Gita Tewari

Finding Delhi: Loss and Renewal in the Megacity

mandy — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

New Delhi is a city that has undergone many incarnations in its lifespan. Just a century after the British built the city to be the capital of the crown jewel that was India, Delhi is racing towards becoming a world-class city. Published on the eve of the city’s hosting the October 2010 Commonwealth Games, which was supposed to serve as Delhi’s coming out party in the twenty-first century, the collection of essays in Finding Delhi explores what happens to the lives of its twenty million inhabitants as the city is re-engineered and re-imagined for the new millennium.

What happens to people who are driven out from the urban city centers, the places where they ply their trade, to live on the outskirts of town? What happens when public spaces are increasingly replaced with private malls and coffee shops, spaces that are no longer free to everyone? Who has the right to public spaces? Is it just the middle and upper classes, or do all inhabitants of a city possess this right?

Environmentalist and Delhi-based writer Bharati Chaturvedi attempts to answer such questions. The co-founder of Chintan, an NGO that works to increase environmental justice and reduce ecological footprints, Chaturvedi makes Finding Delhi unique by not assembling the usual cast of urban planners and educated intellectuals to discuss the city’s metamorphosis; she brings us the voices of fourteen full- and part-time residents, ranging from environmental activists to “urban-sector” workers, street vendors and other entrepreneurs who have contributed to Delhi’s vibrant formal and informal economy for centuries and risk being erased from the glittering new city streets and urban edifices that are being planned for New Delhi. Each chapter reflects the unique voice and opinion of these diverse individuals.

In her introduction Chaturvedi discusses how in the not-so-distant past it became fashionable to characterize what she terms “work on the greens” as being detached from the reality of the poor, but, as she aptly points out, the greening of the environment is also of importance to the working poor: “Lamenting the loss of tree cover in Delhi, an itinerant vendor remarked during a meandering conversation, ‘I miss all the trees now. I used to enjoy looking at the leaves and my mind used to become fresh even in the heat of summer.’” Chaturvedi notes that the idea of a green city came up over and over again in numerous conversations she had with residents who are considered the working poor of Delhi.

In the chapter “Remaindered Things and Remaindered Lives,” contributor Vinay Gidwani asks the reader to consider what happens to their discarded gym shoes and introduces us to Mundka, a township on the edge of West Delhi that Gidwani dubs a “site of reincarnation not just for Delhi’s detritus, but the entire world.” Gidwani describes a recycling industry that operates in an almost subterranean fashion, including the 150,000 to 200,000 ragpickers who make a living sorting and selling recyclables that are found in Delhi’s garbage. He points out that Delhi produces 7,500 tons of garbage daily. A large amount of this is recycled by the ragpickers, who are very poor and work in hazardous conditions.

Because Delhi’s focus is on the formal-sector economy, city officials view these workers as unskilled and not contributing to the retail economy, but Gidwani contends that the informal sector workers provide an array of services that enable formal sector workers to continue their privileged lifestyle—from vegetable vendors to cycle cart pullers who deliver appliances, or grocers who deliver bulk orders to households. He contends that Delhi today is inhabited by two “eco-classes.” He notes, “On the one side, a way of life that churns out growing quantities of waste; on the other, lives that live off this commodity detritus.” Gidwani asks the reader to consider what a different city Delhi would look like if the ruling elite actually learned to recognize and value the important contributions that these marginalized people and places make to their daily lives.

In “Women Reimagining the City,” Kalpana Viswanath discusses the harassment and violence that women encounter on a daily basis in the city; she writes that “being a woman in Delhi is often an intimidating, frightening, worrisome and, at the least, uncomfortable experience.” She points out that although Western cities were historically viewed as male spaces (hence the term streetwalker to describe women who walked the streets alone at night), developing urban areas also provided female friendly spaces in the form of department stores, tea rooms, and promenades. Viswanath notes that class plays a significant role in a woman’s experience in Delhi.

Delhi does not fare well when it comes to gender equity indicators; only seven percent of the Delhi police force are women, and according to recent crime data, Delhi accounts for thirty percent of reported rapes in India’s largest cities. Taking public transportation in the city exposes women to potential harassment and abuse, and Viswanath indicates that no women are immune to gender-based violence by highlighting the highly publicized murders of young women of privilege. She closes by writing, “The big challenge will be to transform people’s attitudes towards women as citizens with equal rights.”

