending on availability.

6. Private rooms are pretty comfortable. They have an extra bed for someone to sleep in with you during your stay. Babies room in with the moms.

7. The dietician visits you everyday to make sure you are getting what you need in terms of proper nutrition post-partum and to customize your menu to your tastes.

8. You are given full encouragement and support to breastfeed the baby, starting from nutrition to the floor nurses and nurses from the lactation department who will assist you all through the night and day in case you and the baby have problems with breastfeeding. The nursing staff, both in the L&D ward and those assigned to the rooms, was excellent - very helpful, efficient and knowledgeable.

9. Your OB/Gyn and the paediatrician will check in with you twice a day.

10. Hospital stays are for two days for normal deliveries and if everything is ok with the baby (we were home in less than 48 hours after little N was born).

11. One of the less welcome aspects of the stay in the hospital was the constant stream of hospital staff that visit your room - orderlies, janitors to clean your room (three of them, one after the other), admin staff, public relations staff, electricians, dietician, nurses, food service people, the list goes on. The visits start at 6 am and don't end until 10 pm.

12. Generally, fathers-to-be are not allowed in the L&D ward because there are other women in the room as well. Luckily for me, by the time my contractions came on strong, the two beds on either side of me were empty and there was no one else in the delivery room and so the doctor had not problem with V being there with me.

13. All in all, it was a very positive experience. Througout the duration of the pregnancy I was worried about the process, wondering how it would go.

I lucked out with a very good doctor who was willing to listen to all my concerns (I talked to her about not wanting a C-section, for example; I was pretty nervous that I would be pressured into having a C-section), explain to me why something was prescribed and generally make the birth a collaborative process. This was a pleasant surprise. I had heard that doctors stood on a pedestal and told patients what needed to be done, without any explanations.

As should be the case wherever you decide to have a baby, I suggest that you develop an open line of communication with your doctor, educate yourself about the process and your options. In the end, you will have to trust her to make the decisions that are right for you and your baby.

This is all I can think of right now. If I can recall any more usefull stuff, I'll update this list.

Book Review: Hippo Eats Dwarf, A Field Guide to Hoaxes and Other B.S., Alex Boese

The best part of any non-fiction book is the index. In a reference manual, such as a baby care guide, the value of an index is obvious - it quickly helps you navigate the contents of the book to help you find what you are looking for. In other kinds of non-fiction books, the index, much more than the table of contents, is a very good indicator of the sorts of goodies that are on offer within the pages of the book.

And in this aspect, Hippo Eats Dwarf does not disappoint. How could it, with index entries such as "male pregnancy", "animals, condoms for", "supermodel eggs for sale", "hysterical pregnancy", "chewing gum, breast enhancing", and "frequent liar miles"?

Now, if these entries suspiciously sound like hoaxes to you, you would be right. Alex Boese's Hippo Eats Dwarf is all about hoaxes and how to survive them "... in an insane world in which the line between truth and fiction has completely blurred."

To say that we live in a fake or hoaxy age, or that "we live in fictitious times" (as the director Michael Moore put it), doesn't do justice to the full-blown weirdness of the pervasive phoniness that surrounds us. Our world isn't just fake or phony. Any society that produces Michael Jackson's nose, breast-enlarging mobile-phone ring tones, and human-flavored tofu has gone well beyond that. Our world is hippo-eats-dwarf.

The title comes from a news clipping that has apparently made the rounds regularly over the past decade about a dwarf in a circus act who was swallowed by a yawning hippo as the dwarf flew off sideways from a trampoline. This hippo-eats-dwarf story (because it's "bizarre, almost certainly fake and masquerading as real") serves as a metaphor for the kind of hoaxes, urban legends, "and other forms of b.s. that lurk in the modern world."

The book and the hoaxes it describes are organized category-wise into sixteen chapters covering various topics including birth, photography, war, romance, advertising, news, politics, and business. Each chapter provides general descriptions of scams in its respective category that have pervaded popular culture, and contains specific real-life examples of such scams.

For example, in the first chapter entitled "Birth", there are descriptions of scams related to fake pregnancies, male pregnancies, phony clones, miracle births, and reborn dolls. There are also real-life stories of a high-school girl faking her pregnancy for a school project and of a woman who gave birth to a frog (and whose story the BBC duly published on its website, complete with "a picture of a surprised-looking frog"!).

