Make it legal

My home state of Arizona recently passed a law which in effect lets police catch illegal immigrants and put them in jail. On the surface it seems like the typical xenophobic law from a conservative state where whites are scared that foreigners might take over. I was mostly annoyed by this law until I came across this story on NPR. Traditionally immigration violations are handled by the INS and illegal immigrants are housed in INS prisons to be eventually deported. These prisons are run by the government. However, the state prisons in Arizona, where the criminals caught by state police are incarcerated, are run by private companies. In exchange for managing these prisons, they get to use the prisoners as a low cost labor force. According the npr story, guess who helped write the law that now allows state police not the federal INS agents, catch illegal immigrants and put them in the privately run jails - the prison companies.

As a legal immigrant who went through the right channels, waited for years, paid the fees, and underwent all manner of scrutiny, I do not condone illegal immigration. Just because you happened to pop-over in this country without getting caught and now have been here many years, you shouldn't automatically get citizenship. But try as I may, I cannot get the the diabolical implications of this law out of my head. Arizona prison companies are about to get a huge labor force, consisting of illegal immigrants who have absolutely no rights in this country and hence no access to any due process. They don't vote so the politicians do not care, and in any case given the strong anti-immigration view of most Arizonans, no politician from this state will ever stand up for the rights of illegal immigrants. We now have indentured labor, some would even call slavery, in this state, something that would be frowned upon in any other country. In the US however, prison companies made sure that they first made this legal. They might be doing something despicable but they are not breaking any laws, right?

Herein lies the simple way all illegal acts are committed in the US - if you have enough clout you make sure you get a law passed that makes your despicable act legal, and the then do it. Dylan Ratigan, a TV host, helped create this video to explain how Wall Street perpetrated the crime of the century, brought the entire world economy to its knees but can still claim that they didn't do anything illegal. They made sure they had the laws changed first. But really, this applies to everything. Bribing politicians is illegal and is frowned upon all over the world. However it is completely legal in the US, and is carried on under the guise of lobbying and campaign financing. Indentured labor has been legalized in Arizona and the prison companies are working on doing the same in many other states.

Do you know of any other examples?

Seeingly harmless words

I am swearing-impaired and and cannot mouth anything worse than an occasional "damn". I am not a so-called "prude" but I dislike swearing. As a lover of words and and the power of language, I find swearing to be simply lazy and feel we can express ourselves so much better if we stay off swear words. Add to this the fact that I can't help but think about meaning of a word and conjure images of it, every time I use it and being around swear-words is just not a pleasant experience for me whether I or somebody else around me uses these words.

Even people who are not as hardcore word-fanatics as I am, have limits as to what words they will use in front of children. The notorious f-word and all its derivatives come to mind. And yet I am aghast that people will use words such as "bummer" and "sucks" not only in the presence of but in conversations with little children, and eventually end up teaching children to use them. Do people really not know what those words are implying? I guess not, otherwise I just don't see how they do not land in the same category as the f-word.

Exercise in learning

My daughter needs to learn the name of all 50 US state capitals for a quiz this week. It is very difficult to memorize random associations such as states and their capitals, but even after you put the effort into it, it is very hard to make it stick in your memory after that pop-quiz. It struck me as an exercise in complete futility - why cram your brain with useless facts that you can just look up easily. My girl however jumped into this with gusto and seeing how much she really wanted to do well in that quiz I decided to help her in coming up with some strategies - index cards, the 50-capital song, a game on the internet, little interesting facts about the cities. In the process I realized something more important. Yes, she succeeded in memorizing some arbitrary facts but the bigger learning that happened here was that she learned how to learn. She might forget the capitals in a few weeks but she will never forget that there are multiple strategies you can apply when trying to learn something.

Knowing your place

The recent housing numbers, the fact that Arizona is one of the states where more than 50% of the mortgages are underwater, and my recent search for a home got me thinking. I am your basic middle class professional and so I have been looking at houses in that price range, houses that were most certainly owned by other middle class professionals. As I saw these houses and saw what was in them - wine cellars, that then need to be stocked with expensive wine, multiple expensive appliances, landscaping that I am sure costs hundreds of dollars each month to maintain, it suddenly struck me that these simple middle class people were living as if they were millionaires. The housing bubble and the inflated values of their homes had made them think so, and they had started living well beyond their means. There is nothing wrong with aspiring, but this was a stark reminded for me that I must also never lose sight of who I am. Of course, "know your place" seems demeaning and condescending, but as we try to chart out our path on the map of life, it is very important to know our destination but it is equally important to know where the dot labeled "You are here" is.