I found Finding Delhi to be one of the most thought provoking books I’ve read in a long time. Some books have a profound effect on how one thinks about their world and this is one of those books. The topics and issues discussed are not unique to Delhi; cities across the globe are increasingly having to balance the need for economic and industrial growth without losing the sense of humanity and culture that gives a city its soul. It is a delicate balancing act and one that can benefit from each person playing an active role in re-imagining their cities and interconnected destinies.

Written by: Gita Tewari, January 15th 2011

Queen Hereafter: A Novel of Margaret of Scotland

mandy — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 09:00:00 +0000

By Susan Fraser King

Crown Publishers

In days of yore, the bards were a respected and integral part of the English and Scottish courts because of their ability to recount tales of recent and past glories through their gift for musical storytelling. In Queen Hereafter, Susan Fraser King tells the grand and sweeping story of a young English princess who found refuge alongside her family—including her brother the rebel prince Edgar who was fighting for the crown of England—under the protection of Warrior-King Malcolm Canmore of Scotland. Princess Margaret was pious, willful, educated, and raised to be a queen, but wanted nothing more than to become a nun and worship God in a monastery. However, this was not to be her fate.

King Malcolm had lost his first wife and, looking for a wife of royal blood, asks for Margaret’s hand in marriage. Margaret reluctantly agrees to the arrangement to ensure protection of her brother, mother, and sister. Eventually, the reluctant young queen wins over the hearts and minds of the Scots because of her piety, intelligence, charity, and the kindness she bestows upon her adopted people and land. To this day, Margaret, whose reign ended in the eleventh century, is honored as Scotland’s only royal saint who brought Scotland into the medieval age.

In this fascinating and impeccably researched re-imagining of the early years of Margaret’s marriage to Malcolm, Margaret begins to put her stamp on the royal court almost immediately. She brings Malcolm’s castles up to her cosmopolitan standards with his grudging approval; she advocates for giving alms in the form of food and coinage for the poor in the kingdom, including her dispossessed and homeless Saxon countrymen who are streaming into Scotland after numerous skirmishes with the Norman supporters of King William. She also talks her husband into providing daily meals for young orphans who she sometimes feeds with her own hand.

The novel is narrated through the voice of the young Queen Margaret and Eva, a beautiful and gifted bard (and granddaughter of Lady Macbeth) who refuses to relinquish control of the Northern territories of Scotland to King Malcolm. The illegitimate daughter of the deposed King Lulach, Eva is sent to Malcolm’s court as a royal hostage and spy for Lady Macbeth. Margaret asks Eva to accompany her as she devoutly prays and asks for forgiveness for her sins at all hours of the day and night. Eva becomes friends with Margaret and has a bird’s eye view of the young queen’s challenges and triumphs in this captivating and somewhat forbidding land. She eventually comes to love and respect the earnest, young, and beautiful queen, but is conflicted by her dual loyalties to Lady Macbeth and Queen Margaret.

In her author’s notes, Fraser King admits to taking some liberties with her recounting of this story, including the character of Eva, but she says that Margaret’s life is well documented by Margaret’s personal confessor, Bishop Turgot, prior of Durham, who wrote about Queen Margaret in a laudatory manner that is typical of the era, but also because the process for Margaret’s sainthood had already been initiated. In contrast, Fraser King’s Margaret is both saintly and flawed. In an interview, the author describes Margaret as “charitable and compassionate and loving, but strict with her own children who became strong land influential leaders. Yet she was terribly hard on herself, starving her body into what was probably anorexia, while praying constantly and always finding herself wanting no matter her accomplishments.”

If you’re a lover of riveting stories and historical fiction from this era, as I am, Queen Hereafter will not disappoint.

Written by: Gita Tewari, December 20th 2010

The Creative Life: True Tales of Inspiration

barbara — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Julia Cameron

Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin

If you haven’t heard of Julia Cameron, you’re probably familiar with her best-selling book, The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Creativity. This seminal book has helped many recovering and blocked creatives find their way back to a place that is nourishing and healing while giving them the tools they need to unblock their creativity. As Cameron wrote in her introduction to the tenth anniversary edition of The Artist’s Way, “Art is an act of faith, and we practice practicing it. Sometimes we are called on pilgrimages on its behalf and, like many pilgrims, we doubt the call even as we answer it. But we do.”

The Artist’s Way grew out of classes that Cameron gave on creativity to blocked creatives. The “notes” that Cameron had created for these classes evolved into a book that eventually became a worldwide best seller. The book has been used in prisons, hospitals, universities, and human-potential centers as well as by therapists and doctors. One of the core teachings of the book is an emphasis on tapping into the spiritual creative energy that is accessible to all of us through daily journaling that Cameron calls “Morning Pages,” and “Artist Dates,” during which readers are encouraged to embark on spontaneous fun outings of discovery to spark the creative process. Cameron has written a number of best-selling books since The Artist’s Way, including Walking in the World and Finding Water, but it is probably safe to say that none of them have touched so many individuals or inspired so much change in people’s lives as The Artist’s Way.

