Blog on Hiatus

This blog will be silent for a while. I hope to be back soon and I look forward to catching up with you then on your blogs and in comment boxes. In the meantime, feel free to cursor your way through the archives.

Blog Admin - Comment Replies

A quick note about replies to comments.

I love reading comments, especially the thoughtful ones that keep a conversation going. And the way to keep a conversation going (as long as it will organically go) is to reply to them. When I first started blogging in India, it was apparent that the convention was to reply to the comments on your blog and on your post, i.e., if someone commented on one of my posts, I would leave a new comment on the same post in reply.

Then when started reading a lot of American, British and Australian blogs, it was equally apparent that replies to my comments came in other ways. I found them landing in my inbox. Bloggers would read my comments on their posts and instead of leaving a reply via another comment on their post, they would write to my e-mail address and keep the conversation going that way.

When I was able to identify which blogger did what, I tried to do both - leave replies on my post and send e-mails in reply to those bloggers that did the same for comments on their blogs. Pretty soon, though, it all became hairy and I was doing both regularly or neither. Mostly neither.

Hence this note, particularly for those bloggers who reply to comments via e-mail. I love receiving your replies by e-mail (it spares me having to check your comments box for replies), but it seems to me that replying to comments on my post is what will work best for this blog. I like it, and it also has the virtue of having questions (that other readers might have as well) and answers in one place. If you are used to receiving replies via e-mail there's a handy-dandy blogger feature that allows you to receive comments on a particular post via e-mail. You just have to click a button and never have to come back to the same post for follow-up comments. I hope you will use it.

No matter what, thank you all for reading and taking the time to comment.

The Bangle Shop

Long, long ago, in villages and towns across India, the 'bangle man' roamed the streets. A cloth knapsack slung on his shoulders, he called out his wares - glass bangles in resplendent colors, some plain, some decorated with gold or silver paint - and made the rounds of his beat perhaps once a month, but more frequently during the marriage or festival seasons.

Inside the knapsack - fashioned out of a large cotton cloth whose four ends were knotted together - the bangles would be strung on long jute strings tied up at the ends to make a garland of the bangles. Many such colorful garlands nestled together in the knapsack.

The soles of his feet cracked from walking miles and miles on dry, dusty roads in worn out sandals or in bare feet, his head wrapped in a towel to ward off the heat of the sun, his teeth stained from years of chewing tobacco, the one-man, walking, talking bangle shop was a welcome sight nonetheless, his sing-song call a cause for great excitement especially if you'd been waiting for a delivery.

Women-folk (like my mom-in-law's mother, for example) hardly ever left the house, even to go to the market. They got their vegetables and grains from their farm and nearly everything else was home-delivered, including saris. Each family would have their favorite street hawker, one who knew the family's needs and would make special trips to his suppliers make sure he had what his customers needed. The same for bangles.

Most homes had a porch, screened with mesh or metal bars, where the bangle man and the women-folk would settle down to pore over the bangles, trying them on for size, flipping their wrists back and forth to check out the feel of the bangles, the clinking sounds providing a rhythm to their conversations. It was more than likely that neighbors would gather together on one porch, saving the bangle man from having to pack and unpack his knapsack over and over.

An old home with a screened porch
This little interlude was a welcome break for the women from their household chores and a welcome respite for the bangle man, a chance to rest his aching feet and take the load off his shoulders.

I wish I had a photo of one for myself and to show you because these days, the bangle man is a dead breed, especially in cities and the larger towns. Although street hawkers can still be found in the older residential neighborhoods, their wares are limited to vegetables in most cases.

The bangle shops have taken over. Even a small shop is able to carry a much larger variety than a hawker ever could. Street-side shops, such as the ones below, are quite popular in Bangalore.




And then there are ones like Bhavani Bangle Shop, which is a shop of the bone fida variety and is spread across four floors in Jayanagar, one of the busiest commercial areas of Bangalore. In all the years I lived in Bangalore, I dissed that shop. I grew up hating the thought of having to wear bangles or bracelets. Now it's a different story. Every time I've been back in the past few years, I've visited that shop, trying on and buying what a few years ago I thought was junk.

