Flashback 1997: Italian eatery unafraid to dish out stereotypes

     Ah Buca di Beppo. There was a time when the crazily over-the-top Italian eatery was part of my life — there was one on Clark Street, a few blocks from where we lived on Pine Grove Avenue. I'd stop by for a glass or two of wine, back in the day, and we'd eat there, or try to. The portions were so huge, hese huge family sized platters, it was difficult for a couple to find something to order. Later we went back with the boys, who liked the chaotic decor. Ross had his bar mitzvah lunch at the Buca in Wheeling. I still remember a guest, a prominent chef, looking around tentativelly, as if thinking, "They're having it HERE?" 

     The Wheeling Buca shut down abruptly last year after more than 25 years in business, and the chain declared bankruptcy this week, trying to structure a debt of up to $50 million. That doesn't mean it's closing any of its 44 locations, necessarily. But it ain't doing well. 

      The lede is a reminder that "Big Night" was originally a cult classic that only gained in popularity as Stanley Tucci's star rose.

     You probably didn't see "Big Night." It was one of those small films that plays in theaters for about two weeks before a single copy is sent to video stores.
     In the movie, a pair of brothers devoted to good Italian cooking open a little restaurant and are crushed by the owner of a garish, sprawling spaghetti-and-meatball place that is filmed in shades of red and presented, none-too-subtly, as the culinary equivalent of hell.
    Cut to a few weeks ago. I'm walking up Clark Street. Suddenly, I'm standing before a red and green vision calling itself Buca di Beppo. Around the entrance are strung red Christmas lights.
     Inside, deep red walls. More Christmas lights. Loud, full-throated Italian chestnuts such as "It's Now or Never" blare from speakers. All sorts of weird framed photographs leer down from the walls: a nun in habit watching "Wheel of Fortune", Al Capone's mug shot, a giant portrait of Joe DiMaggio, lots of Sophia Loren and a photo of a drunken man trying to lift a strand of spaghetti off a woman's ample cleavage. Italian-Americanism seen through a post-ironic, MTV lens.
     "Wow," I said to myself. "Someone opened the hell restaurant from `Big Night.' Incredible!" I couldn't have been more astounded had I looked out the window downtown and seen the African Queen chugging up the Chicago River with Charlie Allnut at the helm.
     My wife and I returned for a meal. We saw the portions were huge — stupendous — back-breaking platters of steaming pasta, covered in red sauce, topped with meatballs the size of grapefruits. Portions so huge, so Swiftian, we couldn't order anything we wanted — isn't that how it would be in hell?
     We ordered a small Caesar salad, split it between us, with bread, and were content. The food in fact was very good, and I resolved to meet the people behind this curiosity.
     It wasn't that I was offended, personally. I like to see cultural pieties poked at. If there was a restaurant called "The Talmud" with waiters in beaver hats and framed scholarly writings and portraits of famous rabbis, I'd go, provided they knew how to pickle herring.
     Rather, I was intrigued. It takes a certain kind of courage to offer up the mild blasphemy of Buca di Beppo, from the phone number ("Dial 348-POPE") to the unashamed stereotyping of Italians as mobsters, movie stars and priests. What I didn't expect was sincerity.
     "I'm from southern Italy," said Vittorio Renda, a vice president for Buca Inc., based in Minneapolis, where the restaurant got its start four years ago. "We wanted to do something southern Italian immigrant. Quality. Tradition. Just homemade cooking."
     The place is designed for family dining, Renda explained, proudly noting that the chicken cacciatore platter weighs in at 7 pounds, two of which are garlic mashed potatoes. Another Buca di Beppo — the name means "Joe's Basement" — has just opened in Wheeling.
     When I asked about the walls, he proudly explained how they travel to Italy every year to pick up decorations. "We go to the Vatican, to all kinds of shops," he said.
     With that, he led me to the "Pope's Room," a circular dining area festooned with yellow papal flags and a table set for 20 diners, who no doubt would argue over who gets to sit on the throne.
     "It's like being in the Vatican," Renda said.
     My biggest surprise came when I mentioned — very gingerly, to one of the partners, Cliff Spence — how Buca di Beppo reminds me of the hell restaurant in "Big Night."
     He smiled, proudly, and said that the movie's producers toured the Buca di Beppo in Minneapolis. "That must have been part of where they got the idea from," he said. Of course, art imitates life.
     Regarding complaints, Renda gave a Mediterranean shrug and said, "You always get a call here and there." But Spence said the photo of the woman having a strand of pasta plucked from her meloni prompted hundreds of protest calls in Minneapolis, particularly after they ran the picture as a quarter-page advertisement.
     "We got calls for two days," Spence said. "They called and said it was a gross misrepresentation of women."
     I expressed admiration for the fact that, having received all those complaints, they nevertheless included the photograph, big as life, in their new restaurant in Chicago.
     "The owner said the biggest mistake he ever made was not taking out a full-page ad," Spence said.
     I suppose the photographs might bother some people. But as the sign in Buca di Beppo's kitchen says: "Se non sopporta il calore, vattene dalla cucina."
     In other words: If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.

