World as Family A Journey of Multi-Rooted Belongings by Vishakha N. Desai

 World as Family

A Journey of Multi-Rooted Belongings by Vishakha N. Desai is one of the best memoirs I read this year. Simply clear, sincere, I firstly met online mrs Desai as moderator during a symposium organized by Columbia University Press on Covid-19 and vaccines: now we both follow each other on Instagram.

Born in Ahmedabad, India, in a family with seven other siblings, parents involved in the profound changes started by Gandhi, with which the father of Desai, journalist, worked with, Vishakha discovered an intellectual and fertile environment. She studied with success in exclusive schools and at the age of 17 her father encouraged her: spending a year in the USA would have been exciting. Vishakha hadn't never left her family, her loved siblings, the connections she had established, the new boyfriend she had, her dancing classes. How could she live well in a different distant country, with a foreign language, different customs, the idea of speaking 24 hours per day just American/English, eating different food, and living a different existence?

It hasn't been a simple choice, but Vishakha, also thanks to another friend interested in the program by the AFS, sent the application. Vishakha was accepted like also her friend and both of them left India for good: that one was their first intercontinental trip. They could not sleep for the excitement, and once arrived in New York City they admired the magnificent skyline. Vishakha was later directed to Santa Barbara where an adorable new family, the Reeds one, would have followed her during the year. New food, at first it was a weird world, a weird school, with weird students with their weird questions on drugs, but as also adds Vishakha, this experience, a complete full-immersion in another culture gradually changed her perspective of the world because these experiences open new horizons and let us think differently. 

She noticed this, when her father stopped by there, invited by the AFS: Vishakha saw him as a provincial man if compared with the people she met in a daily base in Santa Barbara. 

Simply: Vishakha was discovering other realities, more complicated and more different from her own existence in India, more simple and protected.

Once returned home the adaptation was not simple because Vishakha in the USA discovered individualism and privacy: the one she could not have in her own house. Also her accent at first appeared weird: and plus...Smells, perfumes of her own land appeared much more accentuated, and strange: was she noticing this because of her trip to the USA?

Vishakha changed, stopping to consider herself just a citizen of India but of a more big world, that included the USA.

In the while she fell in love for an American soldier, Tom, although their relationship, with a marriage celebrated in India, didn't continue once in the USA.

The end of it was reason of sadness, but Vishakha, who had also decided for an abortion in the while, because she was building her own career, became a name in the field of Indian art. She started to collaborate with prestigious realities and museums, ending in the MFA, Museum of Fine Arts of Boston where she worked with success for several years, before to start another adventure in New York City.

She found in Robert the companion of her existence, while she assisted at the degradation of health of her beloved parents, in particular her father, with a diagnosys of Parkinson.

When she married Robert, her father could not attend the wedding; after a while he suffered of a massive stroke. Vishakha tells that most of her family, now in the USA was hyper-busy and could not stay at long in India: at the same time, after three weeks of choma her father died.

Oh; Vishakha remembers the joy when she started to work at the MFA of Boston, receiving the visit of her parents; in particular her father was intrigued by the city where Gandhi studied in and he loved to search for all the places where he had been, and what influenced him giving coverage to this visit in a regular basis in the magazine where he was writing for; the popularity of Gandhi needed to be remarked in fact. 

I loved a lot the description of Vishaka's parents's second house in India with ten rooms plenty of books and statues of different divinities, a big garden and the fertile intellectual activity breathed everywhere.

But...What is World as Family? And when can we consider the world as a family? I personally consider the world as a family where I am accepted and loved and appreciated; it can be in my close or distant world/connections. 

Vishakha found that the integration or her being Indian didn't change the fact that she was an American citizen:that her world as family can be in India, but also in other parts of the world. 

An important chapter is dedicated to the current COVID-19 pandemics with reflections on economy, social injustices and discriminations in the world.

Highly recommended.

I thank Columbia University Press for the physical copy of the book.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Write Better A Lifelong Editor on Craft, Art, and Spirituality by Andrew T.Le Peau

Write Better A Lifelong Editor on Craft, Art, and Spirituality by Andrew T.Le

Peau is a book born for and with a necessity: divulging the lessons learned by mr. Le Peau during these past 40 years of writing, teaching to other Christian writers: the best modality for a good approach in Christian non-fiction and the best way of writing it.

Le Peau confesses that when he was little he didn't love to read at all, but he must thanks his two siblings and teachers if he became an avid reader as well.

The book is divided in Three Parts: the first one, the art of crafting will immerse the potential christian writer of non-fiction in the art of creation of a book. The second part involves The Art of Writing while the Third One The Spirituality of Writing.