In the picture above, the owner receives boxes of new supplies for his shop.

The rows and rows of bangles and ear rings are mesmerizing. They are all costume jewellery, many of the designs (even those of the 'bindis' or the dots worn on the forehead) inspired by the heavily bejewelled heroines and vamps of the Indian soaps that rule the airwaves at all times of day and night.

Costume jewellery has caught on so well that this shop even offers to put together an entire set (bangles, necklaces, ear rings and other accessories) that will match your sari or other dress you might be planning to wear for a special event. I'd never heard of such a service before!



Most interesting of all, have you noticed something? The sales people are all men. A holdover from the bangle-man days, perhaps?

The Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers as Seen From the Air

ABC News has obtained aerial photographs of the collapse of the Twin Towers taken in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. They were taken by Det. Greg Semendinger of the NY Police Aviation Unit, the only photographer allowed in the airspace around that time, according to the NY Times.

They make for stunning visuals. All of my visual memory of that day seems to contain images of the towers seen from the bottom up, of debris falling all around the people fleeing the carnage of building parts falling, of ash falling.

These pictures offer an entirely new perspective, especially when grouped together as aerial pictures - the ash looks like it's spreading sideways and up, not falling.

The Hurt Locker: A Review

The Hurt Locker is the tale of a trio of soldiers that makes up the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), a bomb disposal squad, attached to an army regiment on rotation in Iraq. Of the three, Staff Sgt. William James (played by James Renner, nominated for a Best Actor Oscar this year) functions as the bomb-disposal technician, Specialist Owen Eldridge (played by Brian Geraghty) and Sgt. JT Sanborn (played by Anthony Mackie) serve as look-outs, scouting the area for threats (other than the bomb which obviously everyone is very aware of) and keeping it clear so the expert can focus on the job at hand and there is as little human casualty as possible.

The movie starts ominously, with the nail-biting suspense of the team heading out to diffuse a bomb. Just the visuals of the team preparing to approach the bomb in full protective paraphernalia - including the act of putting on the elaborate bomb suit - set your pulses racing. Of course, the fact that the very first outing goes horribly wrong and the team has a dead bomb-disposal expert on its hands (Guy Pearce in a short appearance) does nothing to dissipate the tension.

Thus it transpires that the EOD must now find a replacement, which arrives in the form of a barely-restrained ball of energy known as Staff Sgt. William James. We soon find out that James is a strange animal - he courts danger with a vengeance, does not heed sensible advice, likes to get into violent fist fights in the barracks with his fellow soldiers, and has difficulty adjusting to situations that do not involve tons of explosives, nails and a tangle of colorful wires.

James' proclivities cause tension within the team, which has only a few days left on its rotation and the two original members want nothing more than to finish up and go home to their families. How the team learns to work together and comes to respect James' uncommon ways and his leadership forms the rest of the movie.

People who've been in the military might find aspects of the movie wrong from a factual point of view (like such and such gun was not in use during the year in which the movie is set), but The Hurt Locker does a stupendous job of conveying to the layperson the horrors and the vagaries of dealing with explosive devices - which has become an unavoidable aspect of war - and the grit, dedication and determination of a band of soldiers.

The title of the movie refers to a figurative place of intense physical or emotional pain. The film succeeds in opening a window into that dark and little-known space, and into the psyche of a person who is very, very good at a job that most of us would never entertain even for a second as a viable career choice; it shines a light on a situation in which showing even the slightest bit of humanity might bring swift retribution (such as when James - who has left behind a wife and a toddler son at home - befriends a young boy near the army base and a few days later, in a particularly gory scene, finds an nearly identical boy killed and wired with an explosive that James must diffuse by inserting his hands into the boy's dead body). Mind games played at a dangerously high level of intensity, the stakes ratcheted up so high the protagonists (and the viewers) can barely hear themselves think.