Each chapter is interspered with extremely handy "Reality Rules", just in case you are taken in by all the hoaxes. Rules such as "Just because a woman looks pregnant, doesn't mean she is", "Women give birth to children. Men don't. This rule is subject to future revision", "Just because someone bids doesn't mean they intend to pay", "Should a suitably dramatic picture of an event not exist, one will be created", "The world as it appears on the nightly news should not be confused with the world as it is in reality" and the disarmingly simple "Real food rots" all serve to ensure that you don't lose your sense of direction as you are reading the book.

Also working to preserve your sense of reality are the equally handy "Reality Checks" to "test your ability to distinguish the authentic from the bogus". Have researchers genetically engineered fruit trees that can grow meat? Can men really produce milk from their breasts by stimulating their nipples? Have surgeons in Holland really implanted small pieces of jewellery into people's eyeballs? These are fun to read, decide whether they are real or not and then go on to read the accompanying explanatory paragraphs to see how skewed your sense of reality is.

For anyone who is a news junkie or an avid internet surfer, many of the hoaxes explored in this book will seem familiar, whether or not it was appropriately recognized as a hoax at the time of reading it in the original source (the "Nigerian Bank Scam", anyone?). The sparks of recognition, however, will almost always be accompanied by a jaw drop or a shake of the head as you read the explanations behind those stories.

One such story is the famous surprise Thanksgiving visit that Bush paid to the American troops in Iraq in 2003. Newspapers splashed front-page photographs of a grinning President Bush carrying a plate laden with a juicy turkey with all the trimmings. Well, whaddya know? According to Hippo Eats Dwarf,

... the turkey wasn't real. It was a plastic prop known in the food service industry as a "trophy turkey." The food the soldiers actually got was served from cafeteria-style steam trays.

Another such story is that of the voice-over translation of Saddam Hussein's responses to Dan Rather's questions in the days preceding the start of the second Iraq war.

... although the translation was perfectly accurate, the voice-over's thick Arabic accent was not. The voice didn't belong to an Arabic speaker at all, but to Steve Winfield, an American actor who specializes in faking accents.... Apparently the network thought U.S. audiences would get confused if Hussein (as well as the person speaking his words) didn't sound foreign enough.

That certainly deserves a shake of the head.

Hippo Eats Dwarf is a well-researched book, written in a simple, easy to read style with a sense of humor and obvious love for the subject. It is the perfect companion on a long plane or train ride. Flip open any page in the book and you are sure to stumble upon something that tickles your brain or your funny bone. It is not the kind of book, however, that you would read at one sitting from end to end. It is the kind you savor over a long period, reading bits at a time, spreading the fun.

Labor of Love Redux: The Bangalore Childbirth Story

There was plenty of gushing warm liquid, but there was no muted sound of the champagne cork popping this time, probably because I was fast asleep as my water broke in the early hours of June 11.

A hesitant call into my doctor confirmed that this was no mere incontinence and that it warranted a visit to the labor and delivery (L&D) section of my hospital. So at 4 am we woke N up (who sat upright at the mention of "hospital" and "baby", scrambled down from his bunk bed and got ready in a jiffy), I called my parents who said they would be at the hospital by the time we got there, we said our quick prayers and piled into the car with a "hospital bag" (contents: change of clothes, toiletries, moisturizer, wallet, medical records) and a pillow for N in case he wanted to sleep during the long ride to the hospital.

During the last few weeks of the pregnancy, that was the major concern: the long ride to the hospital. All of our family, friends and anyone who noticed my condition and asked where I planned to deliver the baby would be worried about the distance and the condition of the roads to the hospital.

On a good day, with no traffic, we were a good one hour away. And on a bad day (which occurred often) the hospital was quite easily two hours away. The two major impediments were the two-lane Marathahalli bridge and the Madiwala market.

With all of the ITPL and Whitefield traffic having to pass through the Marathahalli bridge, it is the scene of miles-long backups every morning and evening. Although I love the Madiwala market, it is not much better for smooth flow of traffic.

On the left are fruit and flower sellers and on the right, vegetable sellers. The sheer amout of produce is mind-boggling. Mountains of cauliflowers, onions, coconuts, mangoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, greens, chillies, potatoes adorn the pavements under makeshift tents. Trucks are parked haphazardly on either side of the road offloading produce. There are men, women and children toiling away at arranging and selling the produce. It's a family affair. On any day that I have to pass through it, I don't mind being stuck in traffic and just looking at all the activity going on on either side of the wide road, but not a day went by without us wondering just how the ride would pan out on D-day.

