G-20 Summit: The Obamas at the Receiving Line

A blow by blow account in the New York Times of the First Couple greeting the G-20* leaders arriving for dinner at the Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh:

Ooh, next is South African President Jacob Zuma! Which wife did he bring? The youngest of course, Nompumelelo Ntuli, who puts her arm around Mrs. Obama and holds her hand during the photo op. Mrs. Obama tells Mr. Zuma that she expects him to solve the global economic mess “by Friday.”

Next arrives Ethiopian President Meles Zenawi, who clearly did something in the car to anger his wife because she glares at him, Mr. Obama, Mrs. Obama, and anyone unfortunate enough to cross her line of vision. The Obamas both look slightly
taken aback by her.

Wonder what happened in the car? The Ethiopian First Couple are quickly dispatched inside.

It appears that spouses in high places are not spared the mundane dramas that plague us regular folk.

And then further down:

Then it’s Brazilian President Lula da Silva, with his wife, and, finally, at 7:50 p.m., Japan’s new Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, and his wife, Miyuki, back from Venus. She is in an elegant black suit with a bubble skirt and carries a burgundy shawl.

Mr. Obama hugs her.

“I’m sorry we were late,” she says.

Wonder what the story behind that was and I wonder what the reference to Venus is. Hmmm. E! Entertainment cross-pollinated with a little bit of politics, turns out, still makes for an entertaining mix.

And if it occurred to you to ask "Why Pittsburgh?" you are not alone.

Click away!

* and other world leaders.

Obama's Cairo University Speech

Andrew Sullivan carries the entire text of Obama's speech at Cairo University. Many goose-bump inducing parts, including this one:

So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, and who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. This cycle of suspicion and discord must end.

I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.

I do so recognizing that change cannot happen overnight. No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust, nor can I answer in the time that I have all the complex questions that brought us to this point. But I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground.

The speech is most definitely worth a read and worth sharing with our children.

Video below from YouTube:

Aksharaabhyaasa (or Vidhyaarambham) - A Prayer for a Milestone

Growing up in India, it is very easy to feel like you're drowning in the frequency and number of rituals in any given year. There are the numerous festivals, there are the special rituals unique to every family, the rituals for every life event, and then there are the pujas held at random times during the year to address specific issues - if someone has been sick for a long time, if someone is having difficulty at work or in finding a bride or groom, or if the family is just grateful for a happy occurrence.

Not only do you celebrate the ones in your own home, but you participate in the ones in relatives' and friends' houses as well - 'participate' meaning you dress up in nice clothes, put on all your jewellery, talk nineteen to the dozen with the gathering of friends and relatives, feast to your heart's content on festival food and go back home deliciously tired. Yes, rituals in other people's houses are almost always more fun. Someone else is doing all the work, you see.

Living in the US, it's a completely different story. We live off of a calendar that makes no mention of any of the festivals, wandering in the desert of no rituals for years. Life runs on a completely different cycle than the one on which we grew up. No, this is not a complaint, just a statement of fact. It is what it is. We each pray in our own way every morning, we get to the temple as often as we can, but festivals come and go unnoticed, unless my parents or in-laws call from India and ask what we did that day.

There are some rituals, though, particularly the ones to do with children that somehow we've managed to keep our sights on. When the future is in plain sight is perhaps when you look carefully at your past, at your roots. So we've been eager beavers when it comes to making sure our kids are up to date on the rituals meant for them. There's the little ritual when the baby comes home for the first time from the hospital; a visit to the temple is the baby's first outing; there's the naming ceremony; there's the ceremony for when the baby graduates from milk to solid foods; a ceremony to make an offering of the child's hair to the family deity (in India, hair would be shaved off completely from the children's heads, whereas here the priest held a few blades of dried grass right next to our son's hair and air-snipped as a stand-in); and there's the ritual before children begin their formal education.

This last one, the ritual for when children are about to start school is a personal favorite. Going off to school is one of the big milestones in the life of a child, his or her first real step as a social being, deserving of proper marking and celebration. The Aksharaabhyaasa is simple, sweet and profound in import, all at the same time.

