SALUDOS U.S. GOOD MORNING INDIA

Washington D.C, Oct 3:

I sit pinching myself and asking: "Is it true? Did I really spend six months in the United States?" It now seems so surreal.

Time flew fast. It's time to go back. Saludos U.S. Good morning India.

After saying goodbye to South Florida and to my new friends in Sun Sentinel, I flew to a small town called Salina in Kansas, where, guess what, I stayed in a motel owned by a desi. A Gujarati couple run the Americas Best Value Inn in the city of 50,000 people.

I went to Salina to attend the Land Institute's prairie festival from 24th to 27th, before flying to Washington D.C. for our final seminar.

The Land Institute is doing what is a very interesting research in agriculture. In that its scientists are breeding the grain into perennial forms by crossing the annual grains with their wild grass relatives. The prairie festival is their annual event attended by farmers, writers, scientists and all those who care for sustainable agriculture. It was a fruitful trip. I learned a lot.

Then in DC, we shared our experiences with the Alfred Friendly Press Fellowships Board, enjoyed our farewell dinner and prepared to return home.

After spending six very eventful months of this sabbatical here, I return to resume my work, confident. Stories beckon me and I shall try and apply all the good lessons I learned on this program. To be a good writer. A reporter.

TWO CITIES; TWO DIFFERENT PERSONALITIES

I wonder where do I begin this blog entry from.

There are many things I saw and I did this past fortnight. I wrote a few pieces for Sun Sentinel; visited new places and met new people.

Last week, I also took a bus-journey to and from New York-Boston. China's increasing presence in the U.S. life is not a secret. Well, the bus journey provided me a small insight into that. Besides, China Town buses are, as in other cases, in-expensive.

But my meeting particularly with two individuals was incredible. I went up north to New York and Boston, where I shared some of my field experiences with an energetic group of Indian professionals who volunteer for the Association for India's Development (AID). As always, it was more of an education for me to meet them.

But my interaction with Mark Kurlansky, well known writer and journalist whose 15 books are an example of best journalism and non-fiction literature, was exciting. I've read his latest book - Food of a young nation, and previous title, Salt.

Kurlansky is easily among the frontline writers of America with a strong narrative prowess. He writes on subjects that he thinks are "important"; that he could "spend a lot of time with" and have "a strong narrative". I took it as a great advice.

It was thanks to my mentor Doreen that I could meet Mark, who's her old friend. We met in a French restaurant in New York chatting on issues ranging from Gandhi to War. One of his books is titled Non-Violence, and Doreen tells me it's a must-read. In the world ravaged with conflicts, this one's a book that delves into Gandhi's political doctrine of non-violence with which he achieved India's independence.

For any journalist, who at some point, wants to write a book, Kurlansky's advice is as powerfully simple as the man himself.

The second soul who inspired me greatly on this trip: Jonathan Fine, a retired physician in Boston and an important member of the AID chapter. At 78, he is un-relenting in whatever he does. His strong point: humor.

Jonathan came straight from the emergency room of a hospital where he underwent several checks for stroke (he's had mild ones in this past week or so), to my talk in the MIT campus; back to his witty best. To the concerned AID youngsters who advised him to take rest, he replied: "Is that the last joke of the day?"

Then of course, the other things that were equally absorbing. Visiting Ground Zero; plying in the New York sub-way train; walking through the vast stretches of Central Park; watching the fast-moving New Yorkers; the big museums; the financial district of what could best be described as the global town; or the Ellis Island to trace the history of the droves of immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th century - it was fun, education and refreshing contrast to my newsroom and journalism experience.

Doreen and I also visited the newsroom of Pro-Publica (www.propublica.org), thanks to a former Sun Sentinel and LA Times staffer, Robin Fields, who now works for this organization that is funded by a non-profit to keep alive investigative journalism in the era of lay-offs and media meltdown. Some of the top investigative journalists of the United States work in this newsroom that provides an amazing view of downtown New York from its office in a high-rise building in Manhattan.

I also walked through the campuses of some of the famous universities - Columbia in New York; Harvard, MIT and Tufts in Boston. The rich academic ambiance of these prestigious academic institutions are benchmarks for global education standards. No wonder they attract some of the best brainy migratory birds from all over the world.

