All posts in the ‘ Real People ’ Category

Parrots at dusk in Northern India To keep Mr. Ganguly, the parrot in Jana Bibi’s Excellent Fortunes, in good health, I’ve felt very lucky to be able to consult Dr. Cinthia Fulton, who works at the VCA Animal Medical Center in Portsmouth, NH. Cindy is one of those life-long animal lovers who knew from a tender age that she wanted to be a vet, but she’s also a Renaissance woman with talents and interests from classical piano to …Read More

Ninety-five percent of Indians marry within their own ethnic, religious, and cultural communities, said Dr. Shashi Tharoor, member of the Indian Parliament, in a recent speech to the Indian Institute of Management in Kolkata. It’s fair to guess, also, that a big percentage—probably most—marriages in India are arranged by parents or family elders. Wandering Americans don’t fit into this picture very often, but strange things do happen. A Woodstock School alumna told of an encounter she had in …Read More

Satyamev Jayate—“Truth Alone Prevails.” This is the official motto of India—and the title of a new Indian TV talk show created and hosted by Bollywood superstar and producer Aamir Khan. The show is being hailed as nothing less than revolutionary for its frank discussion of social problems sometimes swept under the rug. It debuted May 6. The first four topics were selective abortions of females and the resulting gender imbalance in India, sexual abuse of children, the dowry …Read More

By the time the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel opened, I’d practically memorized the trailer. Who can resist Judi Dench mistaking a gin and tonic for a glass of water, or Maggie Smith refusing to eat something she can’t pronounce? So, hooray, last weekend, I saw the film, a gentle comedy about seven British retirees who travel to what they think is going to be a luxury retirement hotel in Jaipur, India. I loved it, just loved it. I …Read More

“Do you people have nicknames for everything?” a friend once asked. It seemed that way. My dad was linguistically very inventive, and his peculiar usages entered the family vocabulary. If he asked whether you’d like a mucket, he was offering you a beer. But, just in case you think his lingo was logical, a mucket was also a hat. “Pop those potatoes in the rototiller” meant stick them in the microwave oven. “Let’s hear a tune on the …Read More

At age ten, if you’d asked me what were the essential ingredients of the diplomatic life, I would have said, “clothes.” My family arrived in India a few months before the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, an event that touched off celebrations in Commonwealth countries across the globe. India, then six years independent, was no exception. My mother found she needed at least half a dozen extra ball gowns for the parties in then sleepy Madras (now bustling Chennai.) …Read More

Growing up in India in the 1950s, we didn’t have TV, and only occasionally went to the movies. My sisters and I staged our own entertainment, including plays we wrote ourselves. One was called “The Abduction of Brenda Brussels;” it must have been pretty scary. Then there was our version of Washington Irving’s “Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” complete with headless horseman. We held it in the neighbors’ driveway, so that we could use their pony in the production. …Read More

Hello, all. I got some lovely comments on the post about my mom dancing. Thank you so much! It’s great to hear from you. I can’t resist putting up a couple more photos of my mom in performance. These were taken in New Delhi in 1960. My mom is shown with American dancer Richard Maitland, who had taken off from his Broadway career to see the world, fallen in love with India, and decided to stay for a …Read More

Back to the correspondence between retired Madras schoolteacher Mr. P. A. Thiruvenkatachari and my dad, Everett Woodman. At one point, my parents were awaiting the birth of their fourth child. The family joke was that my dad wanted a baseball team and instead got a ballet troupe. Mr. Patch wrote, “I should be very glad to hear, by the next mail that brings me a letter, that you have a boy; not that I discriminate. As the rhyme …Read More

My mother, Ruth Woodman, had studied ballet in New York City before marrying my dad, Everett Woodman. By the time they reached Madras (now Chennai), India, she had two little girls and was about to give birth to a third, and the dance career had been put aside. But, as luck would have it, our family happened to move in next door to a family of dancers. The three daughters—Padmini, Lalitha, and Ragini—were known as the Travancore Sisters …Read More