So this past January, the day before D was to start pre-school, we set up time at the temple to have a priest perform the ceremony for us. The temple's website helpfully provided the list of items we needed to take - flowers, fruits, about a pound of rice, honey, milk, yogurt, ghee, turmeric, kumkum (vermillion), betel nuts, betel nut leaves, a piece of cloth, a book and a pencil, etc., etc. That Sunday, we dressed up D in her long skirt (langa) and blouse that my sister-in-law and brother-in-law had given her as a gift during C's thread ceremony (the Upanayanam, which I wrote about here), C wore his jubba and pyjama and off we went to the temple.

After the initial iteration of our family's antecedents and a small prayer to invoke the goddess of education, Saraswati, the priest had D sit on her father's lap and with his hand guiding hers, her finger serving as a writing implement, she traced the first few alphabets of the Kannada script on a rice-filled plate. Then followed a few letters of the English alphabet and then the numbers. Right on cue, good-natured ribbing followed - are you sure you remember your alphabets, the priest teased the husband; he can't even read my letters anymore, chimed in my mother-in-law. And then it was done.

The next day, Monday, I woke her up gently, telling her she had to go to school. She got up with a start, yelled, "I can hear the school bell. I'm late!" (a dialogue from a Dora book that she found the right moment to apply) and tumbled out of bed. She picked out her outfit - leggings, shirt, frock and boots - slung her backpack over her shoulders (yes, she had filled it with the stuff she wanted to take the night before), said goodbye to her grand-parents and dad, sat in the car with her brother and was off to school.

The next two days were tough. The novelty of the first day wore off mighty quick. She cried on Tuesday and Wednesday. Then Thursday was library day and park day at her school. There has been no looking back since then. Every day she walks in with a wide grin, big arms and a "Hi friends!" for her classmates. I'm not kidding. A couple of them come running and they have a group hug while I stand there taking in all the drama. Oh, yeah. There's plenty of that!

P.S. We'd had C's ceremony at the same temple when he was about three. My in-laws were visiting us then too. We had gone to the Bombay Club across from the White House for dinner then. We decided to replay the episode fully and went to the Bombay Club again. When we got there we found that the entire street and all the streets around the Hay Adams Hotel were cordoned off because then President-elect Obama and his family happened to be housed at that hotel in the days before the inauguration (remember the episode about the Blair House not being available because Bush had the former PM of Australia staying there?).

So we had to park the car a couple of blocks away and we, in our fashionable but flimsy Indian clothes froze by the time we got to the restaurant. We had not expected to stop anywhere after the temple and we were unprepared. Then, the next day we read in the papers that just as we were chowing down on some delicious but bland Indian food, Obama and his family were at the Lincoln Memorial, just a few blocks away, paying homage to the man whose train journey Obama was all set to replicate in a couple of days. One of those so-near-yet-so-far moments that I'm sure will be repeated many times.

The temple does not allow photography within its premises. The one above is from the Aksharaabhyaasa ceremony for my niece in Bangalore a couple of years ago.

A playset on the White House grounds

For the first time in a long time, young children are ruling the White House grounds. The caption to this photograph on the Time White House Photo Blog says the swing set sits outside the Oval Office.

There's something very soothing about this picture. The burden and awesomeness of the job tempered by the sweet ordinariness of being the father of two young children. More power to the man (and his wife) who find comfort in this ordinariness and are not shy about seeking it.

Photo credit: Brooks Craft / Corbis for Time

Hisham Melhem on Obama: "A new wind is blowing"

No matter where you stand on the political spectrum vis-a-vis Obama, one thing is clear - he is doing things differently. It's been about a month since he has moved into the city and hardly 10 days since he's taken the oath of office, but every so often you read or see something and you do a double take.