Confidence and Ignorance

Mark Twain said "To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence" and it is shocking how true that is. In my search for a new job, I have put out a concerted networking effort to connect with local tech business community. And very quickly I have arrived on a set of people who are trying to establish themselves as "experts" in job search or personal branding. I sat through a webinar on this and got ingenious advice such as "polish your shoes when attending an interview", "highlight what makes you unique" and "target your pitch to the person you are talking to". D'Oh! Do these people really believe that they are bringing some value here or have something unique to offer. Are they really that ignorant? Ignorant or not they present themselves with complete confidence and say really generic things as if they were offering great insights, and go about doing this with great passion. Do other people not see through that?

OK, so I am not sure how much money these people are making, maybe nothing compared to an intelligent educated professional, and for them this is better than being an administrative assistant at an office to make the same kind of money. I am still surprised that they are even out there trying and thinking this will work. I have been through graduate school and have worked with and met brilliant people, yet as Sarah Plain proves, all you need to succeed is confidence and some dumb luck, more than intellect or wisdom. Something to watch out for as we raise kids, and remember to teach our kids to not assume somebody is smart or good or whatever, just because they say they are.

I, me and myself

In a comment to my last post, my friend Valerie asked "I am curious what helped *you,* personally, to make it through the Indian educational system as a thoughtful person rather than turning into a mindless TV-watching robot"

If I didn't know Valerie better, I would have said she was mocking me but knowing her, I know she is asking a genuine question. I am well aware that I generalize, and paint all Indians with the same brushstroke, but I am a part of them, and I know they are such wonderful people and I want so much more for them - more happiness, more satisfaction, more wisdom, and hence I nag.

There is a justification I commonly hear as people make the same choices for their children, as their own parents made for them - I was raised this way and I turned out to be fine, so I will do the same. I, in fact, continue to think that I did not turn out fine at all and that is what makes me want to do something different. My parents did not push me to over-achieve but I was ambitious and competitive so I went for it anyway, and the whole system was designed to reward that. I have a lot of interests but no well-developed hobby because there was no time outside of academics to develop it. Even in my studies, I acquired knowledge to pass exams with high scores, but did not necessarily learn anything. I spent my youth chasing degrees and growth at jobs, and did not take time to experiment with alternative options. Now that I want to do something different, I find I am too old, with many responsibilities and no appetite for risk. This has left a hollow space inside me, that I do not want my kids to have when they are my age.

So the answer to your question, Valerie, is that my own sense of inadequacy is what drives me to chart out a different path for my children. And I don't want much TV because it leaves an even bigger hollow space in my time - I can spend an hour playing tennis or watching TV, and the former is so much more satisfying that it is an easy choice.

Clarification

In my last post I said "the American education system completely failed me". In retrospect I see that I have made a very strong statement without clarifying. I know blogging is supposed to be spur of the moment thing, and I try to put more thought, but not enough.

My children have been in the public school system for five years, and we have consistently met excellent teachers, whose commitment to their chosen profession is unparalleled. It is the "system" that has some issues but I have no good answers about what the best option is.

The state of Arizona has certain standards for education listing exactly what a child coming out of each grade should know. My daughter did not meet those standards in math at the end of 3rd grade. However, there was no consequence attached to that. If there was a threat that she would not be allowed to move on to the next grade, we would have smartened up and done something about it sooner. That would have been a good consequence for my family. But what about a child who has a genuine learning disability - I know children who couldn't read in third grade and it wasn't for lack of trying. It would be completely unfair and demoralizing to hold such a child back grade after grade.

In there lies the challenge of the public school system - there is a huge diversity in the learning abilities among all of the children in any grade, and one teacher and one set of standards cannot cover it all. But what is the solution? Establish a meritocracy like Singapore - only the smart kids get a comprehensive education, the ones with lower IQ go to trade school? Of course not. Or do what a home-schooling friend of mine suggests - abolish the public education system completely and let groups of like-minded parents start their own schools to teach their children how and what they want to teach. But what about those children whose parents are not at all involved in their education? Would it be fair to deny them an education? Maybe the current 2-tier system with public schools and specialized charter schools is the solution - all children get a good basic education, but if parents think their child needs something different, they go to a charter school.

Kumon and the ugly monster

If you visit a Kumon math center, you will find it chock-full of children of Indian origin who start at age 4 and are doing algebra by the time they are 10. I cannot decide whether starting children in Kumon at a young age is the best way to build a strong foundation or the surefire way to teach them to hate math early. One thing I am sure of is that many parents have brought their children without any such thought - all they hope for is for their child to get ahead in the academic world because their reference point is the survival-of-the-fittest academic world of India. This saddens me because that world often produces academically brilliant people who haven't a clue about what their passion in life is and never know what to do in their free time besides watching TV. There aren't many other choices in India, but it does seem rather bizarre to be applying the same model in the US where there are so many options available.