The trip undoubtedly provided me a new picture of the United States, radically different from the one I got in Florida. Unlike South Florida, New York is a busy and bustling city that like Mumbai never sleeps.

In New York, I discovered humor in public life in public places - it could be the 9/11 effect that people care to stop and help you if you are lost. "Take this alley and then turn right, walk two blocks and destination will be to your left!" Fast-moving passers-by will stop and tell you, if they find you stuck somewhere.

Manhattan's high-rise buildings - particularly at the Time Square - attract tourists by hordes. It's eye-catching. As a friend chuckles: "Capitalism is seductive".

I also saw a critically acclaimed musical on the Broadway. 'Hair', the musical that made a rocking comeback earlier this year, was controversial in the 1960s post-Vietnam war. I had no idea that the hippie movement had roots in anti-war movement of that era. India witnessed floods of hippies in the early 1970s with the Hare Rama Hare Krishna movement. The musical in its new avatar makes the same points that it made in the late 60s. Ironically nothing has changed. War hysteria is still alive and in pretty much the same garb - democracy, freedom and liberty! Wow!

Hair - a metaphor for expressing protest against war mongering - is still relevant.

A week earlier I visited for a day the dreamland of Key West - driving through a chain of islands south of Miami.

It was not just fun or picnicking that I was seeking to achieve but a peep into a very diverse picture of this land - a diversity that is fast becoming a relic of the past as more mono-culturistic doctrines emerge to hold an economic sway.

The Alfred Friendly fellowship, I think, is not only about the insights into media operations or learning the new skills, but also develop a better worldview and also understanding of the global issues. The past fortnight my journeys in this distant land aimed at achieving exactly that - a view from the top and the bottom of this world, of the people in different trappings, of diversity that's endangered.

On a more professional side, I did two more pieces - a story on how communities are now supporting local farmers to re-invigorate local food systems. And an essay for the Sunday Outlook of September 20 that takes a dig at Thomas Friedman's flat-view of the oval world. My mentor loved the essay, which means I did learn some lessons in good writing. Hope the trend continues for a long term.

With that story, I am saying good bye to my host newspaper, the Sun Sentinel, and my host city, Fort Lauderdale, the Venice of America.

THE FARMERS AMONG US

IN a month’s time, it’ll be time for us to fly back.

Even before we realized, the fellowship program is coming to an end. As we welcome September, I am in a mood to look back.

This Sunday marked the culmination of the project I worked for all of summer in South Florida – the story ‘farmers among us’ finally hit the covers of Outlook section.

Read what my mentor and Editorial Page editor Antonio Fins said (http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/columnists/sfl-afcol-intro-outlook-083009sbaug30,0,358803.column) in his intro to the Sun Sentinel’s Sunday Outlook section that he and his team of editorial writers produce with distinction.

Last 15 days – I worked, re-worked and re-re-worked the content of this story, as I approached the finish-line. From the initially written piece of 5000 words, the final story stood at a little over 1400 words, inclusive of tag-lines, credit lines etc. We finished off with the sound-slides and tightening up the loose ends by the weekend of 23rd. The layout was done by August 26th and pages were ready by Thursday, the 27th.

How it all was put together, I will explain it in a while.

What did it mean to me? Fulfillment of several of my program goals – writing tight, learning multi-media tricks and, above all, focusing on agriculture.

I did a quick joint byline story last Friday with a colleague on how the expatriate community from my home state of Maharashtra celebrates the annual Ganesh festival in South Florida. (http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/sfl-elephant-god-b082709,0,2978036.story).

Saturday, August 29, I attended the festival with my friends Thomas Swick and his wife Hania. Check his blog for more:(http://www.thomasswick.com/blogs/tswick.php)

Meanwhile, Doreen and I got a bio-fuels story published on August 23rd,
(http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/sfl-biofuel-update-082309,0,4243854.story).

On August 15, I went to Maryland to talk to the volunteers of the Association for India’s Development (AID), Baltimore chapter, on farm crisis in Vidarbha. It was heartening to see young friends taking interest in what’s going on with agriculture back home.