As luck would have it, the "ride" ended up happening during the wee hours of a Sunday when all we had for company was a bright, full moon and lorries plying their trade on Outer Ring Road. And at that hour of the morning, there were only a few trucks offloading mounds and mounds of greens at the Madiwala market. One whole side of the road was free for moving traffic.

We made it to the hospital in about 35 minutes and walked in to a darkened lobby and corridors. All I knew was that the L&D section was on the 1st floor. Unlike in the US, we had not had a pre-admission tour of the L&D section. The 1st floor was equally dark. We walked around once, tried the second floor and were about to head back down to the first floor when we heard my parents' voices. We also ran into an orderly who finally took us through some back doors and down a flight of stairs to the L&D section which was tucked away into a non-decrepit corner of the hospital. All I kept thinking was, thank God I was not having any contractions!

The nurse at the L&D section checked me in and a showed me to the middle bed in a row of three beds. The beds on either side were unoccupied. A while later, the on-call resident walked in groggily, checked me up and confirmed that my water had indeed broken, called my OB/Gyn and reported the facts to her and received instructions on the next course of action.

Because my water had broken and I did not have any contractions, my labor had to be induced. So far, the script tracked N's birth pretty closely, down to the time my water broke in the morning. The various steps to induce labor (cervix effacing gel, pitocin drip plus two other injections) started around 7 am and continued until 3 pm.

The intervening period was eventful. The two beds on either side were occupied - one by a woman whose baby was pressing against her scar from a previous C-Section and so she was to go through another C-section that day to deliver her second baby as well, and the other by a woman who had started bleeding in her thirteenth week of pregnancy (a battery of tests later, she was told that everything was fine with the baby and she was ordered to stay in bed for a few days).

The C-Section lady and I shared my OB/Gyn. Her procedure was scheduled for 1 pm, right in the middle of my labor, which set off a mild panic - when would the doctor come out of the operating room? What if I wanted to push by then?

I asked the nurse and discovered that C-Sections take about 45 minutes and so the doctor would be back around 2 pm. I was surprised at how short the procedure was and for a moment, felt a twinge of self-pity - here I was, laboring since 7 in the morning with no end in sight. I did not have too much time to spend on that thought, fortunately, because the pitocin kicked in and I had dialated about 6cms by 2 pm.

The doctor walked in, saw my progress and debated whether she should go home and come back. Before I could start panicking again, she talked herself out of it on the thought that this was my second preganancy and that the last stages of labor might proceed at a fast clip and I might want to push all of a sudden.

So she sat down and waited.

Around 2:30, the doctor decided I was ready to go over to the delivery room (a room adjacent to where I had been for most of the day) and with the help of the nurse and V, I walked into a room with two delivery beds, one of which was prepared for me and the other was, thankfully, unoccupied. I was in excruciating pain and was screaming by then and I cannot imagine how it would have been with two of us doing that in that room.

The delivery room was bustling with activity. Two or three nurses prepped for the delivery, the doctor was robing herself, there were two paediatricians looking over a newborn over to my left, and an orderly was bustling about handing people whatever they needed. A fetal monitor was hooked up to me, V was feeding me water and generally getting his fingers crushed and pinched everytime I had a contraction.

The big clock on the wall in front of me was ticking away and by 3:30, it was time to push. With N, I had pushed for close to 30 minutes before he was born and I braced myself for another marathon pushing session. This time around, I pushed twice, each time feeling like the baby was never going to come out, but the second push did the trick.

At 3:46, the doctor announced that it was a girl. Of course, in India, by law, it is a surprise whether you're having a boy or a girl. And it certainly was a surprise, despite our many attempts to figure out body parts from grainy ultrasound pictures. V was leaning over to look. I think it took a minute for it to register that it was a girl, followed by relief because he so desperately wanted a girl that we had picked a girl's name and had not chosen a boy's name yet.

And so, little N came into this world.

One Month Later...

It's been almost a month since I last put up a post. Feeling mighty guilty, I assure you.

But, in my defense, I have a couple of excuses (ok, more than two) lined up. We moved to a different house and N is starting a new school (he was supposed to start today, but he developed an allergic reaction to something, so was stuck at home, the poor thing; quite a let down after all that build up).

I promise myself every so often that I will post something, anything, once a day, but things pile up and my attention gets diverted and that is that.

Plus, there is the question, What do I write about? There are so many things to read, so many magazines, blogs, websites, books, newspapers... by the time I take it all in, I have so many ideas I want to write about, I end up not writing about anything.

