IndiaRepat

R2I perks....Of family weddings and goofy goof ups!

2012-01-22T00:43:00.000+05:30

Weddings Galore! Just concluded the last wedding on my DH's (dear husband) side of the family...his baby brother(my BBL) got married this month and we celebrated twice in two different cities in two different ways...

As the bride is Catholic,(the groom is Hindu) we first had a Catholic wedding and reception in Amchi Mumbai...two days of riotous fun where yours truly decided to role play to the hilt and dressed up like a traditional Gujju Bhabi (SIL) from Apnu Amdavad...but it's another matter that this bhabi pranced around like a cat on coke for most of the evening at the reception dance floor - and spent the next one week recuperating- oh well...so much for role playing!

The Bride was utterly gorgeous in her wedding gown and and the beautiful wedding ceremony made me tear up...most of the extended family were around and we spent oodles of time catching up, cracking jokes, giggling giddily and generally regressing into a childhood state of wondrous excitement! And oh...how can I forget this...when we first entered the reception hall and seated ourselves we were served tiny glasses of sweet red wine which no sooner reached our hands, than disappeared down our throats... and then the reality blast... the MC announces that we are to stand up for the ritual toast to the married couple - talk about goofy goof ups! - oh well...I guess we just follow a different order, drink first-toast later!!!!

A few days later was the Hindu wedding in Mysore. The ceremony took place at home in the morning followed by the reception in the evening. Poor DH couldn't make it to the wedding as he was stuck at work so I was a lone traveler, homeward bound. It was a quiet affair with elegant decorations and melodious music (Carnatic Instrumental) under the stars...a lovely closure to the wedding season in the family!

Sighhhh...now it's back to banal reality...

Why did I move back to India?

2011-11-12T19:51:00.001+05:30

In a horrible mood today.

I wonder why I ever bothered to move back.

It's so easy to let matters get out of control.

Doing it amongst a billion insensitive people makes it a billion times more amazing experience. Yahoo...!!

However, the most important question - why are all my organs dancing on hot coals?

The country that is host to the largest population of homeless children in the world despite being a supposedly growing economy dreaming of world power has to be a country of callous people...

Stop feeling this absurd surprise already!

Whew...an empty spleen sure feels good!

Romancing India's East Coast...

2011-10-14T18:00:00.002+05:30

...Ok, the title is rather misleading, scavenging is more like it! Scavenging for a decent place to rent as a short let in the refuse heap of Vishakapatnam Real Estate.

...The jewel of the East Coast, where the thickly wooded Eastern Ghats and the cerulean blue waters of the Bay of Bengal romance each other for miles together along with stunning white beaches and startling black rocks...

...Where a city, who's earliest written records go back to roughly the 5th century BC is being raped to death in the 21st century...

...Where entire hills are being decimated to build massive, soul-less apartment buildings and garish resorts because people are seemingly too boorish to comprehend either ecology or aesthetics...or they truly believe that leaving behind a legacy of blood money from a destroyed earth is better than leaving behind a beautiful earth to their descendants...

And then there's Venkat, a funny, sweet guy, honest to a fault, ruefully presiding over his real estate business and collection of brokers, deflecting his chagrin over the sad state of affairs with cynical humor...

...Looking over the umpteenth newly built apartment, this one somewhere in the far vicinity of the sea, on the 5th floor of a building, I am standing on the balcony feeling paralyzingly claustrophobic when he comes out,

"You even have a little bit of sea-view in the distance" he points out and then "but to enjoy that you have to first see this"...turning my attention to the massive open drain filled with fetid liquid ( I can't call it water) and garbage, sluggishly trying to flow past the apartment..."Whew! Thanks Venkat!"

On the other side of the same building, within a short distance, beyond a few buildings, is one of the many hills, thick and green rising up straight from the earth like a gloomy warrior watching over the death of his troops...and I ask him,

"Are there any apartments right next to the hills?" and he bursts out laughing...

"No! but don't worry, the tiger comes to the city these days, SO YOU don't need to go that far!"

Here's wishing the beautiful land of Vishakha a posse of man eating tigers to eat up all the "developers" responsible for greedily destroying their home...

...and I think I finally found a home as well, a small apartment in an older building across from the beach, which currently looks like a haunted house with a particularly impish ghost in residence but once cleaned up and done up should make for a charming living space, at least, that is my fond hope of the moment...we'll see...

Moving back to India is proving be very like India...an experience of extremes!

Too disappointed for words India...

2011-09-29T11:56:00.003+05:30

I came in this morning intending to follow up on a suggestion given by blogger Kunal in the comment section of my previous blog post, to write about the 10 things that make R2I worthwhile, I like the idea because it is both interesting, as well as an exercise in happy thoughts ...but was brought up short by the results of a Newsweek Survey that I happened to see online.

