Why Should I Talk to You?

　　I'd recently returned to Delhi from covering the Indian Ocean tsunami and its aftermath. When the quake hit, the day after Christmas, I'd abandoned my family vacation, deaf to my mother's pleas, and taken the first flight out to Sri Lanka, where the death toll was rapidly rising. Sri Lanka is a tiny teardrop-shaped island nation off the southern coast of India, and the tsunami had turned it inside out. Along the southern coast, train tracks were twisted up into tree branches like a roller coaster gone wrong. A woman's nightgown fluttered like a pink flag above a fisherman's leveled shack. The bloated, stinking carcasses of buffalo floated in ocean lagoons. In the relief camps, everyone was drunk on moonshine.

　　"Why should I talk to you? My whole family is dead. What can you give me?" the fishermen would ask.

　　I'd give them the stock journalist answer——that hearing their story could help influence the U.S. government to send more aid. There was truth to this reasoning, but it felt like a cheap lie. After weeks of reporting the disaster, I'd started to lose faith in the very mission of journalism. In a hotel bar in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, my journalist friends talked about where the "sexiest" part of the story was. What they meant was where the most bodies were. I felt as though we were all competing with one another to squeeze painful tales out of as many victims as we could find and get the grisliest stories first.

　　In one relief camp, my driver——who doubled as my translator, to save money——helped me interview a man who's lost everyone except for one lanky preteen daughter, who crept over to me as I talked to him and put her in my lap. I stayed stroking her hair long after I finished talking to her father, even though my driver had been agitating that we had to find somewhere to stay for the night before it got dark. When she sat up, my jeans were damp from her tears. I gave her money, even though I knew I shouldn't since I planned to use her father's interview on the radio. In spite of the intimacy of that moment, I can't even picture her face anymore. It has run together with all the other lyrical, brokenhearted Sri Lankan faces.

Sideways on A Scooter, Life and Love in India, P186~187
Miranda Kennedy
ISBN 978-1-4000-6786-2

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It did not Fit

　　... ... From time to time I hear Roxanne singing with Niki on my radio, and I've seen her on the television too. She's almost more famous than he is, now. I feel proud and sad at the same time. She still sings like the angels. I wrote to her telling her about Bruno. She never replied. I'm sure she never even got the letter.

　　Some time ago, I received a parcel from the Wardrobe Mistress, and there was a note with it. She said she had told the Director of my passion for his purple fedora hat. Here it was, she said. It came with her love. It would be just right for me. I tried it on, but it did not fit.

The Dancing Bear, P61
Michael Morpurgo, illustrated by Christian Birmingham
ISBN 978-0-00-674511-2

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A Spontaneous Party

　　That last evening, there was a spontaneous party outside the cafe, brought on, I think, by relief that the film was finished, but also by a genuine friendship that had grown up between ourselves and the film crew. The children, some still in costume, were cavorting to raucous music with a thunderous pulsating beat, which the Sound Engineer had contrived to blast all around village.

　　The Mayor, determined to show them that there was other kind of music, went off to fetch his pipes. Someone pulled the plug on the amplifier and the Mayor struck up a country dance. It wasn't long before the film crew, under Madame D'Arblay's instructions, were dancing our way. They were very good at it, Niki in particular. But then, of course, we had to return the compliment and I found myself dancing with Eva, the red-headed Wardrobe Mistress, who proceeded to teach me to dance their way. I think she's taken a bit of a shine to me. I swear I moved parts of me I never even knew I had and I'm afraid I made a bit of spectacle of myself. I told her of my passion for the Director's purple fedora and she laughed and ruffled my hair - no one had done that to me since I was a boy.

The Dancing Bear, P51-53
Michael Morpurgo, illustrated by Christian Birmingham
ISBN 978-0-00-674511-2

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As High as Kites

　　Everyone agreed. A letter was written and sent. The village hummed with anticipation.

　　The Mayor did his best to ensure the benefits would be shared. No one was allowed to rent out more than one room, and the hire of tractors, trailers, porters and guides was spread around the village as fairly as possible. Even so, there were already rumblings that some were going to do better out of the film than others. Everyone knew that. Roxanne's grandfather would be getting the lion share - or rather the bear's share.