Well, hoping to rectify matters soon. I have a feeling I'll have plenty to say in the days, weeks, months to come....

Book Review: Sleeping on Potatoes, Carl Nomura

Sleeping on Potatoes is an intensely personal account of the life of Carl Nomura, a second generation American of Japanese origin. The memoir takes the reader through the various phases of his life, from the time he was born through his life after retirement, with a little bit of family history thrown in. On the face of it, it is an entirely ordinary story, probably the story of millions of immigrant families who try to build a life in America.

Framed within the bounds of ordinariness, however, is a gem of a tale, a tale that is poignant, heart-wrenching, and, on many levels, quite extraordinary.

Nomura came into this world in a boxcar as the son of two railroad workers in Deer Lodge, Montana, into a life of abject poverty and into what, under the best of circumstances, could be described as a dysfunctional family. Kazuichi, Nomura's father, an incredibly cruel man, ruled the family with an iron hand, drinking, gambling and taking expensive vacations while his wife, Mizuko, slaved away on their vegetable farm, and did the housecleaning, shopping and cooking.

Kazuichi even went so far as to refuse to arrange for a doctor or midwife to be with her when it was time to deliver her first child.... But somehow, she managed to deliver her first son all by herself. Years later, she told us, 'When I started pulling out the placenta, I wondered if it was attached to me inside'.

Mizuko ended up delivering five of her six children by herself.

Kazuichi's cruelty also extended to his children. He sent his first four children (two from a previous marriage) to live with relatives in Japan because they "cramped his style". He beat them regularly and for no reason.

All this against the backdrop of a nagging poverty that refused to shed its shackles no matter where the family moved or what they did for a living. When the entire family moved to California, while the parents and the older kids worked at the local cannery, Yosh, Normura's eight year old sister, "washed our clothes, cleaned the house, supervised us, and cooked. On payday, she went to the market for some vegetables and the short ribs, which cost eight cents a pound, From this she made the stock for our week long main dish: soup."

By the time the Great Depression rolled around, although nothing happened to improve their life of poverty, something did happen to improve the quality of their lives. Kazuichi died. "No member of his family wept at the funeral.... Suddenly, the quality of my mother's life improved, for there was no one around to batter her."

The lowest point of Nomura's life, though, was yet to come. World War II followed the Great Depression, and along with it came the toughest test of his resilience - the internment of the Japanese at camps built on barren land dotted across the mid-western and western United States. The family lost its home and whatever possessions it had accumulated by that time and was herded into Manzanar, one of the "Relocation Centers" in California.

The ignominy of being confined to the camps and labeled an enemy of the United States although he was an American citizen and the physical pain that accompanied back-breaking work as a farm laborer on beet farms and potato farms (internees could opt to work as farm laborers which afforded a little bit more freedom than being locked up in the camps) were compounded by the emotional scars of seeing German and Italian prisoners of war receiving better treatment.

This, as Nomura describes, was the turning point.

I must...prepare myself to oppose people in powerful positions or influence from disenfranchising innocent American citizens. This required two things: an education to show me what to do, and enough achievements so that people would respond to me.

Even from the wretched experiences at the internment camps, Nomura managed to take away a few lessons: "I learned about the miserable lives of the migratory workers; that we can endure great pain by sheer will; and the effectiveness of teamwork." Not to forget poker strategies.

Following the end of the war, the narrative moves on to college life (interrupted by a brief stint in the army when the United States decides they want him on their side, after all), marriage and children. In a section entitled "Marriage", Nomura provides endearing descriptions of his wife and each of his children. His relationship with his children stands in stark contrast to his experiences with his own father - Nomura takes intense pride in his children (saying, quite simply, "She is great" to describe one of his daughters or "It's hard for a proud parent to be modest about him" to describe one of his sons) and both he and his wife develop an enviable, easygoing rapport with them.

Nomura credits his wife, Lou (herself the much-loved daughter of kind, thoughtful parents) for their success in raising happy, well-adjusted children. Part of the equation, is also, surely, Mizuko's love for her children and her incredible force of will and determination to do what was necessary and with stoicism for her family. She, who tolerated her husband's cruelty, ran a farm and household by herself, gave birth to her children by herself, disguised herself as a man while breastfeeding her child just to she could find a job on the railroad, passed on a legacy to Nomura that triumphed over any debilitating ones that Kazuichi may have passed on.