Cameron’s latest book, The Creative Life: True Tales of Inspiration is described in the book jacket copy as showing readers how to create lives that “nourish and sustain their art.” I have to admit that I was somewhat disappointed in the book because it didn’t quite meet up to its advance billing. In this book/writing journal, Cameron invites the reader to be a fly on the wall in her Manhattan apartment and during her domestic and international forays. During this period, Cameron is finishing a book, collaborating with her creative partner on lyrics and music for an upcoming musical, coaching and mentoring artists, young and old, in the art of being creative, and traveling to London to hold workshops on creativity.

To be honest, I’m not sure if some of my disappointment in the book was related to the discovery that despite her successes as a published author, Cameron did not seem to be following her “true north” when it came to the writing of this book. Cameron continually questions whether she will be able to complete a book by deadline (presumably this book that is being reviewed). She writes at one point, “I feel like writing, but I feel like I have lost my voice.” While I understand that even famous and successful writers are insecure, I sensed as I read the book that Cameron was not entirely happy with the finished product, but felt pressured to meet her publisher’s deadline. As a result, The Creative Life: True Tales of Inspiration leaves the reader feeling somewhat let down and disappointed because it is, frankly, not in the same league as The Artist’s Way.

That being said, Cameron’s honesty and frankness about her doubts and insecurities about her writing and her ability to continue to create are refreshing and a testament to her willingness to continue to take risks for the sake of her art.

Written by: Gita Tewari, November 24th 2010

Water the Moon

annette — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 02:00:00 +0000

By Fiona Sze-Lorrain

Marick Press

Socrates famously stated that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” I respectfully submit that poets take the dross of everyday life and spin it into gold by focusing on those tiny details that can sometimes get lost in the dizzying mosaic of daily life. See the tiny lines on the woman’s face as she bends down to pick up her glove. Those lines are the map to her life story. Watch the play of light and dark that dance across the shade as dusk falls. Step back and look at your world as though you’ve never seen it before. As I read through the collection of poems in Water the Moon, I felt a sense of this altered perception or reality that, for me, is the mark of a gifted poet. Sze-Lorrain’s poems touch that chord in you that you feel when your heart creaks open just a little bit and the world is suddenly refreshed.

Fiona Sze-Lorrain is a global citizen in the true sense of the phrase. According to the book jacket copy, she “was born in Singapore and grew up in a hybrid of cultures.” Sze-Lorrain has studied in England, the U.S. and France where she received a PhD from the Sorbonne in Paris; she is fluent in English, French and Chinese. Sze-Lorrain’s poetry reflects the tug of war on one’s emotions that frequently accompanies living amongst and between cultures. In “Par Avion” she writes:

…His letter translated nothing but instructions. Confucian wisdom (One must not sit On a mat that is not straight), from father to daughter, two cultures apart…

Sze-Lorrain, who divides her time between New York City and Paris, France, also writes of France in a way that evokes nostalgia even for someone who has never been there.

Carry this book with you on the train to the park and read it as you watch the world unfold in front of you. You’ll find that life seems to slow down and draw you in just a little bit more after reading Sze-Lorrain’s poetry.

Written by: Gita Tewari, September 20th 2010

The King’s Mistress

admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Emma Campion

Crown Publishers

I’ve always had a special affinity for historical fiction, more specifically, historical fiction about the English courts of medieval times. As someone who has never excelled in the complex maneuverings of office politics, I find the level of intrigue and skulduggery that existed then alternately fascinating and mind boggling. The stakes were pretty high; if you found yourself on the wrong side of history, you could end up imprisoned in the tower of London, or worse still, with your head dangling on a pike for all to see.

Until I signed on to review The King’s Mistress for the virtual book tour, I was unaware that Alice Perrers is one of the most despised villains in British history. Perrers has been reviled by her peers and scholars alike—characterized as a woman who used her beauty, sensuality, and cunning to take advantage of an aging king for her own material and political gain. Described as the world’s leading authority on Alice Perrers, Compton has set about revealing the truth of the matter with a fascinating text that both rehabilitates and humanizes her.