            —Originally published in the Sun-Times, June 25, 1997

Josh Shapiro was good, but no Tim Walz

     Something special, exclusively for EGD readers. Typically, I run a few paragraphs of my Sun-Times column then link to the paper — they pay for it, they deserve the clicks. But today I'm running the entire thing, because the version in the newspaper was ... how to say this tactfully? ... watered down, out of concern for their 501(c)3 status. Click here for the paper's version, for those inclined to compare. But you're braver than I, who couldn't bring myself to read the final version. I turned in this:

     Donald Trump has taken to calling Kamala Harris "Kamabla" in his social media posts.
     Which at first glance seems minor, one of those tiny things that flies by unchallenged in the endless media whirlwind. Trump is such a gushing geyser of lies, errors, insults and malice that to focus on any one bit seems naive, almost pointless. By the time you've remarked on it, it's already out-of-date, replaced with a dozen more of the same, or worse.
     Trump is fond of tagging childish nicknames on his opponents. But "Kamabla" resonates more, at least with me. Mangling someone's name is a classic racist go-to move. The "What kinda funny name is THAT?" grin is implied. I get "Bergstein" and "Steingold" and "Goldstein" and a dozen variants, all signs that that I'm about to read the thoughts — to stretch the term — of some sneering anti-Semite who feels compelled to weigh in on today's topic.

   Or not read them.Why bother? Racism, remember, is a form of ignorance —you're not perceiving the world as it is, but through the crazy kaleidoscope lens of your own obsessive fears. Who cares what dumb haters think? And the funny thing is, egotism is such an intrinsic part of being a bigot, the thought they're disregarded as beneath contempt doesn't occur to them. I have people gibbering in my Spam folder, ignored, for years.
     But the Republican presidential candidate cannot be dismissed so easily. Even though none of this is news. Ever since he came down that brass escalator in the garish lobby of Trump Tower on June 16, 2015 and started slurring Mexicans as criminals and rapists, he's been the pied piper for the lowest sub-hell of the American psyche: racism, sexism, xenophobia, nationalism, religious bigotry.
     Nearly a decade. No wonder we're all loopy. No wonder Joe Biden bowing out of the race brought an explosion of joy, optimism and energy. Hope dawned. Maybe we can finally break the spell.
     This has been a particularly exuberant week, since Harris announced her running mate is Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
     Walz wasn't on my radar. My personal favorite was secretary of transportation Pete Buttigieg, the sharpest razor wit in politics. The prospect of watching him vivisect Trump and Vance for the next three months was delicious to contemplate.
     Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was my second choice. He's also a guy who can deliver a verbal broadside, and could be expected to win his own battleground state. Plus he's Jewish — as with Sandy Koufax, you like to see your guy on the mound, striking 'em out.
     Both men had drawbacks. Buttigieg is gay, so picking him would churn the Republican waters — not that they wouldn't churn anyway — plus give pause to some Democrats who harbor anti-gay bias. Sure, it would be cool to have a gay vice-president — a sign that maybe our country isn't really a nest of hidebound religious loons who live their lives in a sex panic frenzy. But prejudice isn't something people gladly admit to pollsters, and you'd hate to bet our democracy on just how progressive people are in their secret hearts, then wake up Nov. 6 and find out you were wrong.
     Shapiro being Jewish, while catnip to Jews, would have been a drawback last year, but since Oct. 7 has become an anchor, as the outrage of Palestinians — and their undergraduate allies —over the Israel-Hamas War tends to drift from Israelis to Zionists to Jews in general. And Shapiro is no random member of the Tribe, but as governor shut down campus protest in a way that Palestinian activists didn't like.
     “Somebody like Shapiro would be an absolute disaster since he essentially has made it seem as if the Palestinians don’t have any rights to freedom or self-determination or anything,” said Hatem Abudayyeh, national chair of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, while Harris was still pondering her choice.
     Some Jews chose to register displeasure at Shapiro being passed over. Me, I understand that the goal here is to win, and if Harris-Walz has a slightly better chance at victory than Harris-Shapiro, then Harris-Walz it is. Would you rather lose with your guy, or win with somebody else? We can work at perfecting American society afterward.
     That's called strategic thinking. The idea that people unhappy with some current administration policy are going to withhold their support, or back the guy who would be much, much worse, is cutting off your nose to spite your face. Maybe Jews are unduly attached to our often considerable noses. But doing that just isn't smart.

