Some of the other firefighting equipment founded in Chicago is less high-tech: the snorkel truck, the fire plug or hydrant, the collapsible fire escape and the fire pole, which was invented by a Chicago fire captain in 1874 so firefighters could slide quickly to the ground floor.

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At the New York Sports Club, Jain teaches a low-to-the-ground forward sashay, or what she artfully terms "the Bhangra slide, " to a class of young professionals, few of them South Asians.

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At four, I went down a slide sucking on a bamboo garden cane, which hit the ground before I did.

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