Kennedy Center Honors The eighth annual Kennedy Center Honors- regarded as one of the most prestigious tributes in the United States- were recently awarded to these six artists by President Reagan at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
Choreographer Merce Cunningham
Soprano Beverly Sills
Comedian Bob Hope
Rebelling against dance as drama, he began to experiment with dance as pure movement in the 1950s. Audiences soon got used to surprises from him and have begun to appreciate his elegance, simplicity and force.
The undisputed queen of American opera retired from singing in 1979 and became the New York City Opera's director. Jn turning the deficit-ridden company around, she has made American opera come alive.
The multifaceted, British-born actor spends whatever free time he has (particularly at Christmas when everyone wants to be home) in entertaining American servicemen 011 duty overseas.
Playwright Alan Jay Lerner
Actress Irene Dunne
Composer Frederick Loewe
Working as a team, he and Frederick Loewe wrote the script and lyrics for some of the most memorable stage and film musicals of the postwar era-including My Fair Lady and Camelot. He has received two Oscars.
Starting as a stage actress, she became a Hollywood star in the 1930s, performing in musicals, dramas and comedies. Among her hits were Roberta, Show Boat, Anna and the King of Siam and Life with Father.
Working in tandem with Lerner, Austria-born Loewe has written the scores for (apart from the shows mentioned in Lerner's caption) Brigadoon, The Day Before Spring and Gigi (which won him the 1973 Tony award).
April 1986
SPAN VOLUME
xxvn
NUMBER
4
2
Literature in a Technological Age by Cleantli Brooks
6
Little Schoolhouse on the Prairie bJ Mark M. Kindle)
11
Social Responsibility Is Good Business by Pe1er F. Dmcker
15
Citizen Lobbyists by Rober/ E. Nanon
16
The Toughest Jobs
20 One Man's Museum by D.N. Varma
22
Celebrating "India!"
26 Focus On ...
28 Engineering the Wind by Broce W. Masi
31
A Pest for Excellence by Arlene R. Scadron
34
Salving Burn Victims by Douglas Hand
38
The Joy of Youth by Moliit Sarya11and
41 On the Lighter Side
42
A River Idyll by Terrence Petty
46
Alone in New York by V.R. Dewka
48
The State of the World 1985 A Re1·iew by Tom A. Tra1·u
Publisher James A. McGinley Editor Warren W. McCurdy Managing Editor
Himadri Dhanda
Assistant Managing Editor
Krishan Gabrani
Senior Editor
Aruna Dasgupta
Copy Editor Editorial Assistant
Nirmal Sharma Rocque Fernandes
PholO Editor
Avinash Pasricha
An Director
Nand Katya!
Associate Art Director Assistant Art Director
Kanti Roy B1manc~h
Roy Choudhury
Chief of Producuon
Awtar S. Marw;iha
Circulation Manager
Y.P. Pandhi
Photographic Service
USIS Photographic Services Unit
Photographs: From cover-courtesy Jagdish and Kamala Mittal Museum of Indian Art, Hyderabad. 1 top-R.K. Sharma; bottomAvinash Pasricha. 2-from Recent·American Works on Paper exhibit at the Sixth Triennale India. 1986, New Delhi. 4-Nand Katya!. 5 top-Painting by Sean O'Sullivan: bottom-courtesy Yale University. 6-7. 10-Bruce McAllister. 11 top center-Brown Brothers; top rightSears Roebuck & Co.; bottom right-Control Data Corp. 14- 15Barry Fitzgerald. 16-Jim McHugh. 17 left-Steve Liss; rightChristopher Little. 18-Thomas S. England. 19 top-Susan T. McElhioney; bottom- Dao Miller. 16- 19-All pictures from People Week/vi ©Time. Inc. 20-Brahmanand Chary. 21, 24-25-courtcsy Jagdish and Kamala Mittal Museum of Indian Art, Hyderabad. 22-Tbe Metropolitan Museum of Art, purchase. Lila Annenberg Hazen Charitable Trust Gift, in honor of Cynthia Hazen and Leon Bernard Polsky. 23 top center-Metropolitan Museum of Art, on loan from a private collection; bonom-Metropolitan Museum of Art, on loan from Mebningarh Museum Trust. Fort. Jodhpur, on loan from His Highness Mahara1a Sri Gaj Singh 11 of Jodhpur. 26 left-Juan Hamilton. 28-courtesy Colorado State University, Fluid Mechanics and Wind Engineenng Program. 31- Arlene Scadron. 35- Avinash Pasricha. 38-40- courtesy Young Ambassadors. Brigham Young Univeristy. 42-43-Clyde H. Smith. 46 left-© Tom Brazil: right- Nick Sidle. both courtesy V.R. Dcvika. Inside back cover top and center- Pete Souza. The White House. Back cover- The White House.
Published by the United States fnformation Service, American Center, 24 Kastu rba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001. on be half of the American Embassy. New Delhi. The opinions expressed m this maga· zine do not necessarily reflect the views o r policies of the U.S. Government. Printed at Thomson Press (India) Limi1ed. Faridabad, Haryana.
u..,
of SPAN ankles an oth<r pubhcatJons is encouraged, c<cept when copyraghted. For pcrm15Sion wnte to the Editor Pracc of magwne. one year's subscription ( 12 issues) Rs. 25~ single copy. Rs. 4. For change of address send an old addrcs.s from • recent SPAN envelope along with new address 10 Circula11on Manag<r. SPAN magazine. 2A Ka<turba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001 Sec change of addrcu form on p;igc 48b
Front cover: "Krishna Lifts Mount Govardhan"- th1s early 18th-century painting on collon was on display at the recent New York exhibition .. India'"· It iio from the Jagdish and Kamala Mittal Museum of Indian Art in Hyderabad. See pages 20-25. Back cover: An orphan in the Fostc:r Grandparents Program in Washington, D.C., gets a hug from Nancy Reagan. one of the project'\ moM enthusiastic supporters. See also inside back cover.
A LETIER FROM THE PUBLISHER U. S. Attorney General Edwin Meese I II came to India last month to discuss the worldwide scourges of drug trafficking and terrorism with the government. During his three-day visit, he met with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, delivering a personal message from President Reagan . Meese also held meetings with Finance Minister V.P. Singh, Home Minister P . V. Narasimha Rao, Law and Justice Minister A. K. Sen and other senior officials . Speaking at a press conference in New Delhi , Meese said t hat India and the United States had agreed to set up a joint working group to fight drug trafficking and terrorism in India . He also said that the United States has passed a new law that will pr ohibit U.S. citizens and foreign nationals from being trained in the use of explosives and automatic weapons within the United States. "We also have been working on the investigation of persons who may be involved in terrorist activities, as well as on immigration control." on drug trafficking, the Attorney General underscored America's resolve to thwart "this illegal commerce that is paid for in human misery." He enumerated several initiatives the United States has taken to d iscourage drug traffickers , such as confiscating property they purchased with illegal funds . Meese also praised India for its progress toward ending this menace within its borders . "We appreciate India's efforts in this and hope to work with it more closely in the future," he said .
* * *
Two years ago, a team of Americans from the National Institute of Handicapped Research was brought to India to work closely with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in drawing up a program to improve the lives of handicapped Indian citizens. After an intense period of touring and assessment, a plan was drafted and subsequently approved by the Ministry, which initiated the program in January 1985. Last month the original drafter of that plan was brought back at the head of a similar team by the Indian Government to see how the plan was prog ress ing and provide assistance in special areas where experience in the rehabilitation field indicated that t echniques or practices might be improved . The comprehensive plan calls for six national r&habi litation centers to be set up around the nation--in Bombay, Calcutta , Cuttack, Lucknow , Madras and Mysore. To help with foreign-currency costs , the institute has provided $1 million over three years ; India has allocated the equivalent of $3 million in rupees . After spending several weeks touring the centers and talking with Indian trainers, the team leader, Or. Lawrence A. Scadden , himself blind, gave SPAN his assessment of the program and its goals. "The progress in the two years since I was last here is phenomenal . Some centers are ahead of others , but Bombay, for example, began in 1983, before the plan was even approved. Services there are being provided at the village level, which is the concept the project started with--that the services should be provided at the lowest level. I don't know of any place else in the world where there is a similar concept . Of course, you cannot train millions of workers substantially to provide comprehensive services . But the Ministry of Health's concept was to train workers who , over six months, receive some training in several aspects of rehabilitation so they can identify the disabled person, determine if the disability is severe or moderat e and, if moderate , perhaps provide services themselves . If the problem is severe , they would notify specialists at the health cente r to come to treat the individual and work with his family, ma king sure they understand the disability a nd can help him receive training for employment. This is the Ministry ' s goal-- to keep them in their villages with their families ." According to Scadden, no rehabilitation program can be successfully implemented without public involvement . "A strong component of the program is to raise the public 's awareness , to make people aware that the physically disabled need not be thought of as a burden on society ." This is being done through many innovative techniques at the rehabilitation centers . "And soon," Scadden added, "th e Ministry will be mounting a multimedia campaign. With transistor radios becoming ubiquitou s in the Indian countryside , the program will reach villagers over the radio, as well as through written and pictorial messages about prevention and ways to get help. The plan is also to use video technology to spread the message by showing films at village fairs and gatherings. We are glad to be associated with this humanita rian work ." --J.A.M.
,_..... 20 2~
':'J
..... 14
Any technological age has difficulty finding a proper role for literature. Still we need the humanities, says the author, to complement our scientific prowess and help us express and understand our innermost hopes and fears. The collage (left) by Jonathan Talbot symbolizes the marriage of the two cultures.
Literature in aTechnological Age by CLEANTH BROOKS
A technological age-especially an extremely brilliant and successful one-has difficulty in finding a proper role for literature. Such a society sees literature as a diversion, as a mere amusement at best; and so it is classed as a luxury, perhaps an added grace to adorn the high culture that the technology itself bas built. Yet such homage obscures the real importance of literature and all of the humanities. Instead of classing them as decorative luxuries, they should be thought of as the necessary complement to our technological and industrial activities. For over a century the problem of the real relation of
2
literature to science, theoretical and applied, has been with us. ln fact , the very development of an industrial society raises the question of the value of literature. In a famous poem, Matthew Arnold tells us how, on Dover Beach, he had listened to the "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" of the outgoing tide , and in it had found an emblem of the ebb tide of religjous faith. Science was clearly destined to become technician-in-chief to civilization, but what about the values by which mankind lived? What was there to take religion's place? Arnold prescribed literature , and especially poetry. Poetry was invulnerable to science, for it had no
From Tht Wilson Q11ar1trly. Autumn 198S. Copyro~ht 1985 by the Woodrow Wilson Inrcrnntoonal Center lor Scholars.
factual underpinning for science to sweep away. "More and more," Arnold wrote in 1880, "mankind will discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us. Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete, and most of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry." With such a concept as this, no wonder that Arnold could claim that "the future of poetry is immense," for in effect he was entrusting to poetry the direction of the whole human enterprise. How has Arnold's prophecy fared? Not so well, I should say. Though our intellectuals are still influenced by poetry, the ordinary citizen is hardly aware of it, and if he were, he would be puzzled by its specifications. He wonders why science, this beneficent magician, cannot tell us what to do as well as how to do it. In any case, he would be utterly baffled by the notion that fictions conceived by the imagination and not tied to the facts of this world could possibly interpret for us the facts of life. I myself believe that, in asking poetry to replace religion and philosophy, Arnold laid upon poetry a burden it cannot possibly bear. As we should expect, the religious intellectuals of our time, such as T.S. Eliot, Walker Percy and Flannery O'Connor, reject the notion altogether. At the other extreme, the fundamentalist man in the pew also instinctively rejects it just as roundly. Yet we owe Arnold a debt for having located the problem rather accurately and for assessing the strain that it had already set up in industrialized Great Britain by the middle of the 19th century. In any case, his suggestions about the role of poetry in modern culture are worth further exploration. They have, I would point out, a peculiar relevance to culture in the United States. Let me indicate why. In the fi rst place, we are a pluralistic society encompassing a number of religious faiths and cultural backgrounds. In the second place, our constitutional separation of church and state forbids the teaching of institutionalized religion in state-supported schools and colleges; yet the problem of the inculcation of ethical standards and ultimate values becomes more and more urgent. It is intensified by such matters as the general breakdown of various traditions, the erosion of the family, the cultural rootlessness of much of our increasingly mobile population and the growing secularism generated by a highly technological civilization. So even if Arnold was wrong in believing that poetry could alone supply our culture with the proper goals, ends, and purposes, it may well be worth considering what poetry and literature in general, can do. Literature at least focuses attention on mankind's purposes, wise or unwise, and upon values for which men and women have Lived and died. In fairness to Arnold, his task 9f analysis was more difficult than ours, for in his day the boundaries of science were not so clearly marked out as they have since become. One of the best concise statements on the Limits of science appeared in 1984 in an article entitled "The Frontiers and Limits of Science," written by Victor F. Weisskopf, a distinguished physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He summed up as follows: " .. .Important parts of human experience cannot be reasonably evaluated within the scientific system. There cannot be an all-encompassing scientific definition of good and evil, of compassion, of rapture, or tragedy or humor, or hate, love, or
faith, of dignity, and humiliation, or of concepts like the quality of life and happiness." In short, it is impossible for science to define for us the quality of happiness that Thomas Jefferson declared was the right of each of us to seek to attain. To have that choice taken away from us either by peer pressure, by the brainwashing of a totalitarian regime, or even by the seductions of our immense advertising industry is to lose some part of our humanity. Computers are programmed by human beings; but human beings move toward the state of computers when they allow themselves to be programmed by other human beings. Accepting, then, the fact that we cannot expect guidance from the hard and objective sciences such as mathematics and physics, what do the humanities offer in the way of guidance? And in any case, how can they make any impression on a society that prides itself on being practical and getting down to the hard facts? An answer to the second question might run like this: A world reduced to hard facts would thereby become a dehumanized world, a world in which few of us would want to live. We are intensely interested in how our fellow human beings behave-in their actions, to be sure, but also in the feelings, motives, purposes that lead them into these actions. The proof is to be found even in the situation comedies of the TV shows or the gossip columns in the magazines and newspapers. We want to know the facts, but we crave the whole story too-its human interest and what we call its meaning. We want meaning and we want wisdom, but those elusive commodities are always in short supply. In the Book of Proverbs we learn that "wisdom crieth ... in the streets," but it goes on to imply that "no man regardeth." If this was the situation several millennia ago, it remains so today. Secretly we may hunger for wisdom, but our overt craving nowadays is, of course, for information. Data banks are much in vogue and they are highly useful, but they are not equipped to pay off in the currency of wisdom. Sometime ago, a New York Times editorial matter-of-factly referred to ours as "the age of information." The poet T.S. Eliot, in choruses from The Rock, makes much the same point, but with a rather different implication: Endless invention, endless experiment, Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness; Knowledge of speech, but not of silence; Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word .... Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The first line quoted involves a serious pun. "Endless" invention and experiment means, of course, unceasing invention and experiment, but "endless" also means "without purpose, goal, or end"-experiment conducted for its own sake, invention carried out merely to be inventive. In Eliot's verse the two diverse meanings actually support and emphasize each other. In this way, poetry is often packed more richly with meaning than is prose. Yet it is important that we understand how wisdom is mediated to us through literature. It had better not be presented didactically. In my boyhood days, as I recall, our scornful retort to an exorbitant demand was "You must want salvation in a jug." Salvation does not come in a jug, nor is wisdom a bottled essence. Of all people, the literary artist must
SPAN APRIL 1986
3
LITERATURE JN A TECHNOLOGICAL AGE cowinued
not seem to be running an old-fashioned medicine show, entertaining us in order to persuade us to buy a product. John Keats, that remarkable poet and very wise young man, put it well: "We hate poetry that bas a palpable design upon us." In a poem entitled "Provide, Provide," Robert Frost has used a cunning device to remove any taint of the didactic. On the surface the poem seems to be giving his reader the same counsel that the villainous Iago gave to his dupe , Roderigo: "Put money in thy purse." Wealth will solve all problems. Frost's poem begins: The witch that came (the withered hag) To wash the steps with pail and rag, Was once the beauty Abishag, The picture pride of Hollywood. Too many fall from great and good For you to doubt the likelihood.
A former movie idol has squandered or perhaps been hilkt"d N her fortune and now ekes out her existence .b 1 'ic:rub woman. Such things do happen to screen beautie5. former 'leavywe1ght boxing champions and even rock star5. But whv Jocs Fro-;t name this woman Abishag? With a certain gnm humor. Robert Frost went to the Bible for his movie star's name. When King David grew old and ill and, even when covered with bedclothes, could not get warm, his servants and his courtiers scoured the whole land to find a beautiful maiden to put into the royal bed to warm the poor old fellow up. The beauty's name was Abishag. But King David still "gat no heat" and was soon gathered to his fathers. The poem continues with Frost's advice to the reader on how to avoid this modern Abishag's fate. But we had better take the whole poem into account for a proper understanding of just how seriously Frost is speaking when he says to his reader: Die early and avoid the fate. Or if predestined to die late, Make up your mind to die in. state. Make the whole stock exchange your own! If need be occupy a throne, Where nobody can call you crone. Some have relied on what they knew; Others on being simply true. What worked for them might work for you. No memory of having starred Atones for later disregard, Or keeps the end from being hard. Better to go down dignified With boughten friendship at your side Than none at all. Provide, provide!
"Go down dignified," "boughten friendship"-these very phrases are instinct with Yankee folk wisdom. Boughten friendship-store-bought friendship we would say in the American South-is cold comfort indeed on one's death bed.
4
SPAN APRIL 1986
Not much warmth in that; still, it's better than nothing at all. In spite of this outward show of worldly wisdom, the poet has hinted of other ways out. He reminds us that some have relied on "what they knew" and others on "being simply true"-on knowledge and integrity. Yet why does he throw into his poem this allusion to the philosophers and the saints only as a kind of afterthought- almost like a man saying: Oh, by the way, I'll just mention this for the sake of the record , though I assume you wouldn't be interested? He does so because the cunning old artist knows that no emphasis often constitutes the most powerful emphasis of all. Poems that nourish the human spirit can be dry and witty like this one rather than exalted and sonorous like the poems of Aeschylus and Milton. The house of poetry has many mansions. William Butler Yeats' "Prayer for My Daughter," a very different kind of poem , also contains wisdom , and even a strain of prophecy. But true to its title, it is content to be a troubled fathe r's prayer for his child . Because of its prophetic character, 1t ma}' he interesting to put it beside John Maynard Keynes' c ... kbrati;d hook. The Economic Consequences of the Peace. Kevncs¡ 1rcatise and Yeats' pol:m were. by the way, both published in 1919. the yearafter the end of the War to E nd All Wars. Keynes foretold the disastrous consequences of the Treaty of Versailles, predicting what would happen under the peace terms to the economy of defeated Germany and the consequent ruin of the rest of Europe. Yeats' focus is on the future of his infant daughter, and he envisages the troubled years through which she must live. Yeats could not and did not specify the terrible happenings ahead, but he correctly sensed the dangers , and today, it is easy for us to name them: the Great Depression , the rise of Hitler, World War 11, the Cold War and the threat of nuclear destruction . The poem tells of a stormy night in the west of Ireland. The wind is howling in off the Atlantic, past the medieval tower in which the poet was then living. As he paces beside the cradle that holds his sleeping child, he tells us: I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower, And under the arches of the bridge, and scream ln the elms above the flooded stream; Imagining in excited reverie That the future years had come, Dancing to a frenzied drum, Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.
