Ruv the Duv.

This is my brother-in-law Dr. Ravi Chopra. He married my sister Jo when I was eleven,and soon after,he took her away from me. I was pretty mad at him at first. I mean, he took her to India! That was the end of the earth to a preteen in Fall River, Massachusetts. We didn't have computers. You should have heard the echo on the phone when we called her. Calling her was an event. None of my friends believed me.How could I have a sister who lived in India? Just who did I think I was?


I always carried one of their wacky wedding pictures and a recent airletter from Jo in my pocketbook as proof. Jo was so good about writing to me. I lived for those blue pre-stamped letters. Lived for them!

Jo met Ravi in 1978. She was on the Continental Walk for Social Justice and Disarmament and he was on a march for Indians for Democracy. Their marches crossed in New Jersey. They all stopped to have a hippie picnic. The love. 11 months later they got married. Their wedding was to behold. It was in Nanaquaket, Rhode Island. The first part of the ceremony was Catholic. Fr. Daniel Berrigan celebrated. He had been one of the FBI's 10 most wanted men in America for awhile. He had thrown blood on the steps of the Pentagon. He was so cool. The second part of the service was all incense and Indian. It was so gorgeous. The colors,the smells, the ceremony. Even at eleven, I was moved,changed,thrown, I knew I would someday go to India. Jo moved into Ravi's Hoboken, NJ apartment. I used to visit them all the time, until they left the country.

Ravi has little things that he walks around saying for months,sometimes years, often decades. When they left America in the early 80's Ravi had a habit of responding to anything that I said with "Colt 45!" It was the way he said it. I always laughed. Another one of his favorites was "Why Oh why is the sky so high and you can't fly in the month of July" That would just spring from him for no apparent reason.

I wrote to Jo to get some more Ravi-isms. I laughed out loud because he is STILL saying "Send-a me the book, no?" No one understands why or where these originated. This guy is a total genius. He is sort after all over India to fix problems.

Last month I had lunch with my niece Cathleen and nephew Anand, Jo and Ravi's kids. I asked them exactly what it was that their father did. I have always told people when pressed that he is an "Appropriate Technologist".Turns out,I am right. Ravi studies the state of India's environment and figures out appropriate means to preserve or correct it. If the situation calls for a mule, he'll send in a mule. You know what I mean.

He has a team of people working for him and they go into places all over India that have been hard hit by disaster. Gorgeous Rajasthan (drought), all over Uttarakhand (earthquakes),Latur(also earthquakes), Orissa(cyclone) and Bihar (droughts and floods). India reminds me of Biblical times. There was a locust invasion too.

Ravi is a very very busy man,this is not to say that he doesn't have time to sit and watch an episode of Tom and Jerry with his youngest daughter and his father- in- law.
It is always clear though that his thoughts are never far from doing anything he can to make the lives of the truly desperate livable. His work is intense,and so is he. I totally understand why Jo took such a leap of faith. He is a good guy and he is the right amount of nutty. Send-a me the book no?