And that legacy comes shining through in this passage that Nomura recounts of Mizuko writing off the debt owed to them by their customers (they ran a "cash and carry" store at that time),

My mother...wrote off his debt. Then she gave him two bags of groceries to sustain them for the long drive. The toothless man wept and thanked my mother for the only kindness he had seen since coming to California.

The book harkens back to this idea of kindness almost 90 pages later as Nomura and Lou try to work on their shaky marriage and he hits upon the idea, "From kindness comes love."

This, for me, is the central idea of this book. For without that redeeming factor, it is mighty difficult to see how someone with the background that Nomura was handed could make anything of their lives, let alone become highly educated, have a long-lasting, successful marriage and a loving family, build an incredibly successful career rising to top management in a multinational company, and nurture deep, satisfying friendships wherever they went.

The first half of the book - dealing with family history, the growing up years, the years in the Japanese concentration camps, the years in the army and the portions dealing with Nomura's family life as a husband, father and grandfather - proceeds in a largely chronological manner and makes for compelling, unputdownable reading.

The rest of the book is devoted to descriptions of friends, career, health, retirement and to life after Lou's death in an accident. The major drawback in this second half is that it hop scotches its way through, weaving back and forth between the years. According to the preface, the author's original idea was to write a series of short stories which were later sewn together as a book. Unfortunately, the original structure leaves its imprint, particularly in the latter half. There is also the sense that Nomura attempts to include every last detail of his experiences, particularly in the chapter dealing with his health, which slows down the reading.

Once you get past this organizational glitch, the book is well worth your time. While the events that are recounted in Sleeping on Potatoes (a reference to the piles of potatoes that served as beds on the potato farm where Nomura worked during the internment) are filled with pathos, Nomura paints the pictures lucidly, in simple, evocative language and in a matter-of-fact tone infused with warmth and humor, sparing time to dwell on plenty of endearing anecdotes involving his family, neighbors and friends (and a few animals thrown in for good measure).

It is a story you should read not because it is a first-hand, eye witness account of a life lived in the most adverse of circumstances, but because it is the story of determination, perseverance, kindness, love and good humor getting the better of those adversities.

Crossposted on Desicritics.

Bush is Roasted...A Little Too Well

Over the weekend, the President was at a dinner for the Washington Correspondents Association - an annual ritual conducted in good humor on both sides - the administration and the media. This time around, however, the "featured entertainment", Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central's The Jon Stewart Show put in a little too much truth in his roast.

What followed was hilarious to some, extremely uncomfortable to some. Read all about it in this hilarious, insightful account.

The Day the Apple Macintosh Was Born

The day the Apple Macintosh was born, Steve Jobs, the proud father, introduced it to the world. The video in this essay captures that moment.

It's amazing stuff. You get goose bumps as you watch what is surely an historical moment.

Bangalore: The Insider/Outsider Debate

In the wake of the recent riots in Bangalore following thespian Dr. Rajkumar's death, there has been some soul-searching in the Karnataka legislature, in the newspapers and on the internet as to who or what was responsible for the total breakdown of calm and order over two whole days in the city. Finger-pointing is in full swing. As is to be expected, political parties blame each other, residents blame the government and the police.

What I did not expect was the blame laid at the feet of "non-Bangloreans".

In his Last Word column in The Week magazine, Mahesh Dattani, author and playwright, writes in an essay titled "Winds of change" this week (April 30, 2006),

This wasn't an outpouring of grief that we witnessed. Perhaps this is the shape of things to come. Violence as an outpouring of anger and frustration.

What else can it be? Forcing the city to close down was actually a very perverse act, but a cry for justice nevertheless. Dr Rajkumar, unknowingly, became a mascot for the oppressed indigenous people who feel their language and identity are slowly being eroded by the winds of globalisation. The IT industry is not the villain. The villain is Time. And no one can fight Time.

You wake up one day and find that your neighbour speaks a strange language; your job is taken over by someone who moved into town last month and has an utter dislike for all things south Indian. Your job in a government office as a peon was a matter of pride and achievement, until the office boy working for an MNC boasts of a pay five times more than you earn because his English is better. It just seems so unfair. Maybe it is. But it is to the credit of the indigenous people that they tolerated this unfairness for a very long time.

A few months ago, it was the new weekly, Bangalore Bias, expressing similar sentiments in its manifesto. I had then provided longer excerpts from the manifesto and had written an essay countering the arguments. Here are some brief tid-bits from that manifesto:

The time has come to ask, "Whose city is it, anyway?"

[...]