There was that dinner at the home of conservative columnist George Will, at which other notable attendees were David Brooks (one of my addictions during the campaign), Bill Kristol (who had to go and thumb his nose at the liberal columnists after this dinner - this man is such a buzz kill); then there was the pow wow with the liberal commentators, including, among others, Maureen Dowd (NYT), E.J. Dionne and Eugene Robinson (WP) and Rachel Maddow (MSNBC); then he went off to tour the Lincoln Memorial with his family days before the inauguration (I had never heard of a President at a memorial unless it was for a formal event); then there was that line in the inaugural speech about America being a country of Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus and non-believers (don't think anyone has ever mentioned Muslims and Hindus in this way ever - what a world of difference from the Palin rallies); then he appointed George Mitchell and Richard Holbrooke* as envoys to the Mid-East and Afghanistan/Pakistan, respectively, and showed up at the State Department to announce their appointments on Hillary's first day of work as Secretary of State.

The icing on the cake - his first sit-down interview as a President goes to Hisham Melhem at al-Arabiya (in this clip he almost sounds like he's running for President of the Middle-East or something). Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic has a Q&A with Melhem up on his blog in which Melhem echoes the prevailing sentiment of hope and anticipation on this side of the pond:

There's a subtle shift here on how he looks at the war on al-Qaeda and the groups that collaborate with it. He doesn't put Hamas and Hezbollah in the same category as al-Qaeda. Is there going to be disappointment later? We're bound to have disappointments, but the main message is that a new wind is blowing. He's closing down Guantanamo, sending Mitchell, pulling out of Iraq, and maybe I'm dreaming but I hope he would show Palestinians and Israelis tough love, both of them. Do you want to tell me that Bin Laden and all these nuts are not going to be nervous about him?

Meanwhile, you'd wish some things would change, but no dice - Sarah Palin has a PAC of her own now, which commentators think is a clear indication of her desire to seek the Presidency in 2012.

*Earlier version misnamed Holbrooke.

The oath, still reverberating a day after

Justice Roberts administers the oath of office to Obama again following the fumble at the inauguration. It apparently took place last night*.

Then VP Biden takes a dig at Justice Roberts at a ceremony for White House staff this morning.

Obama is clearly annoyed at having the issue raked up again. He reaches out to Biden as if to stop him and shakes his head at his staff, signalling them not to laugh. This on the heels of Mrs. Biden's faux pas on Oprah.

Are Presidents and Vice-Presidents doomed to dysfunctional relationships?

* Earlier this evening.

Jan 20th 2009 - The Inauguration As It Happens

As much as I can keep up with it! Please forgive typos. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Temperature in the low twenties
Wind chill in the teens
A flurry or two maybe

Millions of hats and twice the number of boots
Scarves and gloves
Fists wrapped around hand-warmers
Toe-warmers jammed into shoes

The wind is whipping up hair and scarves
Noses are red and cold, eyes are tearing
From the chill or from emotion
It's hard to tell

The Mall, usually empty
Grass as far as the eye can see
Not so today
Just people and flags
Jammed into every inch of space

Michelle delicious in a lemon-colored suit
Barack in a red tie
Have a gift for the Bushes
Wonder what it is
Red ribbon around a square white box

A journal and pen for Mrs. Bush
According to Charlie Gibson
So she can write her memoir
And what a memoir it will be!

Spike Lee in his white NY Yankees ear-muffed hat
Ted Kennedy in his blue scarf and and a black hat
Dustin Hoffman with a crown of grey hair
Magic Johnson, black cap over a shaved head
Annie Leibowitz clicking away

Jill Biden in a smashing red coat and knee-high boots
Dick Cheney in a wheel chair, walking stick in hand

Motorcade going down Pennsylvania Avenue
What a thrilling sight!
Car after car, black, foreboding, impenetrable
Down the street I've walked on a hundred times

The crowd is screaming their heads off
Diane Sawyer talking about a taxi that got itself into the motorcade one year
What a thing to happen!
Not this year though, not a chance
Security is tight, tight, tight

The motorcade arrives at the Capitol
The main players walking in
A shot of Arnold Schwazzenegger, gloved but not hatted
Rahm Emmanuel, John Kerry
The Justices walking down