In this context, we are likely to associate innocence with the infant daughter, but the poet speaks of the "murderous innocence" of the sea. The phrase may be startling, but it is accurate. When we have in mind the destructiveness of a hurricane or a great earthquake, " murderous" seems a proper adjective, yet we know that there is no murder in the heart of nature-no motivation at all, mere senseless indifference. Indeed, the Bible itself tells us that the rain falls upon both the just and the unjust, and so apparently do the showers of volcanic ash. We have to acquit all of them of guilt. They are innocent by virtue of their sheer mindlessness. Yet we have not done with the word innocence: Late in the poem Yeats will set forth a third kind of innocence, the innocence that is not at all mindless, but the product of love and self-discipline.
What are the gifts that the poet prays his daughter may receive? Beauty, yes, but not so much as to make her vain and haughty. He wishes for her a "glad kindness" and courtesy. These hoped-for endowments he sums up in one concrete image: May she become a flourishing hidden tree That all her thoughts may like the linnet be, And have no business but dispensing round Their magnanimities of sound, Nor but in merriment begin a chase, Nor but in merriment a quarrel. 0 may she live like some green laurel Rooted in one dear perpetual place.
So, as a counter to the destructive wind, the poet proposes the laurel, hidden and sheltered from the blast and firmly rooted in its own "perpetual place." Yet likening his daughter's thoughts to the songs of the linnet perched in the tree, especially when coupled with the father's petition that she may "think opinions are accmsed," is probably calculated to affront every woman. Does Yeats want the girl to grow up to be a pretty little charmer without a thought in her head-to possess no opinion of her own? By no means. Yeats knew his Plato well , and he is here following Plato's distinction between an opinion and an idea. An opinion can claim at best to represent no more than a probability. Absolute truth is to be found only in the divine ideas implanted in the soul, to be recovered by the deepest self-discov'ery. The later stanzas confirm that such is his meaning, for the poet will declare that the worst of evils is the "intellectual hatred" characteristic of an aggressive, opinionated mind, and that if the soul can rid itself of all hatred, it "recovers radical innocence" and finds ... that it is self-delighting, Self-appeasing, self-affrighting, And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will; She can, though every face should scowl And every windy quarter howl Or every bellows burst, be happy still.
Here the earlier figure of the laurel tree , "rooted in one dear perpetual place," is still very much alive in the poem. Consider the phrase "a radical innocence," for radical comes from the Latin radix, a root, and a radical innocence is not merely a basic or essential innocence, but one that is rooted deep in the soul. Why the poet's reference, however, to "bellows" in the last line of the stanza? "Or every bellows burst; be happy still"? Because the poet wants here to give the scourging wind a human reference. The aggressive , opinionated person imitates the destructive wind by pumping his own malice out of a mind full of hate. Earlier in the poem, the poet had remarked that he had himself seen the "loveliest woman born/Out of the mouth of Plenty's horn"-that is, out of the very cornucopia of richness-a woman dowered with all the gifts that nature could give her, "because of her opinionated mind" exchange them "for an old bellows full of angry wind!" This is a bitter lament
for what Yeats believed has happened to Maud Gonne, the woman he had loved so passionately earlier in his life. In the concluding stanza of the poem, Yeats turns his thoughts to the kind of bridegroom he could wish for his daughter. He prays that whoever he may be, he will . . . bring her to a house Where all's accustomed, ceremonious; For arrogance and hatred are the wares Peddled in the thoroughfares. How but in custom and in ceremony Are innocence and beauty born? Ceremony's a name for the rich horn, And custom for the spreading laurel tree.
We miss the point and vulgarize this noble poem if we read the last stanza as a prayer for a wealthy son-in-law. The authoritative words are "accustomed" and "ceremonious." These qualities have nothing to do with conspicuous display, or even the possession, of wealth. A word to which I would call your attention once more is innocence. Beauty and innocence, which we usually assume are the random gifts of nature, are in fact, so the poet insists here, born out of ceremony. Ceremony is the true horn of plenty, and the laurel tree, which can withstand the storms of history, is custom. This indeed is to invert our usual notions. For bodily beauty- Yeats again is borrowing from Plato-is the outward reflection of a beautiful soul. Innocence here is the fruit of the disciplined soul that has come truly to understand itself. Such a person is incapable of harming anyone. So the term innocence is here neither the babe's lack of experience nor the blind indifference of nature, but the soul's clear-eyed mastery of experience and of itself. Perhaps this is the kind of wise innocence to which great literature may return us if we can learn how to read it. The poem is not didactic in any scboolmasterisb sense. Perhaps this is just the value of poetry and of literature in general: It lets us observe and overhear men and women .as they choose, make decisions, or express their inmost hopes and fears. That in itself is a service of the utmost importance, for we can learn from the experience of others. The conflict within the heart- the tug between two loyalties, two evils, or what appear to be two equally precious goods- is probably the most instructive of all. Sophocles' Antigone and his Oedipus, Shakespeare's Othello, Macbeth and Mark Antony, are only a few of an illustrious company. They are not properly called role models, for they represent failure as well as triumph , and for most of us any direct imitations of them would be out of the question. But an acquaintance with them through literature provides something far better than simple imitation. The way they live and choose to die tests the human spirit to its limits. Through the magic of language, their creators can pass on something of their experience to us. 0 About the Author: Cleanth Brooks, a former cultural attache at the U. S. Embassy in London, is Gray Professor Emeritus of Rhetoric at Yale University. Among his books are Modern Poetry and the Tradition (1939) , The Well-Wrought Um (1947) and, with Robert Penn Warren, Understanding Poetry (1938). This essay is excerpted from the Jefferson Lecture he gave last year.
SPAN APRIL 1986
5
Little Schoolhouse on the Prairie Text by MARK M. KINDLEY
Photographs by BRUCE McALLISTER
Even as the few remaining one-room schools turn to computers in an attempt to modernize, educators are discovering some solid oldfashioned virtues in these small-town schools.
6
SPAN APRIL 1986
"There are two things I don't like," he says. "One is language, another is spelling." He pauses deep in thought, rooting in the soft sand next to the back steps of the school while he considers the weight of responsibility thrust upon him. " I guess there's three things ... reading. I don't like reading. Things I like are recess and lunch . Oh, and one other thing," says first-grader Bobby Vahrenkamp, "going home." The idea of a one-room school doesn't make Bobby think of bygone days. It doesn't evoke a charming image of the good old days when life was somehow simpler . It looks like a lot of hard work to him. Bobby's school, District 167, is 80 kilometers from the town of Valentine in Cherry County, Nebraska, the last 15 kilometers on a narrow , seasonably unreliable sand road. The school looks like an
Reprinted from the Smith.roman ma.g:wnc.
Above: This one-room school in Cherry County, Nebraska, has four students and one teacher; over 350 of the 800 one-room schools in the United States are in Nebraska.
Above: Teacher Marilyn Graham with threequarters of her student body. Left: One of her students, first-grader Adam Weber, is all concentration during a math session.
outbuilding at a ranch and is big enough for only one room. You can spot it from a distance by the American flag flying above the Nebraska flag when school is in session. I visited several one-room schools in Cherry County and I never did find yesteryear. None of the students I met considers himself or herself quaint. One-room schools in this part of the country could be called "appropriate technology. " Several have computers. All have access to the most up-to-date audiovisual equipment and a countywide library. One-room schools are part of the heritage of the United States, and the mention of them, to those who don't have the
benefit of Bobby's first-hand experience, makes people feel a vague longing for "the way things were." For the students and teachers who attend one-room schools, however, being remembered fondly is an uncomfortable irony. They face a variation of Mark Twain's famous remark. One-room schools are not memories yet. Reports of their demise are premature. They are an endangered species, however. For more than a hundred years, one-room schools have been systematically shut down and their students sent away to centralized schools. As recently as 1930 there were 149,000 one-room schools in the United States. By 1950
Copyright
Š
1985 Mark M. Kindley.
SPAN APRIL 1986
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LITTLE SCHOOLHOUSE continued
their number had been reduced to 60,000. By 1960 there were 20,000. By 1970 there were 1,800. Of the nearly 800 remaining one-room schools, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, more than 350 are in Nebraska. The rest are scattered through South Dakota, California, Wyoming, North Dakota, Alaska, Washington, Vermont and a few other states that have wideopen spaces between towns. Now that there are hardly any left, educators are beginning to think that maybe there is something yet to be learned from one-room schools, something that served the pioneers that might serve as well today. Progressive educators have come up with progressivesounding names like "peer-group teaching" and "multi-age grouping" for educational procedures that occur naturally in the one-room school. In a one-room school the children teach each other because the teacher is busy part of the time teaching someone else. A fourth-grader can work at a fifth-grade level in math and a third-grade level in English without the stigma associated with being left back or the pressures of being skipped ahead. A youngster with a learning disability can find his own level without being segregated from the other kids. In the more progressive suburban schools today, this is called "mainstreaming the handicapped. " A few hours in the classroom and it becomes clear why so many parents feel that one of the advantages of living in Cherry County, Nebraska, is that your children have to go to a one-room school. Teacher Wanda Nielsen calls the students to her desk one at a time. It's Bobby's tum. He is fidgeting, sitting with one leg folded under him on the oak chair across the table from Nielsen, cradling his head in an agony of concentration. Nielsen sits with her index finger over her mouth as if she is barely containing a smile. She has four childern of her own. They attend District 5, a two-room, twoteacher school about five kilometers away. Having only seven students sounds like an easy assignment for the teacher until you think about the preparation necessary to teach seven courses to each one each day. Nielsen progresses through the About the Author: Mark M. Kindley, who writes frequently for Smithsonian magazine, reports that his mother attended a one-room school in Vermont.
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day with the indomitable determination of an endurance swimmer swimming upstream. She is always being interrupted , yet the schedule never is. She answers countless questions, settles all disputes, wrestles with Bobby's attention and somehow always manages to keep moving ahead through the lessons. The kids help, the older ones teaching the younger ones arithmetic or reading, the younger ones teaching the older ones patience. While Bobby struggles at the front desk, fourth-grader Jess Ravenscroft carries his workbook over to Jimmy Wolfenden's desk and plops it down unceremoniously on top of Jimmy's book. Jimmy is in eighth grade. He knows the answer to Jess' questions, but he's also learned a few things about teaching. He
"I don't think you could find a better education unless you went back to Plato and Socrates." points out what Jess needs to read to find the answer for himself. "You're no help ," Jess complains in a whisper, dragging his book back to his own desk. "I'm not supposed to give you the answers," Jimmy whispers back. He should know. All his school days have been spent in this one room. He has been driving himself and his brother and sister to school (along back roads that cut across his parents' and neighbors' ranches) since he was nine. Tammy, now in seventh grade, and Shayne, in sixth, will share the driving next year when Jimmy will begin high school at a boarding school in Central City, Nebraska, 300 kilometers away. Graduation from elementary school here usually means moving away from home. Many students like Jimmy will go to boarding schools around the state. Others will board with relatives in Valentine so they can attend high school there , returning home on weekends. Often , mothers of ninth graders will take apartments in Valen tine to be with their sons or daughters. Commuting every day to school is impossible, especially in the winter, when blizzards sweep down from Canada, and in the spring, when the roads turn to quicksand. The one-room schools in this part of the country make it
possible for families to stay together at least through eighth grade. If District 167 were closed, Bobby and his classmates would have to leave home to go to elementary school. Cherry County has fewer than 7 ,000 residents. Valentine, the county seat, has about 2,500. The next largest town, Wood Lake, has around 250. There¡ is one section in Cherry County where there are no towns of any size at all. All that open space stands between the people here and the world outside. It isolates and, in certain ways, protects them. Ranch families don't have some of the advantages that city dwellers like to boast about. They don't have a symphony orchestra or an art museum. But they don't have some of the disadvantages of city life, either. There is no poverty here. You either own a ranch, work on a ranch or you move to town. The students do well. Nebraska, with the greatest number of one-room schools, ranks fourth on standardized achievement tests compared with other states. The high school in Valentine, which draws about a quarter of its students from one-room schools, ranks above average within Nebraska. Each year almost 70 percent of its graduates go to college. The teachers in one- or two-room schools have the same prerequisites as the town teachers, although they are paid less. All the students have the same textbooks and curriculum, provided through the foresight of the Sawyer Memorial Library, set up in 1939 to standardize education in the county. There is a bookmobile that makes the rounds of all the schools regularly. The Education Services Unit in Valentine makes audiovisual equipment available whenever schools need it. "Basically, we're like one big school here, with a lot of space between the classrooms," says county superintendent John Carr. "I don't think you could find a better education unless you went back to Plato and Socrates and the days when you had tutors. " Carr is a big man in his mid-50s. He looks a little like a bear in a terry-cloth shirt. "I'm an old football coach," he says. "I should say I'm an ex-football coach." Carr likes to be described as cantankerous. He describes himself as bullheaded, a personality trait that gets exercised in his job. "It's damned inconvenient to educate your kids here," Carr says. "You can't take anything for granted. You have to
see to it all yourself. For that reason, I think, people here care a lot about education. They care about it because they pay attention to it. They have to." Cherry County is in the heart of the Sand Hills, 50,000 square kilometers of grass-covered sand dunes formed 7 ,000 to 1,500 years ago by winds blowing over the beds of dead rivers. The Sand Hills have been compared to the Great Eastern Erg of the north central Saharaexcept for the water. There is an estimated 70 million hectare-meters of water stored beneath the dunes. More than 1,600 small lakes are scattered throughout the region. A number of rivers, including the North and Middle Loup and the Niobrara, drain the Sand Hills. Ranchers used to avoid the hills until the late 1870s when a group of cowboys ventured into the dread "choppies"trackless areas of low dunes-after some lost stock that had strayed ther~. The cowboys expected to find little more than bleached bones and blowing sand. What they found were herds of cattle that had been wandering into the bills for years. The cattle had clearly prospered on the high-protein grass that covers the hills and had, no doubt, enjoyed the absence, until then, of cowboys. Since then this has always been ranchland. The Sand Hills are beautiful, open country with rolling hills and tree-lined rivers. The sunsets alone are worth the 200-kilometer drive up from the nearest airport in North Platte. People don't live here just because it is a long way from town. Superhighways, microwave dishes, feeder airlines, computer modems, the wing plow and four-wheel-drive station wagons have made the distance between rural America and urban America more a matter of choice than geography. Kate Fullerton looks like a pioneer woman. She has the kind of commonsense, and unflappable nature that won the West. But there are a few telltale hints of her Eastern upbringing. She wears scrimshaw earrings and she talks too fast to be a Cherry County native. Kate was born and raised in New Bedford, Massachusetts. She came to Cherry County as a student teacher expecting to have an adventure out West .before settling down in the suburbs back East. While she was here she met Jerry Joe Fullerton, married him and now returns to New Bedford only for Christmas and special occasions.
Kate has seen the city, but she has chosen the country. She teaches in District 100, a one-room school about 25 kilometers from Valentine. "I like it here," she says. "I like being a teacher in a one-room school. I like driving the bus, doing the cooking, being the janitor. I like having responsibility for the whole shebang." What Kate doesn't volunteer about her drive in the morning is that it's in the wrong direction. She lives in the small town of Cody and drives the bus through Valentine on school mornings, picking up her students on the way out of town. Some might say that the children could as easily travel in the other direction and go to elementary school in town. Kate and her four pupils hope they won't. Most of the one-room schools in the United States are in extremely remote areas where there are no other schools within commuting distance. Schools like Kate's that are within commuting distance of centralized schools exist in a kind of no-man's-land between cultures. The students, parents and teachers who support them have a choice. They can have the elementary school in town with the gymnasium, the marching band and enough youngsters to field a baseball team. But they prefer the one-room school. Unfortunately, in most cases the one-room school is not a choice they get to make. They live constantly under the threat of closure and worry all the time about the fate of their schools. Tacitly accepting that people in cities have more authority than people who live in the country-whether it's true or not- defenders of one-room schools try not to call attention to themselves almost as a matter of policy, although it's not very effective. County superintendent Mary Lee Timperley of Stanton County, Nebraska, says many teachers in oneroom schools delay asking for muchneeded repairs for fear that their requests will be used as an excuse to close down the schools altogether. "Rural schools," she says, "are treated as though they are always about to be phased out." Those who want to close one-room schools used to say that rural students were disadvantaged and consolidation was for their own good. Students from one-room schools do as well or better on standardized tests than those from larger schools, however, thereby disarming the "disadvantaged" argument. The argu-
ment for consolidation now is that oneroom schools are too expensive-a distinctly less generous motivation , although perhaps a more persuasive one. At a one-room school I visited in Belvidere Center, Vermont, the equivalent cost per student (there were 24) was $3,200 a year. The national average is just over $2,900 per child and some school districts near Belvidere Center hold their schools to a penurious $1,700. By itself, the cost discrepancy is not an insurmountable problem. The taxpayers in Belvidere Center pay the additional cost because they have decided it's money well spent. "Studies show that small schools exist where people can afford them," says Faith Dunne, associate professor of education at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Dunne has conducted a comprehensive survey of small rural schools in America. "Where there is a choice," Dunne says, "people choose to keep the small schools." As more one-room schools are closed, it's getting harder to see what's being lost and easier to Jose it. For those who are closing them, nostalgia, like some seductive narcotic, makes it almost painless, almost inevitable. But others see the one-room school as a symbol of what's good about rural life. It was the place where rural culture was forged; without it they fear their culture will vanish Uke an early morning dream. Teacher Marilyn Graham at District 31 in Cherry County is from Lodgepole, Nebraska, a small farming community in the western part of the state. This is her first year at this school, ter third year in Cherry County. She went to Chadron State College where she met her husband John (Neil) Graham at a rodeo. Neil teaches grades six, seven and eight at the middle school in Valentine. Altogether he has almost 150 students in his classes. Marilyn ¡ teaches kindergarten through eighth grade. She has four students. Marilyn makes the rounds of her pupils' desks as they work. The sound of typing comes from a back room where eighth-grader Travis Sears taps away hesitatingly. Travis is also studying the food groups and, as part of that lesson, he is preparing tacos for everyone. I recognize the same uninterruptible pace here as in District 167. A kind of group imperative seems to hold each youngster to his or her lessons. There is
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9
UTILE SCHOOLHOUSE continued
no anonymity to skulk away to in a school her. His best subject appears to be that is little bigger than a fair-sized living talking. Among other topics, Adam talks room. But it's not just the diminutive size about his younger brother, Andy. "Wait of the school that should get the credit. until Andy gets here," Adam warns. These are children who have been doing "He's a real stinko." There is no language lab here. No chores as long as they can remember. They learn discipline on the ranch and band, no baseball stadium, no hot water. they practice it in school. All the students But there are a few things here that larger are working ahead of their grade level, schools don't have. When Marilyn works Marilyn says. Second-grader Joe Sears, with the children individually, they sit Travis' younger brother, for example, is together on the couch under the windows doing double-digit multiplication which is where the afternoon light comes in behind them. Travis cleans up after his usually introduced in fourth grade. Kindergartner Jill Fleming is making culinary exercise with the food groups an illustrated dictionary and, in the pro- (brother Joe described the tacos as cess, getting to know glue. Adam Weber, "yucky" and then had seconds and in the first grade, has the desk next to thirds). Adam continues his nonstop monologue. And occasionally, Jill bursts A mobile library makes its f ormighcly trip out singing. Outside is the wind and a D gray Nebraska sky. to a one-room school in Nebraska.
ocial Resaonsibilitr is GooH Business by PETER F. DRUCKER
In this thoughtful essay on the role of business in society, Peter Drucker (above) argues that "the social responsibility of business is to turn a social problem into economic opportunity, into well-paid jobs, and into wealth." Two American businessmen of the early 20th century who best represented this philosophy, according to the renowned management expert, were Andrew Carnegie (above, center), who believed that "the sole purpose of being rich is to give away money"; and Julius Rosenwald (above, far right), who believed that "you have to be able to do good to do well." Today, this credo is best symbolized by William C. Norris (right), the founder of Control Data Corporation, who "sees the solution ofsocial problems and the satisfaction of social needs as opportunities for profitable business."