I had resolutely decided to never enroll my children in Kumon until the American education system completely failed me. By end of 4th grade my daughter was still doing additions by counting on her fingers. It turns out that the school system does nothing to instill basic math skills that are the building blocks of further learning, unless parents do drills a home. I am well aware that knowing your math facts and times tables is not proof of intelligence or analytical abilities, but it is a skill as necessary in academic life, as being able to read is. The last person my daughter wants to take instruction from is her mother, so I had no choice but to enroll her in Kumon to get the basics right before it was too late. It was amazing what a difference two months of rigorous drills made. She can now whip through one hundred division problems in under three minutes.

And then the other day I discovered another more important reason why most children at a Kumon center are Indian. I ran into a friend at Kumon whose daughter is same age as mine. I noticed that the other girl was at level G whereas my daughter is at mere D and this monster raised its ugly head in me and took hold - a feeling of inadequacy that my child wasn't equally advanced and a desire to push her more to get her higher, and to enroll the younger one right away. My conscious mind had to beat that monster hard and remind me that the other girl has been doing this since kindergarten and mine just started, and get back to thinking about the bigger picture. So now I wonder how many children are at Kumon just because their parents' saw other children doing better than theirs. Oh my! Her 4 year old can recite the 9 times table, I better get in my child in there too!. Sigh. Will the Indian community never leave that ultra competitive world behind us no matter how far we get away from it?

More tricks of indirection

Bedtime has become another daily struggle in my household. This problem comes back at regular intervals to haunt me with new and creative forms. I repeat again and again that I will turn the lights out at such and such time. If they get in the bed before that they get reading time until the lights are out, and that my kids consider a big reward. Yet, I find myself tagging behind, repeatedly reminding them that their time is almost up, and still they dawdle. They will get involved in time-consuming activities such as rearranging all their stuffed animals, and then keep begging for "one more minute". Needless to say this is very frustrating, esp late in the evening when I am running a short fuse.

Tonight, just because I simply felt incapable of tagging behind without losing my temper completely, I picked up a kitchen timer, set it to fifteen minutes and said "I will come back to turn out the lights when the timer tings". They asked whether they can read if they got into bed earlier than the fifteen minutes and I said "of course". Then I walked away.

The results couldn't have been more different! The girls were in bed quickly, and there was no more imploring for "one more minute" when I turned out the light. They have a digital clock in their room so when I say lights are out at 8:30, it is not that I am leaving them clueless - they have an easy way to check how they are doing with time. Somehow, the tick-tock of the kitchen timer coupled with the countdown effect seems to have been a better persuader.

The bigger question is what kind of technique do I need to invent to keep myself using this new found wisdom, and not regress back to nagging the kids!

Power of indirection

You would think that if past ten years of mothering experience would have taught me anything, it would be that children do not listen to their mother, and that if you want a child to do something the last thing you want to do is to straight-out ask them to do it. It has never worked, at least not with my children. And yet, that is the method I employ most - "Please pick your clothes off the floor", "No, no, no...do not stuff them under your bed", "The laundry hamper is right there!", "YOU KNOW WHAT I AM GOING TO DO - JUST THROW ALL THESE CLOTHES IN THE TRASH BECAUSE THAT IS HOW YOU TREAT THEM. WHY IS IT THAT I HAVE TO KEEP ASKING YOU THE SAME THING EVERYDAY!" As you can see that the only thing I achieve is convincing my children that their mother is a banshee.

This problem was magnified once summer break started. Being a a big believer in the power of unscheduled time, and having the luxury to work from home, I have let the girls roam free for most part except imposing restrictions on how much time they spend with electronic media. I, however, have basic expectations that they will brush their teeth and take a shower every day. I would also like them to practie their musical instruments daily. My only "educational" goal for this summer was to teach the girls to take care of themselves so that they don't grow up into adults whose beds are forever rumpled with clothes piled high on them, and whose normal method of storing their belongings is on various piles on the floor. I do believe that there is a 'baseline' to everything in life - what we think is 'normal'. Girls who grow up seeing their mother being abused often assume that certain amount of abuse is normal in a relationship. I hinted at this in my last post as well that girls who see their mothers doing all household chores automatically assume all household chores when they get married. I grew up in a house where all beds were made every morning. To this day, I cannot sleep in an unmade bed. Even on the rare occasion that I do not get around to making my bed in the morning, I make it just before getting into it which seems ridiculous but then most of our actions are controlled by our subconcious mind. Coming back to the point, my hope is that by the end of the summer break the girls will make their beds every morning, keep their room and bathroom neat and do their own laundry which also includes putting clothes away in their dressers.