John Roberts, Rick Warren, Colin Powell
Scalia, Sandra Day O'Connor
The MC's voice booming over the microphone
All eyes on the red-draped arch through which Obama will walk in

The cabinet and agency designees walking in

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The older Bushes all color-coordinated in purple
Joe Biden's mom striding purposefully on the arms of a younger man
Jimmy and Rosalind Carter
Hillary and Bill Clinton

Clinton and the elder Bush in a warm hug (rivals earlier but pals now)
16 years have taken a toll over Bush 41

Rahn Emmanuel just thumbed his nose at someone!
Who, oh who??

Hillary walks out as Former First Lady
Not as Secretary of State designee

Bill Clinton looks grumpy
Perhaps he's mulling over what might have been

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The kids warm in pjs and housecoat
Sprawled on pillows on the carpet
Moving to the band music

Charlie Gibson, George Stephanapoulous and Diane Sawyer on the TV
Keeping it low, keeping it alive
I'm content to listen to their banter
Always appreciate George's POV

The Clintons and the Bushes (43) are catching up
The Obama kids come out with their grandma
Aretha Franklin! Oh My God!
Two shocking red hats and scarves in the crowd

Obama's family - a melting pot of its own
Black, white, Asian
A chanting, "Obama, Obama"
No time for a decorous silence waiting for the President and President-Elect

Michelle Obama and Jill Biden walking out
Michelle holding the bible that her husband will take the oath on
Encased in a red box, water-proof, fire-proof
A stray piece of ribbon hanging on Obama's lemon suit
Now finds its purpose - it's supposed to be tied just above her waist

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Times Square, NY, overflowing with people

The President and Vice-President
The band strikes up Hail to the Chief!

Joe Biden and Barack Obama up next
Can't get over the sea of people on the Mall
Nancy Pelosi can't stop grinning
C is counting down the last few minutes of Bush's Presidency
Last 20 minutes!

The bare trees look like dust bunnies
The chanting begins again
Shots of the crowd
Their bodies may be freezing
Perhaps they're warm from the inside

Obama's view, never before afforded any other President
Two miles down the Mall, clear to the Lincoln Memorial
Two million people, two million flags
Barack H. Obama, says the MC
He's using the H!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Diane Feinstein does the welcoming address
Peaceful transfer of power is her theme
Rick Warren doing the invocation
A lot of controversy when he was picked
But no booing now
Everyone is silent

Aretha Franklin and My Country 'Tis of Thee
What a treat!
A great big sparkly bow on her head rising from a cap
The woman knows how to make a fashion statement out of necessity!
People are crying - who can blame them!

OMG, it's happening
It's the beginning of a new beginning
Justice Stevens swears in Biden
D is within two feet of the TV and has her hand up too! :)

The country has a new VP! Whoo hooo!
Lots of hugs going around

Yitzak Perlman and Yo Yo Ma and two others I can't recognize
Playing a John Williams composition
Yo Yo Ma left his regular Cello at home
(The 200-year old one he left behind in a NY taxicab once
and the good driver returned to him)
That cello can't stand the cold, apparently
Has a carbon cello for the occassion

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The violin and celllo are hard to bear
Emotions are already running high
Surely we did not need this heart-rending music too!

Everyone please stand!
John Roberts administers the oath
The man Obama voted against to confirm for the Supreme Court
The clock has struck noon
Gibson says the White House website has changed already

Obama has his hand on Lincoln's bible
He fumbles briefly, Michelle smiles

Congratulations Mr. President
And with those words,
Barack Hussein Obama is President of the United States!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Obama's speech
Will need to go read it later
For now, content to let a Presidential address wash over
Gathering storms, real challenges, lost jobs, shuttered businesses
But they will be met

Will really need to read
Not paying attention at all
The images are gripping
"We are ready to lead once more," he says
What must the Bushes be thinking?
What a way to leave the White House!

To those in the Muslim world
"People will judge you by what you build
Not what you destroy."