Where there was time and space for libraries, literary debates, science fairs, Sunday beers, bicycles, Karaga, Christmas carols, kadalekaayi parise, jazz evenings, dolls' exhibitions and the grace of it all. In a city of seven million, there should still be that "Island of One Million" that knows what Bangalore was, but more crucially to the point, what it ought to be. We believe this community of one million cares for a lifestyle of grace and charm beyond the transactional logic that threatens to become the sole basis of our civic society.

[...]

The Bangalore community could well feel that it is now under siege. The City's sensibilities have been invaded by unfamiliar, sometimes unwelcome strains of attitude and affectations. There are new people that now claim to represent Bangalore, but the Bangalore community is justified in feeling unrepresented.

I fail to understand the logic of these arguments.

First of all, who is a citizen, who is an "outsider"? Everyone that lives in this city, no matter how far the generations that have lived here go back, came from somewhere. The earlier generations shaped the character of this city as they saw fit, now the current generation is shaping the city as it sees fit. A city is a living, changing, amorphous creature that cannot be frozen in time and that image taken to be its true representation. "Whose city is it, anyway?" Well, it is the city of every single person living here, whether they landed here yesterday at the airport, bus station or train station and are setting up homes as we speak, or whose families have been living here for generations.

If the "oppressed indigenous people" (meaning what, exactly? How long does one have to live here to become indigenous?) don't have jobs or have lesser jobs, who is to blame for that? Or more pertinently, given the drift of the Dattani essay and the Bangalore Bias manifesto, how are "outsiders" to blame for that?

Are employers asking to employ "non-indigenous" people? Are they going out of their way to look for "outsiders" to fill their positions? From the "office boy" to the CEO? That contention holds no water. Businesses look to cut their operating costs and the cheapest hire for them would a qualified person already in the city. It makes no business sense to have to advertise in the media in outside cities, set up out of town interviews, have potential recruits travel or have the company's HR person travel to conduct interviews, pay for an eventual hire to move to Bangalore from Haryana or wherever and then pay some more for them to settle down in this city.

So perhaps these employers are getting out-of-state hires because they cannot find a qualified employee pool here. How can "outsiders" take jobs away from locals if the locals are qualified and willing to do the jobs that are required of them?

There are at least one or two articles a month in the daily newspapers here and abroad about the shortage of labor supply, not only in the IT industry, but in the construction industry as well (both at the day laborer level and at the engineer level). Why are the locals not rushing up to sign up for these jobs?

The argument that follows from this is that all this employment boom and success is limited to the IT industry. So what about the rest of the "indigenous" people who have no skills in this area?

Well, while the IT industry is spearheading the boom, in its trail follows a long list of service areas and other industries that are reaping the benefits of the activity generated in the IT sector. As mentioned above, the construction industry in Bangalore cannot keep pace with demand for housing. Then there are the peripheral service industries - restaurants, grocery stores, malls, clothes shops, book stores, relocation agencies, transportation (there's a whole new industry in transporting the call center employees to and from work every day) even down to drivers, house maids, etc. who all see an increase in business stemming from the IT sector activity.

You can just imagine just how much employment is generated not just in the areas mentioned above, but in each of the offshoots of those areas. "Outsiders" are not coming in to take every single job in every one of these sectors and their offshoots, are they?

Ironically, while the idea that the "city's sensibilities are being invaded" is making its rounds in certain quarters, the most striking sensibility of this city has been its arms-open-wide welcome it affords to anyone coming here, whether from Tamil Nadu or Andhra or Maharashtra or America or Africa, whether a menial laborer or a billion-dollar multinational company. Just as a community cannot thrive by suppressing a portion of its members, so cannot a city thrive by negating the contributions of a portion of its citizenry, newcomers or not.

And these are not small contributions, mind you. The newcomers to this city are, each in his/her own way, contributing to the financial health of this city. The companies are bringing jobs, jobs are bringing people, people are bringing money that they are spending in the shops and theaters and restaurants, and as mentioned earlier, the money is bringing construction, and more jobs. I dare say that the companies are also driving a lot of the improvements that we are seeing in the city today (Bannerghatta Road being a fine example, perhaps the only one of public-private partnership in Bangalore).

It is this financial health that will encourage people to look beyond their immediate basic necessities and move on to the dolls' exhibitions and jazz festivals and Sunday beers and the lifestyle of "grace" and "charm". And why blame the newcomers for these habits fading away? Why did this "community" of one million let go of that lifestyle in the first place? May be it's because all the old timers, who had property in the heart of Bangalore city, in Charmarajpet and Basavangudi and Gandhi Bazar have sold out to the highest bidder (in bidding wars brought on by the IT boom) and are now living out in what used to be the boonies and find it too far to make it to the dolls' exhibitions.