Gene & Me: The Ecstasy of Defeat

      Hard to express just how small a part of my consciousness is taken up by the White Sox. I think about topology more. Somewhere between the mental energy expended on Q-Tips and that dedicated to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. 

     But Gene Weingarten is my hero — the best newspaper writer alive. His column collection, "Fiddler in the Subway," made me proud to be in the same profession. Even if I never did anything remotely as good, and never could, we share the same rough job description, as people who arrange words on a page. A stretch, I know, like saying you resemble someone because you both have bilateral symmetry. 

     Bottom line: when Gene asked me to engage in a colloquy about the White Sox and their historic losing streak, you can be damned sure I was going to engage in a colloquy on the White Sox and their historic losing streak. He posted the results on his Gene Pool blog Tuesday, and I want to share it with you here today. This is his introduction — I show up later on, adding my perspective on the perennial South Side losers, for what it's worth.

     We live in turbulent, truculent times. Matters of grave importance are in flux; one day you think the country faces a certain depressing storyline, and then, seemingly overnight, the scene shifts momentously and who knows where we wind up?
     I think you know what I am talking about. We are confronting what we have become as a nation, and wrestling over whether this is really what we want to be: bullies and braggarts and bigots and weirdos? Or do we want to be miserable defeatists mired in despair? But now, suddenly, there is a third reality, a bright beacon around which we can flitter like moths, and coalesce: I am talking about the Chicago White Sox. 

     Let’s take a breather from the furious frenzy of politics. Let’s enjoy the beauty of failure, embrace it, and grow mighty from the purity of it. Remember, Chicago will be the scene of the Democratic National Convention: There is resonance in this.
     The White Sox are a bad baseball team, but even better than that, they appear to be on the cusp of becoming the worst baseball team the modern world has ever known. Their ineptitude is degrading and pathetically wound-licking: One of their better players is “Andrew Benintendi,” whose last name, as i see it, tepidly translates into “good intentions.”
     This team is so bad it is seriously statistically challenging the comically feckless 1962 Mets, the losingest team in modern baseball history, for the distinction of being immortally bad. Can we not love this team for their failures? Indeed, can they love themselves? Can we not celebrate humanity in its glorious totality — strong and weak, good and bad?
     It was just three months ago, in the Gene Pool, toward the very start of the season, that I envisioned exactly this scenario, but cited … The Miami Marlins, a team that, at the time, stank like a deceased mackerel in the sun. I proposed launching The Badwagon, a takeoff on “The Bandwagon,“ Tony Kornheiser’s famous 1991 mid-season columns urging fans to join his online club rooting for the Redskins to keep winning games, and then win the Super Bowl. (They did, and did.). The Badwagon would be similar, but different. I was urging readers to root intensely for the Marlins to keep losing, on the theory that there is nobility in abject failure.
     That was three months ago. Time, that thief of joy, intervened. The Marlins found a small degree of competence. They began winning occasionally. Right now, they are a very bad team indeed, but not a historically, world class very bad team.
     But Time, and Fortune, have once again smiled on us all. The second worst team from three months ago, the Chicago White Sox, girded their loins and roared stunningly backwards. You can practically hear the urgent bleat of a garbage truck in reverse. As of this morning, The White Sox were on a spectacular 21-game losing streak, a mere two losses from the worst frenzy of decay in history. They are now way worse than the Marlins. As of today, their record was 27-88, which is a winning percentage of .235. That’s even crappier than the uber-crappy ‘62 Mets, a brand-new team, one composed almost entirely of castoffs from other teams, a team that included the famously maladroit Marv Throneberry, a team that finished the season at 40-120, the most losses ever. Their winning percentage was .250. The 1916 Philadelphia Athletics finished even lower, at .235.