What else! Yes, I cooked Indian food at Paradise farms on Sunday, August 30, for 20 people – all my new farmer friends. The menu: Bhujiya, Kashmiri rice, Masala rice, Chapati, Jackfruit curry and much more. My friend Hani Khouri brought his home made goat-cheese, yogurt and a variety of his home-made tasty ice-cream.

I will later post pictures to lend credence to this story and the fact that I did incredibly well with cooking. No one complained, which means everything was alright.

And a young female food writer at the luncheon wanted from me some of those recipes. God, I pray, my mom’s not listening!

Here’s how the small farms story came alive:

Tapping into the trend -

I came to Florida early May with one intention: See farms, meet farmers and learn how they are doing when their counterparts are killing themselves in India.
The corporate food businesses have taken over agriculture in the United States in the last 30 years driving family farms out of business.

As P Sainath, my mentor and India’s frontline journalist wrote in one of his dispatches from the U.S. two years ago: There are more prisoners in America than farmers.

The first thing I did was to do an online research. I found the 2007 Agriculture census report, a wealth of information that needed to be deciphered. It hides more than what it reveals. Some glorified statistics are really a veil to cover the darkest chapter of the U.S. farming – collapse of sustainable family farm operations all over the country.

In South Florida, it hasn’t been any different. Most of the land is now controlled by two or three major sugar conglomerates. Housing developments and real estate consumed the family farms in the coastal belt, so as I began my assignment with Sun Sentinel, my biggest worry was: Will I get to meet and visit any family farms at all?

I took to what I think works the best: get on to the field.

As I began researching for some local farms, new nascent trends surfaced.
I found Nancy Roe, a 10-acre farmer in Boynton Beach, 15 miles north of Fort Lauderdale. That was in May end. One morning, I drove down to her farm and it opened up the whole new world.

It’s a farm that exists in the midst of plush housing complex. My interactions with a 60-plus Nancy, a Ph.D. in horticulture, showed me the direction.

At her farm, I met Henry Williams, a 78-year-old black farmer. Then I met some more members of their tribe, and more.

All of them shared great concern for small farms on the planet. Many of them had read about the tragedy besieging the Indian farmers and wanted to know more.

Who were they? They were all small, very small farmers, tilling small acres in the urban sphere. Many of them turned out first-generation farmers, growing food for their neighborhoods. They told me some of their neighbors want to eat fresh and local. But why did they take to farming? And are they into it as a hobby? No. Many of them are in the profession by choice and driven by a commitment to build local food systems.

This is South Florida, I said. And it isn’t a farming ground any more.

My new friends told me to look around and look through the housing developments. I found small farms – conventional and non-conventional – sprouting all around. From Vero Beach north of Fort Lauderdale to Homestead the belt of 150 miles or so has tens of new small farms, re-invigorating local food system with a strong consumer support. I pitched the story, and my mentor immediately said: go for it. We thought the best way to tell this trend is through vignettes, each symbolic of some regional or national trend.

Field trips and working with a photo-journalist:

Early on, we decided this has to be a multi-media project. Along with tons of pictures, we needed to record sound for sound-slides – where pictures are accompanied by the sound-bytes. It was a great education to work with one of Sun Sentinel’s gifted photo-journalists, Sarah Dussault. Sarah and I visited all the farms that I had zeroed in on for my story. But before our field visits, I had visited all the farms at least once. So I knew what we needed to shoot and ask each one of them. Post our mid-term seminar at Poynter in mid-July we did most of our field visits for pictures and interviews.

For Sound Slides project, you need to ask pointed questions for pointed answers, which is what I did as we drove to those farms several times. It was fun.

Putting it all together:

I first wrote it long, and then cut it deep.

It was time for visualizing how to put the story on the pages: The photo editor selected 25-30 pictures for each vignette. Graphic designer did the rest.

The best of them were then picked up in a detailed meeting where we discussed the story’s forward-looking appeal, uniqueness of each farmer, etc.

The graphic designer and photo-editor decided the story need a strong visual appeal –which is why the vertical film-like approach for the front page and horizontal approach for vignettes on Page3. To me, it was like learning the ABC of graphics.

Show me, don’t tell me:

When I finished with my edits, it was time for Tony (Mr Antonio Fins) and Sunday editor, Gail DeGeorge, to take a look at my job. They did and came up with strong suggestions and edits. My work had only just begun, and I thought it was over.