I do agree that as new people come in, and as a city grows to accommodate them, there is a definite strain on the infrastructure and resources. Moreover, from a newcomer's point of view, as I know from personal experience from having lived outside, it is very difficult to profess knowledge of a community's various concerns within the first few days of moving in. It takes months, even years, to understand the nuances that are at play in any community. There is bound to be that initial period of tension. But once you feel even half comfortable in any surroundings, you look around, make friends and jump right in. That's human nature.

There is no reason to believe that the newcomers do not have an equal interest in having a rounded, complete, fulfilling life in the city they have chosen to make their home. Newcomers also definitely look for signs of welcome. If given half a chance, many of them would do just that, jump right in. They too would like to live a life of grace and charm, I assure you. They too would like to see the infrastructure improved. They too want the crime rate down. They too want fewer accidents, better schools, better transportation, fewer power cuts and water shortages, parks for their children, safe roads, and justice and liberty for all.

It just makes no sense to believe that all the problems that this city may or may not have are to be blamed on "outsiders". They may be convenient and handy scapegoats, after all no "indigenous" person uses any of the roads, any of the infrastructure, does not pollute the waters, does not throw trash on the streets, etc., etc. Right?

Instead of looking outward for the sources of our problems, we would do well to look inward, at our own feeling toward this city we've called home for generations. What are our strengths and capabilities? What are our weaknesses? Let's assess those and act accordingly. Let's not blame our weaknesses on "outsiders". Let's not act in haste and look for scapegoats. Let us be a city worthy of our heritage, if we so care about it.

Crossposted on Desicritics.

United 93, the Movie: Would You Watch It?

Last week's Time magazine carried Richard Corliss' report on the soon-to-be released movie United 93, about the fourth plane hijacked on September 11, 2001 - one that was intended as a missile as the other three hijacked planes were used that day, but the one in which the passangers heroically foiled the hijackers' plans. The plane eventually crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The only fatalities resulting from that plane crash were all on that plane.

The movie, written and directed by Paul Greengrass, sports the following plot line: "A real time account of the events on United Flight 93, one of the planes hijacked on 9/11 that crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania when passengers foiled the terrorist plot."

It has a cast of virtual unknowns, most of them with real-life experience of the parts they play in the movie.

For example, according to the Time magazine report, "J.J. Johnson, who plays the captain of Flight 93, is a real United pilot. Trish Gates, who plays head flight attendant Sandy Bradshaw, was a real United flight attendant, Ben Sliney, national operations manager for the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration]...appears as himself. Lewis Alsamari, who plays one of the hijackers, spent a year in the Iraqi army."

All this seems to point to one thing: the production team has gone through considerable effort to make the movie as faithful to the real thing as possible.

Which leaves me with the question, do I want to watch this movie?

I haven't even been able to bring myself to watch the movie's trailer yet. One of the major reasons for this, I think, is that I know exactly what is going to happen in this movie. From the minute the movie starts, from the time the doors of the plane are closed shut, I know that it is building up to the horrific ending, no matter what transpires in between, no matter how heroic the passengers were, no matter that the terrorists did not succeed in their plan, no matter that the lives of hundreds, possibly thousands of people on the ground were spared because of what this movie will show me happened on that plane that day.

Part of it also has to do with what we went through that day, although it is next to nothing compared to what the passengers on United Flight 93 put themselves through or what the passengers on the other planes and the victims on the ground and their families must have gone through.

For all the utter confusion we all went through that day, it is a day whose events I can remember and recount with clarity, more than four years after it happened. It was a day that brought home the meaning of "foreboding". I watched the second plane ram into one of the twin towers on live TV, heard the third crash into the Pentagon eight miles away from my home on northern Virginia, and had my husband be stuck for more than three hours in the one of the most poorly managed evacuations from Washington, D.C.

To add to the confusion was the fact that there was no information forthcoming from any part of the administration. TV anchors were merely echoing my thoughts - what more could they do? They had as much information as I did; we were all watching live footage of our sense of safety, security and comfort in our chosen way of life unraveling. Two of my neighbors perished in the Pentagon and many came home shaken, unable to eat for days. For months after 9/11 we had to drive past a wounded, blackened and bruised Pentagon on our way to Washington, D.C.