It’s no secret that the combination of intelligence, erotic allure, and beauty is a dangerous mix for women, and throughout history these women have both fascinated and repelled us as far back as Eve. Because this novel falls in the genre of historical fiction, Campion admits in her author’s notes to taking some liberties with the facts to breathe new life into Perrer’s story, but much of this voluminous novel comes from her extensive research on Perrer’s life and times.

When we first meet Alice, she is fourteen, and her beauty is already in full bloom. Her mother, an aging and discontented beauty, seems to view Alice as competition, yet resents her father’s decision to betroth Alice to a charismatic, wealthy merchant twenty years her senior. Alice fears leaving the comfort and safety of her family, but is excited to embark on this new chapter in her life. What she doesn’t realize is that her husband is withholding secrets that she will only discover once she is enmeshed in her own web of intrigue.

Suffice it to say, Compton’s sympathetic rendering of Perrer’s story presents her as a woman who finds herself in circumstances beyond her control, and forced to use her attributes to survive in a world where a person who appears to be your ally one day could turn out to be your enemy the next. Emma Campion has reimagined history into “herstory” in this beautifully written, riveting novel.

Written by: Gita Tewari, July 26th 2010

Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion

admin — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Gregory Boyle

Free Press

At times, I could almost hear my heart breaking as I read Tattoos on the Heart by Father Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest who works with hardened gang members in Los Angeles and assists with reintegrating them back into society through his organization Homeboy Industries. Boyle founded Homeboy Industries to provide encouragement and support in the form of jobs and vocational training to former gang members who have expressed a desire to rehabilitate themselves.

Not only did my heart break more than once while reading Tattoos on the Heart, I found myself inspired by Boyle’s recounting of his experiences during the past twenty years in the barrios of East L.A. What kept this book from being flat out disheartening in terms of the obstacles that Boyle and the gang members are up against (Boyle has officiated at the funerals of hundreds of children, adolescents, and adults over the years as a result of gang violence) is Boyle’s sense of humor and faith that glimmers in the stories that he tells. His stories reminded me of homilies strung together to create a beautiful testimony to faith and humanity amongst tragedy and despair.

Boyle is also well schooled in the street language of his homies, which adds even more reality and credibility to his retelling of events. This is a priest who used to ride around on his bike to some of the most dangerous parts of L.A. at all times of the day or night to tend to his flock. Boyle doesn’t share these stories as a means to laud his bravery or piety, but to tell the stories of lost generations of individuals who find themselves in a seemingly unbroken cycle of violence, and to remind us of their humanity. Many of these former gang members were abused by parents or left to raise themselves with no resources or role models. Boyle writes of taking some of his homies to a sit down restaurant for the first time and how these normal day-to-day experiences that we take for granted are as foreign to them as riding a spaceship. Boyle also tells of the death threats he has received as a result of his work from people who don’t believe gang members can or should be rehabilitated.

According to the text, there are:

1,100 gangs encompassing 85,000 members in Los Angeles County, and Boyle Heights had the highest concentration of gang activity in the city. Since Father Greg—also known affectionately as G-dog—started Homeboy Industries more than twenty years ago, it has served members of more than half the gangs in Los Angeles.

I laughed and cried while reading this book. Boyle has a master’s degree in English and has received numerous awards, including the California Peace Prize. He sprinkles quotes of famous spiritual leaders of all faiths throughout his text, including Mother Theresa and Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddhist monk, poet and peace activist. While I found this book painful to read at times, I also found it to be transformative.

Written by: Gita Tewari, July 16th 2010

Boys Lie: How Not to Get Played

admin — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Holly Eagleson, Belisa Vranich

Health Communications

I was of two minds while reading Boys Lie: on one hand, I appreciated that Belisa Vranich and Holly Eagleson have taken the time to research and write a “cheat sheet” giving young girls a “BS detector” and helping them separate the good apples from the bad ones. On the other hand, the title of the book might lead one to believe that the authors think all boys lie in order to have their way with girls. In their defense, the authors stress that their book is “not a manifesto against guys,” but rather a way to help smart girls deal with the “messy truths about guys and relationships.”

While I recognize that teenagers are exposed to an overwhelming amount of (mis)information from their peers, the Internet, and other sources, I wonder if the negative connotation of the title could have been neutralized in some way. Boys Lie is divided into seventeen chapters entitled Lie #X. The authors cover everything from contraceptives and how to protect yourself against STI's to love and sex in the digital age to the physical and emotional abuse that, sadly, goes on in teen relationships. The authors take statements (lies) that young men regularly tell young women to get them to engage in activities they might not otherwise be willing to engage in as the jumping off point for the topics discussed in each chapter.