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Wisconsin State Fair notes: Aloof cows, proud pigs and Original Cream Puffs

     I approached a group of young women at the Wisconsin State Fair.
     "What can you tell me about Wisconsin dairy?" I asked one, who drew back, startled. I hastily pointed out that her green shirt had, "Ask me about Wisconsin dairy" in big letters across the back. Maybe nobody ever takes them up on the offer.
     "California has more cows..." she began — true, with 1.7 million dairy cows, it leads the nation in milk production. Wisconsin is second, and obviously, that shortcoming weighs on folks here.          "But Wisconsin cows are happier," she claimed, explaining that it's because their sources of feed can be grown locally.

     To be honest, the cows did not look happy. They were sprawled on the floor, facing away from the crowd. I would have gone with "aloof."
     We were standing at Dairy Lane on Saturday evening. Not my usual weekend entertainment choice. But my future second daughter-in-law (the older son got married in July) has people in Wisconsin, and wanted to go to the fair with her fiance. My wife and I were invited along so of course we went — how could you not?
     The central fair activity is eating. My plan was to hold back, consider my options. But we almost immediately encountered the Milk House, offering $1 cups of milk. How could you not? It would be like going to Rome and skipping the pasta. I was disappointed that all the milk on the menu is flavored — salted caramel, strawberry cheesecake, root beer. "Don't you have milk-flavored milk?" I asked. No, they did not. We opted for cookies and cream, which turned out to be frothy and delicious. "Damn good milk!" I reported back.
     My strategy was to share — a couple bites of my wife's corn dipped in butter, a quarter of my son's Dirty Chai Cinnamon Roll Lumpia (a Filipino spring roll). A bite of shepherd's pie on a bun. A deep-fried cheese curd. A deep fried shrimp. It adds up.

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Another day at the blood laundromat

 

     Sunday I posted "Living Legacy," my cover story in Rotary magazine about encouraging people in India — and everybody else — to donate a kidney. This is the sidebar to the story, about my cousin Harry, whose situation further sensitized me to the challenges of kidney disease. You can see the version that ran in the magazine here.

     Dawn along a charmless stretch of Mystic Avenue in Medford, a suburb of Boston. Past a used car lot, a nail salon, a laundromat, a Jiffy Lube, and warehouses stocking electrical, roofing and plumbing supplies. 

     Finally, a low, freestanding building, Fresenius Medical Care's Medford Dialysis Center. We arrive just before 7 a.m. after an hour's drive from Boxborough in the predawn darkness.

     "There are closer medical clinics, but they're worse," my cousin Harry Roberts explains as we pull into the parking lot. "They're a cross between a medical clinic and a bus station."

     Harry is here for dialysis, the three-hours-a-day, five-times a week blood filtration and cleansing that keeps him alive by doing the job of his faltering kidneys. And I'm here because ... well, it's complicated. We're mishpocha, as our people say. Family. He's in a tough situation or, rather, he and his wife are in a tough situation. So I'm helping. By driving, for instance. Dialysis wipes you out. The last thing you want to do when it's done is fight your way through Boston's nightmare traffic for an hour, with its madness-inducing roundabouts.

     "Home isn't a place — it's a feeling," enthuses a five-foot sign by the front door, showing a beaming gray haired man hugging two kids. "Talk to your care team about the benefits of home dialysis." 

     There are a dozen similar signs scattered around the facility, reminding patients of the comforts of home. Dialysis is expensive — up to $1,000 a week, when conducted at a place like this one – not only nicer than nearby centers, but home to Harry's topnotch nephrologist, aka, kidney doctor. Conducting the process at home halves the cost. The centers earn a little less, but they spend a lot less, so end up making even more money with even less effort. You get to stay home, and jam yourself with needles before running a complex medical device. For three hours a day. Five days a week.

     Conducting dialysis at home puts pressure on spouses, who are not usually trained medical professionals. Harry's wife actually is a trained medical professional — a hospital pharmacist. But years of caring for Harry had started to grind her down. That's why Harry started to go back to Fresenius — to give her a respite, the relief that all caregivers must have. And why I'm here, the cavalry, helping out.

     Harry settles into a beige Naugahyde recliner designed for durability rather than comfort, while Ryan, a nurse in blue scrubs, contemplates his left arm.