GOOD BUSINESS continued
n the early years of this century, two Americans, independently and probably without knowing of each other, were among the first business leaders to initiate major community reforms. Andrew Carnegie financed the free public library. Julius Rosenwald fathered the county farm agent system and adopted the infant "4-H Clubs" for rural youth (4-H: Head, Heart, Hands, Health). Carnegie- the founder of U.S. Steel Corporation-was already retired from business as one of the world's richest men. Rosenwald , who had recently bought a near-bankrupt mail-order firm called Sears, Roebuck & Company, was only beginning to build his business and his fortune. Both men were radical innovators. The monuments that earlier business leaders had erected were cultural: museums, opera houses, universities, In Carnegie's and Rosenwald's time. the leading American businessmen-A. Leland Stanford, Henry E. Huntington, J.P. Morgan, Henry C. Frick and, a little later, Andrew Mellon-followed this tradition. Carnegie and Rosenwald instead built communities and citizens-their performance, their competence and their productivity. The two men held basically different philosophies. Carnegie shouted his from the housetops: The sole purpose of being rich is to give away money. God, Carnegie asserted, wants us to do well so that we can do good. Rosenwald-modest, publicity-shy unassuming- never preached; but his deeds spoke louder than his words. "You have to be able to do good to do well," was Julius Rosenwald's credo, a far more radical one than that of the anarchist steel master from Pittsburgh. Carnegie believed in the social responsibility of wealth. Rosenwald believed in the social responsibility of business. Rosenwald saw the need to develop the competence, productivity and income of the still desperately poor and backward American farmer. Although his motives were partially philanthropic, he saw that Sears, Roebuck's prosperity was linked to the prosperity of its main customer, the farmer, which in turn depended on his productivity. The county farm agent (for almost a decade, Sears, Roebuck singlehandedly supported this innovation of Rosenwald's, until the U.S. Government finally took it over) and the 4-H Clubs were clearly philanthropy. But they were also Sears, Roebuck's corporate advertising, public relations and, above all, market and customer development. Their success partially explains how the near-bankrupt Sears, Roebuck became within ten years America's first truly national retailer and one of its most profitable and fastest growing enterprises. After World War 11 , another American businessman developed yet another approach to social responsibility. William C. Norris, the founder and chairman of Control Data Corporation, sees the solution of social problems and the satisfaction of social needs as opportunities for profitable business. He, too, is a philanthropist motivated by concern for others. He picks his projects (training and employment in the inner-city ghetto, rehabilitation and training of prisoners, the education of problem learners) by social need rather than by market demand. But he directs his investment and his corporation's human resources where information handling and data processing can create a business that , while solving a problem, will become self-sustaining and profitable.
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Copyright 1985 by Peter F. Drucker.
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Like Carnegie's philanthropy and Rosenwald's community development, Norris' investments in social needs aim at creating human capital in the form of individuals capable of performance and of a healthy community able to help itself. But Norris' social enterprises also aim at creating economic capital. Carnegie's public libraries were strictly philanthropy, although they did create opportunities for individual self-development. Rosenwald's community projects were not business ventures. However much they benefited Sears, Roebuck, they did so indirectly. They were good business. farsighted investments in market development , but not themselves business. Norris' good works or excursions into social problem solving are investments in new profitmaking businesses, in a stricter sense. He is an entrepreneur. In their view of social responsibility, much of American business and the American public still follow Carnegie, accepting as he did that wealth and economic power entail responsibility for the community. The rich man as social reformer, Carnegie's innovation, established a uniquely American institution: the philanthropic foundation. One after another, the super-rich, from John D. Rockefeller to Henry Ford, followed Carnegie's example. And Carnegie also set the tone for what is now known as the social responsibility of business, a phrase that has become exceedingly popular. But in the years to come, the most needed and effective approach to corporate social responsibility will be that exemplified by Norris and Control Data. Only if business learns how to convert the major social challenges facing developed societies today into novel and profitable business opportunities can we hope to surmount these challenges in the future. Government, increasingly looked to in recent decades to solve these problems, cannot be depended upon alone, because the demands on government are outrunning the resources that it is politically realistic for it to tap from the private sector. Social problems can be solved only if the solutions in themselves create new capital, which can then be tapped to initiate the solutions to new social problems. Fundamental changes tn technology and society have changed the nature of social needs. Today we are very conscious of technological change. Few people realize that what is actually changing is the very concept of technology. Technology is switching from a mechanical to what might be called an organic model, organized around information rather than around mechanical energy. In the age of the mechanical model, in the last 300 years, human skill increasingly became the productive human resource-one of the greatest advances in human history. This development reached its culmination in this century, when mass production converted the laborer into the semiskilled worker. But in an age in which information is becoming the organizing energy, the human resource is knowledge. Demographic changes may be even more important. Fortunately , the educational explosion of the last 50 years in all developed countries coincided with the shift in technology. In the developed countries, many young people now undergo formal schooling beyond secondary school, developing the human resources needed to make the new techno logy operational and productive. ln turn. technology creates the employment opportunities for the new work force of the developed countries.
It is the conjunction of the shift in technology and demographics that creates the social needs that business will have to learn to transform into opportunities. Developed countries are facing a situation for which there is in recent economic history. We will have growing parallel no labor shortages and, at the same time, growing unemployment. A large and growing share of the new entrants into the labor force will have sat in school too long to be interested in traditional manual , "blue-collar," production work. By 1982, the proportion of Americans who entered the civilian labor force with only an elementary school education was down to about 3 percent. The proportion who entered with only a high school education was down to 50 perce nt. And the trend is most unlikely to be reversed. This means that the basic employment problem of every developed country is to create challenging, satisfying and well-paid jobs for people with so much schooling that they arc qualified only for putting knowledge to work. It also means that demand for capital formation in the developed countries will go up rapidly. At the same time, there will be redundancies of workers in traditional blue-collar employment. In developed countries, traditional blue-collar manual labor will simply not be economical. This is in part because work based on information, whether this be called automation or data processing, will have so much greater value added per unit of effort. Whatever processes can be automated-that is, shifted to an information base- must be automated. Otherwise, industry cannot compete , especially with the abundant low-cost labor resources of the Third World. or the transition period, the next 25 years, there will be highly visible and highly concentrated populations of traditional blue-collar workers who have nothing to offer except skill or, more often, scmiski ll. That there will at the same time be some shortages (because so many entrants into the labor force will have too much education to be interested in blue-collar jobs) will not help these workers. They will not be where the shortages are and will not have the skills the available jobs demand. Unless the United States succeeds in bridging the gap between labor shortages in manufacturing and unemployment in manufacturing-which may coexist even within the same geographic area, but will be particularly sharp between different sections of the country, different industries and different wage levels-the nation will be in grave danger. Inste~d of promoting the new information-based industries and their employment, which fit the needs and qualifications of the young population , economic policy will focus on maintaining yesterday's employment. America will, in other words, be sorely tempted to follow the example of Britain and sacrifice tomorrow on the altar of yesterday-to no avail , of course. Government cannot tackle this problem , let alone solve it. It is a problem for the entrepreneur who sees in the available labor surplus an opportunity. Government can provide money; the best examples are probably the retraining grants of the Federal Republic of Germany, which now amount to 2 percent of the German gross national product but, according to some German estimates, save as much as four times the amount in unemployme nt and welfare benefits. But the actual training, to
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be effective , has to be focused on a specific job the individual can be assured of getting once he or she reaches the required skill level. By its very nature, government focuses on large groups rather than on this person with his or her specific skills, background and needs. Also, the new jobs are like ly to be in small and local rather than in big and national business. Since about 1960, unprecedented growth in the American labor force and e mployment has occurred. The great majority of all new jobs (between two-thirds and three-quarters) has been created in the private sector, not in large , let alone giant, companies, but in businesses employing 20 employees or fewer. During this period, employment in long-established, large-scale manufacturing companies actually declined by 5 percent. And since 1970, the formerly rapid increase in government employmentfederal, state and local- has leveled off. Finding workers about to become redundant, identifying their strengths, finding new jobs for them and retraining them (and often the new skills needed are social rather than technical) are tasks to be done locaJly and thus are business opportunities. But unless redundancy is seen systematically as an opportunity, above all by existing businesses with the know.ledge and capital to act, we will suffer an ever-worsening problem that threatens the future of any developed economy, and especially the American economy. Most people who discuss social responsibility, including its opponents, would be exceedingly suspicious of any business leader who asserts, as William Norris does, that it is the purpose of business to do well by doing good. To those hostile to business, who believe that profit is a ÂŤrip-off," this would appear the grossest hypocrisy. But even to those who are probusiness and who demand, as Carnegie did , that business, the rich man, give alms and become a philanthropist, doing good in order to do well would not be acceptable. It would convert what is seen as virtue into self-interest. And for those who counsel business to leave social problems and issues. to the proper authorities-which, in fact , means to government-the self-interest of business and the public good are seen as two separate spheres. But in the next decade, it will become increasingly important to stress that business can discharge its social responsibilities only if it converts them into selfinterest-that is, into business opportunities. The first social responsibility of business in the next decade will be one not mentioned in the discussion of the social responsibilities of business today. It is the increasingly important responsibility of creati ng the capital that alone can fin ance tomorrow's jobs. The shift from the mechanical model of technology to the organic model will require a substantial increase in capital formation. In fact, the oldest and perhaps the only valid definition of economic progress is the shift to jobs requiring more capital investment per worker. The demand for capital formation will be as great as the demand was 100 years ago, when today's industries emerged . There will be equal need for a surplus to pay for the research and development needed when technology, as well as the world economy and society, is rapidly changing. But what does "capital formation" actually mean , especially in a modern society in which the traditional incentives to personal savings have largely been eliminated? Different countries have different savings habits-with America tradi-
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JJ
GOOD BUSINESS continued
"Rising income levels for wage-earning families do not materially increase the savings rate. Jn a modern economy the main source of capital formation is business profits." tionally fairly low in its savings rates. Savings rates in all countries tend to go down with two factors: an increase in the proportion of the population past retirement age, who as a rule do not tend to save but primarily consume, and the degree to which social security takes care of the risks and contin,gencies for which individuals traditionally save. One example is the United States, where savings rates have gone down in direct proportion to both the aging of the population and the extension of social services to cover such risks as retirement, illness and unemployment. Another is Japan. In the last ten years, the savings rate in Japan has been going down steadily, although it is still high. urthermore , we now have conclusive proof that rising income levels for wage-earning families do not materially increase the savings rate. We know that new consumer needs, rather than investment , take over. As a result, in a modern economy the main source of capital formation is business profits. Indeed , we now know that the term "profit" is a misunderstanding. There are only costs-costs of the past and costs of the future, the costs of economic, social and technical change, and the costs of tomorrow's jobs. Present revenues must cover both , and both are like ly to go up sharply in the next 20 years. The first social responsibility of business, then, is to make enough profit to cover the costs of the future. If this social responsibi lity is not met, no other social responsibility can be met. Decaying businesses in a decaying economy are unlikely to be good neighbors. good employers, or socially responsible in any way. When the demand for capital grows rapidly, surplus business revenues available for noneconomic purposes, especially for philanthropy, cannot possibly go up. They are, in fact, almost certain to shrink. This argument will not satisfy those who believe that today's business leader should become the successor to yesterday's prince, a delusion to which businesspersons, unfortunately, are themselves only too susceptible. But princes were able to be benefactors because they first took it away-of course, mostly from the poor. There are also those, again especially among businesspersons , who feel that to convert problems into business opportunities is not particularly romantic. They see business as the dragon-slayer and themselves as St. Georges on white chargers. But the proper social responsibility of business is to tame the dragon-that is , to turn a social problem into economic opportunity, into productive capacity, into human competence, 0 into well-paid jobs, and into wealth.
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About the Author: Peter F. Drucker is professor of social science and management at the Claremont Graduate School and professor emeritus of management at the Graduaie School of Business at New York University. His recent books include The Changing World of the Executive and Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
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Citizen Lobbyists by ROBERT E. NORTON
Even in a day when lobbying has gone corporate and become Washington's secondbiggest business after government, citizen lobbyists who take literally their constitutional right to petition Congress can be found working the halls of the U.S. House of R epresentatives and the Senate. Pushing causes in which they feel a deep personal interest, they spend their own money and work alone. No one keeps track of citizen lobbyists, but in every session of Congress dozens become familiar figures as they trudge from office to office. A few make their mark , influencing policy on such major issues as the tax rate on capital gains and the structure of the whole tax system. Zeal helps. Five years ago 44-year-old Dallas housewife and sculptor Miley Busick got an idea for a gold coin that, she says, "would express all the good things America stands for." She produced a design depicting a family of eagles gripping an olive branch and set off for Washington , making hundreds of calls at congressional offices. In 1981 and 1983, her proposal got into bills that were introduced but didn't go anywhere. Last year the House specifically approved her design for a new U.S. gold coin when it passed antiapartheid measures, including a ban on South African Krugerrands. But Busiek may have to climb the Capito l HiJI again. In imposing his own South African sanctions, President Reagan did not mention Busiek's design , though he ordered the Treasury to study issuing new gold coins. Influencing Congress can be expensive and snail-slow. John Perry, 68, a Palm Beach millionaire who sold his chain of Florida newspapers 16 years ago, says he has spent $7 million since the late 1970s lobbying for what he calls a "national dividend plan ." H e would freeze government spending for five years. O nce the budget is balanced , surplus corporate tax receipts would go into a trust fund and be paid out as tax-free profit-snaring dividends to each U.S. voter. Corporate taxes would stay at the present 46 percent top rate until the deficit is eliminated , and then drop to around 40 percent. Perry figures that Americans would get as much as $1,000 a year each and be inspired to oppose government spending and favor high corporate profits. Congressman William V. Alexander Jr., an Arkansas D emocrat. sponsored a bill embodying Perry's proposal in 1980. Early last year, Perry's bill was reintroduced in the House and drew 25 cosponsors. In July, Perry testified before the H ouse Ways and Means Committee.
Reprinted Crom Fommt. Copyri~hl
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Success as a lobbyist helped Ed Zschau reach Capitol Hill-as a Congressman fro m California. At left, Zschau with his wife; above, in his Washington office.
Los Angeles CPA lCertified Public Accountant] Harvey Goldstein grew vexed at seeing rich clients stuff money into unproductive tax shelters while his small-business customers were starved for capital. He decided that a simple change in the tax code, permitting individuals to claim deductions for cash investments in small businesses, would turn small businesses into tax shelters. He started lobbying three years ago and got the idea written into a bill a year later, but so green was Goldstein that he ensured inaction by lining up a Republican sponsor in the Democratic Ho use and a Democratic sponsor in the Republican Senate . Since then Goldstein has honed his lobbying skills. He plans a big push for his tax shelter idea this year. Some citizen lobbyists get Potomac fever. Ed Zschau, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, became convinced that punitive capital gains tax rates were stifling venture capital. He took his case to Washington seven years ago and lobbied a bill through Congress in 1978, cutting the maximum capital gains rate that is actually paid from 49 percent to 28 percent. Zschau got elected to Congress on the Republican ticket three years later, going so far as to write his own "name recognition" song. (Simple couplet: "Z-s-c-h-a-u ./ If he can spell it , so can you. ") Now Zschau may try for a seat in the Senate. Once a citizen lobbyist gets rolling, there's no te lling where he might wind up. 0 About the Author: Robert E. Norton is n Washingtonbased reporter fo r Fortune magazine.
1985 Time. Inc. All ri~hlS reserved.
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15
The Toughest Jobs
The toughest jobs are also the unusual ones. Most of them appeal to the lone-wolf species, though some are inflicted upon gentle people by nature, like that of mothering quadruplets. Six of the toughest are described here, except yours of course.
Snndy Decker. Certified Publie Accountmd and mom She's given up her sports car and put away her antiques. She's quit shopping for stylish clothes, and the very idea of working out at a health club makes her giggle. At the end of a day, after snuggling her quadruplets-Elyss a , Jessica , Jeffrey and Anna, all age 1- into their jammies and off to sleepyland, Sandy Decker simply collapses in the gigantic playpen that used to be the living room of her San Fernando Valley home. Then she utters a heartfe lt sigh: Thank God they now sleep through the night. This time last year,
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Decker confesses, "It was constant baby. One would wake up every two hours, and just as I would get one back to sleep , another would wake up and another and another. " A single mother and a CPA with her own firm , Decker rises at 6 a.m. to change all four. A babysitter, who arrives around 8 a.m. , feeds them, and Decker returns for dinner and bedtime. Quadrupling everything is also hard financially. "No matter how much money there is, with four babies to buy for , there is never enough. "
Reprinted from People Weekly.
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1985 Time. Inc.
Lauren Hauser. ballerina Twelve hours a day, six days a week, seven months a year, for the past ten years, Lauren Hauser, 27, has been on her toes. She is one of the corps of the New York City Ballet, and the toes show it. "Ugh," the 52-kilogram , 1.45-meter ballerina says as she reveals her gnarled feet. "They're so ugly." The callouses, bumps , corns and blister scars all testify to years of class,
Riek Sullivan_ tower climber Once a year, around 2:00 in the morning, the observant Chicago resident, looking carefully at the Sears Tower, would see the lonely figure of Rick Sullivan perched on the antennae of the world's loftiest building, 500 meters above the Windy City. He chooses the wee hours because the seven million watts of radio and TV waves emitted during the day are turned off or drastically reduced. Every year Sullivan, 32, scales hundreds of structuresamong them smoke stacks, ships and television towers-to service or change the lights. An employee of Flash Technology-a Nashua, New Hampshire, company-Sullivan is paid $30,000 a year, and his assignments take him all over the world. H e estimates he has scaled a third of a million meters in his ten-year career, in temperatures ranging from minus 6.7-degree C during a Minnesota gale to 43.3-degree C in Oklahoma. "I've made some mistakes," admits Sullivan, who has been knocked unconscious, suffered electric shock and been temporarily blinded by the sun's ultraviolet rays. Despite these experiences, Sullivan stays cool. "Hey, I can't get nervous," he says, "or I wouldn't be in this business. "
rehearsal and performance that Hauser has undergone since she first donned a tutu at age 9. Like many dancers she has scoliosis-curvature of the spine-as well as substantial knee problems. "Sometimes you wake up in the morning and you can barely walk," she admits, but insists that "most dancers can dance through more pain than people might think." And more than most people would for her $30,000 a year. "You have to be so aware of your body," she says, which means no solace in heaping portions of comforting tortellini or glazed donuts. "When you're thin," she says, "you dance big because you're proud and you look great."
SPAN APRil. 1986
17
lHE TOUGHEST JOBS conJinued
Ben Colli, window washer Maybe Ben Colli has a fear of the earth. Or he's go~ an. allerID'. to safety. Even Colli, 38, will admit, "I've lost all normality m my hfe. It's normal for me to go over a 75-story building." When Colli says "over," he means falling at about 120 kilometers per hour with onJy a rope to sustain him. Of course that's when he's having fun jumping off the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel-his annual Fourth of July stunt. In everyday life Colli owns Rainbow Services, which will spiff up any building. Colli can replace a dead tree in a planter six s~ori~s high in a hotel atrium, hoist a 2,200-kilogram tapestry 42 stones m the air and clean the skylight 28 stories up in the Nashville Hyatt Regency. Part Algonquin Indian, Colli does about five "big jobs" a year (for up to several thousand dollars each) and confesses, "I've lost seven kilograms not sleeping or eating before a job. But since I was a kid, the big thing was jumping off roofs. It's natural to end up scaring myself to death."