The last week, finally, it all worked out well. I had written the story for some 20 times.

The most invaluable lesson learned? Don’t tell in as many words; show it to readers.

(http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-jhcol-small-farms-outlook-08sbaug30,0,4458836.story)

FARMS, FARMERS AND FOOD...

Fort Lauderdale (update July 20-August 14):

"Something," said Bob Hochmuth of the University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agriculture Science, "is happening". It's so far under the radar.

Trends do not surface on their own. They have to be sensed and analyzed. Hochmuth had just nicely summed up to me the story.

Good that I attended on August 1 and 2 the first ever small farms and enterprises conference at Kissimmee, near Orlando, in Floria, and to everyone's surprise, the attendance at the two-day event that was marked by the food extravaganza underlined that the story I am working on, is bang on target. On time.

Small farms are indeed bouncing back across the United States: watch out for my next story, and you'd know what all I'd been doing this past three weeks.

For the records though - lest I shall lose some 33 bucks a day - I had been doing the field visits, as any good journalist must, for my story, South Florida's humid summer notwithstanding. I've been shooting videos, recording sound and writing.

I'm after all a living creature of the multi-media age.

But writing this story has been fun. I've re-written and edited it for at least five times. The editor takes a look at it, now.

It was, however, satisfying to attend the conference and to our surprise, we were the only journalists at the event.

My story on small farms fulfils three of my goals - study U.S. agriculture, tight and narrative writing and multi-media.

Last Sunday, I also wrote my first editorial column in the op-ed section of the Sun Sentinel. My friend from China may perhaps not like it, but it was on the Indo-China tensions building in the continent, even as the two countries held talks last week.

Editorial columns are not easy, I realized that. Speaking is one thing. Putting it down quite another. But my mentor, Antonio Fins, gave it a read and said: "actually you've hidden your lead in the last para." I agreed and turned it on its head.

The piece came out well and met my fourth goal - writing opinion pieces.

Doreen Hemlock, one of my mentors, and I have finished writing a story for business section, and two more are work in progress.

In between, I finally caught up with some sound sleep last weekend.

On the social front, this past couple of weeks, I connected with the Indians living here. And found, some of them are more Americanized than the Americans!

KNOW THY NEIGHBOR, STUPID!

Two events made headlines in the second fortnight of July: The 40th anniversary of America’s first manned moon mission, Apollo 11. Two days later, the world’s superpower was debating whether or not the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was a racial discrimination issue.

One channel even went on to conduct a public poll: Is race still a reality?

Even an astute president like Obama got carried away by the issue, when he castigated the local police for acting “stupidly”, a statement he resented the very next day by admitting that he should have been more careful about his choice of words. Good for the police officer; he got up, close and personal with the President over the last weekend on the widely publicized 'beer summit'. The media and people are still acidly split on the issue. The debate is far from over.

What amused me was not the police action or the racial overtones to the issue, but the fact that neither the caller nor the professor knew of each other as neighbors! The issue would be non-existent if they knew each other. It’s as simple.

To me, the problem is with the phone call itself. I imagine if it were India and if my neighbor would lose his key, he would knock on my door even in the middle of the night, have a cup of coffee chatting about the problem and then, both of us would wake up other neighbors in trying to break his lock so that he would get into his house. Once in, he would make coffee for all of us. We go to bed happy.

We would call the police and alert the neighbors only when we are sure the one breaking into the neighbor’s house is not the owner himself/herself.

In India, believe me, the police would arrest the caller for wasting their time if they discovered that his/her neighbor had had to break his lock to enter his own house because he/she had lost the key. If you don’t know your neighbors, the neighbors would take you as a terrorist and inform the police of your suspicious behavior. Believe me, the police would come and interrogate you to their satisfaction.

The trend of neighbors not being acquainted with each other in some big metropolitan cities in India is for the government and common people a matter of grave concern.

The police in my hometown of Nagpur run a program where they ask citizens to alert them if they found someone with suspicious behavior living in their neighborhood.

We are on the other extreme of ‘neighborhood dharma’!

I feel a tad sad to see that people don’t know or talk to each other in the neighborhood here, exceptions apart. For, if they knew each other, I bet, economic recession wouldn’t be this hard to take on.