For example, Lie #4 is “you can hook up with a friend without having feelings involved.” The authors include a list of different ways a boy might say a particular lie. In this case, he might say, “You can have sex like a man” or “Hook ups with friends don’t count.” The authors discuss what happens to the female brain when a girl is on a “booty call.” When women get physically close to a guy, the authors explain, they experience a rush of happy hormones and neurotransmitters that make them want to increase the frequency of the hookups. Since men don’t have the same physical and emotional reactions to a casual hookup, this creates a situation that often leads to the woman getting hurt and the friendship ending.

Lie #16 is “you need someone to keep you in line.” This chapter is about physical and emotional abuse, and is disturbing in its exploration of the destructive patterns that surface in teen relationships. The authors point out that one out of three teens has reported being the victim of physical or emotional abuse by a romantic partner, and one in five girls has either been involved in a violent relationship or threatened with violence by a partner. According to a recent study, violence against girls on television has increased by 400 percent over the past five years, and digital abuse (e.g., monitoring a partner's online behavior, constantly texting someone to keep tabs on them, and pressuring someone to engage in digital sex) is also on the rise.

Boys Lie includes statements girls can use to counter boys' lies. If you’re a teenager or a parent, this book is a must read. In an ideal world, Boys Lie wouldn’t be necessary, but we have to live in the real world.

Written by: Gita Tewari, July 6th 2010

The Love Ceiling

admin — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Jean Davies Okimoto

Endicott & Hugh Books

As I started to write the review for this book, I realized that this is one of two books I have recently read about artists, more specifically painters—The Danish Girl being the other book that centered on artists/painters. I found the story of The Love Ceiling intriguing because the protagonist is a sixty-four-year-old wife, mother, and daughter of a famous artist father and long suffering Japanese-American mother who has recently passed away from cancer.

Like many women of the so-called sandwich generation, Anne Kuroda Duppstadt has finally given herself permission to pursue her passion—that of becoming a painter—when she finds herself once again tending to the needs of her family: her thirty-two-year-old daughter moves home after discovering that her partner, Richard, has been cheating on her with a colleague at the hospital where he’s a resident, and Anne’s husband is not handling his impending retirement well and struggles with bouts of depression. This leads her to reach the conclusion at a certain point in the novel that “there is a glass ceiling for women... and it’s made out of the people we love.” Amidst all of this, Anne finally finds the courage to stand up to her domineering father, a man who demands center stage at all times and told her many years ago that she didn’t have what it takes to be a real artist.

I’m not sure why this is the case, but I rarely have the opportunity to read a book that features a sixty-four-year-old protagonist. Being a forty-something single woman, I wasn’t sure I would relate to this character, but I found myself immediately drawn into her feistiness, sense of humor, and honesty that is revealed as the reader progresses through the novel. I also enjoyed the author’s description of the natural beauty of the surroundings through the eyes of an artist (Anne is a gifted landscape artist). Painting with words came to my mind as I was reading this book.

I also had to admit to myself that I made the mistake of assuming that the internal life of a sixty-four-year-old wouldn’t be as interesting a read as that of a younger person, but that was definitely not the case. I found myself inspired by Anne’s character as well as that of an older female artist she meets at an artists’ workshop that she enrolls in to reclaim her dream of being an artist. In that sense, reading this book was also an educational experience for me because it challenged my assumptions about what it is to be an older woman in our society—that no matter how old you are, you can still be a vibrant, active participant in life.

My only criticism of the book is that one scene involving dialogue between Anne’s daughter and a friend in a coffee shop stood out as somewhat superfluous and unnecessary to the story line. Other than that, I found The Love Ceiling to be an excellent read. The book made me realize that sometimes it may take a lifetime to confront the demons of our past, but if life is a journey, it’s not how long it takes you to reach these epiphanies, but what you learn along with way.

Written by: Gita Tewari, June 28th 2010

The Danish Girl

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By David Ebershoff

Penguin Books

The Danish Girl is like a multilayered Flemish painting or tapestry. On the surface, it’s the story of the marriage of two painters, Clara and Einar. However, Einar Wegener was the first male to undergo successful gender affirming surgery. And The Danish Girl is also the story of a search for one’s true identity, and how one navigates that struggle within the boundaries of a relationship.

The novel opens in Copenhagen in the 1920s and the author has painted a rich landscape of the country and culture at the time, which I found almost as interesting as the storyline. We meet Clara and Einar after they have settled into a domestic routine, of sorts: two painters living in Copenhagen trying to make a living through their art. Known for his landscapes, Einar is the more acclaimed and successful of the two, while Clara finds herself painting portraits of well-known businessmen and society types. Clara is a young, willful, and wealthy California heiress who fell in love with Einar while enrolled in art classes at the Royal Academy, where he is a teacher. Despite being six years her senior, Einer was shy and awkward, and Clara pursued him somewhat relentlessly.