     "Okay, so we're going in here, and here. We need two dull needles."

     At first I think he's joking. Dull needles? Because, counter-intuitively, dull needles hurt less, sliding into the scar tissue "buttonholes" created by years of dialysis, while sharp needles have a way of carving a new, painful, path. 

     Though they still hurt. Ryan helps with what Harry sometimes calls "the stabby-stab part."

     "Eh, ehh, ehhh," Harry says, voice rising in pain as the dull needle is pushed in.

     "No pain, no gain," says Ryan, brightly, clipping the clear tubing together. The lines go red with Harry's blood. "Good job!" 

     "Pain is just weakness leaving the body," says Harry, playing along.

     To his left, a NxStage Hemiodialysis Machine. A beige cube about a foot wide, it's a glorified filter that takes his blood and removes the toxins — molecules of uric acid are much smaller than red or white corpuscles, so they pass through a membrane while the blood cells don't. 

     The machine thrums.

     Two million people worldwide are on dialysis for kidney failure. They are the lucky ones, because an estimated 20 million people need it, can't get it, and so die of the raft of medical problems that come with untreated kidney disease. If your kidneys can't remove waste, it builds up in your body, poisoning you. If your kidneys can't pass liquid efficiently, fluid also builds up — your lungs fill. You literally drown, slowly. It's a bad end.

     But dialysis kills you too, only more slowly. The human body is not designed to have all its blood drawn out and then pumped back in on a regular basis. It puts strain on the heart. Low blood pressure can lead to agonizing muscle cramps. Blood clots form. After five years, half of the patients on dialysis are dead. Harry has been on dialysis for three years, and suffered a series of medical crises. The clock is ticking.

     His kidneys were ruined 20 years ago, after he was diagnosed with fourth stage colon cancer. The doctors told him to go home, get his affairs in order, and die. His condition had a 4 percent survival rate.

     Instead he fought it — Harry is nothing if not a fighter. He has a lot to live for – two fantastic daughters to watch grow up, a wife he adores, a career he'd like to get back to. So survive he did. But chemotherapy is notoriously hard on kidneys — the chemicals that destroy tumors take their revenge leaving the body. The cancer was gone, but replaced by kidney failure. I thought of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." You escape being crushed by the giant stone ball, only to come face to face with the Amazon tribe and their poison darts. Thanks fate!

    What he really needs is not a lift to Mystic Avenue, but a new kidney. Honestly, I wasn't wild about stepping up to give one of mine. Selflessness is not a defining characteristic in our family.

     But someone had to, and if that someone was me, well, okay. I filled out the form as a potential donor. A year passed. Nothing — the network of donation is notoriously inefficient. I reapplied. Massachusetts General Hospital spat me back. Nope, not you. They don't say why. It wasn't just me. MassGeneral turned down at least six potential donors for Harry — myself, his wife, his sister, his daughters. Several friends. 

     If anybody reading this wants to give Harry a kidney, let me tell you, I've interviewed a number of kidney donors, and they uniformly insist it's the best thing they ever did. Hands down. I asked one if she had any regrets, and she said her only regret was that she couldn't give the other one too. If you ever wanted to be a hero and save a life, this is your chance.

     Until then, dialysis.

     The machine thrums — thwip thwip thwip thwip. An administrator swings by to see when Harry will return to home dialysis.

     "I want you all to be comfortable going home..." she says, meaning, if you blow away the smoke, "I want you home."

     The hours pass. Harry dozes. Sometimes his left leg twitches — muscle spasms are common. We enter into the fourth hour. "The home stretch!" Harry enthuses. Finally it's time to unhook and go home.

     "He did great, fantastic, not a single alarm," says Ryan, fussing with the machine. I ask Ryan what he's learned from years of administering dialysis to thousands of patients such as Harry. He thinks.

     "Just like most things that suck, it's your attitude towards it," he says.

     Can't argue that. Though if we want to argue, we can do so when we come back tomorrow at 7 a.m.

Why haven't you started listening to Chappell Roan yet?

