INTOUCH Magazine

Peak Pleasure

Despite suffering a horrific accident while climbing Kilimanjaro, Member Ash Roy’s passion for scaling mountains remains undimmed.

I started climbing when I was about 7 years old. There was a very big hill where I lived in India. My father taught at the university and on the other side was a massive steel plant and right next to it a freight train depot, with trains loading and unloading coal and iron ore. What child wouldn’t want to see all that from the top of a hill? 

From China with Love

Member Betsy Rogers explains how a classmate inspired an enduring fascination with China and the language.

Ellen Yeh sat next to me in the back of the classroom in seventh grade. She would go to Chinese school on weekends and practice writing her characters in class. I would copy the characters and she would explain them to me. And I was, like, “Wait, there’s a whole word in one character?”

Reconnecting with the Canvas

A devoted artist as a child, Club Member Rujuta Paradkar reveals the joy of reimmersing herself in painting.

I used to draw and paint all the time. I was known as an artist at school. But I was torn between art and academics and, like a true Indian, I chose academics. I knew there was no money in art.

Rekindling a Dying Art

Club Member Neelu Jain explains her passion for the traditional Japanese craft of embroidered temari balls.

Soon after the earthquake in 2011, a friend of mine who used to take temari classes at the Club introduced me to the art. Later that year, one of the students from the class was selling temari at the International Bazaar. That’s when I first saw that they could be used, and I wanted to learn more.

Inherited Humanitarianism

Club Member Afifah Yamasaki explains how growing up in a philanthropic family left its mark.

My father was a very religious guy, and charity came first for him every time. If he saw somebody on the street looking for food or something, he would just bring him home. Every day, we had somebody join us.