These "chores" shouldn't take more than an hour during the day, and I and the girls had agreed on these. Yet, trying to get them to do them was driving me insane. I kept requesting and reminding them often, and driving myself insane in the process. I am firmly against giving children any kind of reward for doing their share for the family, so I did not have money as a motivator. Then I remembered a tool I had used years ago when I had initially started imposing restrictions on TV time. When the girls were preschoolers they were allowed an hour of TV time a day (That sounds a lot when I think about it now). That hour was represented by a circle, divided into 12 sections each representing 5 minutes. I drew this on a whiteboard attached to the fridge every morning. After the girls were done watching TV, even for a few minutes, we filled in the sections for the time used up. Whenever the girls wanted to watch TV, I would say "check the chart" and the chart would tell them whether they had used up their daily quota or not. This method worked beautifully because it wasn't I who was telling them not to watch TV, it was the chart. After a couple of weeks of frustration with the chores during the summer break, I remembered this, and started to make a "to-do" list on an index card for each girl. Every morning I handed them a checklist with items such as "brush teeth" and "make bed" on it and it was amazing how well they took to it. They enjoyed doing their jobs and checking off the items on their list. When we struggled with getting everything done a few days in a row, I asked them how we should solve the problem and they came up with a wonderful solution. The suggested that once the tasks were done to my satisfaction, I was to sign off on the list. If the list didn't get signed off one day, the following day the list had to be completely signed off before they would be allowed to watch TV. This seemed fair. It doesn't seem like a big change - instead of verbally telling them what to do, I give them a written list, but the outcome couldn't be more different. Wow!

Breaking the cycle

This past weekend my family found itself in the midst of a hands-on live nature display featuring snakes. We were encouraged to hold and handle the non-poisonous snakes. We thought this to be a great opportunity and all of us (one after a little encouragement) proceeded to hold and admire the snake. They were beautiful creatures, and feel very smooth and cool to touch. I took pictures of my daughters holding the snakes and posted them on Facebook, and the main theme of people's comments was about how brave my girls were. Bravery is a word I do not throw around carelessly, and given that the whole incident was rather matter of fact for us, I was surprised that handling snakes was considered that unusual. I know most women go eek at the sight of the smallest of creatures. I have always seen that as a conditioned response - we see other women in real life and in movies act like this so we automatically start behaving that way. Somebody has to break the cycle! I make a conscious effort to not freak out at the sight of a bug in front of my children - not that I am inclined to except at the sight of a certain centipede, but subconscious is a very strong thing. Now I have two girls who don't go eek and maybe the cycle will be broken.

Talking of cycles there is another one that I am trying to break. Growing up, my mother did all the household chores. Even us children were not expected to help, and although she complained sometimes she never asked for help. Consequently I grew up not knowing much about cooking or doing laundry. Strangely though, once I was married I took on all the housekeeping chores just as my mother had, and I know she was doing what her own mother had done. Having to do all these chores without knowing how to do them coupled with the responsibilities of a full-time job drove me right out of my mind. And yet it did not occur to me until recently that I should ensure that my daughters do not fall into the same trap i.e. not learning to take care of themselves and thinking that as the woman of the house they should do all the chores. The cycle must be broken! TO this end I am making an effort to ask for help and letting my husband do chores such as washing dishes, and have started expecting the girls to do their own laundry and keep their environs in order. Given how tedious it is to stay after kids asking them to pick up clothes off the floor and teaching them how to fold clothes and organize their drawers, I am not surprised that my mother did it all. I swear, I could get it all done faster and with much less aggravation if I did it myself, but I have to keep the long term goal in mind. Break the cycle!

Globalization of the wrong kind

I was recently reading an article about a scandal in an Indian cricket league (known as IPL) involving corruption and politics at the highest levels. Political corruption is nothing new for India but what shocked me was the moniker this scandal got from the Indian media - "IPL-gate". India has a long and glorious history of corruption in both politics and cricket from which we could have garnered lovely names for this scandal and yet, the media chose to name this scandal the way America names its - by adding the 'gate' suffix! I am still trying to understand this. Is this because creativity sorely lacks in most Indian "creative" fields such as writing and music, as I have lamented before? or is it because Indians find it hard to appreciate anything Indian despite an illustrious history. (I have a theory about it that I'll save for another post.) The horrific Mumbai terrorist attack was called "India's 9/11" by the media. Even more troubling to me because in India dates are written in the dd/mm/yy format so if the journalists were being original they would have at least called it "India's 11/9". The same goes for the Satyam Computers scandal. That was labeled as "India's Enron". Intentional or not, it does seem like a cultural colonization of India is in progress and it is voluntarily being encouraged by Indians. Nothing is good enough, unless it can compare to America.

Facebook etiquette

Facebook has more than 400 million active users and I am one of them. It is a wonderful way to stay in touch with far-flung friends and family. I view Facebook as a virtual world, where my wall is my home. Of course, many more people have access to it than my real house, but still they are all people that I would love to socialize with in real life, time and space permitting. It is a new enough medium that I find even people who are fairly comfortable with online media do things on Facebook that might be considered impolite, at least by yours truly. Here I present what I feel is proper etiquette on Facebook.

