Posts Tagged ‘ Americans in India ’

My father was born 100 years ago today. I am taking the liberty of posting the eulogy I gave at his memorial service, August 25, 2007, at the Ware Student Center, Colby-Sawyer College, New London, NH. He was President of the college 1962-1972. It was then called Colby Junior College. To my dad: In the thrifty way of his time, Dr. James B. Woodman of Franklin recorded his expenses in a notebook. In February, 1916, he jotted down …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’m nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell! They’d banish us– you know! How dreary to be somebody! How public, like a frog To tell one’s name the livelong day To an admiring bog! Emily Dickinson Well, Emily wasn’t an athlete, but if she had been one, she certainly wouldn’t have gone into triumphant leaps and high fives after winning an event. In contrast to Emily’s attitude, here’s …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

At our house in New Delhi, during the 1950s and early 1960s, our head bearer (major domo), Pratap Singh, ran the show. Pratap came to us on our first night in Delhi. My travel-weary parents were already on the job and had to go to a formal reception; the hostess told them that she’d send someone over to mind me, Lee, and Jane, then aged eight, six, and two. Come evening, there was a knock on our hotel …Read More

December, 1952: My mom doesn’t look all that encumbered in this picture, but actually she was within a very few weeks of delivering my sister Jane to this world. My parents had arrived in Madras (now Chennai) just the previous month. They’d traveled from the US via London, Frankfort, Istanbul, Beirut, Basra, Karachi, and Delhi, with my sister Lee and me in tow. Lee and I carried Pan Am bags full of coloring books and games, plus a …Read More

On my recent India trip, I particularly wanted to visit Delhi’s Lodhi Gardens. During my childhood, my friends and I used to picnic there, plus play kickball on the lawns and hide and seek around the tombs. The gardens were even more spectacular than I remembered. The beautiful domed buildings predate the Taj Mahal and the whole place reeks of history. That day, the gardens were particularly serene and atmospheric. Few people were in view; my guide, Achla, …Read More

I’m back from two weeks in India. Among other quests, in Delhi I searched for the two houses my family had lived in. I had done this on an earlier visit—in 1986—and found both houses almost exactly the same as in the 1950s and early 1960s. The streets they were located on were also little changed. Not now! Delhi’s a different city. There are roughly ten times as many people there as when I was growing up. Neighborhoods that used …Read More

George and Jeannie Miller were among my parents’ best friends; they live in California and we keep in touch. George grew up in India and returned as a United States Information Service officer. He graduated from Woodstock School in 1940, and has wonderful stories to tell, such as the time he almost burned down the boys’ hostel by running a pakora-frying operation out of his room. He remembers with fondness going to the bazaar and having a double …Read More

We were not horsey folks ourselves, but our neighbors in Delhi, the Ensmingers, kept three horses, and allowed us to ride them.   I was very enthusiastic for a while, and I usually rode a large and phlegmatic creature called Shah.   With the Ensminger kids, we tried to use him in one of our theatrical performances.  We staged the play in the driveway so that one of us could jump on him and dash off, crying “Hi-yo, …Read More