Jo’s Blog

Avinash Pasricha and I go way back. In 1982, when Ravi and I were living in Delhi, I wrote occasionally for Span Magazine, the PR organ of the US government in India. My first article was on cooking American food in an Indian kitchen. The [...]

In India, autism is still widely misunderstood and, outside of the large cities, often undiagnosed. This article is the first in a bimonthly series that will address early child development.

Report in the Lancet shows that children across the globe will hit the same milestones, as long as basic needs are met Indian children cool off on a hot day in Delhi. Photograph: Money Sharma/EPA Healthy children develop in remarkably similar [...]

Burstability just sounds exciting. Does it mean something packed so tight it could pop at any moment (like a balloon)? Or is burstability being so filled with ideas and magic that one cannot be contained? It turns out burstability is a technical [...]

We had a neighbourhood meeting in my garden today. The average age of the participants was ten. The kids were serious and thoughtful. I had asked them to come because we had a situation. I thought they could help. One of our students had [...]

A pediatrician named Alastair McAlpine recently tweeted about a little project he’d undertaken. He asked a bunch of his terminally ill patients what had made their lives thus far meaningful. His patients are children; they were dying and [...]

My package was due for arrival yesterday and the courier guy called me six times for directions. That’s pretty standard here in Dehradun. Their first call is to ask for the address. I’ve stopped pointing out to them that the address [...]