We might think we know something about roadside bombs and improvised explosive devices given how much of it we hear in the news every single day. But what do we really know? What do we know about the devious minds that build bombs to extricate maximum damage? About how any one of the innocent-looking onlookers, that you are trying desperately to protect, might hold the trigger that sets off the bomb? What do we know about how to tell who the enemy is or who might be the victim? Do we really know what kind of human being it takes to willingly walk into a trap knowing fully well that one wrong move could blow him and everyone else within a radius of a few hundred feet into smithereens?

The film ably crafts the message that in urban warfare all bets are off, that the only rule in modern-day combat is that there are no rules, and draws the viewer deep into the characters' tension-filled world. From the moment the team hears of a possible explosive device that must be diffused, as their truck winds its way through dangerous streets and alleys, as the look-outs scour their field of vision for suspicious movements, as the technician makes his way to the wires and the odd-looking lump on the rocky, dusty ground, we see every aspect of the scene from their perspective and feel their nerves and desperation. The reaction is visceral. I wouldn't be surprised if you jumped out of your seat once in a while or found yourself trying to brush off the dirt and grime off your clothes as you walked out of the theater.

Before The Hurt Locker I had never heard of its director, Kathryn Bigelow, and I was rather surprised to see Ralph Fiennes in a small role as the leader of a band of British mercenaries (which the protagonists end up fighting alongside in the middle of the desert), but apparently she is a prolific movie maker with a cult following, and they had both worked together in Strange Days as director and actor early in their careers.

The movie is certainly deserving of its nine Oscar nominations and with a win at the Directors' Guild Awards, it looks like Bigelow is well on her way to a Directors' Oscar as well. And I'm on my way to mining Netflix for more Bigelow movies.

The movie's IMDb page. Image from.

Seen on the street: Snow art

Gotta love the wicked sense of humor that produced this! Can you make out the tiny flush handle on the left?

"Building a snow man is so boring," the man said. Yup! When you can build something like this, why settle for a snow man?

The Blizzard of 2010 aka Snowmageddon

The snow came down thick and fast and wet. If you didn't keep up with it, it got heavy as the minutes ticked by. Fluffy and light on top, watery (later icy) at the bottom.

Just beyond the windows, the kitchen was warm and inviting.

We shoveled and shoveled. And shoveled. At least five times on the deck in the back and four times out front.

This morning, the sun was out!

Our fence grew a few inches overnight.

Winter is here, but spring seems so far away.

Icicles cling on to the roof edge for dear life.

A jet zooms across a nearly cloudless, blue sky this morning.

The sidewalk looks like a tunnel.

We lost the top of our holly tree to the weight of the snow.

I have a feeling we'll remember this for a long time.

Patterns

Karadi Tales' Will You Write With Me? Contest

From my inbox:

Karadi Tales, India’s pioneer and leading producer of children’s audio-books announces the ‘Will You Write With Me?’ contest. Here’s a chance to win a publishing contract with one of India’s foremost children’s publishers! The three best entries will be published in an audio-book narrated by the inimitable Jaaved Jaaferi. The winners will sign a publishing contract with Karadi Tales.

For details on the contest and to read the first half of the story, visit www.karaditales.com. This contest is open to everyone! Entries must be received on or before 28 February 2010. Email your entries to contest@karaditales.com.

The first part of the story they want entrants to complete is pretty intriguing. If you intend to enter the contest, all the best to you!

Review: Akbar and Birbal by Amita Sarin

I was at one of my favorite book haunts in Bangalore, looking for books for my children when I came across a book titled Akbar and Birbal. It was on the shelf with other novels and non-fiction books targeted at teens and young adults, but it seemed like it would be a good introduction to a part of Indian history for my nine-year-old. I added it to the growing stash in my arms and gave it to him along with a book from the Lemony Snicket series and a couple of Ruskin Bond books.

As expected, he picked up the Lemony Snicket book first and later in the day moved on to Akbar and Birbal. I could tell he was tentative, not really sure what it was all about, but he gave it a shot. Half an hour later, he had not put the book down, which was a good sign. When he was done with it, he did not stop raving about it for days, recounting parts of the book that he liked best. He liked it enough to want to write about it. The indented text that follows below is his review of Akbar and Birbal. It was first published in Blogcritics Magazine for his own feature (!), A Kid With a View.