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SPAN APRIL 1986
Bobby Aterrlll- tanner "What smell?" say Bobby Merrill , 52(right), and Johnny Downs, 48, whenever a stranger asks the obvious question upon venturing into the reeking pit where they have labored for a combined total of 59 years. These two gentle giants work the "wet room" of a Philadelphia leather factory , where rotting flesh combines with the stench of caustic chemicals to create a noisome nightmare. But it's better than it used to be. "I couldn't take it when
Hans lfohr ttoal miner 'I
Two hundred meters within the belly of the Earth, it is cool, dark and silent, save for the occasional rumble of the conveyor belt bearing black coal toward the sunlight above. The tunnels, sprayed with limestone powder to keep down the killing coal dust, are a ghostly gray. Every workday for 17 years, Hans Mohr, 40, has descended into this strange, inhuman world . "The whole first year I just couldn't get used to it," he admits, "but you start, and the money's good and you stay." Three men he has known have died in mine-related accidents. Earning $115 a day, Mohr rises at 5 a.m. and operates an ominous-looking 60-ton machine called a Joy miner. which carves coal from the cavern walls. "It's not so much that it's dangerous down here," he says, his face lighted by the glow from his battery-powered miner's hat, "but if 0 something does happen , it's hard to get out."
they burned the hair off the skin," Downs explains. "It made me sick." (Today they use chemicals.) Merrill scrapes and pounds the hide. After being dyed it is dried on huge cylinders that Downs operates. Despite the heat, the stench and occasional 14hour days, both men love their jobs -and not just because each makes about $30,000 a year. " I wouldn 't do anything else," says Merrill with conviction.
~/) I
.
One ManS Museu m by D.N. VARMA
Now that the Festival of India is comfortably under way alJ over the United States, there is perhaps time to sit back and spare a thought for some of the behind-the-scenes activity that made the magnificent venture not just possible but so successful. The art selections, for instance-hundreds of items have been (and will be) on display, giving Americans a glimpse of India's art and crafts through the ages. The process of picking and choosing artifacts took almost two years. The organizers scoured the country's museums, private collections, galleries. And one stop that was a must for selections for all the major art exhibitions was Hyderabad. For the "India!" exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Modem Art in New York (see next page), the selectors wanted the choicest pieces from throughout India. Thirty-five of the 350 objects displayed at "India!" were from Hyderabad-they included paintings, calligraphies, textiles, metalware, folk bronzes, arms and armor. One of the prize exhibits at the "Sculpture of India" show at Washington, D.C. (held soon after the Festival's official inauguration by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in June 1985), was a rare Chalukyan bronze image of Vishnu-from Hyderabad. "Life at Court: Art of [ndia's Rulers, 16th to 19th Century A. D." at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston also had precious objects from Hyderabad-five paintings and four metalware artifacts. What is the source of this treasure trove in Hyderabad? Who collected these rarities? Who funded the collection? The Nizam? The Salar Jung Museum? No, it was just a local art lover and historian, Jagdish Mittal. Few people in Hyderabad have ever seen Mittal's collection, or even beard of it. Yet Indian and international authorities on lndian art value it-and have high regard for its owner. Jagdish MittaJ has just returned from a lecture tour on Indian art in the United States. The actual owner of the antiques is a charitable public trust called the Jagdish and Kamala Mittal Museum of Indian Art, which is located at the Mittals' residence in Himayatnagar, a middle-class locality in Hyderabad. The prosaic little building would hardly invite a second glance. Yet it has been visited by such lights as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, John Kenneth Galbraith, Jonas Salk, Francoise Gilo (a former wife of Pablo Picasso) and many others. Every time an art lover wants to see some specimens of the MittaJ collection, the items must be brought home from the safety of the bank vault. The collection is not massive by museum standards, just 1,500 objects. What makes it unique is the high aesthetic quality of each item. Graying Jagdish Mittal (nearing 60) and his wife Kamala are not dilettantes bored with their riches, acquisitively collecting exotic bric-a-brac. They
20
SPAN APRIL 1986
are serious alumni of Shantiniketan, and have an intense, inherent love for beautiful things. They instinctively pick out the significant art objects in a heap of junk. One could almost call them trend setters. They started collecting tribal bronzes when these were being sold by the kilo. Their collection of 300 folk and tribal bronzes-from Bastar, Nasik, Madurai, Pudukottai and other places in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Rajasthan-may have no parallel anywhere in the world. The Smithsonian displayed 18 of these bronzes during the "Aditi" exhibit in Washington. When the Mittals started acquiring Basholi paintings they were being sold at Rs. 20 a piece. Folkish in concept and strong in color scheme, they were totally at variance with the refinement and sophistication of the then faddish Mughal miniatures. But the Mittals could foresee that these Basholi miniatures would one day capture the imagination of the world and be prized for their vitality and force. Today, it is difficult to lay your hands on a good Basholi painting at any price. Another success story is that of the Mittals' collection of scrolls. A much-admired exhibit at "India!" was a scroll painting from the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh. It is almost ten meters long and one meter wide. Executed in 1625, its painting style resembles the Lepakshi murals. It tells the story of the Padmasaffs, a weaver caste. The scrolls were used by traveling storytellers of medieval India to tell tales-and earn money. Until a few years ago, no one thought of these painted scrolls as art. But when Jagdish Mittal chanced to see one, he immediately recognized its worth and acquired it. He recalls that the descendants of the storyteller who sold it to him, wondered how an urban dweller would find an audience for telling his story-specially when he did not even know the story on the scroll! The scroll is telling its story-to audiences in the United States. Mittal delivered a lecture on painted scrolls from Telangana at the Metropolitan Museum. From the art of the common man to the art of royalty-the Mittal collection has a wide representation of Indian craftsmanship down through the ages. The museum has some of the finest specimens of Deccani paintings executed for the Qutub Shahi rulers of Golconda. Some of them were on display at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts where Mittal also gave a lecture. Earlier, the Festival of India in England also saw a fair sprinkling from the Mittal collection. Twenty-one of their paintings were exhibited in the "Image of Man" at Hayward Gallery in London. "The Indian Heritage" at the Victoria and Albert Museum displayed 17 Mittal items, including metalware, arms, ivory and textiles. The Festival of India in Paris too drew from this rich Hyderabad source even though the emphasis in France was on the performing arts. On the following pages, SPAN offers glimpses from the Mittal collection. Each has a story to tell-and col1cctively they D tell the story of a couple for whom art is life. About the Author: D.N. Varma is the keeper of the Safar Jung Museum in Hyderabad.
Celebrating ~India!' The exhibition "India!" in New York recently brought together for the first time art representing the sacred, courtly, urban, folk and tribal traditions of the entire subcontinent over six centuries. A comprehensive exhibition of the art of India from the 14th through the 19th century was shown at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art for more than three months, ending January 1986. The exhibition was one of the most extensive surveys of Indian art and artifacts to be assembled within or outside India. An outstanding selection of approximately 350 works of art in a wide variety of media from Indian, Middle Eastern, European and American collections, as welJ as works from the collections of some of India's princely families, was brought together. Included were superb paintings, magnificent jewels, spectacular wall hangings and a red-and-gold imperial tent dating from the mid-17th century. The exhibition, the focal point of the Festival of India that began in June 1985, was organized jointly by the Government of India and the lndo-U.S. Subcommission on Education and Culture. "India!" explored the rich mosaic of religious and cultural influences that have shaped the country over the six-century period. It demonstrated the Indian genius for forging creative interrelations between indigenous and alien forms and ideas that continues even into our own day. As Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan, noted, " India's history has been one of assimilation and synthesis, of alien cultures being absorbed into and enriching the ancient Hindu civilization. This exhibition [provides] glimpses into the fascinating processes of synthesis in India and the extraordinary Indian ability to grasp novel ideas and to endow them with a uniquely Indian spirit. " The exhibition brought together for the first time works of art representing not only the sacred and courtly, but also the urban , folk and tribal traditions of the entire subcontinent over six centuries. India is remarkable for the degree of interconnection that exists among all cultural forms and , to reflect this, the exhibition included objects as far apart in style and intent as classically proportioned religious bronzes, primitive wooden sculptures, exquisite min-
22
SPAN APRIL 1986
iatures, and carpets, furniture, weapons, and jewelry of subtle and brilliant design . Many vividly designed tribal costumes and folk textiles, for example, reveal the same stylization and feeling for animal movement that already at the dawn of its art history had announced a recognizably Indian sensibility. A dazzling array of manuscripts and miniature paintings shows, among other things, that Indian artists and craftspeople were often of different religions from both their patrons and the subjects they illustrated. Thus, Jain miniatures were frequently illustrated by Hindu artists, Rajput patrons often employed Muslims, and many Hindus were famous painters at Muslim courts. The exh1bition followed a broad chronological order, articulated into five distinct parts, which overlapped historically and thematically: the Great Tradition, the tribalvillage continuum , the Muslim courts, the Rajput world and the British period. In the 14th and 15th centuries, as the kingdoms of northern India continued to bear the brunt of successive Muslim invasions, the classical culture of India's great tradition found its most visible expression in the Hindu south. The rulers of the extraordinary Vijayanagar empire (1336-1565) were devout Hindus and constructed for their gods many massive and splendid multipillared temple complexes fashioned after imperial Chola prototypes. The exhibition opened with several superb bronzes which, in both style and iconography, suggest familiarity with the long line of ancient masterpieces which Vijayanagar surely enjoyed. An 18th-century embroidered temple hanging from Andhra, depicting scenes from the Ramayana, formed a spectacular backdrop against which wood carvings, ceremonial lamps, ritual vessels and ivories from Kerala and other regions of the south were displayed. On loan from the National Museum, New Delhi, the hanging has never before been seen outside India . The persistent vitality of India's myriad folk cultures amidst the classical refinements of Great rratlition was an enduring theme
Reprlnlccl Crom USA Today. Q1pyri~h1
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"Yashoda and Krishna"; copper; Karnataka; circa 16th century.
of the exhibition. Most Indians live in villages, and village ways have always provided the matrix of human life and experience in India. As the highly literate and sophisticated traditions of Puranic, Tantric and Bhakti Hinduism penetrated the world of the artisan and craftsman, these were, in turn, fertilized anew by the sensuous exuberance and ebullient folklore of the masses. Thus, Indian religious art, even at its most sublime, is replete with robust, vigorously naturalistic detail , and Indian village art, though rural in theme, is often remarkable for the richness of its mythological imagery and accomplished technique. A powerful, primitive , life-size, wooden Cbauri-bearer from the Mysore Folklore Museum is of relatively recent date, but it contains echoes of the remote mothergoddess theme that animated the pre-Aryan fertility rites and is of immeasurable importance in India even today. In northern India, Muslim rule established itself in the 13th and 14th centuries in the form of the Delhi Sultanate. The early Sultans, who were Central Asian Turks from Afghanistan and further west, brought to India the dynamic forms of the dome, the arch and the minaret , and initiated a cooperation between indigenous Hindu and Islamic styles that was to develop into one of the principal creative achievements of the Muslim period. Few objects survive from this early period, but an intricately carved 15th-century ivory chessman, from the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, representing a
Š 1985 by Soc1e1y for 1he Advanc.:monl o f Education
royal elephant lumbering into battle, is one of the great masterpieces of early Sultanate art. A recumbent rock-crystal elephant, also from the 15th century, was another Sultanate treasure on loan from the Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum. In 1526, Babur, a young prince from Central Asia and a descendant of both Timur and Genghis Khan, defeated the Sultan of Delhi at the battle of Panipat and founded the Mughal dynasty, which was to rule India until 1857. He and his descendants produced a ruling class of brilliant ability and great sophistication. Babur's grandson, Akbar, the third and greatest of the Mughal emperors, ruled from 1556 to 1605 and consolidated an empire that included almost all of northern and central India and shaped its distinctive cultural traditions. Akbar's court, an enlightened forum of diplomacy and debate in which Zoroastrians, Jews and Jesuits participated, was a dynamic synthesis of Persian, Indian and European cultures. Manuscript production, the responsibility of imperial ateliers in which Persian masters worked with native artists, was encouraged on a prodigious scale. Under Akbar's constant supervision, the early Mughal style was formed, combining Iranian-inspired themes and techniques with the Indian vitality and feeling for natural forms admfred by the emperor. The studio's most ambitious project, taking 15 years to complete, was a series of large illustrations on cloth which recounted the adventures of Amir Hamza, an uncle of the Prophet. One of the most dramatic of these, "The Prophet Elias Rescuing Nur ad-Dahr from the Sea," was on loan from the British Museum. Akbar also commissioned illustrated histories of popular Hindu texts, of his own Life and those of his Timurid ancestors. A large selection of the finest of these surviving miniatures was on display at the exhibition. Also belonging to the Akbar period was an exquisitely carved hexagonal emerald measuring five centimeters across and weighing 232 carats from the Kuwait National Museum. Gemologists claim that there is, "no likelihood of material of this size and quality ever again being mined on this planet." Mughal art continued to flourish under the generous patronage of Akbar's son, Jahangir, who ruled from 1605 to 1627, and grandson , Shah Jahan , who ruled from 1628 to 1658. Jahangir was particularly noted for his love of nature , as can be seen in the miniatures of this period depicting birds, animals and plants. He gave many commis-
"A Young Prince"; photograph by Lala Deen Dayal; circa 1890.
Opium cup in the form of a poppy; jade with rubies and emeralds set in gold; Mughal India; mid-17th century.
sions for individual formal portraits and was known as a great connoisseur who liked to drink opium from an exquisitely bejeweled cup of white jade. Paintings during the reign of Shah Jahan became very precise and formal, much like the jewels be loved. Architecture flourished under Shah Jahan, who was the creator of some of the finest architectural monuments in the world, including the Taj Mahal, which he built as a tomb for his favorite wife Mumtaz. One of the highlights of the exhibition was from the reign of Shah Jahan, a 3.6-meter-high, 7.3meter-by-7.3-meter tent made of red velvet, embroidered with gold flowers and arabesques. This "portable cloth palace," lent by Mabaraja Gaj Singh of Jodhpur, is one of the very few imperial tents to have survived and was the largest object in the exhibition. To the south of the Mughal empire was the Deccan plateau, ruled by sultans who, though also Muslims, were contemporary rivals of the Mughals. The Mughal style influenced the arts of the Deccan , particularly its paintings, which typically were lush, lyrical and introspective. The exhibition brought together perhaps a larger selection of Deccani art-miniatures, metalwork and textiles-than has ever previously been assembled in one place. The Hindu Rajput kingdoms in the desert areas between Bombay and Delhi in the northwest and the Himalayan hill states Royal tent; silk velvet, embroidered, with metal-wrapped yarns and cotton; Mughal India; mid-17th century.
SPAN APRIL 1986
23
CELEBRATING "INDlA!" continued
retained varying degrees of independence from the Mughal court, though they were not immune to its pervasive influence. The Rajputs intermarried with the Mughals and many served as statesmen and warriors for the Mughal e.mpire. As the brilliantly eclectic fusion of Mugbal tastes began to permeate the indigenous traditions of the Rajput courts in the 17th and 18th centuries, a profusion of local styles came into being. In the exhibition, Rajput art was represented by miniatures, large paintings, temple hang-
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SPAN APRIL 1986
ings, arms and armor, musical instruments the 16th century, changed it to accommoand decorative objects. date British sensibilities. The British were With the decline of the Mughal empire, particularly interested in portraits of their Western influences grew and, by the end of families, as well as in documenting plant and the 18th century, the British had replaced animal life. The invention of photography the Mughals as India's central power. After made painting less useful and, by 1900, the 1857 war of independence, the rule of photography had begun to replace painting. the British East India Company ended and One object in the exhibition from this India came under the direct rule of the period was a silver and gilt palanquin with British Parliament and Crown. Once again, embroidered bolsters and cushions that is the Indian artists, who had so brilliantly still in use today by the royal house of adapted their style to suit MughaJ tastes in Jaipur.
Bidri jar; Bidar, Deccan; second half of 17th century. ("Life at Court" exhibition, Boston.)
Bidri plate; Bidar, Deccan; second half of 17th century.
Vambrace; steel with gilded copper overlay; Golconda, Deccan; circa 1650-60.
"Marudevi on an Elephant, on Her Way to Meet Rishabha"; folio from a Kalpasutra manuscript; Mandu, Madhya Pradesh; circa 1440.
"A Fat Begum"; marbling with touches ofgold, silver and opaque watercolor on paper; Bijapur, Deccan; circa 1625. "Forest Landscape with River"; folio from a manuscript of the Mahabharata; Karnataka; crica 1670.
"The /nfam Krishna Floating on the Cosmic Ocean"; folio from a Dasavtara series, probably Srirangapatnam, Karnataka, early 18th century.
SPAN APRIL 1986
25
FOCUS ••• Once Upon A Mattress
Georgia O'Keeffe and Cow's Skull-=-Red, White and Blue, 1931.
End of an Era With the death of Georgia O'Keeffe last month, an era in American art has ended. The legendary American artist, who died a year short of 100, was almost synonymous with American art for the greater part of this century. In a tribute to her, the International Herald Tribune said, "Miss O'Keeffe was a key figure in the American 20th century. As much as anyone since Mary Cassatt, she raised the awareness of the American public to the fact that a woman could be the equal of any man in her chosen field." Born on November 15, 1887, O'Keeffe studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and at the Art Students League, New York. Yet the maverick in her refused to conform. As she was to recall later, "I hadn't a desire to make anything like the pictures I had seen." Throwing all established painting conventions aside, she literally burst upon the New York circu it with her semiabstract compositions in 1916. Her mentor was Alfred Stieglitz, the man responsible for introducing modern art and one who won international renown for his photography. On seeing her work, Stieglitz, whom O'Keeffe later married in 1924, is said to have exclaimed, "At last a woman on paper!" He arranged for her first individual sho.w. While Americans were shocked and did not know how to respond and critics stuttered about her erotic symbolism, the O'Keeffe legend began to unfold. A prodigious painter, O'Keeffe synthesized the various movements sweeping Europe, particularly cubism and Fauvism, and rendered them in a typically American idiom. Hilton Kramer, long-time art critic of The New York Times, wrote, "She escaped the fate of remaining thrall to a European model by taking possession of her American experienc& and making that the core of her artistic vision. Her career was unlike almost any other in the history of modern art in America." Today, O'Keeffe's paintings of flowers, animal horns and bones, country barns and desertscapes adorn all the maior museums of the world, and critics are still trying to put their finger on what made O'Keeffe tick. Maybe the clue lies in her memoirs. Dwelling on the early years of her life, as an impoverished young woman trying to make a go in the male-dominated art world of New York, she wrote, "One day I found myself saying to myself, 'I can't live where I want to. I can't even say what I want to.' I decided I was a stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to. " -c.1. BHASKAR 26
SPAN APRIL 1986
This month, an exciting, rare treat awaits Indian lovers of American musical theater, when the 24-member MinneMertdee Stein sota Opera, under the direction of Meridee Stein, presents Once Upon A Mattress, a the famous musical, Once delightful piece composed by Upon A Mattress, in Bombay Mary Rodgers, is a fine exam(April 1-4), Madras/Bangalore ple of the American form of (April 10-13), Calcutta (April musical theater. Based on the 14-17) and New Delhi (April Hans Christian Andersen fairy 18-20). The show, which had tale, "The Princess and the a highly successful Broadway Pea," it takes the simple clasrun, has been produced with sic and transforms it into a great regularity in all parts of hilarious comedy. the United States since its The heroine, Princess Winpremiere in 1959. nifred (played by Jodi BenThe inspiration for the mod- son), is made to undergo a ern American musical was sensitivity test devised by the European Opera, particular- evil Queen Aggravain. The ly the Viennese Operetta. princess' triumph-she sucHowever, it now bears little cessfully detects a tiny pea resemblance to either form. placed under 20 mattresses With its blending of theater, on which she sleeps-wins song and pageantry, it is, her the hand of the handsome together with jazz, one of the but timid Prince Dauntless few truly indigenous American (played by Joel Fredrickson). art forms. It conforms to a The broad physical style of distinct American style that comedy and the zany characplaces greater emphasis on ters in Once Upon A Mattress spoken dialogue and uses make for an entertaining mumusic and dance forms rooted sical which reflects a modern, in the American folk tradition. energetic American attitude.