As the novel progresses, we discover that Einar has been encouraged by Clara to occasionally dress in women’s clothes when her female subjects are delayed or unable to make their sitting appointments. Einar is a slender, pretty man who is described as "beautiful" in the novel. Clara senses that Einar has a love of all things feminine, and starts to encourage him to dress as a woman, who they start introducing as Einar's distant cousin Lili to their friends. At first, this is a secret game between the pair, but as Einar needs to dress as Lili more and more, the dynamic in the marriage changes, making Clara increasingly uncomfortable. Clara believes that part of loving someone is doing whatever you can do to make them happy, and although she is ambivalent about Einar’s need to dress as Lili, her paintings of Lili start to garner her praise and acclaim in the art world.

The subject matter of The Danish Girl could have been treated as a spectacle, or voyeuristic experience, but it is treated sensitively by the author. The author sensitively renders Einar’s sometimes painful experiences with his changing identity, and we experience the distinct worlds of these two separate individuals. I was surprised to discover that this novel was first published in 2000. The story is especially topical given that transgender experiences are now being discussed on shows like Oprah, which signifies that the issue has become mainstream, or at least an acknowledged part of our cultural dialogue.

The Danish Girl is being made into a movie that is scheduled for release in the United States in 2011. Nicole Kidman will star as Lili. If reading is supposed to take you on a journey of the mind and expand your understanding of the world, The Danish Girl is certainly deserving of high praise.

Written by: Gita Tewari, May 25th 2010

Letter to My Daughter

admin — Mon, 24 May 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By George Bishop

Random House

I admit that I am influenced by book titles in my choice of books to read. In that sense, Letter to My Daughter was somewhat off putting for me. I was expecting a somewhat predictable story of a mother writing a letter to her daughter. Fortunately, I overcame my reticence, and upon reading the first couple of paragraphs I found myself immersed in a riveting story.

The novel begins in present day Baton Rouge, Louisiana; a mother (Laura) has started writing a letter to her daughter Elizabeth to alleviate her anxiety and worry. Her teenage daughter has just left the house after yet another argument with her mother In her letter, Laura has decided to tell her daughter about her own troubled adolescent years and share secrets about her past she had previously been unable to confide.

As we read Laura's letter, we travel back in time to the late '60s. Laura’s parents are conservative Southern Baptists who don’t approve of her relationship with Tim, a Cajun boy from the other side of town. Laura continues to see Tim against her parents wishes until one fateful day when Laura’s life is changed irrevocably. At the risk of giving too much of the plot away, the novel touches on themes of prejudice, young love and sexuality, the Vietnam War, mother-daughter relationships, and the challenges of being both a teenager and a parent in an increasingly complex world.

You don’t have to be a parent or a teenager to relate to this story. Once I started reading Letter to My Daughter, I found it difficult to put it down and ended up reading it in just two sittings. Don’t be put off by the title of this book as I was; the author has created an unforgettable story that will stay with you for days after you turn the last page.

Written by: Gita Tewari, May 24th 2010

Pink Everyday Wool Beret

admin — Sun, 02 May 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By CoverYourHair.com

I’ve never been a hat person, but I’ve always admired those individuals who know how to accessorize their look to create a unique fashion statement. Whether through the expert use of scarves, hats, or jewelry, these people seem to have arrived on the planet with the fashionista gene. Maybe that’s why the pink wool beret caught my eye on the list of items for review. At the time I requested the beret to review, we were still in the midst of winter in the Midwest, and the beret looked both practical and inspired all at the same time.

When my beret arrived in the mail, it was packaged in plastic, and the pink color combined with the jaunty beret style seemed to signify that spring couldn’t be far off. I felt a burst of artistic joie de vivre when I tried the hat on since berets have long been associated with artists and artistic endeavors. I was somewhat disappointed to discover that I am still not a hat person (at least when it comes to berets)—the style just didn’t suit my face—but I did check out the website for Cover Your Hair and discovered that they sell a whole range of items ranging from hats to headbands, bandannas to scarves, snoods to turbans, and hair accessories.

This is one of those online shopping sites that are just fun to browse, and if you’re watching your pennies, none of these items will make a big dent in your wallet. Cover Your Hair is also a site to bookmark if you know someone who has experienced hair loss from chemotherapy or other cancer treatments. I remember helping my mom pick out a wig after she lost her hair due to chemo (thankfully it all grew back and thicker than before), but a site like this offers alternative options for dealing with short-term or permanent hair loss.