[Start] Akbar, the emperor, and Birbal, his top minister, were wandering through the streets of Agra disguised as ordinary men. They heard the yelling of a woman from inside a house. They both thought she had been screaming at her child. But to their surprise a man came sprinting out of the house. Akbar was furious. He could not believe that men in his kingdom were cowards. Birbal disagreed and said that while Akbar was a great king, men like the man who was running away from his wife were ordinary men and had to be kind to their wives or get kicked out of the house.

Akbar and Birbal argued for days and days. Finally Akbar called a meeting in his palace gardens. He invited all the married men in Agra. He then asked the men who listened to their wives to move to the left and the men who did not to move to the right. One man moved to the right. All the rest moved to the left.

Akbar told Birbal that he wanted to reward the man that had moved right. But Birbal asked the man why he had moved to the right. The man said that he did so because his wife told him to stay away from crowds!

Birbal had won the argument with Akbar. This was no surprise because Birbal's wit always outsmarted Akbar, and Birbal did it in the most clever way imaginable.

Akbar, the great Mughal emperor, lived from 1542 to 1605. He thought of himself as an incredible emperor, which is what he was. Birbal lived from 1528 to 1586. He was Akbar's most trusted advisor and a wise ambassador who found a way around war. Birbal helped Akbar see through problems that he could not fully understand. Birbal was an outstanding minister both to his people and his king.

Amita Sarin has narrated this book elegantly and in a funny way. I found myself smiling or laughing at the end of each story. The author has sneaked in some historical facts along with the anecdotes. The way Birbal solved problems stunned me.

This is a joyous book. Anyone can read it because it is a fantastic swirl of Indian history, Indian ways of life and hilarious descriptions of events.

Unbelievably, I thought this was going to be some boring history book my mom bought for me. Finally, I learned my lesson. Never judge a book by its cover or its blurb! [End]

I haven't read the book myself, yet. But needless to say, I am a fan already!

Update following Amy's (She Writes) comment: The book is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Flipkart (for readers in India).

Children's Summer Theater Workshop in the Washington, D.C. Area

From my inbox:

Adventure Theatre Announces the Summer Musical Theatre Workshop Productions Adventure Theatre, the longest-running children’s theatre in the Washington, D.C., area is kicking-off its 31st Annual Summer Musical Theatre Workshop for children ages 6-15 with an exciting line-up of children’s productions including Disney’s Aladdin Jr., Disney’s 101 Dalmatians Kids, The Magical Land of Oz and Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum*, each facilitated by professionally trained Directors, Choreographers, and Musical Directors.

The Summer Musical Theatre Workshop is a daytime workshop in which children audition for one of four age-appropriate productions, and will then participate in two full weeks of show rehearsals, music and dancing which culminate in a full-scale production of each show on the Adventure Theatre stage. Students will also attend Adventure Theatre’s main stage performance If You Give a Pig a Pancake, ride Glen Echo Park’s carousel, participate in a talent show, receive a commemorative t-shirt and enjoy a cast party.

[...]

Adventure Theatre’s Summer Musical Theatre Workshops run Monday-Friday from 9am-4pm, June 14th to August 27th. Before and aftercare options are available.

Session 1 (mini session)- June 14 – 18
Session 2 – June 21 - July 2
Session 3 – July 5- July 16
Session 4 – July 19 - July 30
Session 5 – August 2 - August 13
Session 6 - August 16 - August 27

For more information or to inquire about tuition prices, please contact Adventure Theatre’s Summer Musical Theatre Workshop Program Coordinator Selena Anguiano at 301-634-2275 or sanguiano@adventuretheatre.org. Also, visit www.adventuretheatre.org for more information on the Summer Musical Theatre Workshop and other educational programs at Adventure Theatre.

It's time to plan for summer already!

Went Home and Came Back Home

I'm at my brother's desk at home in Bangalore, hogging his computer to check e-mails and check on what's going on in DC, making sure the house is still standing after that whopper of a snow storm (the house was still standing thanks to some truly fantastic neighbors). A dear friend comes online and as we begin chatting. At one point, I tell her I miss home. Radio silence for a few seconds as she digests that line.

