Sister India

Sure, SISTER INDIA is the title of one of my novels. At the same time, for me, the phrase "Sister India," refers to an anxiety-reducing idea: the way that the sensory can stop time.

Here's how I came to have this thought. A few years ago I was asked to write an essay for an anthology about the most-something-or-other book or books I'd ever read. For example, the most stirring, or the most revealing, or the most exciting...book I'd ever read.

I decided to write on the most seductive books I'd ever read: which are novels set in India. The reason was that they're almost all so sensory, so full of the color and sound and smell and feel of moment after moment.

That sensory detail creates a sharp focus on the present moment that is the heart of all concentration and focus and ease in action. These novels, with their physicality, stop time for me, relax me, give a pause to my obsessing.

This is not to romanticize India as a laidback place. From what I've seen, it isn't. And the novels don't present that--not the good ones. India is the most actively business-minded place I've ever been. That was true in the early 90s when I spent a winter in Varanasi. Since then, of course, India has liberalized its laws on foreign investment and started handling work for many American corporations, becoming a major economic force in the world.

Even so, those novels, no matter the subject, have a quality that is like a soothing and spirit-lifting companion.

At a bookstore appearance in the U.S. shortly after this novel of mine came out, a man asked me to inscribe a book to his wife. He said she read novels about India for therapy. That might sound odd. But I understood.

The Courage to Create a Revolution

As you no doubt know, Rosa Parks died last night. When she refused to give up her seat on the bus, life in the United States changed for the better for all the generations to come.

Her radical act was not planned and orchestrated. She didn't strain to work up her courage, or gather an army of support. Instead she performed a simple, quiet act that turned a great wrong on its head.

That's boldness. Makes me wonder what small reflexive routine I could vary today that would set something good in motion.