Written by: Gita Tewari, May 2nd 2010

The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship

admin — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Jeffrey Zaslow

Gotham Books

As I became immersed in The Girls from Ames, I started to view it as a collective memoir of eleven women who have been friends since they were young girls in Ames, Iowa. While I expected to find the book a worthwhile read, I was pleasantly surprised to find how much I could relate to in this book. I found the story of these women both touching and humorous as I read it, prompting a reflection on my own female friendships over the years. The older I get, the less I take my friendships for granted, and I felt somewhat envious that these women, who were all born in the early 1960s, had maintained such a strong bond of friendship throughout marriage (sometimes more than one), children, cross-country moves, joy, heartache, and tragedy.

What takes this book beyond the memoir genre is that Zaslow has approached the topic of female friendship with the zeal of a journalist and sociologist, and the heart of a father of three daughters. In addition to telling the story of the way the friendships evolved over decades, he provides added context in the form of research that has been done on the struggles women face at different stages in their life (i.e., teen and college years, young mothers, mothers of teenagers, divorce, midlife changes, and stages of grief) and how female friendship can be an antidote to the trials and tribulations we all encounter as we progress through life. Some of the women reflect on their own "mean girl" tendencies as teenagers now that they see their teenage daughters dealing with mean girls and other complexities young girls face in today’s world.

At the end of chapter one, Jenny, whose father was an insurance executive who pored over actuarial tables and statistics on a daily basis, recalls how he warned her as she was about to leave for the University of South Carolina not to be surprised if her friendships didn’t survive the passage of time: “My guess is in fifteen years, one of you will be estranged from the group. Two of you will be divorced. One of you will still be single, one of you may be dead. You have to expect that. Because that’s how life works.” Zaslow writes that Jenny and her father still remember that conversation “where they were sitting, how her dad’s words hung in the air in the darkness, and how she sat there thinking he had to be wrong.”

I understand why The Girls from Ames has become a national bestseller and inspired women to form reading groups to discuss the book with their friends. Female friendship has the potential to be powerful, healing, and transformative. Zaslow has captured that sentiment in this book.

Written by: Gita Tewari, April 26th 2010

Face It: What Women Really Feel as Their Looks Change

admin — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Vivian Diller, Jill Muir-Sukenick

Hay House

As the authors of Face It explain in the preface to their book, women who came of age during and after feminism's second wave were brought up to believe our looks don’t have to define who we are or determine our possibilities. What mattered more in this 'enlightened' new age were our brains, our talents, our degrees, our abilities, and our ambition. The paradox is that women continue to receive conflicting messages from the media and our culture about the role appearance plays in our lives. Because many of us have never attempted to unravel our ambivalent feelings about our appearance, the way it impacts our self-esteem, and how we relate to our family and friends, we deny these feelings when we see the first signs of aging—or react with a vengeance to try to arrest the aging process.

Face It is all about guiding women through this potentially treacherous time, during which many of us feel the very ground shifting beneath us. Like many adolescent girls, aging women cling to what the authors describe as “masks” that take the form of "workaholism," addiction to cosmetic surgery, excessive exercise, and dieting to protect ourselves from the sadness and loss we feel at the change in our appearance. In this thoughtful and engaging book, the authors, both psychotherapists and former models, present the stories of how different women approached the aging process. Runway models, nurses, homemakers, and businesswomen, who range in age from early thirties to mid-sixties, tell us their stories.

Some women never felt their appearance played much of a role in their lives, and were taken by surprise when they felt a sense of loss, or even panic, about their changing looks. In contrast, the models interviewed for the book were aware of aging, given that it pushes them out of their profession at the youthful age of twenty-five, and experienced a range of feelings and emotions similar to what many women face when they enter midlife. For women who believed that their intelligence and ambition were their ticket to success, it was often embarrassing to admit to friends and family how their changing looks were impacting them, because it seemed frivolous or superficial.

The authors use the experiences of these different women successfully navigating this challenging time with the use of an innovative six-step program that forms a pathway to a new acceptance and understanding of the aging process. This program involves taking an honest inventory of one's experiences with beauty and acknowledging how family and culture shapes one's identity as a woman. While the authors stress that they aren’t against using plastic surgery to enhance one's appearance, they want to give women the tools to make decisions about it from a place of strength and appreciation for their unique attributes, not out of a panic to "stay in the game."

