Literary Safari

Jim Rogers was a multi-millionaire investor who could afford to retire and morph into a world traveler before he turned 37, but it took him another 25 years to find the courage to become a father. In the introduction to his latest book, A Gift to My Children: A Father’s Lessons for Life and Investing (Random House, June 2009), the best-selling author of Hot Commodities and Adventure Capitalist writes:

I must admit that not very long ago I would have scoffed at even the idea of having children of my own. Growing up in Alabama, I was the oldest of five boys, and much as I loved my brothers, I spent an awful lot of time looking after them! Alas, I couldn’t help but notice what a financial burden having five children had imposed on my parents no mater how keen they were on us. Later in life, I was too busy working and traveling even to think about parenthood, which seemed like an endless drain on the time, energy, and money with which I was pursuing my passions.  …

In his latest book, Rogers takes a break from writing about his travel escapades or providing tips on the best places to invest your money, instead distilling his life experiences into a book of advice for his two daughters, five-year old Happy and Bee, who was born in 2008.  Becoming a father at the age of 62, when he had the “experience, time, and energy” allowed Rogers to take on his new role with “passion” inspired him to put down his life lessons “in one place, with examples of[his] own experience, as a guide to life, adventure, and investing” with perhaps cliché sounding chapter titles such as:

Swim Your Own Races: Do Not Let Others Do Your Thinking for You
Focus on What You Like
Common Sense? Not So Common
Let the World Be a Part of Your Perspective
Learn Philosophy: Learn to “Think”
Learn History!
Learn Languages
Recognize Change and Embrace It
Look to the Future!

But there are surprises and interesting twists along the way, such as Rogers advice to his children that they learn Mandarin (“It is the century of China!”, understand the significance of the BRIC nations (“focus investment strategies on growing economies abroad”), experience the world’s diversity (“I urge you to leave your country for a few years. You can always return, but you will have a new understanding. Of everything.”), or even something as simple as the importance of saving (“As you get older, you will probably have friends who eat at expensive restaurants every night, buy the latest gadgets or fashion trends, and spend vacations at fancy beach resorts. You must avoid the trap of spending money willynilly simply because you can. Not only is this a road to financial ruin, it can cause you to forget what’s important in life.”)

I picked this book up at the library a couple of days ago, and both my husband and I got through most of it the same evening. There’s something about the combination of sentimentality, practicality, and utilitarianism, plus a down to earth approach to living an authentic life, that appealed to both of us — not just as tips that we hope to someday pass on to our soon-to-be daughter, but also as advice we could apply to our own lives.

One gets the feeling that Rogers sat down to compose this thoughts and sentiments for his two treasures with the knowledge that there is no certainty that he may be around when they are in their twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties  … to be able to tell them all this himself. As someone whose father passed away when I was 27, but who was very much a world traveler, a wise investor, a reader, an explorer, and an adventurer, Rogers’ perspective was the perfect father’s day gift that fell into my lap.

I was intrigued, but slightly skeptical when I signed up for a cooking class at the newly-opened Indian Culinary Center a few weeks ago. What could I, a vegetarian who has been cooking desi food pretty regularly for the past couple of years, learn that was new and interesting in an Indian Vegetarian Delights Class? A lot, it turns out.

The ICC is run by Geetika Khanna, a former psychologist and graduate of the French Culinary Institute who has been charting a path in the food industry for the past 10+ years. I really felt like I was walking into another world when I rang the buzzer of 131 W. 23rd St., which turned out to be the Chelsea Inn, a cosy bed and breakfast whose ground floor industrial kitchen turned out to be the cooking school of the now-defunct culinary arts program of The New School, where it turns out, Khanna used to be an instructor.

On this particular Tuesday night, nine of us had signed up to spend the evening learning how to cook with Khanna, a tall, relaxed, and skilled instructor who weaves anecdotes about her family in with technique tips and practical approaches on how to make Indian cooking a part of your culinary repertoire, instead of something exotic and inaccessible. For those like me, who generally cook at least one or two Indian meals a week, it was the practical tips like how to clean your spice grinder — run a piece of bread through it — and the ease and humor with which Khanna made cooking a six-course meal seem doable (from scratch, using mostly fresh ingredients) that was the tipping point. Plus, I enjoyed her running commentary on colonialism, the evolution of the Indian “curry,” and the Food Network —and she gave me the courage to fry my first pooris, a big deal for a gal who has always had a fear of deep frying. There were also a few surprises along the way, like the fact that she uses cayenne pepper in her masala dhaba. [Click on the narrated slideshow above for a walk-through of the class and a look at our full menu.]

The menu for that day’s class was what Khanna referred to as a typical Sunday breakfast meal that her North Indian-Punjabi household would eat in Delhi. In my Sindhi home, it would be dinner or lunch and there would be many more fried foods! So yes, the variation is incredible, but here in the US, there are common denominators to the term “Indian cuisine” and certain lines do, I think, get blurred. For example, when I first started cooking, I made dishes based on recipes I found online (because it’s easier than trying to get my mom to talk to me about measurements) and so, they were always slightly different than what I grew up eating. It’s only now that I’m starting to figure out how to adjust the spices and ingredients so that they taste more like my grandmother and mother’s food.

