The Crossroads

Right from the opening remarks to the HUGE finale of Fulbright performances, I was in awe to be amongst very intelligent and reflective people. Throughout the 3 days I carried with me the inspirational words of P.S. Gangadhar, the Director of Ministry of External Affairs, from the government of India. He talked about how the "world is one family" and that we are "Ambassadors of Humankind" and the "power of diplomacy-- people to people is what Fulbright is all about. I was energised and ready to go. I marked my schedule and chose all the panels I was going to see. I listened to young researchers just starting out to veteran researchers on topics such as The Garden as an Abode of Peace to Narratives of Young Women in the Underserved Pockets of New Delhi to The Dalai Lama is Tibet: Deterritorializing Nationhood, Citizenship, and Activism to Cross-Cultural Developments in Civic/Citizenship Education. Each person on each panel spoke with such enthusiasm about...

One of the things I’m most interested in dicovering when I travel abroad are the habits I engage in after the trip.  Some are short lived.  Some involve a gadget I bring back.  Some become an integral part of who I am.  Years ago I was in Mexico and I noticed the friends I was staying with would drink their water out of a clay pot.  They told me  that it keeps the water naturally cool and removed toxins (like many things apparently do).  So of course I brought a giant clay pot with me back to the United States.  The habit was short lived.  I drank water out of the pot for two weeks and regifted it to someone as a wedding present.  I called it a wedding pot even (I’m terrible and if I gave you that pot please post that I’m a bad person in the comment section). I had coffee for the first time in Spain.  I prop my foot on the bar at a pub like a proper local in Britain would posture themselves.  Habits that have lasted....

The more I travel in my adult life, I have come to see a transformation in airports, especially in India. The airports in India used to be filthy, no air conditioning, and very basic facilities to get your luggage and go through immigration. Now, the airports in India look like every other airport and each city having their own personal touch. Really though you could be anywhere in the world and the airports nowadays seem to have the same flare--restaurants, clean bathrooms, places for kids to play, comfy chairs, etc.  .                            In case you are wondering, this week, we are traveling to Kochi, Kerala for a South and Central Fulbright  Conference. We decided to extend our stay to do some sightseeing and enjoy the art festival that is going on down here. We decided to make it a whole family affair. I love traveling for many reasons and one of them is that I get to r...

No James and Ashram were not in the performances. We went to the school to support the upperclassman of the kid's school and for me to see what this is all about. A lot of our neighbours that have kids that go to Indus also attended. Hence the picture above. Nuden, the kid standing next to James has been a good friend to both James and Ashram. He is older than James and really in our neighbourhood age does not matter. Everyone plays with everyone. It is nice and Nuden is a great influence on James and Ashram. He is kind, generous, and respectful. Ok. I went on a bit of a tangent, but I do have a point to make. For the past 3 weeks, I have had a hard time observing classes at Indus because my mentor teacher at Indus kept saying that the kids were not having classes because they were preparing for Indus Day. To be honest, I did not believe her and I thought that she was brushing me off and did not want me to be in the school. I feel like I am stepping on egg shells every time I ...

Foodie Nirvana… Between Brinda and I, we have a good several decades worth of making Indian food.   Over the years, we learned to make a decent curry, a nice chapatti, and some butter chicken that can stack up well against any restaurant.   We thought we “knew” Indian cuisine. For Valentine’s Day we decided we wanted to do a shared experience as a gift to each other.   Airbnb had some incredible experiences to try out.   Crafts to make, market walks, even bar crawls all looked like a great way of spending some time with someone you love.   What caught our eye though was an Indian cuisine cooking class.   We thought “why not”.   Maybe there will be a couple of things we might not have known about. We were wrong. We learned A LOT more than what we ever could have imagined about Indian cooking.   Our hostess Geeta was, as it turns out, a food scientist.   Her research involved going around various parts of India ...

As most of you know, I strongly believe in close, intimate relationships with friends. I am not about the superficial surface stuff that goes on in people's lives. I want to know about you and your trials and tribulations. I have come to believe that friendships are part of the fabric that makes me who I am today. Friends energize and uplift me. I appreciate other people's views on friendships and understand that everyone has feels and thinks differently about friendships. I was curious about how James and Ashram's think about the concept of friends. Here is what they said: For James, it is about playing. When I observe James playing, he truly is indiscriminate about who he plays with but rather what he does. JJ is so kind, caring, and loving that he plays with everyone. It is really hard for him when two people do not get along. Today, a friend came to ask him to play and they went out to play and another friend came to play but does not get along with the...

Browse through online reviews for Bangalore Palace and you will find phrases like “money gouging goons-DO NOT VISIT”, “palace not in good state”, and “rude guards, waste of time”.   Do another search of Bangalore “sights to see” and you will always see the palace pop up.   The Tudor-style architecture and manicured gardens seem to invite you like a Kensington Palace or Neuschwanstein Castle.   It’s so iconic to this city that they put it on the logo for the local football club.   Like a lot of modern travelers, I’ve become a review vulture.   I sit and wait for some carcass of a review to appear so that I can reject a restaurant, place to stay, or landmark.   Work your way through some reviews and you will certainly find places to avoid.   No doubt.   What I have found however is that it’s important to “review the reviewer”.   Look at their history or submissions.   What kind of traveler are they?   Demanding?   Ig...