　　Roxanne, like all the young people in the village, could think of little else but the arrival of the film crew. In school the children were as high as kites and quite impossible to teach.

The Dancing Bear, P25
Michael Morpurgo, illustrated by Christian Birmingham
ISBN 978-0-00-674511-2

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Our Mascot

　　In no time at all, Bruno became one of the village children; nobody was afraid of him, as he was always gentle and biddable. He'd go splashing with them in the streams; he'd romp with them in the hay barns; he'd curl himself up in a ball and roll with them helter-skelter down the hillsides. He was more than a playmate, though. He was our mascot, the pride of the village.

　　To begin with, he never strayed far from Roxanne. He would follow her anywhere, almost as if he were guarding her. Then one day - and by this time, Roxanne was maybe ten or eleven - he broke of his barn and followed her to school.

　　I was sitting at my desk sharpening pencils and the class was settled at its work, when Bruno's great panting face appeared at the window, tongue lolling out and drooling. Roxanne managed to shut him in the woodshed where he stayed till lunch, happily sharpening hes claws on the logs.

　　Not much school-work was done that day.

The Dancing Bear, P16-17
Michael Morpurgo, illustrated by Christian Birmingham
ISBN 978-0-00-674511-2

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Blizzards and Droughts

　　We are people whose lives are ruled by sheep, by the seasons, and above all by mountains. We make cheese here, sheep's cheese. You won't find a better cheese anywhere, that's a promise. Almost all the families have a flock of sheep which graze in the fields around the village, but when the snows clear, they take them up on to the mountain pastures for sweet summer grass. The cows go too, and the horses and the pigs.

　　Snow cuts us off for at least three months of every winter, sometimes more, and then we are left to ourselves. But it's a peaceful place any time of year. The winding road from the valley ends in the village square. Beyond us are the mountains, and beyond the mountains, the sky. We are a world of our own and we like it that way. We are used to it. The life is hard but predictable. People are born, people die. We have our blizzards and our droughts, no one ever has enough money and the roof always needs repairing.

The Dancing Bear, P10
Michael Morpurgo, illustrated by Christian Birmingham
ISBN 978-0-00-674511-2

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Wanda and Dragonfly

　　... ...

　　So they raced back down to Earth again and dived into the cool blue sea.

　　And they found a little boat just floating, light and free.

　　They climbed inside and let the tide take them slowly across the waves.

　　Until they reached a magical place with beaches, shores and caves.

　　... ...

Wanda and Dragonfly and Their Night-time Adventure
Anna Hymas
ISBN 978-1-74346-414-4

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Lighty Faust the Lion

　　My mum and dad don't see him but they are happy to have him around ...

　　Though they look surprised when I tell them, "He's over there on the ground."

Lighty Faust the Lion
Anna Hymas
ISBN 978-1-74300-885-0

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The Hurt was Good

　　Days went by, and the hurt didn't go sawy. It did get smaller though, so we talk about Brodie without crying. Sometimes we laughed at his tricks. Remember when Brodie said this? Remember when Brodie did that? But we still missed him like anything.

　　Mrs Patawai said that, in a funny way, the hurt was good because it meant that Brodie was still alive in our hearts and in our minds.

Brodie
Joy Cowley & Chris Mousdale
ISBN 978-1-922077-75-2

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Get-Well Cards

　　Before the end of the month, Brodie was in hospital again. We thought this would mean another pile of get-well cards, but a whole week went by and Mrs Patawai didn't open the art cupboard for paper.

　　... ...

Brodie
Joy Cowley & Chris Mousdale
ISBN 978-1-922077-75-2

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Loopy

　　What if a grumpy giant finds me and carries me into a dark forest?

　　What if he puts me in his basement?
　　Would there be bugs and spiders?
　　Giants probably like bugs and spiders.