The three and a half hour class cost $55, and was followed by a delicious six-course meal. A pretty good deal for an evening out in NYC where you’re learning, eating, and meeting a bunch of interesting people. (Other NYC cooking classes range from $100 to $200 per person).

At present, Khanna offers classes every month, and has plans to invite other chefs of Indian cuisine to teach at the ICC. With all the regional variations of Indian food plus diasporic foods such as Indian Chinese, West Indian, and Indo-French, as well as the wealth of Indian chefs in the New York area, I’m sure there are many more yummy lessons and treats to return to at the ICC. I’ll definitely be going back.

Oh, and if anyone is interested in interning with Khanna, she’s looking. Drop her a line.

I’m a creature of habit and making lists is at the top of my “habit list.” My day does not go right unless I sit down in the morning and make a list of goals, things to do, and even, places to go. My father used to make lists too. After his death, I found yellow legal notepad after yellow legal notepad filled with numbered lists of his daily goals. I’m sure that if he were alive today for me to ask him what he liked best about his list-making (apart from the direction it gave him), he would answer, “Crossing out things!”

There’s also something lyrical about lists, the way one line flows into the other, creating a rhythm and space in which to find yourself. I suppose that’s what attracted me to the anthology of original children’s list poems, Falling Down the Page, edited by Georgia Heard (Roaring Brook Press, 2009).

Inspired by Walt Whitman’s classic list poem Song of Myself, this collection of original poems highlights a variety of styles, all of which are tied together by the common themes of school and the everyday experiences of the school year. Featured authors include Jane Yolen (“In My Desk”), Marilyn Singer (“In My Hand”), Eileen Spinelli (“Creativity”),  Bobbi Katz (“Things to Do If You are the Sun”), and one of my favorite poets, Naomi Shihab Nye (“Words in My Pillow”).  The poems span a range of moods — lighthearted, serious, thoughtful, funny, and whimsical. There’s something for every type of kid here.

Besides my fascination with lists, there was also something about the size of the book that I found extremely appealing. Laid out vertically at 5×10 inches, its topsy-turvy text, curvy font treatment of titles, and offbeat design are a visual invitation to readers to think differently — outside of the standard horizontal box of our minds — and to sit down and invent our own list poems.

I recently wrote a piece, “Summer School: Play with Words” for Kahani magazine (forthcoming in the Summer 2009 issue). Building upon my previous advice at A+ Advice for Parents, it offers ideas for wordplay exercises. I wish I’d come across Heard’s anthology earlier so that I could have also recommended it to readers. Oh well; better late than never. If you have school age children, why not sit down with them and write a list poem this summer? Or, you could do what I did after earlier today, after re-reading Falling Down the Page: sit down with your own pencil and sheet of paper and see what emerges.

Below the fold is my little list poem inspired by the cloudy skies we’ve had in NYC of late.

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While the spotlight shines on Barack Obama’s long-awaited speech to the Muslim World, closer to home, I’ve been seeing lots of posters and advertising for the upcoming Muslim Voices Festival in New York City which begins today, Friday, June 5 and runs through the 14th of this month. Featuring concerts, lectures, film screenings on PBS, and even, a souk, the ten-day festival is designed to celebrate the arts and culture of Muslim societies. It is the culmination of three years of organizing by the Asia Society, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and NYU”s Center for Dialogues.

Below the fold is a listing of a few of the South Asia-related events coming up over the next fortnight. Don’t let your exploration stop there. There’s tons more on the calendar worth checking out.

But first, I want to tell you about a book that I’ve been reading which ties in well to the theme of this festival: Kavitha Rajagopalan’s Muslims of Metropolis which was published by Rutgers University Press late last year.

Muslims of Metropolis is a sensitive and thoughtful examination of international migration and the social construct of identity. Rajagopalan spent nearly 7 years researching and writing her first book which tells the stories of the journeys of three families from majority-Muslim countries to three major Western metropolises. In London, she follows a Palestinian man from Jerusalem and his Syrian wife. In Berlin, a Turkish Kurdish community. And, in post 9/11 New York, and a Bangladeshi man and his daughter who married an undocumented Pakistani man.

As Rajagopalan puts it in her introduction:

These families come from different socioeconomic, political, and ethnic backgrounds, but they are all Muslim. It should be noted, however, that this is not a book on theology or Islamic history. Although the stories in this book will refer to the ways in which characters relate to Islam as they construct their identities, cope with adversity, or understand their roles in the world, this is not ultimately a book about Muslims but about immigrants … I have chosen to write about Muslim immigrants because I believe that the social identity of Muslim immigrants stands under the greatest pressure of misunderstanding and mistrust throughout the world.

Over the past several months, Rajagopalan has been touring the country doing multimedia presentations and readings from her book. I attended one reading right here in NYC and was struck by her ability to weave together multiple human narratives with solid research in a manner that was penetrating and insightful, at once literary, journalistic, and accessibly academic. (more…)