Posts Tagged ‘ Woodman children ’

My sister Lee Woodman has had a distinguished career in the arts and media production and has held senior leadership positions at the Smithsonian Institution. Her radio and film awards include five Cines, two New York International Film Blue Ribbons, and three Gracies from American Women in Radio and Television. Now, she’s writing stunning poems. Her first published poem appeared in Tiferet Journal this January. It is called “Understood Pasts and Unspoken Futures.” I was honored to figure in the …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

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

Long after we returned from India, my mother used to brag about the birthday parties we’d had there. She pitied the poor pathetic kids who had grown up in the States, since they didn’t have the resources for a bang-up celebration. Such as street entertainers—dancers, snake charmers, performing monkeys, stilt-walkers, acrobats, puppeteers, jugglers….you name it. Best of all, in my mom’s opinion, was having a merry-go-around set up in the yard, and that was always my favorite, too. …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

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

Our house in New Delhi got flooded, in 1958. It was during the monsoon season, and a drainage ditch near our house overflowed its embankments, leaving a foot or so of water on the ground floor of the houses in our neighborhood. I hate to think of what was floating around in that water, but I ended up wading in it as my dad took pictures. You can see the high water mark on the living room wall. …Read More

Every couple of years, we came back to the United States from India for about three months. Some things my sisters and I loved about home leave: ice cream, television, and magazines to name a few. Other things we were less fond of, including running the gauntlet of inquiring relatives at family reunions. We could predict the questions: Have you ever seen the Taj Mahal? Have you ever ridden on an elephant? My sister Lee and I both …Read More