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Philadelphia MasalaPhiladelphia, PAPhiladelphia is the City of Brotherly Love, and there are many things to love there: the food, the music, and the kids I met!
I met Arjun and Varun, whose mother is from India, and practiced yoga with them. Yoga (which started in India) is a spiritual way to exercise through a series of moves. The moves have great names like the Cobra, and Downward Dog. The names help make the exercising fun!
 Arjun and Varun also play the mridangam, an Indian drum. Not only do they play the beat, called the talam, but they SAY the rhythm, too. That's called the konnakol, and it sounds really cool!
Arjun and Varun are not just brothers, they are fraternal twins. That means they were born at the same time, but they don't look exactly the same.
I had the best food at Arjun and Varun's house - Indian food! We had sambhar (a spicy lentil soup), dhal (a stew), and chapatis (bread). For dessert we had gulab jamun (fried milk balls in a sweet syrup). Yum!
 Welcome, Namaste. That's a song! "Namaste" is a Hindi greeting, like hello or goodbye. But it means more than that. Saying "Namaste" is a way to show great respect to the person you are greeting.
Later, I visited Rajbinder. I learned that different families in India practice different religions. Arjun and Varun are Hindu. Rajbinder and her family are Sikh. They attend a gurdwara, which is like a church, temple, or mosque. They invited me to come along.
 It seems like everyone here is good at something: yoga, drums, singing. They say all it takes is practice. The Brain says even HE has to practice and study. I thought he just knew everything naturally!
Rajbinder and her friends sometimes play kiklee, a game where you grab hands with your friend, then spin around really fast to try to knock the other person down. I tried it once. I'm still dizzy!
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All animated characters and underlying materials (including artwork) © Marc Brown.
Buster and the other Marc Brown characters are trademarks of Marc Brown.
©2008 WGBH