Loopy
by Aurore Jesset, illustrated by Barbara Korthues
ISBN 978-0-7358-2261-0

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They Who Fueled the Fast Expanding Economy

　　Some forty millions Indians are illegal squatters in bustees. They are the underside if the new India, the migrant workers who fuel the fast expanding economy. The Indian government never built low-income housing for its rural migrants, as did the United States, Europe, and, more recently, China. Instead, immigrants from the hinterlands rely on city slumlords, who pay off local politicians to protect the slums. The politicians allow the shantytowns to stay standing because that guarantees them the votes of the inhabitants and protect their careers. It's a perfect circle of corruption, at least until the politician is voted out of power. The the city comes in with bulldozers.

　　This time, the Supreme Court had ordered all "riverbed encroachments" to be cleared, in an effort to save Yamuna from further pollution. Ten thousands of people were expected to be moved out of their shanties on the Yamuna Pustha, the embankment of the river. Radha had a flicker of hope in a rumor she'd heard that Delhi government was allotting alternate land, far outside the city, to jhuggi owners who could produce their paperwork. The idea of trying to negotiate India's opaque officialdom was deeply intimidating to Radha, though. With neither formal education nor street smarts, she found it a challenge just to get around the city on a normal day. Radha couldn't tell time, so she had to rely on the height of the sun in the sky, and it was often blocked by buildings or smog. She couldn't read numbers, so I made calls for her from my home phone. She always asked someone on the street which bus to board; she couldn't identify the bus routes from the signs.

　　……

Sideways on A Scooter, Life and Love in India, P146~147
Miranda Kennedy
ISBN 978-1-4000-6786-2

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Simmer First Boil Later

　　“My mother always said that getting into a relationship is like heating water: First simmer, then boil. The only way to be sure is to marry first and wait for love to come later. Americans have it backward—you expect the water to come to a boil first. When the relationship cools down, you’re disappointed, and you break it off.”

　　This bit of metaphorical wisdom gave me a pause. I was relived when the Subway delivery boy arrived with our sandwiches. We sank onto cushions on the living room floor to eat, and I was silent for a while, thinking over what she'd said. When I first moved to India, I'd felt a classic American revulsion for arranged marriage. The lack of choice made it seem loveless; the emphasis on the caste and dowry seemed crass and monetary; the classified marriage ads on the Sunday papers read like a spooky, parent-sanctioned meat market. I couldn't fathom the idea of my mother picking my mate for me. and it seemed fundamentally unfair that the girl had to abandon her independence and her past to enter the next stage of life./

　　A couple of years in India had soften my views. For one thing, I'd realized that India is scarcely alone in its interest in aligning the backgrounds of married couples. Statistic about U.S. marriage show that the vast majority of people choose a mate whose income, group, race, and education match their own. When I thought about it, most of my boyfriends had mirrored my race and socioeconomics status. I'd been raised to think　I should find a partner whose experience and tastes matched my own, so that I wouldn't have to compromise my essential self.

　　"What will you do if he wants to watch sports all the time and you want to listen to jazz?" I remember my mother saying. "You'll have to spend your life in different rooms. How awful."

　　I'd focused my efforts on searching for someone whose beliefs lined up with my own, and I'd chosen men who were, in fact, too much like me. If Benjamin was emotionally distant and independent to an extreme, he was no more so than I. We were perfect example of the "boil first simmer later" model. I think I must have read too much of John Keats's poetry as a teenager, because I seriously believed that a romanticized idea of love was the highest pinnacle of human relationships. Issues such as timing, life goals, and even monogamy all seemed pedestrian.

　　Talking to Geeta made me wonder whether I might have something to learn from Indian marriage after all. She'd grown up believing that it wouldn't matter if she and her husband had different likes and dislikes; it was in any case a wife's duty to adjust to her husband's preferences and fit in with his family. Although that sounded a bit much, I had to acknowledge that there was something to be said for compromise. If my boyfriend was openhearted and caring, it might not matter whether his political views or taste in clothing perfectly matched my own. Maybe a little simmering wasn't such a bad idea after all.

Sideways on A Scooter, Life and Love in India, P139~140
Miranda Kennedy
ISBN 978-1-4000-6786-2

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