When I first arrived in Fort Lauderdale, I felt like living in a no-man's land. I'd hardly see my neighbors. I didn't know if they existed, until on one day, I decided enough is enough and brandished my Indianness by knocking on their doors to say "Hi, I'm your next door neighbor; just so you knew I live here."

I wasn't doing any big favor to them, but to myself. I needed to know who lived around me. To my surprise, I found my neighbors surprisingly welcoming. They wanted to talk and connect as well. It took me exactly a week to discover that each of my neighbors had pets. Dogs never barked. Cats never crossed their line!

I am still unsure of what these pets do inside, when their owners leave for work!

It may sound cynical, but I see a distinct link between the two headlines. It shows the state of American society. The country unites in its flight to moon or mars or in its supposed fight against an unseen evil, but goes back to its individualism when it comes to personal and emotional relations up close.

I hope my nascent impression is wrong.

GOING GLOBAL WITH LOCAL

I see an attitude problem with some big town journos. Exceptions apart!

They fly to small and slow towns wearing arrogant and almost repulsive vibe, groaning why the heck their editors dispatched them out of their cushy metropolitan cocoons to cover a local story. And so their stories will capture the pain they had had to suffer on the way to cover a story on, say, a farmer's suicide.

The story therefore turns out a journalist's painful journey rather than one about economic or social realities surrounding the subjects or stakeholders.

Mark Tully, the legendary BBC journalist, had an advice for us at the National Foundation of India's awards function in 2002.

"You are not the story", he reminded us, "you are the story-teller."

You can see the stereotypes when you read the stories from rural India in the national and international press: '...dusty countryside'; '...parched land'; '...no power, no road, no water.' Yet stronger metaphors: 'Hungry land'; 'Suicide country'.

The white man is slightly better, but not always.

Both these creatures para trooping to small towns to cover a global story are in some ways similar: They come to cover a story, and often, leave without one.

They tell a global story without even touching on local realities and invariably miss out on the threads that make a story worthy.

I sense a window of opportunities for small town journalists, like me.

The geographical and economic disadvantages that big town guys face provide us new opportunities. That drove the shift in my training plan at our mid-term seminar at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersberg earlier this month. How do you tell a local story to a global audience? Personal coaching sessions there helped immensely.

My new theme: Going global with local or vice versa. I had earlier taken a web-course on the Poynter's News-U: Covering global stories locally.

We can effectively tell local story globally by joining the dots, and a global story locally by studying the impact of global processes. Nothing new in there, except the way the faculties dealt with the subject.

The week at Poynter was undoubtedly stimulating. I learned as much from the faculty as I did from my re-charged co fellows.

The session on "how to teach" was real surprise. I look forward to using some of those tools to share whatever good I've learned on this program with the willing-to-learn fellow journalists. Thankfully, we have so few that sharing will be easier.

But this update is for the entire month:

So here's what I did through the month that saw some of my stories getting published in the Sun Sentinel. I did a couple of editorial blog entries too.

I spent the first week of July with metro-desk, covering courts. I did one story on a death sentence to a homicide convict, which was in line with one of my goals: how to write tight and crisp. The story was pruned to 250 words from 600 that I penned. That's how much could fit in the available space. Online version was slightly long.

That weekend, I attended a conference of the Florida Press Association at the historic Breaker Hotel in West Palm Beach with my mentor and editorial page editor of Sun Sentinel, Mr Antonio Fins. There was one session on multi-media that was of some professional interest to me, but it was an occasion to connect with media persons from across the sunshine state.

I returned to the business desk to finish two of my stories with Doreen Hemlock, and we did it before I headed for Poynter. Both the stories got published while I was at the Poynter. They got good displays and had multi-media presentation online.

One of the two stories was profiling a bagasse power plant against the backdrop of new energy bill passed by the Congress earlier this month; helped me understand the process of tight writing. It gave me an insight into the massive sugar sector.

The editor returned that story at least four times with questions and more questions to be clarified. Frustrating it was. But in the end, it was for the good.

Editors in the U.S. newsrooms will in seconds crush any ego you might have. They are unassumingly brutal.