Curing Colds There's hardly a human being who does not occasionally suffer from bouts of cold and does not curse physicians for not doing anything to banish this most common-and pestiferousillness from the face of the Earth. There's good news now. American researchers have solved the mystery of the structure of the human cold virus. Possibly leading the way to the development of a vaccine against the common cold, the discovery may also offer important clues to the understanding of viruses responsible for such diseases as polio, hepatitis and foot-and-mouth disease in cattle. Researchers collected over six million pieces of information from X-ray pictures of individual atoms of the virus produced by an atomic particle-smashing machine called the synchrotron, located at Cornell. Later, with the help of Purdue's supercomputer, scientists processed the enormous quantity of data in one month to get to the structure of the cold virus. "Thanks to the supercomputer, we have been able to do the work in a month, which otherwise would have taken as much as ten years," said one of the researchers.
The Talented Five
Narmdra Karmarkar
J. K. Aggarwal
S11bhadra 011110 Gupta
Although one of the newest and smallest ethnic groups-forming less than 0.15 percent of the U.S. populationIndians in America have done remarkably well. In a relatively short time, their contribution to American society has become a visible and an important one. Recent evidence of this is found in the magazine Science Digest, which named five Indians among the top 100 American scientists and engineers of 1985. Saluting them, the journal said, "They are the inventors and innovators, responsible for creating our vision of the future." The first is Narendra Karmarkar, a mathematician with Bell Labs of American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T). "At 29," says the journal, "Karmarkar has discovered a linear-programming algorithm lhat may be capable of solving incredibly complex problems [like determining the optimal design for a large and intricate communication network]. hundreds of times faster than current methods." (See SPAN, January 1985.) J.K. Aggarwal, a computer engineer on the faculty of the College of Engineering at the Un iversity of Texas, Austin, was cited for his work on computerized visual analysis of living cells. "Freezing living tissues to preserve them for later use in transplants has been an effective technique for simple systems like red blood cells," says Science Digest. However, "it has not been successful for more complex organs. One problem has been the lack of reliable methods for identifying and measuring
the factors that result in cell injury during freezing and thawing." With the new system developed by Aggarwal, scientists can "for the first time quantify changes in the size and shape of freezing cells." Built around a unique cryogenic stage for altering temperatures of tissue samples, the computerized visual analysis system, which promises to be a boon in transplant surgery, uses two computers with sophisticated image-analysis software to isolate a cell and determine its deviation from a normal shape. Another Indian listed by Science Digest is Subhadra Dutta Gupta of the Westinghouse R&D Center, who specializes in laser annealing (the process used to heat semiconductors and later alter their properties). Along with three colleagues, she has created a silicon-ongarnet technology for bubble-memory devices. Until about ten years ago, according to Science Digest, the magnetic bubble was the scientist's great hope for developing inexpensive, nonvolatile computer memory. But the obstacles to greater acceptance of magnetic-bubble storage-low data rates and the need for additional semiconductor chips for Interfacing between two computer systems-remained intractable. The silicon-on-garnet technology has enabled scientists to deposit the first operational transistor, thus opening the way for high densities and fast data rates for bubble-memory devices.
Weeding Out Weeds
Agriculture University); Dr. V.M. Bhan (Haryana Agricultural University); Dr. S.K. Mukhopadhyay (College of Agriculture, Palli Siksha Sadana, West Bengal); Dr. C. Sreedharan (College of Agriculture, Kerala Agricultural University); Dr. D. Lenka (College of Agriculture, Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology); Dr. S.S. Mishra (Rajendra Agricultural University, Bihar); Dr. D.C. Ghosh (Birsa Agricultural University, Bihar); Dr. C.S. Patel (ICAR Research Complex, Meghalaya); and Dr. A.N. Tewari (C.S. Azad University of Agriculture, Uttar Pradesh).
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded nine grants totaling Rs. 6,385,734 to Indian researchers for a coordinated lndo-U.S. research program on the control of weeds, which are great destroyers of crops the world over. Each grant provides a four-year stipend of Rs. 709,526 for developing new mechanical, biological and chemical weed-control methods to rid world agricu lture of this pestilence. The recipients are Dr. S.M. Kondap (College of Agriculture, Andhra Pradesh
Prakash Rao, an engineer with General Electric, and two colleagues have designed a "modelmaster," a factorysim ulation software package that can produce a factory model in hours. Until Rao developed the modelmaster, there was no simple, efficient way to simulate a proposed factory on a computer to see how it would work. It used to take GE programmers six to eight weeks to make a computer model of a new automated factory at a cost of $40,000. The fifth Indian on the journal's roll of honor is Kris Rallapalli, of Advanced Micro Devices. He has designed a high-speed single-chip compression/ expansion data processor (CEP). Called the Am7970, it is the first single-chip device that is capable of compressing and expanding data at high speeds. Says Science Digest, "Important for the highly efficient office of the future, the CEP can compress all office data on an 8.5-by-11inch [21-by-28-centimeter] document, including text and images, by as much as 50 times in one to two seconds. The device can re-enlarge the compressed data when needed in [their] original form." All data in the CEP are handled in terms of pictu re elements; redundancies and nonessential information, such as the white spaces between letters and words on a typewritten page, are eliminated, thus "compressing" the information that needs to be stored. Because less space and memory are needed for data storage, the CEP can save money as well.
SPAN APRIL 1986
27
Top: Wind-engineer Jack c;ermak (wearing glasses) and colleague John Peterka test a mockup of a space sltu11le. Above: Chemical smoke provides a visual record of the effect of wi11d 011 a
scale model of a building. left: Ron Solberg of the Colorado State University wind-engineering lab records test data during a study of an office buildi11g in Tulsa. Oklahoma.
I
n Lubbock, Texas, the 20-story Metro Tower Building was permanently twisted out of shape after being brushed by a tornado. • A woman suffered six broken bones when a gust of wind recently blew her down in New York City. • In Sao Francisco swirling winds inside Candlestick Park stadium have plagued professional baseball players. • In Boston the opening of the $105million, 60-story John Hancock Tower was delayed three years because winds caused severe twisting and blew out half of the building's 10,344 windows. It cost $10 million to replace them with stronger ones. As people crowd together, build higher and increase pollution , the effects of the wind become more pronounced. According to recent studies, property damage in the United States exceeds $3,000 million a year due to tornadoes, hurricanes and severe winds. By the year 2000, that figure, in constant dollars, could more than double, according to a National Science Foundation study. In human terms, at least 100 people in America lose their lives to winds each year, a figure that could double in the next 20 years. Now a once-obscure science has
stepped forward to help avoid or tame these deadly winds. Through the use of models and special wind tunnels, wind engineering-the study of how wind interacts with man-made structures and natural geographical features-may well play as critical a role in the future designing of buildings and other structures as wind tunnels have played in the development of aircraft. "The need has been there since man began to build on the Earth," says Jack E. Cermak, 61, universally recognized as the father of wind engineering. "But it's only been recently that we've been able to model the effects of the wind in the laboratory and use that information to plan and design skyscrapers and other structures. Nearly anywhere you go there is a need for wind engineering." Because of the financial and legal risks that an architect's dream will become a developer's nightmare, wind engineers are increasingly being hired to iron out the bugs before ground is broken. Some of today's tall, slim, oddly shaped office buildings "create some weird aerodynamic effects ," says Cermak, who heads the respected Fluid Dynamics and Diffusion Laboratory at Colorado State University (CSU) in Fort Collins. Unlike the solid masonry edifices built 40 and 50 years ago, today's skyscrapers are lightweight, sheathed as they are with nonsupporting glass and aluminum exterior walls. The buildings may oscillate so rapidly that occupants in the upper floors get motion sickness. When winds blow hard enough, elevators may stop, heating and cooling systems may work less efficiently, exterior doors may refuse to open, interior walls may crack, pollutants may be sucked into vents and windows may shatter. Tall buildings can also divert winds down to street level with such velocity-as happened with Chicago's l 10-story Sears Tower-that pedestrians must form human chains to cross the street. Cermak's huge CSU laboratory houses eight separate wind tunnels, which mimic what is known as the boundary layertbe lower 300 to 600 meters of atmosphere affected by the Earth 's surface friction. The penetration of this boundary layer by a city's tall buildings-Cermak calls them "stirring rods"-can dramatically alter wind speed and turbulence.
r HElMIND by BRUCE W. MOST
At great cost, American architects have learned that new building designs can pose unforeseen problems in high winds. The study of how wind interacts with manmade structures-called wind engineering-may soon play as critical a role in the design of buildings as wind tunnels have in the development of modern aircraft.
The meteorological tunnel is most frequently used to study individual buildings. Unlike aeronautical wind tunnels designed to produce uniform upperatmosphere wind speed and temperature, this tunnel can vary wind speed, pressure, humidity and air temperature at various heights, all of which influence the behavior of localized winds. Working from architect's designs, Cermak and his colleagues construct a Lucite model of the building, typically on a scale of 1:500. Because nearby buildings affect wind flow. a model of the 600 meters of surrounding city also is built. The entire cross section is mounted on a 360-degree turntable so that varying wind directions can be studied. The hollow Lucite model is drilled with hundreds of tap holes , or pressure points, all of which are connected by plastic tubing to ultrasensitive strain gauges. A huge fan blows air across the model while the guages measure the fluctuating wind pressures. Data are then collected and analyzed by computer. A visual record of the swirling winds is made by photographing a chemical smoke. Says Cermak: "Winds are so complicated that the only possible way to predict their precise effects on a building is through measurements on a scale model. To model strictly by computer is a long way off, if ever." Cermak points out that as wind moves around and over a building it slows down, turns and accelerates again. Negative air pressure builds on the side of the structure away from the wind, sucking air across the building face with great force. Sometimes it creates such pressure on the building that windows are sucked out or the building is bent to the point of damage. For some wind-sensitive structures an additional aeroelastic test often is done. The model is mounted on springs and dampers to determine sway. The rigid model testing costs approximately $30,000, and the aeroelastic testing costs another $30,000. The savings in construction and maintenance costs , however, often run many times greater. The groundwork for these sophisticated procedures began in L950 when Cermak and his colleagues became convinced that they could simulate complicated natural winds. In the late 1950s they built the world's first boundary-layer wind tunnel. Those facilities came to national attention in 1963 when San Francisco wanted
Reprinted by permission of Ammcan Way . 1nftigh1 magazine of Amcrio~n Airltncs. Copyright © 1984 by American Airlines.
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ENGINEERING THE WIND continued
Each year winds cause far more damage in America than earthquakes.
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to find out why its new multimillion- can study now ," he says confidently. dollar baseball stadium, Candlestick Cermak's self-supporting lab conducts Park, was so windy. Cermak and his team basic and applied research, operating on built a scale model of the park and its a $2.5-million budget. In recent years it surrounding landscape. They learned that has studied the effect of winds on smoke high-speed winds whipping off the bay plumes for proposed coal and oil power collided with a strong airflow from the plants, on the venting of radioactive northwest. If the park had been built 100 waste gases, the dispersion of air pollumeters to the north, there would have tion in cities and the landing of helibeen no problem. After many tests Cer- copters on offshore drilling platforms. mak recommended three options. The The U.S. Department of Energy conleast expensive but also least effective tracted for the laboratory to investigate option, the extension of the upper stands the best location for a collection of windto close off the park, was adopted. mills. The lab also built a scale model of What's been called a "landmark study" part of Colorado's San Juan mountains to in wind engineering occurred one year determine the effects of wind on cloud later when the structural engineer of the seeding. twin 410-meter World Trade Center Recently the Jab studied how expantowers in New York City asked Cermak's sion of the University of Pennsylvania lab, among others, for a comprehensive Hospital complex would affect the recirstudy of wind loading on the structure, culation of effluents from vents and which at the time was still in the design cooling towers. In the past the complex stage. As a result of the lab's two-year has had problems with effluents getting investigation , substantial changes were back into buildings and affecting patients made in the building's design, including and staff. "It's a very common problem, the installation of 10,000 viscoelastic but a lot of people don't recognize it," dampers to cushion the shock of sway. says Cermak. Cermak sees many future applications According to Cermak the initial tests revealed a sway, plus or minus. of six of wind studies in agriculture, for exammeters at the top. The revised design ple, in soil conservation, on the effects of reduced the sway to 0.6 meters. wind on soil moisture and in the control If the World Trade Center study of blowing snow on the plains. His lab has caught the eye of many architects, completed several studies for Saudi Arabuilders and city planners, the 1972 bia on ways to protect roads and airport debacle of shattered windows and severe runways against drifting sand. Wind ensway in Boston's Hancock Tower con- gineering could be used to help lay out vinced the doubters that sophisticated parks and recreation areas (one small wind-tunnel tests were critical for tall park in New York City is nearly unusable because of severe winds). buildings. "Wind engineering is accepted The science that built its reputation on throughout the world today," says Cer- tall buildings is even reaching down to the mak, whose lab has tested buildings home. The lab has studied various deconstructed in different parts of the signs of roof shingles for Owens-Corning, world . "It's to the point that if an and Cermak would like lo see more work architect designs a building in which there done on how to better reinforce roofs to are problems later on because of wind, he reduce damage from high winds. Despite the successes and promising may be held responsible for the failures." However , most city codes have not future, there are only a few windcaught up with architect's personal codes. engineering laboratories in North AmerFew cities require, as do New York City ica. Notes Cermak: "Most people don't and San Francisco, that a builder show realize that each year winds cause far how a development will affect its neigh- more damage in the United States than bors. Denver requires that a wind study earthquakes; yet because earthquakes be done for any proposed structure high- are more concentrated. more spectacular, we spend more money on earther than 100 meters. While Cermak is pleased by the in- quake engineering than we do on wind D creasing acceptance of tunnel tests for tall engineering." buildings, he feels that the potential for wind engineering has barely been tapped. About the Author: Bruce W. Most is a "Just about anything that wind does we Denver-based free-lance writer.
â&#x20AC;˘
GEORGE SUDARSHAN
A Pest for Excellence E.C. George Sudarshan, one of India's premier scientists, is a man with a mission. Within five years, he hopes to make the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Madras (Matscience), which he directs, "the best research institute in India." He would also like to see "more good minds" attracted to fundamental scientific research, committed to tackling problems in which India will be "at the head of the parade." And, if he could, he would promote an infusion of resources and energy into India's universities, making them "more important places for research and international repute"centers of excellence and major producers of scientific talent. The author of three books and more than 200 scholarly articles in elementary particle physics, quantum optics and biophysics, Sudarshan has built a distinguished record while criss-crossing the globe. After living and working for the past 30 years primarily in the United States, he would now like to spend
by ARLENE R. SCADRON
"the majority" of his time in India. He has been senior professor in the Centre for Theoretical Studies at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, since 1972, and director of Matscience, Madras, since March 1984. Currently on leave from the University of Texas in Austin, Sudarshan hopes to negotiate an agreement with officials there permitting him "to live in two worlds at the same time." If this peripatetic lifestyle inflicts stress on his constitution, it also affords Sudarshan a unique perspective for assessing the scientific enterprise in both countries. Born 54 years ago into a Kerala family whose roots go back to the beginnings of Christianity in India, Sudarshan is now a practicing Hindu. He completed all of his lower schooling in Kcrala and attended C.M.S. College in Kottayam, before moving on to Madras Christian. College, where he graduated in 1951 with honors in science. It was during his last years in Kerala that Sudarshan's
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A PEST FOR EXCELLENCE continued
interests shifted from mathematics to physics which transported
"I read and learned, and we talked about these problems,
him into a new world. Reflecting on that experience, he recalls:
and although they didn't lead to something 'useful' like a
"When you discover science, it is almost like discovering sex. It is so absorbing that you don't have time to think about anything else. But after a time, the natural things reassert themselves."
publication, I absorbed the idea that physics was a lifetime operation-something you did because you liked it and not necessarily always to write about it." In 1954 he met Robert E. Marshak, another Rochester University professor, who would alter the course of his scientific career. Marshak visited TIFR on a lecture-cum-recruiting tour, a part of his frequent world travels in search of top-notch graduate students. At Marshak's invitation, Sudarshan went to Rochester a year later, along with his new bride, Lalitha, who also enrolled as a student in the engineering program. Sudarshan joined a remarkable group of graduate students who eventually all won international recognition. Marshak was "a great teacher and guide," says Sudarshan. He would "suggest a direction, answer a few questions and send you off to work out a problem-wishing you well." No matter how busy Marshak was, and sometimes no matter how ill, he returned a student's written work with critical commentary within 48 hours. Although Marshak was himself a prolific researcher and author, students always were accorded a high place on his list of priorities. He steered Sudarshan away from "mathematical formalism" and toward computations in theoretical elementary particle physics. It was during this period as a graduate student, while working with Marshak , that Sudarshan became interested in weak interactions- the forces that describe , for example, radioactivity of nuclear particles-and completed what some regard as his most important work. This was the theory of "V-A (left-handed) Currents," whose product constitutes the fundamental weak interaction. The "V-A Theory" describes one of the four fundamental forces in nature, the others being strong, electromagnetic and gravitational.
he "natural things" took precedence for him at the University of Madras, where Sudarshan served as a demonstrator and resident tutor in physics for a year and also earned an M.A. From there he went to the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Bombay for three years of graduate study during the period when Homi Bhabha was "the shining light in theoretical research" and the undisputed academic leader. Bhabha invited to Bombay some of the world's outstanding physicists , "distinguished visitors" who made TIFR in those days "a very interesting place." In fact, it would be difficult to find such a collection of notables in one institution at any time with the possible exceptions of Gottingen, Germany, in the late 1920s, or the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton , New Jersey, which once boasted the presence of such scientists as Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer on its faculty. Sudarshan was introduced to quantum mechanics by an Englishman, P.A.M. Dirac; took his first course in quantum field theory from a Swiss, Wolfgang Pauli; and learned nuclear theory from a German, Maria Goeppert-Mayer-all Nobel laureates. Joseph Mayer, a "superb teacher," lectured on statistical mechanics, and Maurice Levy, a French theorist, and S.I. Tomonaga, a Japanese who later won the Nobel Prize, also taught at TIFR during Sudarshan's student years. Dirac was a "fantastic lecturer," he recalls. Sudarshan was asked to write up the "official version" of Dirac's lectures, and consequently was able to spend "maximum time" with the master whose inspiration he has never outgrown. And there were others who profoundly influenced the naive and, at 43 kilograms, slightly frail looking, but energetic and eager young man toward a career in theoretical physics. Bernard Peters, a former Rochester University, New York , profes~or, was hired by TIFR to direct an experimental cosmic ray group. Sudarshan eventually became senior theorist for them. Although relations between him and Peters were sometimes strained, Sudarshan regards Peters as "a remarkable person" who taught him several invaluable lessons. "Before I met Peters," Sudarshan recalls, "I had the notion that theoretical research was something esoteric where the great minds thought for a few hours and came up with brilliant ideas. He taught me that research is a lot of hard work." Still another important mentor was Dr. Raja Ramanna, now chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission, but then a young bachelor and senior faculty member. "He treated me like an equal," Sudarshan recalls. "This was a pleasant and shocking experience, and you could not help but fall for such flattery." Ramanna's teaching technique was to suggest an idea or problem to the fledgling physicist as "something that looked interesting" but which he (Ramanna) couldn't quite figure out, and he would urge Sudarshan to try.