The survey was conducted to find out the worst countries in the world for women and India ranked as one of the very worst...not quite but very close to the top ten worst countries. Of the 165 countries surveyed in order of women's status, India ranked 141...falling behind our neighbors Nepal and Myanmar, politically chaotic countries like Libya and Syria and impoverished ones like Haiti and Malawi...

(I mention the countries compared above to reflect that women's status, unlike popular belief, does not have much to do with the political/economical/religious reality of a country...instead it is culture and societal norms, values, mores and expectations that matter...so well, something's rotten in the culture of India)

There goes my happy thoughts for the day! Sigh...maybe I'll come back and attempt the R2I post sometime later...after the disappointment over this "status quo" has somewhat faded...

Also, this one has me in a puzzle, so any thoughts, reflections, comments, opinions would be really appreciated!

P.S. DH (Dear Husband) is of the opinion that this is very ambiguous...so to be precise, the question is, What makes this country such a difficult place for women and why?

My country messing with my mind...

2011-09-23T11:33:00.000+05:30

All my antiquated notions about child labor took a hike after watching the kids who sometimes fill in for my house maid, at work in my house.

When my first maid first sent in her son and niece ahead of her to do her job, I was annoyed. They were kids, they had just come back from school and according to my lofty ideals, they were not supposed to be doing housework...then they began to "work".

We had just moved in and there was hardly any furniture in the apartment...so lots of open space...the bathroom with it's shower board with the numerous buttons was their pleasure dome...between getting soaked cleaning the bathroom, scampering all over the apartment and me in the process of cleaning it, trying to teach me Gujarati and having me teach them English words, they had a royal time...house cleaning!!...Now how could I have put a stop to this saying I don't want kids working in my house? Would they even understand where I was coming from or would I have simply been an uptight Bi.....?

The next instance was when my current maid took french leave and I asked our apartment building cleaner if she could come in for a day or two...she said she was busy but she would send in her sister...in came this little 9th grader with a big smile and cheerfully cleaned up the place...next day she brings her even tinier little sister with an even bigger smile and the two did the work together. They go to school but they take in such work for after school and weekends. They are obviously from a very poor family and are very proud of being able to contribute to the family income in their spare time. The little one even proved herself to be quite the "take initiative" kind of person by asking me if our regular maid cleaned the bathrooms, if not, could she get that job! Hmmm...I guess I shouldn't be surprised she zeroed in on the bathroom of all things!

So yeah, if I had turned them away from doing a job they are actually good at (unfortunate perhaps but still good at it...)and gives them some extra income to maybe buy books or something, am I doing them good or harm?

I suppose I am still against kids being taken out of school to work full time but I wonder, if I get an intimate look into their lives, thoughts and feelings...if that principle would hold good as well? I don't know!

India My dear...you certainly have a genius for complicating the simplest of principles, overturning pet notions and scattering confusion like rose leaves in bath water...

A Recap of the R2I experience...

2011-09-23T11:21:00.000+05:30

A year and four months since I moved back to India -

Let's see how it feels...

Much of the intensity of the loss of a lifestyle is gone. Stray thoughts bother me at times...maybe when I watch a Hollywood movie or come across a favorite cold weather outfit and high heels hidden away in some corner but otherwise for the most part it is a pretty sanguine existence.

The material negotiations of life, like haggling, scolding, arguing, endlessly chasing...all feels normal again...

Traveling through insane traffic and sticky pollution is no longer the big deal it seemed to be once upon a time...if you get into an accident and only your vehicle is hurt...fling curses at each other and move on...if you are hurt, go to the nearest hospital and pay your own bills...the other person has to do the same too...if your vehicle happens to be the bigger one, regardless of whose fault it is, give the small vehicled guy/gal some money and lots of apologies and move on...and oh ! obviously if you die...Rest in Peace.

The climate feels fine too...after the grandeur of the monsoons and the pleasant warmth of winter, summer is the price you pay for enjoying the rest of the seasons...after all there's no such thing as a free lunch! So what if you go absolutely psychotic in the summer and live in fear of losing your mind and sticking a knife into somebody? As long as you don't actually do it, you are OK!

Keep your eyes open for the heartwarming resilience of life, be it poor little children or the brilliant flowers that grow in the teeth of so much that is deadly about Urban India.

If you get tired of the politicians' embarrassing and most times downright criminal activities, remember that they are politicians and they at least are doing their jobs without us having to chase them...in fact they are so good at it that we have to chase them to stop doing their job...so what if we don't have the world's best athletes and the like? We have the world's best politicians!