Honestly, it's not easy to get your story through the several lines of editors here. All my friends in Nagpur, I must suggest, value your words and integrity. Facts come first. And they are paramount. Read your stories again and ask yourselves: "Is that true?" Writing a news story is not a piece of imagination or fiction. Editors back home too need to be more careful. For, their writings shape future journalists. Ergo sorry! I can't be preaching those who already are self-proclaimed intellectuals!

Post Poynter, I am working on a big project for the Outlook section slotted for the August 23rd edition. It's a comprehensive story on small farms in South Florida. And I am currently doing my field visits: a lots of them. I am taking the video too. The story will have sound slides, a glimpse of which we saw at Poynter. I am working with a photo-journalist on the project that would hopefully be my major take-home!

This story will meet all my goals: It will allow me to study the farm issue; write a narrative story, and learn multi-media skills (aka sound slides etc).

I plan to attend a small farms conference in Kissimmee, Florida, on August 1 and 2. That's when I meet small farmers, scientists and policy makers from Florida.

I spent the entire last week visiting farms. We are half way through. We will finish the visits this week. I plan to finish the writing as soon as possible to then work with the photo-editors on sound slides and possibly the video.

Next couple of weeks, while I work on this story, I would also do a couple of serious editorial pieces to meet my last goal: to write opinion pieces.

That's all about work and goals. Now beyond the work.

I explored new things in Florida. New sites and cuisine.

I was hosted by former travel editor of Sun Sentinel, Thomas Swick, and his wife, Hania, for dinner on the eve of my Poynter visit. Tom, an avid traveler, loves India. A visiting faculty at many journalism schools, he has much to share, particularly about travel writing.

After our Poynter seminar, I traveled with one of my mentors, editorial cartoonist Chaning Lowe, to Cape Canaverel, the Kennedy Space Center.

Kalpana Chawla's name is etched in the memory of every Indian. I saw her name etched on the memorial glowing bright in the Sun light.

I stood silent, paying homage to the woman, who chased her dream and left her legacy for millions of young Indians: To dream and chase it to fulfillment.




Last Saturday I went snorkeling with my main mentor Antonio Fins and his son Anthony. It was a thrilling experience to see colorful fish in its home.

Blue green waters in Key Largo hide fascinating coral reefs. I wasn't sure of swimming in the ocean. But as I buried myself deep into the waves, the world of reefs and marine life came to me in all its tranquility. I loved it.



There are many other tit bits. For now, I keep them to myself.

NO LUCK, WHEN IT COMES TO GAMBLING

Coconut Creek:

It could have made a superb souvenir: I, photographed right in front of a machine in the huge casino. But they won't allow me to take a picture inside!

I lost a dollar though. Click click click....two sevens rolling in; the third could have doled a jackpot for me! So close but not so close!

Florida has a ban on casinos; this one's not a Las Vegas. But native Americans can run casinos in their reservation. This one - in the Coconut Creek city that is home to the retired people - has one run by the Seminoles in their reservations.

The Seminole tribe pays significant revenues to the city from the casino in return of services such as water and security. The casino revenue is shared equally among the tribal clan. Each individual, even a new born, gets the share from the earnings.

We don't have casinos in my part of the world. We have other ways of gambling. And we are old gamblers. With no offense to anyone, it dates back to Mahabharata age!

So it was naturally an attraction for me to visit a casino.

Wow! That's what I said, when I opened the door to enter what seemed like a peaceful and simple plaza from outside. I expected it to be crowded going simply by the cars parked in its acres and acres of land with boards saying, pictures not allowed. It indeed was a crowded place, a reason, I felt, why the rest of the city is so quiet.

It was a noisy dimly-lit room, spread over easily a few acres, filled with smoke (because it's a reservation you can smoke here, while smoking is banned in public places in the city), with red and attractive carpet and equally dazzling ceiling, hundreds of people seated on the machines waiting for the lady luck to smile on them.

Average age of the gamblers -- by a cursory glace -- seemed between 60 and 70.

I saw almost a bed-ridden grand-ma painstakingly walk with the box-crutches, oxygen pipes running into both her nostrils, and a cigarette tucked between her middle and second finger (easily into her early eighties), desperate for a machine to play with for her luck. Another grey-haired, in his 70s, was catching nine winks while still at the machine, drained by the thrills of gambling. After some time I found him back to his game. Click click click....no luck! Click click click....try again!