As a forty-something woman, I found this book intriguing and was pleased to discover that it lived up to its billing of helping women navigate such a challenging time in our lives. Face It helps women of any age to gain an understanding of how to fully own the aging process and not react out of fear to our changing looks and bodies, but to, instead, appreciate and learn from the journey.

Written by: Gita Tewari, April 23rd 2010

The Deluxe Anniversary Edition

admin — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Whitney Houston

Legacy Recordings

I came of age in the days of AM radio. I can still remember listening to Casey Kasem counting down the Top 40 hits on Sunday nights before FM radio, the Internet, blog radio, and terms like market segmentation became part of our lexicon. In the space of twenty or so minutes, you could hear a song by Barbara Streisand, Journey, The Bee Gees, and maybe something by Johnny Cash as well.

I like to think growing up in the '70s made me more open minded as a person because we had to listen to everything that was played on the radio. We didn’t have the choice to opt out or create our own digital world of favorites the way teenagers do today. My theory is not born out of reality, however, because my twenty-one-year-old niece is much more culturally aware and sophisticated about the world than I was at her age.

As I was listening to this deluxe anniversary edition of Whitney Houston’s greatest hits, I felt some nostalgia for those seemingly less complicated days of my youth. Nostalgia is a powerful emotion because you find yourself remembering an idealized time of your life that is lost forever. I couldn’t help but remember how Houston ruled the airways for most of the '80s and part of the '90s with her powerful renditions of songs like “The Greatest Love of All,” “You Give Good Love,” “Saving All My Love for You,” “Hold Me,” and “How Will I Know.”

Houston was a child prodigy. She began singing at a very young age (she’s the daughter of soul singer Cissy Houston and the cousin of singer Dionne Warwick, so I guess the singing genes run in the family) and her career took off when she was barely out of her teens. She was discovered by the legendary Clive Davis while performing in a New York nightclub.

Houston is a groundbreaking crossover artist who appeals to all demographics with her gospel influenced, pop-soul musical style. She is the only artist with seven consecutive multi-platinum albums. Her cover of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” is the highest-selling single of all time. She was also the first African American woman to receive regular play on MTV; her “How Will I Know” video paving the way for such artists as Janet Jackson and Anita Baker.

Although Houston is one of the greatest female singers of her generation, I never followed her career that closely, but I am aware of the personal and professional highs and lows she has experienced over the years. As I listened to her effortlessly belting out some of her trademark hits on this album, I found myself revisiting memories of where I was when I first heard a particular song. Houston's music, like her life, has become indelibly linked with our triumphs and tribulations. When I think of Whitney Houston and how she continues to endure despite her setbacks, I can’t help but root for her all over again.

Written by: Gita Tewari, April 10th 2010

Natural Shielding Lotion

admin — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By 21st Century Formulations

Finding hand lotion that works is probably not high on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It actually seems frivolous in light of the images of suffering and destruction we’ve recently seen from Haiti and Chile. While I recognize that earthquakes aren’t caused by global warming, lately I find myself balancing my own petty concerns against scientists’ gloomy predictions of climate refugees becoming a real problem if this issue isn’t addressed. In the meantime, I reassure myself with the thought that I still have to function in my day-to-day world; if finding a hand lotion that actually does what it claims to do is a more immediate and manageable goal, I will not castigate myself for that quest.

Living in the Chicago area, we’ve experienced particularly brutal winters the last few years and dry hands seems to be another symptom of this endless winter we’ve had this year, along with snow days and subfreezing temperatures. So when I came across Skin MD Natural Shielding Lotion, I was curious to see if it could live up to its claims. I tend to be skeptical about such claims, but I was curious to try this lotion.

According to the brochure, the Shielding Lotion not only keeps your skin moisturized, but cures the problem of dry skin because its unique formula restores moisture while also enabling your skin to replenish its own moisture. Although the pamphlet included a number of testimonials from happy customers who saw immediate results from using the product on various body parts, I decided to test it primarily as a hand lotion. At $13.00 for a 4 oz. bottle, would I see an improvement over other less expensive hand lotions?

Comparatively, the lotion has a light and non-greasy quality—just a few squirts are all one needs for an application. The Shielding Lotion feels good on your skin and leaves it temporarily moisturized, but as with other lotions, the moisturized feeling didn’t last very long. I did try the product once on my face, but immediately broke out the following day. I have extremely oily and sensitive skin, so I do not consider that a reflection on the product itself as much as its blending with my own unique skin type. I continue to use the lotion, but would probably not shell out the requisite dough for another bottle.

Written by: Gita Tewari, March 25th 2010