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udarshan and Marshak continue to this day to be "puzzled and disappointed" at the failure of the physics community to award them total recognition as originators of this idea, crediting -instead Richard Feynman and Murray Gell-Mann, distinguished physicists at the California Institute of Technology, with the earliest and sometimes the sole authorship. Nonetheless, many physicists do recognize Sudarshan and Marshak for their contribution as a very important step in explaining one of the basic laws of physics. After completing the defense of his PhD dissertation in 1957, Sudarshan became a Corporation Fellow at Harvard University for two years, where he worked exclusively as an apprentice to Julian Schwinger, now a Nobel laureate. Sudarshan describes Schwinger as "a fabulous lecturer," who "developed each subject as if nothing had been written on it before. He believed the universe was your canvas and other people's theories were stepping stones to greater heights." In 1959, at the end of his Harvard fellowship, Sudarshan turned down Homi Bhabha's request to return to TIFR. He demanded a full professorship at TIFR to match comparable U.S. offers, but when Bhabha counseled patience after offering an associate professorship, Sudarshan cut him off abruptly,
behavior he still regrets. Instead, he began climbing the academic ladder in the United States, returning to Rochester, as assistant and associate professor, from 1959-1963, then as professor and director of the research program in elementary particles at Syracuse (New York) University, 1964-1969, and for the 17 years since then as professor and director of the Center for Particle Theory, University of Texas at Austin. Aware that these interactions with many great scientists have offered him unique educational opportunities, Sudarsban would now like to reproduce an equally stimulating environment at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Madras. Although Matscience, along with other specialized research institutes in India , contributes only minimally to the production of PhD students, Sudarshan hopes to train a few, young, "very good" students who will not just earn doctorates but will also "become true scientists." The institute is primarily a postdoctoral facility whose quality and output depend upon the interaction among visitors and permanent staff. As the new director, Sudarshan has the authority and sufficient funds to recruit whomever he wants as long as his decisions are "not outrageous" and meet with approval of the governing board. His intent is to attract younger collaborators-"people who are my intellectual equals"-and to establish a kind of "floating crap game," which would consist of people working together intensely on a problem, dissolving the group when a solution is achieved, and forming another collaboration to attack other important problems. By offering younger people an opportunity to collaborate with their senior, better-known colleagues, Sudarshan believes you accord them a measure of prestige and encouragement. He dismjsses the notion that it is necessary to be in the United States or elsewhere in the West to do important physics; it can be done in India, but ¡'you must be in a situation where you're made to feel tall." Although Sudarshan relishes the role of teacher and mentor, he clearly .also enjoys being a gadfly, prodding his scientific colleagues and those politicians who will listen, with provocative barbs designed to rivet their attention to critical problems of science and technology. For starters, says Sudarshan, there is a need to dispel the widespread public confusion over the difference between science and technology. "On the whole, science is considered a very important enterprise-the main path to modernization. Yet, people often equate science with technological advance," he contends. "For tbe majority of people, landing a man on the moon is considered much more important 'science' than somebody isolating a particular virus which has certain properties. " Sudarshan does not advocate an emphasis on science at the expense of technology, or vice versa. Both are important. In technology, generally, "the emphasis is on doing something very well, not on doing it for the first time," he explains. In science, "the goal is not necessarily to express it in the best package possible, but rather to find out what is-to develop new knowledge and new practice. ,. As he told the 22nd Convocation of the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras last July , "Science involves going where no buman has ever gone, to see farther than anyone has sought, to 'follow knowledge like a sinking star.' Technology is to take others to the promised land to enjoy and develop that which has been sighted."
Science and technology share similar tools and terminology, Sudarshan explains, but their aims and practices are different. " If the aim is just to implement technology, you're not going to do basic research." And he warns: " It would be very foolish for a country the size of India to be satisfied just borrowing technology without at the same time having the stepping-stone, the bridge to basic science," for even technologists must understand fundamental scientific principles underlying new developments in technology. t the present time, however, in too many instances, Sudarshan argues, science and technology are "delinked." There are a few important exceptions to this, nuclear power generation being the most important. In this case, Sudarshan believes, India has planned better than the United States, because Indian scientists and engineers have worked together at every stage. "American reactors are in all kinds of trouble because they are no longer run by scientists, " he points out. "India has not simply left its machines to the engineers. Mathematicians, theoretical and especially experimental physicists, and engineers have worked closely together. Both the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and the power reactor people are scientists." And he concludes, "This is one industry where the machines must run for a long time, and where you must guard against the one-in-a-miJJion mistake." To advance technology and the technological revolution, says Sudarshan, you need technologists who are linked to the fundamental scientific foundations underlying their applications. There is no lack ofresources-financial or human-for Indian science, claims Sudarshan. "We are a prosperous country, and we have committed a lot of money. In fact, it's easier to get support for a good scientific project here than it is in the United States," he insists. "A concern for excellence and a willingness to make morally valid, ethically hard choices" are essential for the development of scientific talent and for attracting enough good minds to fundamental research. The easy way out is "to support all institutions equally, pass all students regardless of performance, and to refuse to make distinctions. " Acknowledging that he is "not enough of a social philosopher to say with certitude that the preoccupation with socia l we lfare has gone too far," Sudarshan nonetheless believes that it has "blacked out a necessary emphasis on excellence. " And "excellence is itself a very real component of social justice, for people deserve to have the best in their educational institutions." Unfortunately , says Sudarshan, "the very best cannot be given away on a per head basis." Sudarshao vows to continue talking about this and "to make myself a pest." A pest for excellence. 0 About the Author: Arlene R. Scadro11, recently a Fulbright lecturer in history and women's studies at Bangalore University and SNDT Women's University, Bombay, is a research associate in the department ofsurgery at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, Tuscon, Arizona. She has also worked as a reporter for the Tuscon Citizen, a daily newspaper.
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Sa lvi ng Burn Victims Mortimer Keane remembers seeing the world tum red. A few bright sparks from his acetylene torch sprayed into what was thought to be an empty 200-liter chemical drum . The resulting explosion ignited his clothing and knocked him from a ladder to the floor of a United Feather and Down factory in Brooklyn, where he had been employed for just six months as a maintenance worker. The fire was quickly extinguished , but just as quickly he had lost 40 percent of the skin from his neck, chest , abdomen and parts of his back and face. Keane never lost consciousness. He fel t no pain. His strongest sensations were a terrible thirst and a suspicion that, at the age of 20, he was going to die. As he waited for the ambulance, he drank two big glasses of water and thought about his family. Keane was admitted to the burn center at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, one of four patients admitted that day. New York Hospital is the busiest burn center in the United States, handling some 600 such acute admissions a year, 100 more than at any other major burn center in the country. Twenty-five years ago, a patient with a burn over 40 percent of his body would have had a 50-50 chance of survival at New York Hospital. Today , through major improve ments in techniques of combating fluid loss and fighting infection, a patient with a 75 percent burn has the same chance of survival, one of the highest survival rates in the world . Through its broad research program , New York Hospital may soon push its survival rate even higher by radical changes in the treatment of burn patients in two areas: staving off infection, currently the leading cause of death, through manipulation of the immune system; and reducing or eliminating the need fo r grafts by using skin cultured from a source other than the patient. Techniques pioneered at New York Hospital and elsewhere are dramatically improving the treatment of severely burned patie nts.
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by DOUGLAS HAND
Major improvements in techniques for combating fluid loss and fighting infection are dramatically raising the survival rate of burn victims in the United States. As Keane arrived, clinging desperately to a charred Celtic cross on a chain around his neck, a flurry o f maneuvers preceded him. Decisions-amid constant movement, noise, stress, painful crieswere made about which patients to transfer off the 24-bed ward to make room for him in intensive care. Keane was placed across the hallway from Edward Austin, a 27-year-old who had suffered a 40 percent burn over his neck , chest, abdomen and back when his stove exploded just a few days before. Austin, a husky man , was identifiable by a tattoo of the cartoon character Yosemite Sam on his right forearm. The young men shared a similar percentage bum, yet their courses of treatment-and the outcomes-would be quite different. Frank Costello, a tall , lanky nurse described by a resident physician as "about as close as you can get to being a doctor without officially being one," says his biggest lesson after five years on the burn unit has been '·how vu lnerable yom own knowledge is." "People come in and you immediately start classifying them, just to protect yourself emotionally," he explains . " 'This one will make it,' that one will never make it, and all of a sudden the one you thought would never make it does, and the one you thought would make it dies of an infection . It reminds you that you don 't know everything.'' When Dr. G. Tom Shires was invited to become chief of surgery and head of the department of surgery at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, he warned its offi cials he intended to focus
on trauma and start a burn center, as he had done at the Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas and later at the University of Washington's Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Dr. Shires , who had helped estabUsh three of the four major nonmilitary burn centers in the country (the fourth is at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston), is called "Mr. Trauma" by some. When he arrived, he says, New York Hospital had a reputation as being a "hernia factory on the hill ," with little involvement in the community. "The burn center was a unique undertaking for a large private hospital,'' he says. "The hospital figured-not without some trepidation- that it was wort h it to underwrite the loss to provide the community service. " No o ne is turned away, and Dr. Shires describes the center as an "expensive ticket," costing $9 million annually and losing $500,000 to $750,000. Its staff comprises three attending surgeons, including its director, and 65 nurses. The treatment of severe burns, once spread over some 350 city hospitals, most with no specialized staff, is now concent rated in one center with both cUnical and research capability. "We assume that has meant saving lives, since our survivability is among the highest in the country," Dr. Shires says. When skin , an organ about as thick as a sheet of paper toweling, is severely damaged, nearly every system in the body reacts. The metabolic system goes haywire and accelerates; the immune system changes, and the cardiovascular system falters . A first-degree burn has slight impact, but a second-degree bum destroys all of the epidermis (the top layer of skin) and part of the dermis (the underlying layer), and a third-degree burn consumes both . Serious burns cause a catastrophic loss of fluid through the burned area by evaporation and through leakage from damaged capillaries. Consequently, treatment usually be-
Copyright © 1985 by the New York Tune• Company. Reprinted by permission Crom Th• N•w York Times Magazine.
gins with replacing blood and water loss by intravenous infusion of Ringer's lac¡ tate and saline solution. In the past, many burn patients died of shock from fluid loss. Today, most survive the period of fluid restoration , and calculations are now used for how much fluid a patient will require during the first 24 hours. The second step, overlapping the first, is preventing infection. The loss of skin provides access for bacteria, and dead tissue gives them an excellent medium. Silver sulfadiazine and Sulfamylon, topical antibiotics representing an enormous advance in fighting wound infection, are commonly used. Treatment can vary greatly , depending on the type of patient. "New York City burns are different from Salt Lake City bums, which are different from San Antonio burns," says Dr. Cleon Goodwin , the 41-year-old director of the burn center. New York burns represented a "big learning curve ," for Dr. Goodwin, who came to the center in the summer of 1983 from the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, where he was chief of pulmonary service at Brooke as well as head of the surgical studies branch at the United States Army Institute of Surgical Research. His burn patients there were "18-year-old soldiers who were prescreened to be healthy ," he says. "I didn't have kids. An old person? I rarely saw an elderly person.
The Burn Centre at the Kasturba Hospital in Manipal, Karnataka, was built with U.S. aid.
"An urban population like New York is a different world- old, young, many indigent and some drug abusers. These people will have a lot of other problems besides the burn that will affect their treatment," says Dr. Goodwin. The highest survival rate is in the 10-to 30-year-old age group, a category that exdudes most of New York Hospital's patients. Edward Austin and Mortimer Keane represent anomalies in the patient load , falling into the high-survival age group. In the early stages, they look as almost all serious burn patients do- bloated from fluid in the "third space ," the remaining skin so taut it seemed the slightest touch would split it open. After first cleansing Keane's wounds, a nurse spreads white Silvadene cream liberally over him. Like Austin, Keane requires a respirator to aid breathing, and a heat shield , a structure that maintains body temperature while retaining moisture. A hyperthermia blanket covers the shield. Wearing a sterile blue gown and mask, a nurse works over the patient for 8 t() 12 hours at a stretch , gently poking and probing for the hourly "numbers"the percentage of oxygen in the blood, the fluid in, the fluid out, and a dozen other factors all recorded on a criticalcare flow sheet that is quickly studied by the attending and resident physicians the
way commodities brokers study prices. "There's so little room for play with these patients," observes Cathy Acres, who at 33 has spent eight years in the burn unit (four of them as head nurse), compared with an average stay of only 18 months. "There are all these things going on, and if you do any of them wrong, it could kill them. It's like a little game you play, knowing that if you don't do everything right, the patient might not be there." Once the body's enormous fluid loss is brought under control and the body's systems have been stabilized- "tuned up" is the expression used- then the wounds can be closed. Austin is scheduled for surgery, and Dr. Goodwin will head the team. When not in the operating room, Dr. Goodwin reacts to even the most minor question by shifting his weight from one foot to the other with enough nervous energy to turn a windmill. However, inside the operating room- where the temperature is kept at over 38 degrees C to minimize temperature shock to the wounded- he is a study in concentration, hands behind his back, stepping up to the table only after au preparations have been completed. He tries to avoid operative proc~dures on areas that will heal themselves because the more tissue spared , the less scarring. Grafting, he says , is a traumatic procedure, an "insult to the body on top of an insult," and the major decisions, in closing the wounds, are "when to do it and how much to do." Today, after an initial tracheotomy , a minor operation to open a breathing passage in the throat , Dr. Goodwin plans to remove the burned tissue on Austin's chest and replace it with cadaver skin from the skin bank. Unlike other donated organs, skin can be preserved using cryogenic (freezing) techniques until it is needed. The skin is used to close the wound temporarily, until the patient can withstand grafting. Austin has required four or five times as much fluid as had been calculated for a 40 percent burn. An injury to his trachea and lungs explains part of the excess fluid requirement- his lungs, described as "sponges,., have at one point almost completely lost their ability to oxygenate blood-and the rest is a question mark. Dr. Goodwin , going step by step through a mental algorithm, had remarked a few days earlier that Austin was "no ordinary
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35
SALVING BURN VICTIMS continuea
27-year-old , a nd we can't really put our finger on what's happening. Four or five times the normal amount of fluid is something extraordinary. He may have had a heart attack at o ne time, or he may have had some other organ damage. Those are difficult q uestions for someone to answer when he has a tube down his throat." Austin is also showing the first signs of infection. Not until it is under control can the cadaver skin be re moved and replaced with his own skin. Austin is spread-eagled on the table , but only his burned chest and abdomen are visible, grayish-green under the nine overhead lamps, with a few blac~ and white spots resembling mold. Dr. Goodwin stands on Austin's right. Dr. Arthur Perry, a fellow in burn surgery , is on his left. They begin to cut away burned tissue, aided by a surgical assistant and a junior residenl. The procedure is lengthy, continuous and practiced: cut and pull and cut, then staunch the flow of blood with clamps. Though bleeding veins and arteries are cauterized , the blood loss is still tremendous, with puddles forming on the floor. The excision , which takes 45 minutes, looks not so much like an operation as it does like two men skinning a deer. At the finish , Dr. G oodwin, bis glasses and mask speckled with blood, says simply, " Not a pre tty operation. " Cadaver skin is attached using staples a nd tiny clamps. Four and a half ho urs pass between Austin's arrival at the operating room and bis departure , during which time he requires 11.5 liters of fluid, ten units of blood and the use of 21 scalpel blades. Four days later , Keane undergoes a full-chest excision . Being more stable than Austin and showing no signs of infect ion, he is grafted with skin .03 centimeters thick-comprising the epidermis and part of the de rmis-stripped from his left thigh, right thigh and calf. The grafts, meshed a nd stretched so that the skin covers three times the area it originally covered, are stapled and clipped to his chest and abdomen. The procedure is no less a trauma- it , too, necessitates the use of ten units of bloodbut it is a giant step toward recovery. In effect , Keane goes from a 40 percent to a 20 perce nt burn , while on the same day Austin is struggling. In just a few days, Austin's minor infection has become a massive one of several differe nt strains of bacteria. The
36
SPAN APRl L 1986
following day, be will be taken to the operating room for a second time. where more burned tissue, on bis arm and back, suspected causes of the infect ion , will be removed. According to Dr. Goodwin, probably 90 percent of burn patients who die succumb to infection. New York Hospital studies, under the direction of Dr. Anthony C. Antonacci, suggest a burn patient's system becomes " immune deficient " within 24 to 48 hours after injury. This deficiency is characterized by a decrease in the number and percentage of helper-T cells, that are one of several types of white blood cells key to the body's immune defense. Dr. Antonacci believes helper-T cells a1e not destroyed by trauma but are sequestered somewhere in the body. He is attempting to modulate the immune system to prevent the deficiency from occurring. A critical research step has been Dr. Antonacci's discovery that the measurement of certain white-blood-cell populations provides a reliable index fo r death from infection. T he risk of death from infection may be determined within days of admission using this index, and treatme nt can be designed to increase the chance of survival. Starting with the presumption that the thymus, a gland situated in the lower neck, plays a role in the development of the immune response , Dr. Antonacci suggests that immunodeficiency might be alleviated by supplying one or more of the thymic hormone products no longer being produced natura!Jy. This is a hypothesis he is testing with Thymopentin (TP-5), a synthetic hormone that in laboratory tests has restored the number and perce ntage of depleted Tcells in some cases. He is now in the process of running a computer evaluation of bis first human experiments to determine whether survivability can be influenced by treating severely burned patie nts with TP-5. In addition to manipulating the inimune system, Dr. Antonacci and his team are attempting to produce monoclonal antibodies from specific virulent bacteria fou nd on the burn unit. This technique of cloning allows scientists to make pure antibodies outside of the body for use against almost any foreign substance that has invaded it. The bum-unit bacteria reproduce so quickly they can, even in the same patient, develop highl y
resistant strains. So far , Dr. Antonacci has successfully tested in mice two monoclonal antibodies directed against particularly virulent bacteria. As yet untested in humans, the antibodies may eventually be a part of an "adjuvant immunotbe rapy ," a process whereby a burn patient upon admission might receive, say, TP-5 for two weeks, the n other missing immunological eleme nts such as other thymic hormones. If a particularly resistant bacteria were to develop, a clone could be used to kill it. An even more dramatic change in the treatment of burn patients may result from work being done on replacement skin by Ne w York Hospital's Dr. John M . H efton. Similar research by Dr. Howard Green at the Harvard Medical School received much publicity in 1984, when his technique saved two Wyoming boys who had suffe red nearly 90 percent bums. Io that case, small plugs of skin were taken from the boys' armpits and groins, and, over a period of several weeks, skin cultures were grown to cover the burned areas. Dr. H efton credits Dr. Green with being the .. pioneer in this kind of work ," but Dr. Hefton has developed a fundame ntally different technique, culturing skin from sources other than the patient's body. H e takes cadaver skin , breaks it down into single epidermal cells and grows skin cultures from them. The antigens, or identifying characteristics that would normally cause the body to reject the foreign tissue, a re washed out, leaving a sheet of pure epidermal cells that can be used on any patie nt: what Dr. Hefton describes as a "living BandAid. " Such a process could reduce or even replace the need for skin grafting. So far , the procedure has been used on about 30 patients, about 25 of whom have deep second- to third-degree burns that would ordinarily have required grafting. Although the final word is not yet in , none of the cultures appear to have been rejected following the operations, most of which were done by Dr. Michael Madden, associate director of the burn unit. An additional promise is that , in Dr. Hefton's opinion, the final appeara nce has been better than that of a traditional skin graft. The next step will be freezing and storage; deve loping a bank of replacement skin that could be used immediately upon a patient's arrival. Dr. Hefton 's tissue-culture technique will be employed only on an experimental
basis, however, until 200 patients provide a good statistical base for evaluating its results. The New York H ospital is also involved in a study designed to measure the activity of neutrophils, bacteria-killing white blood cells that normally migrate to the site of a bacterial invasion within minutes. For unknown reasons, neutro-
Physicians at the New York Hospital have successfully grown cultures of cadaver skin that can be grafted on any burn patient, thus reducing or eliminating the need for painful grafts from the patient's own body. phils are less capable of migrating in burn patients. In this study, researchers observed that Edward Austin's neutrophils did not migrate as well as Mortimer Keane's. But, one researcher says, "Conclusions cannot b¡~ drawn from that isolated fact." So there may or may not have been a relationship between Austin's slowmoving neutropbils and the fact that 15 days after his admittance, the virulent bacteria Klebsiella had entered his blood. In the last 24 hours of his life, his right lung collapsed, then his left, and at 3 a.m. on the <.Jay he was scheduled for bis third operation. his heart failed, ending the most carefully documented 15 days of his life. The debridement room where burned tissue is removed is a room without shadows: windows on three sides and bright, fluorescent Lights overhead. In this hright light, Nancy Gallo, a nurse, stands over Mortimer Keane, who is stretched out on a plastic bed atop the debridement tank, a structure allowing the patient to be continually bathed in warm water while tissue is taken off. She asks Keane to concentrate on breathing slowly-he can now breathe without the respirator-while she uses gauze to soak some blackened scabs on his face and a second nurse, Ed Rath , peels back chest dressings. Using tweezers, they pull bits of dead skin from his forehead and left cheek, leaving the areas bleeding slightly. Ed Rath washes away the dead tissue with a water spray. Keane cries out when Nancy Gallo cuts away some tissue on his
thigh. 'Tm sorry, I know that hurt," she says quickly. "Could I just relax a minute?" Keane asks hoarsely. One patient has described debridement as " like they were skinning you alive." Two-thirds of the patients surveyed at the burn center in Seattle's Harborview Medical Center thought debridement was the worst pain they had ever experienced. Asked about it later, Keane says, " It didn't hurt that much." Yet Keane , who refused much of his regular pain medication after being taken off the respirator" I couldn't move. l couldn't feed myself. I refused medication just so I could feel like I had control over something"never refuses medication "pre-tank.'' He receives 12 to 20 milligrams of morphine, which is a substantial dosage, prior to debridement. The process takes nearly an hour, and Keane will face it almost daily until the large burned areas have healed. Afterward, he sits up, wet and shaking. I Jis head has been shaved, exaggerating the thinness of his body, and there arc thick scabs on bis ears. His grafted chest areas are pink and white and still show a mesh pattern. He is wheeled back to bis room , where new dressings will be applied. "As tbey get better. it gets harder on them," says Dr. Jerry Finkelstein, a 35-year-old surgeon who has been at the center for five years. "Once they've been 'saved ,' that's when it gets hard. For a young guy like Keane, his life hadn't been formed and now it's appreciably changed in some way. A 'good result' from our point of view is that he survived and he leaves here fully functional, but he looks in the mirror and he -doesn't think that's such a good result. It's ugly. " Keane's mother remembers seeing him look in a mirror shortly before the accident. He brushed his hair off his forehead, laughed and said, ¡'You know, I'm not such a bad-looking guy ,. When he looked in a mirror 11 days after admission, he examined the black scabs on his face and ears and put the mirror down. "I looked weird," he says, "but I could see it was myself. It was my face." For six months to a year, as burn wounds heal, they contract. and an excess of collagen , a skin protein, is produced , which may result in hypertrophic, or raised , scarri ng. T herapists, who begin working with a patient from the day of admission, use pressure garments to re-
duce the blood supply to the tissues, which theoretically decreases the production of collagen. They also use splints and stretching exercises to force the collagen fibers into an orderly alignment and to keep the areas Aexible. If a splint were n'o t used to extend Keane's neck , grafted in tbe front , the wound would draw his chin down toward his collarbone as it heals. The skin would be about as flexible as the sole of a new leather boot. Keane is fitted with elastic pressure garments for his chin, neck and chest. Beyond that, it is up to him to cooperate with the program of physical therapy, which is, Dr. Goodwin says, "just hard work." A year of therapy to keep his neck, chest and legs supple is a frustrating process, particularly for a thin but muscular 20-year-old with a brown belt in karate. At his bedside, Keane has several snapshots of himself performing extended leg kicks over his head. The first time he tries to walk in the hospital , after his second operation, it takes 15 mi nutes, with his father's help, just to rise from the bed. He has to stop and rest after the effort; and as he pauses, he cries. Nevertheless. 44 days after his injury , thinner, stiff but a "good result," Keane goes home, just in time to down a few "therapeutic" green beers on St. Patrick's Day. The top of his right ear still is marked by a chunk of blackened dead tissue, but it has been decided to let that separate on its own, rather than operate, in the hope of saving more of the cartilage. His facial burns have healed without grafting. Despite receiving 4,000 or more calories a day, Keane has lost 11 kilograms, and because a burn patient's metabolism remains accelerated until the wounds fully heal, he will require excess calories for six months to a year during his recovery. A few days before he left, he sat on his bed drinking Sustacal, a caloric supplement. and he described himself as " lucky and unlucky" at the same time. "The only thing I wish is that my neck weren't burned," he said. "I'm not afraid of work, but you do have to work hard at it to make sure it doesn't tighten up." Then , finishing off his drink with a long swallow, he said. "I think I'll be 0.K. now, though, if l work at it. I should look 0 almost normal." About the Author: Douglas Hand is a freeâ&#x20AC;˘ lance writer in New York.