It's a quick reading, but plenty of suggestions, tips, quotes about writers of fiction for let you give you an idea of what, other famous writers of the past or present thinks about writing. I loved the test for thinking divergently but also all that advice in grade to create a new shape of creativity in the daily stressing life of a writer.

I found reassuring the chapter about grammar and how to use it, like also how to use a good metaphor to give a more powerful structure at the lines. 

Most important adds Andrew is to find "your own distinct way of writing."

Why this? Because sometimes searching to imitate a famous writer doesn't pay and it's better to search for your own writing-style. Let's remember that the way of writing represents also a sparkle of our personality and character. Why hiding it putting a mask?

A chapter I guess you'll find intriguing as I did, is the one of autobiography.

"We write. People choose to listen to us, follow us, maybe even pay money to support us, to hear us speak, or to buy our books. They give us the gift of the measure of authority in their lives. That is a trust we need to handle with care" adds the author.

Written with simplicity and with the idea of being helpful to everyone, I suggest this book to everyone and in particular of course to all that potential writers still confused about what to write, how to write, where publishing etc.

I thank NetGalley for this ebook.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Ballet an intersection of beauty, sport, art

 Interview with Daria Ermakova founder of the Arabesque Dancing School

Located in Pontevalleceppi, Perugia, the school of ballet by Daria Ermakova founded three years ago has a suggestive name: Arabesque Scuola Danza. Russian origin, she tells that she studied in Saint Petersburg.
Daria is happy for this interview because to her, it is important to speak of ballet.
"I want to try to let understand to people what ballet is.'

What is it ms. Ermakova?
"Discipline, severity, considering also that the body will work per hours everyday if this one will become a profession. Ballet is, realistically, a sort of intersection of beauty, sport, art. As I say often, we live in another world."

Daria tells she entered at the Vaganova of Saint Petersburg at the age of 10 years, working later at the Theater Bolshoi of Moscow.
"It's a beautiful reality. Sure, age makes the difference because, well it's a story of corp of ballet. We start at 18 and we go to pension at 38 years. At the Theater of  L'Opera of Rome I think that the age of ending is 44. It depends by the various realities taken in consideration."
Why this?
"Well: you must consider that everyday we use our body at the extreme. Junctures, back, knees, with the time become more suffering and they lose the old elasticity. But, after this process, being very young, in general dancers become teachers."
Dancing is a sacrifice for many reasons: "A daily activity is indispensable. If you lose a day of exercise, the day after you feel that you are not OK and you are less flexible, for example."
Daria's school is divided in various levels: pre-dance for kids of 3-4 years and so on till to arrive at the 4th level that means, explains Daria the 6th year of study of ballet.
"And each student can, with flexibility, understands which kind of level she wants to reach. We don't have just ballet, but also hip hop and name a modern dance, be sure we teach it. You know: we want to give to all children what they need, in terms of versatility and offer."
Not just this, Daria tries also to help with costs. Ballet is expensive...
"Under many ways it is true. The cost of theater could be at the end of the year, but we do our best for giving the best offer to everyone, to me this one is a sort of crusade. A single tutu costs 50-60 euros per year, affordable to everyone."
Who can learn ballet?
"I start to tell you: everyone, although of course students must be in love for dancing. Then of course, a dancer is another story. They study dance everyday, per hours and they must be skinny. It's important their physical structure like also their character."
A mixture of body and soul...
"It's important to start ballet at 3-4 years because at that age muscles, tendons, bones are more than OK. If a person would want to start to study ballet at 20 years it would be too late."
Let's speak of this big prejudice involving male kids. In Italy it's difficult to find a male student. The situation in your school?
"Just two male students and I have wagons of students. They are involved in modern dance. Yes, it's an italian history this one; in Russia there is not this discrimination regarding this art; if a little male kid wants to practice ballet it's not a tragedy at all!"
Why would you suggest to parents of a male kid to permit him to dance instead of playing at soccer?
"Because these children would become gentle, educated people, tender. They're young men of culture, of peace. They interact with beauty environments."
Recently you received in your school Dorian Grory a name of the italian ballett.
"Yes, he became an important voice in Reggio Emilia at the Nuovo Balletto Classico where they prepare dancers who, later will dance in prestigious italian or foreigners theaters. Substantially Dorian studied at the Academy of Tirana and only later he afforded to Italy. This school was founded by Stefanescu and other people many years ago. It is a pretty known reality in the environment. We have also given hospitality to other prestigious dancers as well."

Anna Maria Polidori