Challenges, instruments with which to face the challenges are new
But the values with which to fight them are the old and true

Great line tying George Washington's invocation
to a nation being just born
Wow!
The expectations were high
Don't think anyone will say he did not meet them
Except may be Ann Coulter?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Elizabeth Alexander delivers the inaugural poem
Obama's colleague at U of Chicago
Praise for the Day, the title
Robert Frost for Kennedy
Maya Angelou for Clinton

Oprah and Steadman looking serious
Rev. Joseph Lowery delivers a prayer
Diane Feinstein does a great job shepherding the inaugural committee
And with the national anthem
Smiles and cheers all around

http://www.whitehouse.gov/
The change has come!

Let the party begin!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh, this is so nostalgic!
The Bushes prepare to leave the city
No longer their home
The helicopter is standing ready
The Bidens are saying goodbye to the Cheneys
Who'll drive to their home in McLean (?)
The Obamas are walking the Bushes to the helicopter
They wave goodbye
The paegentry is amazing - sad and exciting at the same time
The new guard seeing off the old guard



Image source: Washington Post (Getty Images)

The blades are whirring
That Pink Floyd song, from The Wall
The old guard now a speck in the sky.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here's the text of Obama's Presidential inaugural address. Thanks Altoid!

Here's the part invoking George Washington's speech:

"Let it be told to the future world…that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive…that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OK, Obama and John Roberts made nice just now at the luncheon. During the swearing in, Obama fumbled, asked Roberts to repeat the words, then it seemed like Roberts threw him off by switching the words around.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Washington, D.C. travel essay published last year, when the primaries were in full swing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Obama speaking at the luncheon referring to Senator Ted Kennedy taking ill. There's an ambulance outside the Capitol and a stretcher at the ready.

Obama: A Letter from a Father to his Daughters

The part that resonated with me the most was this:

When I was a young man, I thought life was all about me—about how I'd make my way in the world, become successful, and get the things I want. But then the two of you came into my world with all your curiosity and mischief and those smiles that never fail to fill my heart and light up my day. And suddenly, all my big plans for myself didn't seem so important anymore. I soon found that the greatest joy in my life was the joy I saw in yours. And I realized that my own life wouldn't count for much unless I was able to ensure that you had every opportunity for happiness and fulfillment in yours.

But then the paragraph ends with this:

In the end, girls, that's why I ran for President: because of what I want for you and for every child in this nation.

Of course, it doesn't occur to everyone to run for President to make their own children's lives better. The rest of the letter is a wee bit more impersonal than it would have been, perhaps, had he written a private one.

And I do hope he has written and will continue to write private letters to his daughters. What a treasure they would be to open up when the girls are parents themselves, to peep into their father's thoughts and to relive these times through his eyes.

The text of the entire letter is here.

Time's 2008 Person of the Year...

... is Obama. A foregone conclusion, but Time labors to explain its reasoning:

In the waning days of his extraordinary year and on the cusp of his presidency, what now seems most salient about Obama is the opposite of flashy, the antithesis of rhetoric: he gets things done. He is a man about his business — a Mr. Fix It going to Washington. That's why he's here and why he doesn't care about the furniture. We've heard fine speechmakers before and read compelling personal narratives. We've observed candidates who somehow latch on to just the right issue at just the right moment. Obama was all these when he started his campaign: a talented speaker who had opposed the Iraq war and lived a biography that was all things to all people. But while events undermined those pillars of his candidacy, making Iraq seem less urgent and biography less relevant, Obama has kept on rising. He possesses a rare ability to read the imperatives and possibilities of each new moment and organize himself and others to anticipate change and translate it into opportunity.

On another note, here's Obama in 2008.


In 2012, it'll be interesting to go back to this photograph or to any of his recent ones to see how much grayer he's gotten. If recent history is any indication (Bill Clinton, G.W.), Obama will be silver-haired by then.

Picture credit: Callie Shell/Aurora for Time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Edited to add a link to the Time article (Dec 18, 08).