Don't be a peeping Tom. If you are regularly peeking into somebody's window, it would be considerably less creepier if you knocked on the door and said hello. That is to say, if you log into Facebook regularly to read your friends' statuses and see their photos, you should also occasionally leave a comment or a 'like' to indicate that you have been there. I find it very unsettling when I meet somebody in the real world, and they remark on something they saw on my Facebook page, and yet who themselves seem to be completely dormant on Facebook. There are people who are truly dormant and the only time they login is to accept 'friend requests', and this is not meant for them. However, if you have been looking around then please leave a trace.

Edit. Good editing always produces more pleasurable results. This has been proved without doubt by many films and books. Digital cameras give you the freedom to take hundreds of pictures of your recent vacation. That does not mean that all your "friends" want to see all 500 of them. If you are going to enthrall us with your vacation pictures, take an extra half an hour to select twenty or so that capture the essence of your vacation, and then label and caption them nicely. We will all think you to be a much smarter and considerate person.

Tell before taking. I post a video that you enjoyed and then you go ahead and share on your wall. Facebook makes it easy to do and I find it flattering that you enjoyed my post and found it worth sharing. Before you do, however, take a polite second to at least click the 'Like' button on my wall for that video or post a comment on it.

Don't ignore children. If your somewhat close friend posts a cute picture of her child, for heaven's sake, say something about it!

Do you think I can add anything to this list? Do you think there are people you would love to share these with. Wink, wink!

Children are so inconvenient, at least in America.

I read an opinion piece about how a CNN story about little children in airplanes kicked off a storm of arguments in the comments area on the CNN website. That piece got me to another blog post, written by a woman who usually writes about her cats, but took a break to whine about how her already terrible flying experience was ruined by an ill-behaved child, and how she wanted to punch both the mother and the baby. I wasn't even done being horrified when the post ended and I was in comment-land, and all the comments lauded the post as 'funny' and completely agreed with the fact that parents of crying babies ought to be put in jail or something akin to that.

We can, of course, argue about whether it is possible to comfort a crying child hundred percent of the time. After all, babies do unpredictable things such as crying uncontrollably and pooping in their pants. We can also argue about whether a mother is 'bad', if she is paying more attention to her child, and is more concerned with keeping her child happy rather than some snarky stranger shooting her ugly looks. We can definitely talk about the sense of entitlement one must feel to be thinking that her cats are worth telling the whole world about yet declaring that little children ruin her flying experience in the cheapest section of the plane.

I do a lot of international flying, and even my children notice how much friendlier people in other countries are towards them. At foreign airports, the security personnel smile, even joke, with my children as we pass through security. Flight attendants in foreign airlines carry my bags if I am carrying a child and help the children with their carry-ons. En route, if my children are asleep during a meal service, the flight attendants offer, on their own, to pack away a meal for the sleeping child so that she has something to eat when she wakes up. When my toddler fidgets, I get fewer nasty looks from international passengers on a twelve hour trans-pacific flight, than I do from Americans in a two hour flight.

What I am reminded of, again, is how child-unfriendly America is. We have the fanciest of malls and department stores here, and yet you will not find a child-sized toilet or sink in them. Look through housekeeping magazines, filled with pages after pages of pictures of beautiful homes, but you will not see a child or even a place where a child could feel comfortable. Children and their possessions are completely isolated in the child's rooms and you can get lot of advice on how to keep the children and all their stuff perfectly ensconced in that one room, and how to make rest of the house your 'sanctuary'. More and more houses are designed with a 'split plan' - parents' bedrooms on the opposite side of the house as the children's bedrooms so that you can get as far away as you can from your children, while still being in the same house. Images of adults having a good time are completely devoid of children; the message, that for a family to have fun, parents and children must be separated is repeatedly broadcast in ads and other media images.

I hate to promote a commercial venture, but you just have to step into a foreign-designed IKEA store to have this starkly put in perspective - they have a childcare center, child-friendly bathrooms and meals, and they sell their sofas with pictures of children bouncing on them. I dare you to find even one American furniture seller's catalog with a child anywhere near the living room furniture. A dog, maybe, but no children. As if, children don't live in American living rooms. The side-affect of all this is that, subconsciously our feelings of what a home, a vacation or fun, should be gets altered and then our life becomes unfriendly to children too. At such times I like to remember something my friend passed on to me "remember you are raising a human being, not managing an inconvenience."

Wisdom of the day

A long hike and a long run had many thoughts running through my head and then this one jelled. After a certain threshold, any further square footage of the house no longer nets any more happiness. In fact, there is a place between square footage and prosperity where the extra space eats up what you need for happiness - a few free hours.

Feeding children

Now and then I read some book on feeding kids, or watch a movie such as Julie and Julia, and get completely inspired to introduce my family to new, interesting foods to only be reminded of the reason why I keep making the same five recipes again and again.