Don’t let the wild costumes fool you. You can listen to music by Chappell Roan — seen here performing last week at Lollapalooza — while weeding in your yard in your quiet suburban neighborhood. (Anthony Vazquez, for the Sun-Times)

     New music enters your life in all sorts of ways. On the radio. Wafting through an open window.
     Regular contact with young people helps. When my boys were at home, I tried to take note of what they were listening to — too many self-absorbed dads force their own tastes on their offspring; it never occurs to them to pay attention to what their kids are playing instead.
     The problem in is finding new music for a person who is, umm, not exactly new themselves is inability to relate — most songs seem aimed at 15-year-olds, about parties and dancing and life-shattering heartbreak.
     You have to look for points of commonality. Which is how we met introspective tunesmith Josienne Clarke last January, after Apple Music served up her song "Chicago" and its enigmatic line, "It's not Chicago's fault that no one came to see me play."
     I tracked her down to her home on the coast of Scotland. She was very candid.
     Last week, a flat cardboard package arrived in the mail, a method of music transmission I don't experience much lately — sent by the artist, from her home on Isle of Bute, for 20 pounds, 45 pence —$26 US.
     Inside was a record album. Vinyl, which is back, big time. I do have a turntable and figured I'd drag an amp out of the basement and hook them up. Still, that would take effort. Then I paused, thought and plugged the name of the album, "Parenthesis. I" into Apple Music. Voila.
     It took several listens, but I liked her lack of cliche. The opening song, "Friendly Teeth," claims, "I want a truth so strong, it comes right up and bites you on the shoulder with its friendly teeth." Not a tired image, at least. Though I would have had that truth bite you in the ass — more emphatic — I suppose a singer can choose what part of her anatomy gets bitten.
     While I tend to focus on the lyrics, several songs on the album had such a smooth vibe, part Bjork, part Sade, that I really didn't care what she was saying.
     I was touched Clarke would go to the trouble of going to the post office and spend 20 pounds, 45p. But that isn't why I'm writing this.
     I had a thought I don't think I've seen spelled out before — as you grow older, you really ought to make an effort to seek out new music, to try not to be a person whose entire playlist is 45 years old.
     For instance. Friday morning I heard the name Chappell Roan for the first time: WBBM reporting on Lollapalooza. Though what I heard was "chaperone." Then at dinner, my wife and I were talking about the day's news, the singers name came up again, and I announced, "Let's give her a listen right now."

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Living legacy: Rotarian encourages world to donate kidneys

     It has been my privilege to write for Rotary Magazine for two years now, and I'm proud to see my story on the cover of the August issue. I've long been interested in kidney disease, because of my cousin Harry as well as having written about an altruistic kidney donation at the University of Chicago Hospitals.  So this story was a good match — it was great to get to know Anil Srivatsa, and I only wish Rotary had taken me up on my idea of sending me to India to hang out with him. You can read the shorter version of this story in the magazine here. Or you can slog through the original that I turned in below. On Tuesday I will share the sidebar, about going to dialysis with my cousin.

      India is big: 1.4 billion people over 1.2 million square miles. And dense — four times the population of the United States in a country covering less than a third of the area. 

     Meanwhile Anil Srivatsa is just one man, driving a robin's egg blue Land Rover across the enormous Indian subcontinent on a quixotic mission: to teach his fellow citizens, many of whom have only rudimentary education and embrace traditional folk beliefs, about the importance of organ donation.    

     "There is a deep cultural bias against it," he said. "There is much work to be done in this space, to counter misinformation and fear." 

     Of course he has help. The Mumbai-born life coach and entrepreneur is a Rotarian. Three months out of the year, he drives from town to town, speaking to a Rotary if there is one — there are more than 3,000 Rotary clubs in India — and assembling what villagers he can gather when there's not. He has done this in Africa, Europe and North America, and circles the globe to address business groups — in December he went to Bali to talk to Pepsi executives. 

     Srivatsa has spoken to more than 125,000 people on 550 occasions in 44 countries, 100 of those at Rotaries.

     To coordinate international support for his efforts, Srivatsa founded the Gift of Life Adventure Foundation, and on March 11, 2022 — World Kidney Day — he started the Rotary Action Group for Blood & Organ Donation, its goal to combat ignorance with information.

     "Love gets thwarted by fear, and I believe fear comes from an unanswered questions," said Srivatsa. "What I'm trying to do is answer those questions. I don't go out and tell people to become organ donors. That's a decision they can make once they learn that the fear is misplaced."