SPAN APRIL 1986
37
THE JOY OF YOUTH co11ti11ued
hen Brigham Young led his fellow Mormons (followers of The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latterday Saints) to Salt Lake City in Utah in 1846, the first two structures to be built were a church and a theater. Today, the church-sponsored university that carries his name continues the performing tradition , offering courses across the spectrum in the performing arts-from musical arrangement and choreography to set design and lighting. And since 1970, the Brigham Young University has sent its Young Ambassadors out into the world, to sing and dance their messages of love and joy. "Messages," says their artistic director, Mark Hoffmann , "that don't leap out at you." However, what does leap out of their variety show, "Fascinating Rhythm," is a sense of fun and exuberance. In their recent tour of India, with performances at Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi , Jaipur and Madras, the Young Ambassadors entertained audiences with a lively revue of American song and dance. How the West was Won captured the essence of the pioneer days-of prairie schooners, rifles and cowboy boots. The troupe cavorted about the stage, in gingham skirts with yards of petticoat , and checked shirts with knotted scarves. As they sang "H ell Bent for Leather, That's How the West was Won ," o ne recalled the rambunctious frontier spirit of "Oklahoma" and "Paint Your Wagon"; of hard work and harder play; of yelling cowboys and squealing girls. By the turn of the century, Victorian restraint had crossed the Atlantic to America. In this Modern A ge, even cheesecake art was shown in one-piece swimsuits. Men flexed their biceps before plate cameras and froze, waiting for the powder to flash. Women in swimming costumes with ruffled skirts looked on admiringly from under the shade of parasols. With the help of music and the effective use of period props like the camera and an old-style telephone, the fl avor of the times was rapidly sketched. Despite, or to some extent because of, prohibition , the 1920s was a musically exciting decade where jazz proliferated in the speakeasies of Chicago. Women shimmied and men tapdanccd in imitation of Fred Astaire, the wo men slinky in lame and feather boas, and the men coolly e legant in the white suits of the Great Gatsby era. George Gershwin's
'W
40
SPAN APRIL 1986
Rhapsody in Blue claimed legitimacy for jazz, and Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong emerged as stars. In Fascinating Rhythm, the title number of their revue, the Young Ambassadors presented a kaleidoscopic picture of the jazz era. A five-member group simulated Fats Waller's band, his stride style captured in the rhythmic plonkety plonk of the piano and the deep voice of the bass. A chorus line did a tapdance-white suits, hats, canes and all. We watched as jazz graduated to the ballroom in the 1930s, entered the movies and clothed itself in tuxedos. Radio did much to spread music. And in the 1940s' Radio Hour we also saw how it mirrored the mood of the war period. As groups mimicked the Andrew Sisters and the Pied Pipers in songs that bade farewell to young American soldiers, we saw a 16-year-old kiss her uniformed boyfriend farewell in a cosy drawing room. A young Frank Sinatra held out hope for millions like her, singing "I'll be Home for Christmas." After the War, music addressed itself increasingly to the young and was a crucial part of a whole new lifestyle. In the Fabulous Fifties, teenage girls worshiped Pat Boone and Ricky Nelson; their male friends in Elvis hairstyles took them cruising down Main Street in Chevies; they rocked to the sound of "Blue Suede Shoes." The mood of resurgence found expression in bobby sox, hula hoops, skate boards, college sweaters, "Johnny Angel" and " Blue Moon." In more recent times, music has increasingly crossed national boundaries. Songwriters like Stevie Wonder and Lionel Richie appeal to international audiences with lyrics that address universal themes. In Today's Popular Songwriters, the Young Ambassadors conveyed the unique style of Stevie Wonder with his "You are the Sunshine of my Life," fo llowing through with Barbra Streisand's " Memory." Tribute was also paid to the international phenomenon of disco, with the pounding beat of "Footloose" and an exhilarating demonstration
of that unique amalgam of danceand athletics breakdance. In Manhattan Transfer Salute, lighting and music, dance and form were brilliantly integrated. To "Give me the Twilight," dancers wove sinuous patterns across the stage, making telling use of its many levels. Hidden behind a large sheet, their lithe forms showed only as dim shadows, making fleeting, flowing patterns, in the hallucinatory glow of ultraviolet light. The bright lights of Broadway marquees have not only attracted audiences from all the world, but also young performers hopeful of making the "big time." On Broadway depicted this allure to the finger-snapping number of the same name; the nail biting tension of a first audition; the driving ambition that has created shows of artistic and technical excellence. Featured was Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with GeorKe, written in celebration of Neo-impressionist Georges Seurat. An exquisite tableau had the texture of his painting, the sensitive lighting e nhanced by a wonderfully harmonized choral number. To the rest of the world, Broadway represents the ultimate in American performing arts. But in mainstream America, in the world of truck drivers and diners, where the flag waves over the courthouse, the kings and queens of country and western music hold sway. Country Music U.S.A. provided clues to the overwhelming success of this music fo rm . Songs such as "Play me Some Mountain Music" and " Dig a Little Deeper in the Well" have a simple melody line, appealing, uncomplicated lyrics and a footstomping rhythm that encourages audience participation, with or without the hillbilly yells of the Young Ambassadors. In the finale , Fill the World With Love, fresh faces glowed and young arms reached out as the cast sang with conviction " Put Some Love in Your Hearts."¡ But , ultimately , the message that ran through the show came not from the lyrics; it came from the sheer exuberance and joie de vivre of the performers. D About the Author: Mohit Satyanand is an executive with a company in the foods business. He is actively associated with Delhi amateur theater, both on stage and in technical support.
\
ON THE LIGHTER SIDE
"So you've mastered the art of living, and this is it? Goofing off?" Drawing by Stan Hunt;
©
1985 The New Yorker Magazine, Inc.
"I have a follow-up question to the one I asked you this morning about girls." ©
1985. Reprinted courtesy Bill Hoest and Parade magazine.
0
·~'!;i<
"It's "oily SU•ng<- 1</f and I h•d so Uttl< In then one day he won the lottery."
commc~~
Reprinted with pemtission from The Saturday Evening Post Society, a division of BFL and MS .. Inc.
Canoon by Gary Larson
©
1985.
42
SPAN APRIL 1986
A River Idyll
Text by TERRENCE PETIY
Photographs by CLYDE H. SMITH
On the inn-to-inn journeys, time and speed become trivial to the paddlers. Indeed, nature and adventure on water are their primary interests. Canoeists on the Passumpsic and Connecticut rivers, in the northeastern state of Vermont, share a tranquil stretch with half a dozen cows (left, above) before trying out their newly acquired skills on white water (left and above).
SPAN APRIL 1986
43
A RIVER IDYLL continued
Life on the upper Connecticut is endlessly fascinating. Evergreens line
I
t took three-and-a-half hours, not counting an hour for lunch, to paddle from East Barnet to Wells River while motorists somewhere to our right were making the same journey in 15 minutes. However, there were no impatient grumblings coming from any of the six canoeists paddling easily through the meanders and gentle riffles along the upper Connecticut River. On the highway we would never have heard the slap of a beaver's tail or seen the bald eagle , red hawk and two ospreys winging their way above the water. Neither would we have gathered among our recollections the memory of a kingfisher imperiously surveying us from the New Hampshire shore. On the inn-to-inn water journeys run by Canoe Vermont, the Mad River Canoe Company's touring subsidiary, time and rate of speed become trivial to the paddlers. Indeed, on these voyages along Otter Creek, the Battenkill River and the Connecticut, scenery is usually the paddlers' primary interestthat and the food. There are preliminaries to our trip. After a short , illustrated lecture on the history of the upper Connecticut River, tour leader Steve Brownlee , of Waitsfield , assumes correctly that we can benefit from a few practical paddling pointers. Choosing a still, backwater pool beneath a dam on the Passumpsic River, about a kilometer and a half from its confluence with the Connecticut, he demonstrates basic techniques to his clients. "If your main concern is to avoid a rock, or turn the boat rather quickly, you're better off doing some quarter sweeps," he instructs. "But if it's just a nice, gradual turn and you don't want to lose your momentum , do the whole sweep." As he speaks, Brownlee stretches his paddle far out in front of him into the Passumpsic, and pulls it in an arc toward the stern of the canoe. He shows us other techniques as well: "The power stroke," "the draw stroke" and "the pry. " Each of the strokes- for moving quickly forward , avoiding rocks and boulders and changing course abruptly- will come in handy on the trip ahead. Expert-appearing in our bright flotation vests, we show our true competence as we take a few nervous turns around the pool practicing these strokes and others, and learning to trust our boats. Just when I begin to feel comfortable in the sensitive, delicately balanced, ashwood-trimmed Mad River canoe that Brownlee and I share, he decides to illustrate what to do when headed for an unexpected dunking. "If the boat tips to the left," he says, suddenly making the canoe do just that, "you can do a high brace on the right." More quickly than I can comprehend what is happening, Brownlee launches his body over the opposite gunwale, slaps the surface of the water with his paddle blade and, as if by sorcery, pulls the canoe back beneath us. Five or six minutes later, after we are on our way down the Passumpsic to meet the Connecticut , my heart returns to its normal pace. Almost immediately on our river journey our canoes begin, one by one , to shoot down a steep , yet short and relatively tame set of rapids. Brownlee has taught his students well. Each pair of paddlers passes through the white water as uneventfully as schoolchildren coming down a slide. At the bottom, our sweep
44
SPAN APRIL 1986
strokes power us around the sharp bend and into calmer water. Once the flat water resumes, I look back from the bow and see Laura Frost and Suzanne Thibault, Canoe Vermont clients from the Boston area , moving at little more than a drift, occasionally stroking to correct their direction. The complicated nature of some rivers puts harsh demands on paddlers: Great volumes of water, plunging violently into, around and over boulders test one's perception, reflexes, balance, judgment and courage. The rivers we are navigating-the lower Passumpsic and the upper Connecticut south of the huge Comerford Power Dam near St. Johnsbury-require caution, but do not overly tax one's thinking. Here it is safe to open cerebral corrals and to let aesthetic sensors out for extended grazing. The Connecticut is shallow where it is fed by the Passumpsic, especially when the Comerford is not generating electricity. All the way to Wells River are spots where we have to get out and walk over the rocky river bed. To discover whatever canoeable channels exist in these shallow stretches, Brownlee stands up in the boat to read the rif:fles and waves ahead. Where such channels exist, he finds them, where they are nonexistent, we walk, often through less than knee-deep water. However, even these quick-water riffles of extreme shallowness have their spectacles: They are formed by an infinity of rocks that cause rushed yet stationary geometries of silver chevrons on the surface of the river, while the rocks themselves- drift from the glacier that crept back up the Connecticut Valley 10,000 or so years ago-are of various shades of gold. From above, they look like crisscrossing trails of ancient bullion.
B
ird life on the upper Connecticut is unpredictable but abundant and endlessly fascinating. As we near a sharp dogleg in a deep-running, lazy part of the river lined with jungles of vegetation, Brownlee says that in past tours he has seen a pair of herons just around the bend. I stop paddling to Jet Brownlee's silent navigating take us stealthily around the point, but still a long-legged heron takes fright and flies through the trees to our left. No more than three minutes later we startle another bird, a large raptor with a white tail , white head and powerful wings. It is the first bald eagle I have ever seen. Somewhere before our portage around and lunch at the Mclndoe Falls dam we notice a beaver swimming diagonally downstream from the Vermont shore. Before reaching the opposite bank the animal changes direction, and then again, and yet again, like someone on a day trip to New Hampshire who cannot help thinking he forgot to do something at home. Suddenly, in a moment of decision , the beaver smacks his leathery tail and disappears beneath the surface, keeping his destination a private affair. Evergreens, elms and other trees thickly line the banks along some slow-moving sections, casting dark-green reflections that leave a silver avenue down the middle of the river. At times the Connecticut narrows to the width of a pasture stream, where Holsteins bathe or ranks of com march off through
Reprinted with permission. Terrence Petty and Vermom Life magazine. 1985. Copyright
Š 1985. Terrence Petty.
the banks, casting reflections that leave a silver avenue down the river.
low-lying farmland. There are also grand, arboreal boulevards, broad stretches where the foothills of the Green Mountains or the White Mountains rise up unannounced in the distance. Now and then a lazy cloud rests its shadow on the tree-framed clearing of one of these foothills as if the soft, meadowed slope were a gigantic bed. On this Canoe Vermont tour of the upper Connecticut we are impressed by a fundamental characteristic of the scenic personality of New England: the working partnership between nature and man . Here, barns seem rooted on the hillsides, organic expressions of the landscape. Even their paints change colors, as if they were not so much aging as entering another season. Bridges- including the old-fashioned covered variety found farther downstream-are visible crossing overheao, but their roads spring quickly, lynx-like, into woods at hoth endc.. The church steeple that marks a town in the semiforested distance 1s no more obtrusive than a white hirch.