Food is a very cultural thing which, of course, is no new revelation, but I am always surprised by how much our food choices are shaped by the culture around us. Most children growing up in India, see images of Indian foods everywhere - in ads, in movies, pretty much anywhere food is displayed. Even the ads for Lays potato chips stress their spiciness. The children subliminally start associating an enjoyable meal with samosas and choley. They go to a wedding or a party, and see paneer and chicken masala as the main course, with gajar halwa for dessert, and that for them defines a feast. When I take my kids back to India, and they attend a feast, they refuse to eat anything there because it all looks alien. Of course, it is instantly assumed that one, I have raised completely Americanized kids who have not been taught anything about their heritage, and second that my children find the food too spicy. Both assumptions are wrong. The simple reason is that in my girls' minds a feast will forever be associated with a big roasted bird in the center of the table with mashed potatoes and gravy on the side, and not little pieces of vegetables and meat floating in a savory sauce. An excellent dessert is a pie not grated carrots cooked in milk. They watch their American cartoons, and ads and subconsciously absorb that a fun, tasty snack to drool over is not a Samosa but a big juice cheeseburger. Although, I cook Indian food almost daily, given the context of our lives even my kids sense that, this is not what most of their friends eat.

I am also reminded of reading the book "What to expect the first year", and how everything in it made complete sense when I initially read it. If you always feed your kids brown bread, they will love brown bread and find white bread tasteless. Of course! Two children, and ten years later I have acquired enough wisdom to know that just isn't true. Oh yes, I fed my kids brown bread for years and yet, the first time they tasted a PBJ sandwich made with white bread they exclaimed how delicious it was, and declared that is how they want their sandwich from now on.

This week, out of sheer frustration arising from packing the same Ham & Cheese sandwich for lunch everyday, I once again embarked on trying to introduce my girls to some different foods, that could also be lunch candidates. The first dish I made was Polenta squares. This had been rejected before but I decided to give it another try. They loved it, ate quite a few for snack and I happily packed it for lunch the next day with some marinara sauce and ranch. It was brought home uneaten. Sigh. Apparently it tasted good only when freshly made. I tried a few more things for the rest of the week and all were rejected, and as I stood there wondering aloud what to make for dinner my older one suggested "let's make lasagna. I know it is delicious". It is important to note that this child has never had lasagna before and I haven't made lasagna since she was born! I had lasagna noodles on hand, and I scraped together enough ingredients to make a spinach lasagna. It was a great success! Now this defies all explanation.

Are TV chefs destroying home cooking?

Today I read a summary of Michael Pollan's new book "Food Rules: an eater's manual". One of the rules is "Cook" explaining that home cooked food is usually much healthier. Of late the word "foodie" has gained a lot of traction. We have entire TV channels devoted to food and cooking, and stores dedicated to specialty cooking gadgets and equipment. I don't know of any other country where there are so many celebrity chefs. And yet, fewer and fewer people cook at home in America.

Last week I went looking for a turner - a spatula with a flexible metal head to flip over omelet and pancakes. I was surprised how hard it was to find a spatula that was proportioned for the cooking I do. I usually make one or two egg omelet in a 6" pan, so I need a spatula that I can rest on the edge of the pan without flipping the pan or the spatula over. Most cooking equipment I saw was restaurant quality - heavy and large, not to mention expensive. Same goes for kitchens. More and more people have these gourmet kitchens where they cook less and less.

The problem with chefs teaching us how to cook is, that they not only make cooking look hard but elevate it to an art form making home cooks feel inept. Julia Child's Beuf Bourguignon has gotten a lot of attention lately because of the movie Julie and Julia. It is a complicated and multi-step recipe for beef stew. As this article points out Julia Child learned french cooking at a school for chefs, so her technique is what french restaurants use. The home-cooking version of the same dish is much simpler, and uses fewer steps and ingredients. Similarly, a home cook does not need the same kitchen or equipment shown in Iron Chef. Look at the array of corers and pitters sold on this website. A home cook isn't going to be hulling pounds upon pounds of strawberries to require a dedicated gadget for it.

The gourmet culture keeps expanding and I fear for home cooking - something passed down from mother to daughter. Take the example of soup - it is usually a way to use up leftovers that are not enough for a singe meal on their own. If you have some leftover chicken, and a few leftover veggies at the bottom of the bin before your weekly grocery shopping, you put them together, make soup, serve with bread and you have a meal. This art - to make a meal from what you have, not go out and buy the exact ingredients you need for a recipe, is something you can only learn from your mother. A mother who cooks often, so that growing up you eat infinite variations of the same dish and finally learn that Beuf Bourguignon is just a stew - not this multi-step masterpiece that you need to fret over all day! With fewer and fewer people cooking at home, those interested in learning to cook are turning to TV chefs. Would we reach a stage where a simple home cooked meal, presented in a simple style would no longer be appreciated, and you won't be considered a cook unless you went Bam! and artfully drizzled sauce around the plate?