     Nor is he the only Rotarian spreading the word. Countless others have joined the effort, around the world. The Rotary of Norfolk, Virginia, to take one example, welcomed Wallace Green, named Virginia's Outstanding Senior Volunteer, who received a kidney transplant in 2015 and was moved to educate people about their importance. He told members that there are 120,000 people on the waiting list for organ transplants, and that you can be a donor at any age, and even if you have a range of serious medical conditions, such as HIV. 

     Despite this, every day 17 people on the kidney waiting list in the United States die for lack of a donated organ.

     Internationally, the need is even greater: as many as two million people around the world have kidney disease so severe they are eligible for a new kidney. They survive only through a debilitating process called dialysis where their blood is cycled through a machine and washed of the toxins that healthy kidneys usually remove. (See story below). 

     Rotaries not only invite speakers to relate their personal experience, but also bring in experts such as Lana Stevens, community educator at the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency, who praised the work Rotary does to spread knowledge and banish fear.

     "I've spoken to many, many Rotaries over the years," said Stevens. "The Rotary really offers us a great, well-rounded way to educate a group of people, and led us to a lot of partnerships and contacts — particularly corporate contacts, who want to get their organizations involved." 

     Kidney disease touches so many lives, and Stevens has noticed how close many Rotary members are to the problem. 

     "At every Rotary I go to, there is some type of personal connection," she said. "Someone received a kidney or their spouse has. Someone in their family, or in the club. It's always nice to have those personal connections. Then everybody in that room can understand that this is happening in our backyard. Not just to somebody unconnected to us far away." 

     For Srivatsa, transplantation is certainly not an abstract or far off issue, but an intensely personal mission. Ten years ago his brother Arjun, a prominent neurosurgeon, was diagnosed with chronic renal failure, and needed a new kidney. Srivatsa donated his left kidney in September, 2014.

     "When people say I sacrificed a lot to give kidney to my brother, I don't believe that was sacrifice," Srivatsa said, pointing out that kidney donors lead "healthy, normal lives." 

     To show just how active post-transplant life can be, both brothers took a grueling mountain bicycle tour in 2015, six months after their operation. They also competed in the World Transplant Games in Britain in 2019. 

    Some organs — hearts, obviously— can only be donated after death; say after a fatal car accident. But human beings have two kidneys while needing only one to live a healthy life. So there are both deceased and living kidney donors — in equal number, actually, which poses something of a riddle that shows the complexities of the issue. Far, far more people commit to donating their kidneys after death than agree to serve as a living donor. Yet the ratio of post-mortem kidney donors to living donors is about 50-50. The reason being that living donors give their kidneys under planned, ideal circumstances. They're in the bed next to the recipient. While 95 percent of those who sign up to donate their kidneys, after death, are never able to do so, because circumstances aren't right – their kidneys cannot be harvested in time, or they become so sick that their kidneys are no longer viable. 

     While donating blood is not typically considered alongside organ donation, blood donation played a crucial role in ramping up Rotary's efforts to promote organ donation awareness.

     "Rotary has something called action groups — 21 of them, commissioned by Rotary International, attached to certain causes like environmental action or menstrual health," said Srivatsa. "When I petitioned the Rotary board for an organ donation action group, they declined … But I had a Plan B. There was an action group for blood donation. I went to the blood guys and said, 'Listen, blood and organ donation are the same thing. It's tissue, and you're donating that. We can merge this thing, into a blood and organ donation group.' They went and deliberated for some time, and came back and said, 'Yeah.'" 

     Organ transplant is not only a social and medical issue but a legal one. Great Britain changed its laws in 2020 from an opt-in system — citizens need to take the trouble to sign up to donate an organ after death — to an "opt-out" system, meaning that Britons must drop out if they don't want to participate. Rotaries around Britain held events to help explain the new law. 

     Earlier this year, the Biden administration announced that it is going to break up the United States' national donation system, the United Network for Organ Sharing, claiming that its monopoly on organs has made it inefficient.

     The law in India poses its own obstacles. The vast nation is divided into 28 states, and until recently citizens could only donate within their home state. As a trustee in the Gift of Life Adventure Foundation, Srivatsa helped change that law.

     "He is dedicated to it," said Prashant Ajmera, a fellow Rotarian. "He's the motive to bring Rotary together under one roof for organ donation. Organ donation is a worldwide cause, but it was never taken seriously. We would not be having this conversation if Anil wasn't there."