"You're home and you're missing home? That's strange," she says.

Yes, I was home and I was missing home.

I was with my parents and my brother and my sis-in-law and nephew and loving every minute of it. A set of distinct memories that doesn't surface any other time made itself available. We laughed at all the jokes we've been laughing at for ... ahem... many, many years. We ate all the foods that we've grown up eating, feasted on the gossip that makes sense to no one else but us. But in the midst of it all, I missed my own kitchen and my bed and all the things my eyes can rest on when I'm in my own space.

So there - or here - I am. One foot there and one foot here. On the cusp.

But still, it's great to be back ... home. I hope you all had a good last few weeks and I wish the coming weeks and months treat you and your loved ones well.

Ice Skating Meets Bollywood

Left me with a silly grin on my face. Enjoy!

Book Review: Karadi Tales' Will You Read With Me? Series

Hathaman is an accomplished yogi. Before the sun reaches the mid-way point in its journey across the sky each day, he's finished up a hundred and fifty Surya Namaskaras, the Dhanurasana, the Bhujangasana, the Mayurasana and the Sarvangasana. Hathaman, however, is not one to rest on his laurels. He wants to do more and be more. He wants to walk on water and fly like a bird. In other words, he wants superhuman powers.

His quest for these super powers and whether he succeeds in getting them is the story told in Karadi Tales' Super Hathaman. Written with tongue planted firmly in cheek by Kaushik Viswanath, the narrative is superbly illustrated by Chetan Sharma. Delight, greed, irritation, frustration, desperation, suspicion - the emotions flit across Hathaman's visage as vividly as they do in Viswanath's descriptions.

The most intriguing part of the package, however, is the fact that Super Hathaman is part of Karadi Tales' Will You Read With Me? series and therefore also comes with a compact disc - this one narrated by actor and comedian Jaaved Jaaferi, with background music by 3 Brothers & A Violin.


Another title from the series, A Hundred Cartloads, written by Devika Rangachari and illustrated by Bindia Thapar, is a lovely, heartwarming tale of the loving relationship between Ananda, the ox, and Billa, his master. When circumstances conspire to unravel their friendship, will they learn to trust each other again and get back to the way they were before? Thapar's eye-popping illustrations ably support Rangachari's lucid and simple writing style. Soha Ali Khan's competent narration of the story is accompanied by another winning musical score by 3 Brothers & A Violin.

One evening, recently, on one of our innumerable daily car rides to and from my children's after-school activities, we popped the Super Hathaman CD in the car's stereo and settled back for the half-hour ride. The series title song composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy was followed by brief instructions on how to read along and a short intro by Jaaferi. And then, the story began.

As the awesome music of 3 Brothers & A Violin filled the car and the first words of the story spilled out of Jaaferi's striking vocal chords, it is safe to say that listening to Super Hathaman was well on its way to becoming a favorite activity during car rides. We have since listened to the CD more than a few times already.

The music sets the scenes - particularly the ones in the Tibetan monastery - with admirable precision. Jaaferi conjures up mesmerizing images with his now naughty, now bewildered, now impatient vocal calisthenics. My three-year-old daughter broke into giggles at Hathaman's antics. And at one point, when the music managed to elicit goose bumps, there was a distinct "wow" from my nine-year-old son.

Each of the Will You Read With Me? series titles comes with a note to parents about audio books. In it, Karadi Tales lays out its case for why children should be reading books along with their CDs. Expressing a preference for teaching children 'sight' reading over 'phonetic' reading, it asserts that reading along with the CD "increases the sight vocabulary of the child." It goes on to say that listening to storytellers able to emote effectively (Jaaferi's counterparts on other series titles include Vidya Balan, Sanjay Dutt, Soha Ali Khan and Rahul Dravid), children learn to speak better and are able to hone their listening skills, thereby improving their attention spans.