Twilight revisited

I have written about the creepy aspect of this book before, but there is another part that has been bothering me even more over time, especially because the book is targeted at teens. Twilight is once again a story romanticizing the "bad boy". Edward Cullen, the hero of the book is charming, handsome, controlling and really dangerous. He could just crush Bella, the heroin to death, if he wasn't careful. He is, of course a vampire, so there are other ways he can hurt Bella too. He stops himself from hurting his lady-love by sheer exercise of extreme self-control, because he loves her passionately and wouldn't dream of hurting her. We all know too well that in such relationships, either the self-control or the love eventually falls by the wayside and the girl gets hurt.

Young girls in their formative years, and I have seen 10-11 year olds reading this book, can really get caught up and admire the father-figurish Cullen who protects and controls Bella's life. The parents of these girls however need to talk to their daughters about the inherent dangers of such relationships in real life, and how the dangerous and controlling types might not be the best choice for a partner. Otherwise the Rhiannas of tomorrow will keep going out with Chris Browns because we keep glorifying the "bad boys" and say nothing about young women making bad choices.

Can we keep government out of our lives?

I have politics on my mind in the wake of the stunning results form the Massachusetts election. There are many reasons why Dems lost that election but I have serious doubts that there will be any serious introspection to analyze the causes among the career politicians. That is a topic for another day but today after getting an earful about the reason being public support for free-market economy and anger against socialism, I feel compelled to point out that whether we like it not government policy shapes our lives much more deeply than we realize. Let us examine some basic human necessities.

Food: Americans currently consume a heavily corn-based diet, not because they love it, or beacause it has been their staple diet for centuries or because they are aware of its health benefits or lack thereof. Corn is directly and indirectly in lot of our foods because corn is cheap, and corn is cheap not because market forces make it so but because of direct government subsidies.

Health: The present American health care system is as far from free-market system as could be. Even more socialist countries than the US have much more consumer-based health care systems. Let us examine the roots of this system. Most people in America afford their health-care because of insurance provided by their employers. The employer-funded health insurance system came about because in 1954 Congress passed a law making employer contributions to employee health plans tax-deductible without making the resulting benefits taxable to employees. In case of both Medicare and employer-based health insurance it is the government, that is directly or indirectly subsidizing health insurance, note that it is the insurance, not the care that is getting subsidized. However, this is also the reason why health care costs are getting out of control - the consumer is not directly exposed to the cost of the product they use, meaning that the health care system is not at all controlled by free-market forces. I encourage you to read this enlightening article if you want more.

Housing: It is the government tax subsidies, and the government's creation of entities such a Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae that enable the dream of home ownership for most Americans. These entities also assumed all the risk of the downside of these mortgages and thus turned mortgage-based bonds essentially into US Government backed bonds, which then Wall Street traded with impunity. Free market forces came into play and exploited a market that was skewed by the government.
Another facet of housing is the design of our towns and cities. Urban planning or lack thereof is caused by the fact that we can drive everywhere for cheap. If gasoline was expensive, we would have dense cities with public transit systems in a heartbeat. However, price of gasoline is not determined by free-market forces. Gasoline is kept cheap by the government.

I very much like individual accountability and responsibility but I do believe government plays a central role in the shaping the future, but career politicians intent on saving their jobs cannot look past the next election. Partisan hacks on one side will blame Coakley for losing and mock the idiots who voted for pickup-truck-driving-cosmo-centerfold, or on the other side heave a sigh of relief that now government will be kept out of health-care and Medicare will be saved!

I think we need drastic measures. A viable third party? Term limits in house & senate? Any ideas?

Lessons of 3 idiots, really?

I recently saw an Indian movie called 3 Idiots, that has been a big hit in India and among the Indian diaspora abroad. The movie is a critique of an aspect of Indian society that I had mentioned in an earlier post - the incessant pressure on young people from every aspect of the society to get ahead, at the expense of their own dreams and aspirations. The film is mostly enjoyable because the funny parts balance out the preachy parts. All of a sudden Indians are talking about this. Every day I see chain emails with subjects such as "Lessons from 3 Idiots." I am happy that this film has started a national conversation on the topic, but what I am really surprised by is that Indians are behaving as if until they saw this movie, it had never occurred to them that the academic system put too much pressure on young people.

However, what the film presents is a very simplistic solution "let education institutions expand minds and let young people pursue their dreams". It is easy to say this but to turn into a reality, it needs support from many components of the society.