I am not sure when, or if, I will bring myself to watch it.

Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Dish echoes this sentiment.

And yet, I will not see this movie, whatever its merits. The trauma is still too close. That day is still etched in me, as in all of us. It was a specific, unique trauma for those heroes on the plane; but it was also an emotional devastation for anyone who loves this country.

He goes on to say something more that raises the question, is it too early for a Hollywood representation (no matter how closely it tracks the real-life events) of 9/11?

In some ways, I regard the acts of those men and women to be an almost sacred moment in the history of America and of freedom. And sometimes, the sacred is best respected through silence. Sometimes, the greatest deeds, like the most monstrous acts, are best left unrepresented. They stand alone. They demand to be left alone. One day, commemmorate. But do not so swiftly represent. Shakespeare often left the greatest moments in his plays off-stage. They have more power there.

United 93 is slated for release in the US on April 28, 2006.

Crossposted on Desicritics.

Kaavya Viswanathan Acknowledges Using Portions of Another Author's Book

Kaavya Viswanathan, the 19 year-old Harvard student who made headlines as one of the youngest authors to be signed on by Little, Brown & Co., ($500,000 for a two-book deal) after they published her debut novel How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, faced plagiarism charges over the weekend.

The similarities between How Opal and Megan McCafferty's novels, Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings (both published by Random House) were first reported in The Harvard Crimson this past Sunday.

The Boston Globe reports today that Ms Viswanathan "acknowledged yesterday that she used portions of another writer's book, but insisted the act was unconscious and unintentional."

The Globe article reporoduces portions of Ms Viswanathan's statement released by her publisher, Little, Brown,

''When I was in high school," Viswanathan said in her statement, ''I read and loved two wonderful novels by Megan McCafferty, 'Sloppy Firsts' and 'Second Helpings,' which spoke to me in a way few other books did. Recently, I was very surprised and upset to learn that there are similarities between some passages in my novel, 'How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life,' and passages in these books."

The Harvard Crimson also reports today that Random House lawyer, Min Jung Lee, in a letter to Little, Brown, stated that Random House "is confident that "literal copying" occurred in Viswanathan's book".

"We are continuing to investigate this matter, but, given the alarming similarities in the language, structure and characters already found in these works, we are certain that some literal copying actually occurred here," read the letter, which is dated April 22 and was signed by Random House lawyer Min Jung Lee. "As such, we would appreciate your prompt and serious attention to this matter."

Little, Brown, in a separate statement through Micheal Pietsch, VP and Publisher, described Ms Viswanathan as a "a decent, serious, and incredibly hard-working writer and student, and I am confident that we will learn that any similarities in phrasings were unintentional."

The movie rights to How Opal has been purchased by Dream Works.

This past weekend, The Hindu carried an interview with the author.

Update:

Kush Tandon points to this Language Log defense of Kaavya Viswanathan. Kush notes, though, that he's just pointing to it and not endorsing it.

Update 2:

The NY Times reports today (April 28, 2006),

"Little, Brown today sent a notice to retail and wholesale accounts asking them to stop selling copies of the book and to return unsold inventory to the publisher for full credit," said Michael Pietsch, senior vice president and publisher of Little, Brown.

Crossposted on Desicritics.

Honor Killings

Other than in a section of society that actually carries them out, it is generally agreed that honor killings are barbaric and have no place in modern society. So how does once countenance the fact that they are still carried out in parts of Africa and South Asia? What should our response be to an incidence of honor killing? Should the punishment reflect the barbaric nature of the crime? Should the perpetrators be flogged, as arZan suggests in his piece Honor Killings - Public Flogging Needed? Or is something more drastic necessary? Is there a way to prevent honor killings from occurring at all? If so, how?

Update: Commonwealth Games: Indian Masseur Charged with Sexual Harassment

Here is an update to my earlier post on the charges of sexual harassment filed against a member of the Indian contingent that traveled to the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne:

Diwan Asghar Nabi, the masseur with India's Commonwealth Games team, was given a suspended one-month jail sentence on Thursday for indecently assaulting a teenage cleaner at the Games village, court officials said.

[...]

The spokeswoman also said that Nabi's name was placed on a list of registered sex offenders and that he must stay in regular contact Victoria state police for the next eight years.

Read the entire story here.

Bangalore - the Latest Addition to Metroblogging

Bangalore is city #45 and the latest addition to Metroblogging. All Bangalore-related posts can be found here.

Check it out!