While all this may be true, if it is one thing I've realized from being in the thick of bringing up two children, it is that no two children are alike. My son subscribed to the phonetic method right from the time he started learning to read (he still uses it to decode polysyllabic words in the chapter books he reads), and if early indications hold true, my daughter is a strong candidate for the sight-reading camp. She recognizes words by sight – even those that are easy to string together phonetically – faster than she sounds them out.

However, no matter what reading strategy a child leans toward, it is axiomatic that parents must create an environment in which young children get excited about reading and want to read. As long as the books are child-appropriate, it doesn't really matter whether the books are considered classics or are written by newbie authors. To that end, if a book is able to entice a child to open it, look at it, flip through its pages and finally read it (or have it read to them), then it's a surefire winner as far as I'm concerned. In that department, the Will You Read With Me? series executes its mandate wonderfully.

The audio component is definitely icing on the cake. While I'm not generally a fan of software embedded in books that prompts a child with the correct pronunciation when he or she struggles with a word, having the software (the audio) separate from the book ensures that, with parental guidance, the child does not end up using the CD as a crutch every time he or she sits down to read. Children can listen to the CD a couple of times and then try to read the book on their own.

Quite apart from the aspect of reading along with the CD, there is the listening aspect to the audio books. Watching a child listening to a story is pure magic. They get this faraway look in their eyes, their imagination fully engaged, their attention riveted to listening and understanding. When you have polished storytellers such as Jaaferi assisting you, the task just gets that much easier.

The series does not alert parents as to what age-group of children the books are appropriate for. While any child that is able to focus even for a few minutes could benefit from just listening to stories on the CDs, the books seem to be targeted at children who have already started reading and are able to handle many of the most commonly occurring words on their own, and who have some facility with the English language.

The idea that children should grow up listening to stories is nothing new. It is as old as civilization and as widespread. But by pairing the art of story-telling with the academic imperative that children learn to read (and well), and by adhering to excellent production values every step of the way, Karadi Tales has hit upon a combination that is sure to keep both children and parents happy.


For more titles, go to http://www.karaditales.com/.

Masala Art: New Indian Restaurant in Washington, D.C.

We're not great fans of eating out at Indian restaurants in the US. No matter how laudatory the reviews, we end up being disappointed - the flavors seem boring and bland, many of the dishes insipid versions of those made at home. But hope springs eternal. So when we saw a review on the Washington Post for a new North-Indian restaurant in DC called Masala Art, we decided to give it a try.


The restaurant, located on Wisconsin Avenue, has a pleasing ambiance - plenty of Indian art and other decorative items, but not so much as to overwhelm the senses. When we walked in on a Sunday afternoon, there were not many patrons to begin with, but people trickled in slowly in twosomes and in groups. Soon the place was buzzing.

We ordered the standard fare - mango lassis, samosas, pani puri, dahi papri, butter chicken, baingan bartha and a paneer dish. We ordered the naans with the interesting twist - baked with cilantro and rock salt.

Thrillist has this to say about the restaurant and its owner:

Preaching the philosophy that cooking is an “art form to be savored along with music and painting” and that particular dishes have their own “perfect moment”, the owner of the green-walled, trinket-lined, 45-seat Masala is a 20-year vet who spent the last decade exploring subcontinental cuisine at Dupont's Heritage India, after spending the first half of his career in India, exploring his heritage.

The food was actually flavorful, served hot and in the right portion sizes. Someone had put some thought into the presentation. The kids enjoyed the food as much as we did. The menu presents a nice variety of dishes and is not too pricey. The wait-staff was attentive (and talkative, which was OK as we were not there for a business lunch). One of them said that the restaurant serves brunches during the week, but is still gauging interest in weekend brunches.

Perhaps because it was the cozy space or because the restaurant was not overflowing, allowing us to linger, or because it was just the four of us out on a jaunt into DC on a bright, sunny Sunday afternoon, but we had an awesome time. I have a feeling we might be making our way back there again with a bunch of friends the next time around.

The restaurant is located at 4441-B Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20016, ph: 202-362-4441. The closest metro is Tenleytown-AU. According to the wait-staff, Thursday to Saturday nights tend to be crowded and reservations, therefore, would be prudent.