A person can freely pursue her dreams only if she is also given the freedom to fail, and opportunities to start over. This the Indian society seriously lacks. Failure is viewed harshly and opportunities to start over are non-existent. There are age-restrictions on everything from college admissions to job applications. Take the example of one of the characters in the film who wants to become a wildlife photographer rather than an engineer, and viola he becomes immensely successful at it. What if he didn't? What if after pursuing photography for 5-10 years he realized that he really should have pursued engineering - no college in India would take him. The seeds of a passion need nourishment to turn into a flourishing tree. Somebody interested in wildlife photography would need to feed their passion by reading magazines such as National Geographic to learn more about the possibilities. Yet, until about 10 years ago a National Geographic magazine was not only unaffordable for the average Indian middle class but also unavailable. There wasn't any awareness either - growing up, I could count on one hand the career options I thought were available to me.

With the boom in economy of the last few years there are a lot more opportunities in modern India, and with the advent of the internet a lot more awareness. There still aren't any well-stocked public libraries that you could access for resources. Same goes for sports. There are no junior sports leagues, and unless your parents can afford to put you in some special training lessons, there aren't any opportunities to learn even if sports are your passion. While I was growing up participation in sports was looked down upon, and most children were encouraged to study rather than waste time playing.

And still the society has no appreciation for originality or creativity. Say, you were artistic and wanted to pursue art. Your creativity would have been destroyed by the time you got to middle school because the art teachers, if you were fortunate to have any, would have insisted you do things a certain way, and only the children who could produce an exact replica of some painting in a book would be considered good artists. What any "art lesson" in India would teach you is skill or craftsmanship, but it would not let you expand your creativity. Most India musicians become very skilled at their craft by rigorous practice, but are they creative?

This happens to be the main reason that holds me back when I consider moving back to India. Everybody praises the education system, and how the curriculum there is much advanced. I'd rather have a somewhat inferior system, but one that encourages exploration and provides room for failures and fresh starts.

Polenta squares

I saw these as an idea for school lunchbox, and adapted for my taste. My girls like these warm, but refuse to take them in their lunchbox. I do not understand the workings of a tween mind.

1 cup polenta (coarse cornmeal)
4 cups water or stock
1 tsp salt
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Grease the bottom and sides of a 8x8 cake or other shallow pan.

In a a large saucepan bring the water to a boil on high heat. Add oil, salt and cayenne. Reduce heat to med-high and slowly add polenta in a stream to the water, while mixing with a wire-whisk. Once all the polenta is incorporated, reduce heat to med and cook stirring frequently and scraping the sides and bottom, until the mixture comes together and leaves the sides of the pan, about 30 minutes. You will have to stir much more frequently towards the end of the cooking time, and constantly for the last five minutes.

Remove from heat and pour into the prepared pan. Flatten the surface and let cool. Cut into squares using a sharp knife. These can be eaten plain, with marinara sauce, green chutney or with the following tempering poured on top.

Tempering
2 tbsp canola oil
1 tsp mustard seeds
4 curry leaves
Heat oil to smoking in a small saucepan. Add mustard seeds and curry leaves. As the mustard seeds start popping (in just a few seconds), take off the heat and pour over the polenta. Garnish with grated coconut and chopped cilantro.

Is reading good?

I recently finished reading the book Twilight, the first book in an extremely popular series about a romance between a vampire and a teenage girl. I hated the book. There is the usual problem systemic of the romance novel genre - weak plot and average writing. However, I also found the book quite disturbing. The vampire, although he looks like a teenager, is in fact almost 100 years old. His body hasn’t aged but his mind does have all that experience, and there he is – romancing this 17 year old girl. Not only that, he comes to her room to watch her sleep without her knowing this. To me this was not romantic, but quite creepy. This brings up two issues in my mind.

First is the concept of romance itself. I will admit that romance has never been my genre. In high school, a lot of girls used to read these romance novels, so I tried some too. Most of these were terrible. It is not that I am too cynical to believe in love or romance, I just don’t buy the version that these books try to peddle. I can enjoy books with love stories - I just require that they be well written with interesting and complex characters. Somebody once said that Women only love "love" i.e. women don’t fall in love with a person but with the fact that, that person loves them. That might explain the popularity of romance novels among women. But doesn’t that just continue to perpetrate the delusion?

The second issue is whether I would let my daughter read a book such as Twilight. I have often been presented with the argument that whatever gets a child to read is good enough. Parents of children who are on the internet all the time say “Well at least she is reading!”. But I wonder - does reading just for the sake of reading provide any value once we are beyond the stage of teaching a child how to read? Presumably a teenager knows how to read, so should her habit of reading romance novels be encouraged using the argument "at least she is reading”. Aren’t we forgetting why reading is glorified in the first place? Reading books is useful because it expands one’s horizons and encourages new ideas. That is why we want children to read. Do romance novels serve that purpose? To me it seems like they contract rather than expand the mind. So should we let children read anything, just because they are reading?