T
he Connecticut is much cleaner than it was 15 years ago, before the federal government began funding sewage-treatment facilities across the country. Indeed, the transparent water of much of the upper river is a strong swimming enticement to canoeists who have worked up a sweat in the blazing sun, although drinking from the river is not advised . According to the Connecticut River Watershed Council, which has been fighting to clean up the river for more than 30 years, five times as many kilometers of the river now meet water quality standards as did in 1969. Twenty-one kilometers from where we put in we notice on the New Hampshire side several tidy white houses sitting high on the banks li ke spectators in lawnchairs watching to see what the river brings. Just around the bend on the Vermont side are more tidy houses. Connecting these two communities of Woodsville , New Hampshire, and Wells River, Vermont, is an aging iron bridge. Here the Ammonoosuc and Wells rivers end their wild alpine rides. Here, also, we come to an end. It is four o'clock, a Wells River church begins to chime a hymn whose melody is accompanied by the continuous chorale created by the three rivers rushing across one another's currents, and we beach our canoes for the day. Canoe Vermont's two-day trips on the upper Connecticut start and finish each day at the same place: East Barnet's Inwood Manor. The three- and seven-day trips cover greater distances-as much as 160 kilometers from start to finish-and stop at a different country inn each night. Canoe Vermont bases its choice of inns for all its tours more on reputation of cuisine than on grandeur of lodgings, according to Dennis Harrison , director of the 1984 tours. All meals are included in the price of a trip. "The accommodations don't always live up to people's expectations, but the food and the innkeepers' personalities seem to make that a minor inconvenience," says Harrison. However, even minor inconveniences are difficult to find at the Inwood. The long. rambling, yellow building-once a stagecoach stop and later a rooming house for employees of the world's largest croquet factory-crowns a wooded hill over-
looking the Passumpsic, railroad tracks, a small power dam and pasture. The Inn's decor is fetchingly eccentric, an expression of its owner, Ron Kaczor, a former novice at a New York monastery, who bought the abandoned and dilapidated building in 1978 and turned it into an island of hospitality. Now Buddhas and braided rugs, carved monks and milk cans, achieve a surprisingly pleasant aesthetic peace amid an abundance. of sturdy oak furniture. Before East Barnet's croquet factory burned in the 1930s, the town boasted a population of 600. Today the town has only 18 year-round residents, making the Inwood, the Passurnpsic and the Connecticut the loci of excitement in the tranquil community. "The standing joke is that if we have a full house we double the population of East Barnet," says Peter E mbarn to. the other proprieto r of the Inwood. Tonight , with the Canoe Vermont tour refreshed and read} for dinner, the popu lation of E ast Barnet is larger b} 75 percent. Dinner in the candle-lit d ining room is decidedly Italian: a complimentary glass of sherry, melon and prosciutto; spinach fettucine noodles mixed with cream, cheese and eggs and topped with mushrooms; a salad ; a main course of chicken sauteed in olive oil and butter and simmered in chicken broth; and Italian flat bread. Unable to resist any of these lurings, I never make it to dessert, but Brownlee tells me the Italian apple nut torte was delicious. Canoe Vermont's 12 river trips in 1984 drew 80 people, a number tour director Harrison considers relatively successful for a first season. To appeal to more clients, Canoe Vermont is considering adding to its schedule shorter trips, midweek tours for people who work weekends, and possibly a "Vermont Sampler," which would give canoeists an opportunity to try all three rivers for the price of one. Whatever the alterations, says Harrison , the trips will retain their common denominators: personal lessons in paddling techniques; local history; travel by means that give sightseers a view unreachable from the road; introductions to memorable people; and unforgettable meals. By the looks of the sky- gloomy , dark clouds joining and layering over each other-our second and last day of canoeing will probably be a washout. As J slide the canoe into the river, I wonder how soon the rain will come. It seems unlike ly that we will make the 16 kilometers to the pickup point without getting drenched. However, the rain holds off, and I turn my attention from the skies above to the Connecticut beneath at the start of a swift, narrow rapid just outside Woodsville. Throughout the remainder of the trip I am once again a part of the river. At one point I allow myself to drift with a large eddy whose orbit carries me from one bank nearly across to the other. At other points I paddle back upstream to extend my journey, or to see again hieroglyphics left on the river bottom by slow-meandering clams. When we finally beach the canoes in late afternoon, and gather together our belongings to start home, it is clear that this river has carved a place for itself not only through the lowlands that lie between the White and Green Mountains but through those higher cerebral planes where we store life's pleasant memories. 0
SPAN APRIL. 1986
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Alon e in New York "You don't meet any people in New York," a friend had told me. "You just walk past them." For him Manhattan was just a concrete jungle that offered no friendships. But, having just returned from an exhilarating trip of traveling, dancing and lecturing in New York (and other American cities), I have a different story to teU. What I found was a river of warmth that flowed underneath all those impersonal meetings .... I am waiting for a bus on Broadway. A drizzle has developed into a cool shower and I have no umbrella. The tall woman in a cape-like raincoat waiting at the bus stop does not seem a likely person to make friends with. But after a few minutes of awkward silence I decide to try anyway: "Hi . Yesterday I carried an umbre lla around and it didn't rain and just look at it today." She smiles and says, "You must watch television in the morning. The weatherman can tell you whether it will rain, what time it will rain and what kind of an umbrella to carry." A few minutes later the tall lady has become Elizabeth Zimmer; kind, warm and chatty. We discover that we live a block away from each other. Later, sitting in the bus we discover also that our passions are the same. She is a dance critic and a project coordinator for a program called Arts Link, which brings dance into school classrooms. She has just completed working on dance in the Middle East and Africa and will now be concentrating on Asian dance. " Free-lance intelligence," says her visiting card. She is excited at meeting me-a dancer, dance writer and schoolteacher from India with a crusade to get the classical dance experience into the classroom. When I say goodbye to Elizabeth, my bag is bulging with another bunch of keysto Elizabeth's flat. I can use her home anytime J want, she has said. 1 can even live there when she goes to Washington, D.C., to meet her boyfriend. And I had been told that New York was indifferent. It kind of engulfs you, this city of skyscrapers and subways. I had wanted to run back to Canada when I first landed here. (1 was a Government of India participant to a dance conference at the University of Toronto, and had come to the United States to cover the Festival of India and Rajiv
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SPAN APRIL 1986
.,v.R.DEVJKA
Gandhi's visit for the dance magazine Sruti and the Kerala newsmagazine The Week.) What, I wondered, was a single, middleclass south Indian girl going to do in this "unfriendly" city? Where do you begin and how do you make friends? Well , you have your passion, I told myself, feed it. So I walk into the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts to see their dance section. I am captivated. I just fill out a form and within minutes I have an earphone on my head and as Ruth St. Denis dances for me on the screen, she explains it all to me on the tape. That morning I see Rudolf Nureyev in his prime, Martha Graham and Rukmani Devi Arundale (the news of her death the other day came as a shock to me). And then a streak of luck. I see a notification at the center about the 1985 Dance Critics Conference of the American Dance Critics Association (DCA) to be held in the city in a few days. I jot down the telephone number. The president of the DCA is friendly, helpful- and I am at the conference. It's a big affair. There are names I have heard of back home. There are young boys and girls, aspiring critics and writers from several magazines. Before long I have 52 business cards in my bag. I meet dancers, choreographers, set designers, light designers, stage managers. Ears lend themselves eagerly to my experience as a dance critic in Jndia. From a total stranger who had strayed into the conference, I become for some time the center of attention. A notice goes up at the
Devika gave a Bharatanatyam recital (left) at a gathering of American dance critics in New York. In other cities. she danced for children and even held a workshop for them (above).
reception hall about a lecture and dance demonstration by me at a party at the residence of Joan Accocella, senior editor of Dance magazine and a member of the DCA board of directors. I dance, answer questions, explain the techniques of Bharatanatyam and also do some publicity for the Festival of India. At the end of it all, I am smug and happy. Suddenly, I have a lot of friends in unfriendly New York and I have been made a member of the Dance Critics Association. I return to my room at about 1:30 that night. I can't believe it myself-me, in my bright green Kanjeevaram sari and gold jewelry walking down Park Avenue at 1: 15 a.m. Foolish, perhaps, but I had really been enjoying the party. First I had gone to Westbeth in Greenwich Village with a choreographer who wanted to show me her work; then to a party with some friends. It was already late when I realized that in New York no one offers to drop you home. The harpist says she and I can leave together-I assume she is going my way. We walk down the subway at midnight, take the train-and she gets off many stops before mine. After that T have to walk home alone! For me this experience becomes the most important one of my trip-even more than the visit to the White House; the state
Apprehensive, lonely and unsure of herself, Devika is soon caught up in the surprising warmth of a city that she has been warned against. She makes friends, gives dance recitals and discovers America. dinner; the recognition as a critic and the invitations to all the Broadway musicals, the world premiere of a New York City ballet and the Dance Theater of Harlem's season opening at the Metropolitan Museum; and the meetings with the artists backstage. On that late-night walk , I gain all the strength and confidence that is to carry me through the rest of my trip. I stop over in Philadelphia on my way to Washington , D.C. I have a problemnowhere to stay in the capital. I am still thinking about that as I walk down the beautiful streets of Philadelphia. My host, Don Kushan, points to the statue of William Penn, a Quaker who built this city. Don , a student, is also a Quaker. The word interests me. He takes me to a Quaker Sunday morning meeting. Over coffee and cookies, I find myself the target of curious, intelligent, dumb questions- questions one had never imagined-about India. I answer from the perspective of my middle-class Hindu, Brahmin upbringing. Among the people I meet at the gathering are Lillian and George Willoughby from New Jersey. They have read a lot about Mahatma Gandhi and are excited to meet someone from India. Lillian drives me around town in her truck. I casually mention my accommodation problem in Washington, D.C. She makes a quick call and it's all settled. I am to stay with a "mixed" familyan Austrian married to an Indian , Janaki. They have two adopted African children. Once I meet them we discover that Janaki knew my family 30 years ago! At the press room in the White House the next day I am thrilled to be among the star media people of India (in Washington to cover Rajiv Gandhi's visit) and America. As I am talking about my trip to them and wondering aloud how I can ever cram all my experiences into a letter, John Snow, a TV newsman, just picks up the phone and dials Madras, "Here, call your mom and tell her you saw President Reagan this morning." From Washington to Boulder, Colorado; I am to spend the Fourth of July Independence Day celebrations with an all-American fami ly. The Billingleys take me for a hike in the Rocky Mountains. In the evening we sit by the mountainside listening to music and spend the night
watching the fireworks from up in the mountains. I am again asked questions by curious Americans-about India's history, culture, languages, political situation , caste system, and the arts. At a party for children in Denver, Colorado, I am again telling an eager audience about India, but the experience is different. Dr: Lloyd Lewan has retired as the executive dean of the floating university (Semester at Sea) and is now active in social work, politics and the family business. But he is still interested in the world he has seen during his travels. He wants me to join him in telling some rich American children about India. A globe in hand , he first talks about his travels in India. And then they tum to me with questions: " What do you eat? How come you speak English?" We dress up young Kimberly in my dance costume and have a small workshop on Bharatanatyam. Little hands and fingers strain to get the mudras right; amused faces try out the mime sequences. The next day Lloyd takes me out to a restaurant. He must look funny-escorting an Indian girl in a bright red sari carrying a doll bigger than she. His house is full of these stuffed dolls and we decided to take one of them, Freddie, to breakfast with us. It is all bonhomie and cheer. The waitresses click pictures and we all chat and become friends. Lloyd's home is crammed with loving gifts from all over the world-a bedspread woven by schoolchildren in Africa with his name on it, a painting from India, a carpet from Iran, a statue from China. We talk about hatred and love and discuss plans to find friends for retarded children in India and America-to make them feel special, exchange gifts for them , write letters for them. He calls over a friend interested in special education and we talk until the morning. I see world friendship manifested beautifully in a little farmnouse on the outskirts of Austin, Minnesota. Danny has been crying, her face all red and embarrassed, because her friend Lakshmi is leaving Austin. Danny and her husband Jack are a farming couple who grow their own vegetables and corn and keep cattle. They share their vegetable patch with a south Indian couple, Lakshmi
and Natarajan. Natarajan works as a biochemist in Rochester, Minnesota , and the couple drive down every Sunday to the farm. While the men work in the field , the American couple's two daughters pick berries and the women prepare an IndoAmerican meal. When I arrive in Austin, the first thing I see is a poster announcing my Bharatanatyam performance in the high school auditorium the next day. As I rehearse at the haU, my Indian friends tell me , "Just dance some fast tillanas and don't bother explaining technical details ... this is just a small town." But we underestimated our small-town audience. The one hour program stretches to three hours and my dancing is just a part of it. "What is the Ramayana?" they ask. "What are the Upanishads?" They want to know about the Aryan influence in my dance, about my reactions as a woman to the Indian dance philosophy. I have more surprises in store for me in Seattle-175 American children are reading the Ramayana, intrigued and intoxicated by the story. The Bellevue School is putting on a summer production of the Ramayana. The organizers are quite unaware of the Festival of India; they just wanted a story that affords a fantastic display of mime and dance. I am quite happy to be consulted on the script, costume and choreography by Anne, the director. Ravana, Vibheeshana, Kumbhakarana ... the names flow easily from the American mouths. And I see the Ramayana in a new light. My understanding of the epic was just enough to glide along accustomed grooves; now it has gained rhythm . As the flight takes off for home, I realize that I have not done much sightseeing and shopping, but I am content that I have taken in all there was to see. When I first arrived in New York, I tried to take in all the numberless details of the city, every tall building, every little peculiarity ... but in the wilderness of that diversity of sights and impressions, I had seen nothing. Now, as J leave New York, I notice fewer things, but I 0 see much, much more. About the Author: V.R. Devika, who lives in Madras, is a schoolteacher, dancer, choreographer, free-lance journalist and broadcaster.
SPAN APRIL 1936
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In The State of the World 1985, Lester Brown and his associates at the Worldwatch Institute present the latest data on global ecological conditions to evaluate the Lester R. Brown, et al, progress toward an ecologiPrentice Hall of India, cally "sustainable" society. Brown cautions that the preNew Delhi, sent optimism about slowed 301 pp., Rs. 60. population growth. expanding oil reserves and rising food supplies may lull people ments are urged to impleinto a false sense of security. ment such policies as delayed H e warns that since 1979, marriages, breast feeding, global economic growth varied contraceptive techhas slowed and has barely niques and legalized abortion. kept even with population Brown laments the paucity of growth. H e claims that this research on contraceptive deeconomic decline is rooted in vices and of foreign aid aloften misunderstood , long- lotted to population control. term ecological factors. Closely related to overBrown views global pop- population is the availability ulation growth as a major of food. Brown warns that in problem. The current world the last decade, the growth in population of 4,760 million total food output has slowed , is projected to expand to per capita production has 10,000 million before stabil- leveled off, prices have risen ity occurs, with most of the and hunger bas increased, additional people concen- especially in Africa and trated in South Asia, the Andean Latin America. One Middle East, Latin America of the main causes is ecologand Africa. The projected ical. A soil erosion crisis has growth rates of countries arisen with a 25,000-millionsuch as India (from 717 mil- ton loss of cropland soil in lion to 1,700 million) are 1974. More land has come alarming, indeed. Such rap- under irrigation , but progid growth could gravely ress has been hindered by threaten the carrying capac- growing water shortages and ity of many ecological sys- by inefficient techniques protems and stall economic de- ducing waterlogging and velopment in many Third salinization. Growth in fertiWorld states. lizer usage has declined due While consensus about the to rising energy costs, and gravity of this problem has green-revolution technology grown in the last decade, the has shown diminishing resolution , requiring a genera- turns. Improvements in agrition of one-child families, cultural technology will allow particularly in the Third food production to expand , World, seems far off. Gov- but the growth will be arithernments aced to convince metical not exponential and their citizens to limit their result in greater hung(..r family size through more across large areas of the publicity, education of wom- world. en and economic incentives Another author, Sandra and disincentives. Govern- Postel , claims that the rapid deforestation across the Tom A. Tr avis, curremly a Ful- globe threatens ecological bright scholar in India, is a disaster. Jn 76 tropical counpolitical science professor ar tries, forests arc being Bucknell University, Lewisburg, cleared ten times faster than Pennsylvania. they are being replanted, re-
The State of the World 1985
ducing the world's forests by 6 percent a decade. Deforestation in the Third World has contributed to flooding, soil erosion , desertification and rising fuel prices, causing growing hardship and could cause disruptive future climatic changes. Thus, Postel urges rapid reforestation through an increase in forest plantations oriented toward household fuel needs, greater funding and improved governmental management. The prognosis for energy is uncertain. William Chandler states that most studies project at least a 125 percent increase in energy demand by 2025, which would have terrible ecological and economic consequence!>. Yct, energy conservation potential is high and widespread adoption of existing technology could cut the demand growth rate in half. Already, a remarkable conservation trend in oil consumption has appeared, although the progress is distributed unevenly. He recommends promotion of greater conservation by the use of more energyefficient technology in industry, homes, appliances and automobiles coupled with the essential introduction of market prices and removal of subsidies for energy consumption. Christopher Flavin and Cynthia Pollock show that the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy has begun, with wood fuel, geothermal and wind power options holding special promise. Yet, they are unsure whether the transition will be rapid enough to avoid fossil-fuel-caused climatic change and destruction of forests. They recommend large increases in research and funding for renewable energy. Lester Brown and Edward Wolf assert that a new, sober vision of a grim ecological future is needed to spur the major changes in attitudes,
pnont1es, funding and programs on national and international levels necessary to build a sustainable global society. Many of the problems threaten the global commons and will require coordinated world response through new international institutions. Other dilemmas can be tackled mainly by the states themselves, as they strive to become more selfsufficient in energy or agriculture. They predict that the acid test will probably occur in Africa, where major changes in national policies and international action will be necessary to avert ecological disaster. The State of the World 1985 presents a sobering view of the present and a frightening image of the ecological future. The richness and precision of the data make the evidence quite convincing; important connections between ecology and economics are adroitly illustrated and their recommendations seem prudent and feasible. Yet, the authors are based in the alarmist school of ecology writing, and in their eagerness to warn of ecological dangers, they may exaggerate the negative in the available data. The authors face a methodological problem of future-oriented research; even slight changes in predicted rates of change can produce large differences in projected outcomes. More discussion is needed about the kinds of new political institutions necessary to implement the suggested refom1s and about how to overcome the many political obstacles to change. Overall, however. the volume makes an important contribution to knowledge about mounting ecological and economic dangers, and deserves the wide reading and publicity that the book has received. 0
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WGHLIGHTS OF THE NEXT ISSUE
Mario's New York PanAm flew Mario to New York to paint bis impressions of r~e Big Apple and its people. He returned armed wi th a dclightfol portfolio, some typically Mario. others a gentle surprise
Medicine's Triumphs Never in all of history has medical science made life so long or \O free of disease. Dramatic powers to treat the world 's most dreaded illnesses are altering the theories and practice of the healing arts. SPAN presents the latest development~ in <>bstetrics. surgery. drugs, the brain, gene~. radiology and artificial parts.
American Art at the Trieooale Art critic Shanta Serbjeet Singh comments on the wnrks of the American artists whose crea11on~ were part of the Sixth Triennale organized by the Lalit Kala Akademi in New Delhi.
Emily Dickinson Though Emily Dicl..inson wa~ ne\er published until after her death, she came to be umvl!r~ally regarded as America¡, grcatc t poet posthumously. Journalist. writer and poet K.S. Vcnkataramu explores the gemus and wit of this 19th-century woman whose originality got in the way of her success while she was alive.
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I. Ronald and Nancy Reagan join Prime Minister and Mrs. Nakasone ofJapan at a Japanese tea ceremony. 2. Nancy Reagan and Sonia Gandhi get together during the Gandhis' visit to America last year. 3. The First Lady congratulates artist Louise Neve/son after she received the National Medal of Arts from President Reagan last year. 4. Ron Reagan takes his mother for a tandem bicycle ride.
America's First Lady "Where's Nancy?" asked the sign held up by a teenager attending a meeting addressed by President Reagan in Oshkosh , Wisconsin. Nancy Reagan was just then back home in the White House busy conducting her own meeting. Frequently seen with her husband during his trips within and outside the United States, she has become a public figure as much for her supporting role as a wife as for her community work and the easy rapport she has built up with the American people. The role of the American President's spouse is rooted in custom, the public's expectations and the First Lady's own instincts. Tradition dictates that she supervise preparations for official social functions at the White House. She is responsible for choosing the menu (and sampling each dish), approving the guest list and selecting artists for entertainment. For the rest, it is up to her to decide how much time she should spend accompanying her husband and how much she should devote to her own independent activities. Nancy Reagan was accustomed to public visibility long before she became First Lady-as an actress and as the First Lady of Californ ia. When Ronald Reagan was governor of California in the late 1960s, she was active in the Foster Grandparents Program where volunteers work with handicapped children and orphans. As national First Lady she has continued her involvement with social work, focusing on combating drug and alcohol abuse. She bas initiated rehabilitation and antidrug programs, given speeches, encouraged parent groups and generally increased awareness of the problem-and its solutions. About two years ago she launched a campaign called "Just say NO!" among schoolchildren, encouraging them to say "no" to drug sellers. Since then thousands of children have participated in "Just say NO!" marches throughout the United States. During her travels abroad too she visits drug rehabilitation centers to observe their techniques in dealing with the problem. This provoked an interest in the subject among first ladies from other nations. Last year 17 of them attended a Conference on Drug Abuse in Washington-or, as the press dubbed it, Nancy Reagan's summit conference. O
Fostering Love