      Before 2023, in order to give or receive a kidney in India, you first had to establish residency in a particular state. Ajmera, an attorney in Ahmedabad in Western India, learned this when he tried to give his kidney to his wife Hemali two years ago and ran into a brick wall. He turned to Srivatsa for help.

     "She was going through dialysis, and the doctor recommended I register in the state of Gujarat," said Ajmerja. "I went to the hospital to register, and they said you have to bring in a domicile certificate from the state. I made the application and in four days I heard back from the police department — you are a Canadian citizen" — he has dual citizenship — "so are not entitled to register as a domicile in the state of Gujarat. So the hospital will not take you or your wife as a patient." 

     It's as if a resident of New Jersey couldn't donate a kidney that would be transplanted across the river at a hospital in New York City. 

     "As a lawyer, it didn't make sense to me," said Ajmera, who did his research and discovered that the domicile requirement was a significant drag on the transplant rate of organs nationwide. 

     "It was not only a problem for me, but it was affecting people across India," said Ajmera, who decided to take the matter to India's high court. To do that, however, he first he had to find an organization to press the suit. 

     "In taking the Supreme Court case, one of legal requirements was the need to have an NGO who would become a petitioner. We used Anil's Gift of Life Adventure Foundation to file a class action. It all happened because of the Rotary." 

     The law was changed in November 2022. Now "the law very clearly provides any citizen of India can go to any other state and register," Ajmera said. "Doctors came to me and told me this was the big hurdle, and it has been removed, making one less complication in the process." 

     In February 2023, his wife got her kidney transplant. Here too Rotary was essential. 

     "When I was facing this difficulty, one of the doctors was a member in this club. He said, 'Let's go to this hospital....'" said Ajmera, who has been a member for 20 years. "It's all Rotary connections — Rotary has helped me in all my life, connection after connection, doctor after doctor, all because of wonderful Rotary." 

     The social connections that Rotary offers take on life-or-death significance when the issue is organ donation. Take the story of a Meta program manager in Seattle, Sanketh Arvapally, whose brother needed a kidney.

     "My family needed me," remembered Arvapally. "My brother was suffering from kidney disease. I stepped forward because it was very painful to see my brother go through this."

     But Arvapally's wife had reservations.

     "While it was very natural to me, it was very difficult for my wife to absorb this," he said. "She worried about what could happen to me. Totally understandable. She was in a dilemma. She couldn't say no — it was my brother, my family. But she couldn't say yes, because she was selfishly looking out for herself, which is natural." 

     "In the back of his mind, he was nervous, he was anxious," said Krishna Arvapally, an advertising technology specialist suffering from renal failure. "His wife was even more nervous, anxious, scared." 

    Krishna knew Anil Srivatsa, and asked him to talk with his brother about being a donor. 

     "My brother knew him from his entrepreneurial network, and introduced me to him," said Sanketh. "He said, 'Why don't you go talk to Anil?' I called him and our conversation lasted two hours. He just ran me through all the challenges he'd faced; how it's no big deal. He made my anxiousness ease. He comforted me. Anil was truly an inspiration for my decision. In seeing him, being healthy post transplant, that definitely cemented my decision." 

     To help others in that situation, in late 2023 Srivatsa's foundation published a 200-page book of transplant data, "A Rotarian's Guide to Organ Donation: Celebrate Life by Giving Life," assembled by Hemali Ajmera.

     "It's designed to tell people what basic organ donation is, offering a lot of statistics and information about what different projects do, the need-to-know facts,"Srivatsa said. "Because wrong information can lead to wrong decisions. I would like to see every country have a book like this for Rotarians, specific to their situation." 

     Rotary is only beginning its organ donation push. No one expects progress here to be easy — Rotary spent almost half a century working to eradicate polio. But the organization is in it for the long haul.

     "Like polio, organ donation is a worldwide cause, and Rotary can play a wider role in this one, not only India but elsewhere," said Ajmera.

    "Rotary was enlisted to get polio out of the way," said Sirvatsa. "It took them 40 years, and they did so doggedly. There is a pandemic silently happening with organ failure that nobody is willing to recognize until it happens to them. It is growing and coming into your own neighborhood, including your family. Prevention is a big part of our push. Rotarians are on the ground. They work with their communities, have relationships with their communities. Me passing through, making one passionate speech then walking away is not optimum. You need someone on the ground always there pushing the agenda. Rotary understands that polio is almost out of the way. What's next?"