The casino interiors are designed specially so that you stay put. It's a trap that customers easily walk into. Usually, a casino has no window or door that reveals the outside views. So that you won't know what time it is! If it's a day or night!

Casinos don't have wall-clocks. It's brightly decorated. Bright colors are to pump up your adrenaline. Young girls, with bare clothes, walk around with water and other beverages for you to drink free of cost, so that you stay hydrated and playful.

A big cafe offers loads and loads of buffet at cheap price so that there's a drive. The evenings are peppered with live bands, jazz, and live shows, adding elements of entertainment. Chances are if you've walked in to throw away 20 bucks; you'll spend 100.

I lost a dollar as a charming young girl explained how the machines work.

Pleasantly though, an Indian expatriate from Tamil Nadu, who works at the casino as its software programmer, was more than willing to show me the different programs in the gambling den. He said to me in Hindi, 'sirf dekho, khelo mat'. And I replied to him with a smile: "Koi nahi! Main apna purse gaadi mein hi chod aaya hun. Jeb mein sirf ek dollar hi laya tha, woh chala gaya hai, aab sirf dekh hi sakta hun!"

He smiled, and then showed me around.

The casino brought back to me one of the special moments from my college years. Each one of us treasure some moments from the past. This one matters so much to me!

Sometime during my graduation (I think it was the year that I lost while doing my B.Sc.), I was left with one rupee (two cents) and a week to go before my father would send me my monthly pocket money. I was studying at Nagpur and living in a small room. My parents had allowed me to study away from my home town of Chandrapur despite tight finances, for, it would give me a better exposure to life. They would pay directly for my food and lodgings, and give me a monthly stipend for my daily expenses. It used to be moderate, but good by our financial standings.

Idea, as I see reflecting back, was to provide me with a better life, but one that has to be lived within the means. Looking at the hardships they had to negotiate in their early lives, my parents gave me far more luxuries than most kids in India get.

My mother would ask me to save little bit every month from my pocket money for any eventuality. And I never ever did it. I could never save. It was a tough ask for me. It remains so even now. You can say I am very intemperate when it comes to saving.

But that month had been extravagant on many fronts. Left with only one rupee and a week still to go, I woke up nervous that day, and walked up to my tea stall: Sitaram chaywalla. I visit him even today for a cup of tea and some nostalgia.

I weighed two options on how to spend that last penny: Should I go for a cup of tea or should I buy a one-digit lottery from the vendor right opposite the tea stall and try my luck. Just in case it clicked, I'd have some money to go for the week!

I sat there for about two hours but did not drink tea. Sitaram could sense something was wrong with me that day.

After about two hours, I asked him to give me a full, hot cup of ginger tea. And I felt morally relieved! That tea, believe me, was the best I've had so far in my life.

It was the right and moral way of spending that rupee, I felt, as I resisted the temptation to gamble.

It's one thing to take a calculated risk, and quite another to gamble. At any given time, I would rather take a calculate risk than gamble.

Secondly it was a hard earned penny of my father, and I felt I had no right to spill it over like that. I was suddenly penniless, but my nervousness had gone.

Re-energized with a cup of tea, my mind was back to its senses.

Sitaram, who was like a friend, asked me what the matter was, and I told him frankly that I had run out of my monthly stipend a week before the month ended. I shared with him the dilemma that I faced for two hours, with a hearty laugh.

No sooner did I share with him the story, Sitaram took out from his pocket a bill of Rs 100, and said, you can borrow it from me and return in installments.

"Try to save every month as your mother says, and repay it to me," he said.

I do not know if was proper on my part to take money from him at that point. I could have asked my parents to send me money immediately and they would have done so, even if grudgingly. But I had no second thoughts about it. I took that note from him, and paid him in two equal instalments earnestly.

Sitaram 'chaywalla' is special to me. To him, I remain an equally valued customer to this date, except that he doesn't accept money from me for a cup of tea.

"You've paid your money," is his usual answer. We chat about the changing times, the good and the bad.

Losing a dollar bill at the casino here in the distant land however rekindled that nostalgic moment. It was fun to spend time at the casino, but painful to lose a hard-earned dollar.

I was happy that 16 years ago I had made the right decision.