All posts in the ‘ Real People ’ Category

We’ve just had the umpteenth snowfall of the season, and I hear the scrape of my neighbor’s shovel and the rumble of snow plows going by. On Facebook, there are dozens of pictures of snow banks, snow plows, snow forts, snow angels made by little kids. Sifting through old family photographs, I come across similar photographs taken in January, 1919, in Franklin, NH. New-fallen snow there, too, and children in snowsuits. Like this pic of my dad shortly …Read More

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” So goes the first line of L.P. Hartley’s 1953 novel, The Go-Between. In New Hampshire, you can often take a day trip to that foreign country and do things the way they do them there. You can dance traditional square and contra dances on the scuffed wooden floors of grange buildings or squirm through lectures in the back-breaking pews of village meeting houses. On Sunday, I played …Read More

As I’ve mentioned, my mother conquered the personal computer in her sixties, when few in her age group dared get close to such a terrifying machine. What if they hit the wrong button and it blew up? But my mother wanted to learn. It must be said that learning was the family religion. Once I joked to my mom, “Well, if I’m so smart, why aren’t I rich?” She looked utterly shocked. “But think how much you’ve learned!” …Read More

Google “the book is dead, long live the book” and you come up with 178 million results, which suggests that the thought is not highly original. Still, has anyone asked preschoolers what they think about the subject? I went to a birthday party on Saturday for a pair of three-year-olds, one of whom was my granddaughter, Clara. Mercifully for her parents, the party was held at the other kid’s house. I must say, both sets of parents went …Read More

Halloween is almost here! Pumpkins are proliferating on front porches and ghosts and skeletons are swaying from trees. I can’t wait to see the kids in their costumes coming to the door. I’m sure there will be lots of Annas and Elsas, the princess sisters from Walt Disney’s 2013 animated blockbuster, Frozen. Clara, however, has decided to be Winnie the Pooh. Last year, she insisted weeks in advance of Halloween that she’d be a pig. Many years ago, …Read More

The amazing Elizabeth Berg is hosting a literary series in Oak Park, outside Chicago, IL. It’s called “Writing Matters.” I’m thrilled that she wants me as a visiting author. If you’re going to be near there on Saturday, Sept 13, come along! In addition to book reading and signing, there will be wine and Indian food–my mouth is watering already. By the way, if writing matters, reading has to matter too, in equal proportion. The American Academy of …Read More

There’s a jeweler in my new book, Emeralds Included. His name is Mr. Shah. Jana’s son, Jack, doesn’t trust him, but Jana finds herself hypnotized by Mr. Shah’s poetic and knowledgeable musings on gems. When I was growing up in India in the 1950s and 1960s, my family got acquainted with a jeweler who was both an artist and an excellent businessman. Mr. Nanda Lal Varma was then just starting on his career. He had no storefront; carrying …Read More

I came across a manila folder that was stained and soft from multiple uses and had “Important Mementoes” written on the outside in my mother’s exuberant upward-sloping handwriting. Among the yellowing newspaper clippings, invitation cards, golf scorecards and the like, there was a letter written to my mom by her dad, in November 1939. In this picture, my mom’s parents, Helen and Jacob Randolph, are center row, left. My mother isn’t in this picture–it must have been taken …Read More

My mother, Ruth Woodman, was petite, charming, and sparklingly beautiful. She could also be scary, especially if you were facing her across a ping pong table or a tennis court. In addition to being a dancer, she was an excellent athlete and a formidable competitor. Here she is at age 30, at home on skis. Are the men keeping up with her? Doubt it. In India, in the 1950s, my parents joined the Delhi Golf Club. Picture Credit: …Read More

Lee and I aren’t twins, but my mom often dressed us in matching outfits, sometimes even cut from the same cloth as her own dress. Left to right: Ruth, Betsy with dog, Everett, Jane, Lee. Chennai, 1953. Here, still in Chennai, we’re flanking Jane, who has graduated from rompers to a pinafore. “How’d I get here?” she seems to be saying, “between these two bodyguards?” At this point in our lives, our mother chose our clothes, but Lee …Read More