And before I get carried away by my own cynical eloquence, let me remind myself that none of this is as bad as it seems...at least, I am free to get into traffic accidents, enjoy the seasons, revile the politicians and generally make an ass of myself to my heart's content with no fear of being stopped, either legally or violently...

R2I? Wise or unwise...you let me know!

Meaningless Conformity...Is that any way to live?

2011-09-18T20:42:00.000+05:30

I think the most annoying thing about living in India is the petty stuff that comes about due to our immense cultural diversity and differences and the godawful number of unwritten rules that make up the day to day lives of us Indians. Every culture is convinced it is the best, every person is convinced that s/he knows best how to follow what should be followed, every role is expected to be played out with inhuman perfection...and any so called transgressions are considered crimes extraordinaire...

On the surface, there's a veneer of progress but any attempts to put that progress to hard testing and it invariably collapses crushing you under its stinky weight...

Will this ever change? Will we ever go beyond our differences and culturally imposed expectations and recognize the frail humanity beneath that could so easily flourish if it were allowed to do so? Or will we continue to hold a gun to each other's heads and demand meaningless conformity?

Good Lord! Am I in a polyandrous marriage after all???

2011-09-04T14:26:00.000+05:30

Disclaimer: I am not obsessed with polyandry...it's just that I couldn't find a better analogy for this state of being!

Ques: (Me) "Can you not come home early? Your schedule is throwing mine off pretty badly and I cannot continue like this any longer. You used to come home early before, what happened now?"

Ans: (Cook) "No...I have work to do... places to go before I come here...excuses excuses... whine whine... and then...you don't take tension, I will come even if I am late" (????!!!!!)

Another time, another person

Ques: (Me) "You can't keep doing the disappearing act and calling me to inform that you've already vanished from town..can you not be a bit more responsible?"

Ans: (Maid) "I am not lying, sachi..promise! Sometimes, things come up...Can I just come in sooner or later, morning or night, sometime or anytime...?" (WTF??)

Whew! A year and three months since I moved back to India and my household "help" trauma continues unabated.

I am at my wit's end and sorely tempted to turn off the cook and after buying some appliances turn off the maid as well. But DH (Dear Husband) is a total scaredy cat when it comes to living without household help for fear that I'll play my "I am an aspiring writer" card and force him to become the "household help" by default...well, I can't blame him because that is probably what will happen anyways!

Also, to be fair to my cook and maid, they work well once they come in, I like them, trust them enough to leave my house and plants in their care when I travel and... thank God they don't know this but they are very much an integral part of my pathetic social life here...!!! All of which makes me feel like I am in some insane polyandrous marriage.

I grumble, complain, converse with them, seek their help sometimes and throw orders at them that they have no qualms about disagreeing with if they don't feel up to following on that day. I continue to let them be a part of my life no matter how frustrating their unprincipled attitude towards time - and meeting our needs the way I need them to at least most of the days - are for me. Many times I feel as though I adjust my times and days to facilitate their needs instead of the other way round. Now, if this does not sound like marriage, what does?

You know, the state of being where it can get frustrating to constantly work at twining your life with another individual, but once you've started on that route, it feels senseless to let go unless the issues are earth shattering?Well...hobnobbing with Indian maids is kinda like that...

So here I am , a year and three months later working hard at making my relationships with my maids work...good thing DH and I had already had four years to work at our marriage before we landed here...else I shudder to think of the consequences!!

Eve Teasing/Female sexual harassment in India

2011-09-01T15:58:00.005+05:30

There was an interesting response from "Bharathiya Nari" to my previous post - titled India Bashing: Favorite tourist activity - commenting about "eve teasing" of women on the streets of India.

Why do we have this problem, this "eve teasing"?

Three reasons;
One, our culture seeks to confine sexuality to marriage including placing intense emphasis on a women's chastity while being very forgiving of male peccadilloes; thus repressing and titillating some men...

Two, men do not have innumerable outlets like topless bars, strip clubs, peep shows etc etc (as these outlets are rightly considered distasteful in our culture) to satiate their lust at whatever level they choose. I mean, not every one is hungry all the time for the complete sex act, or always up for visiting sex workers! What if at the end of a long hard work-day, a man decides that the best way for him to de-stress is to watch a pair of bouncing boobs without being called upon to perform in return?! Yeah yeah, we have Bollywood but what if he feels that nothing beats a live act? Not that there are live acts on the Indian streets but he could use the "male gaze", I mean his X Ray eyes on live women....

Three...like everywhere else in the world, women in India too are objectified one way or the other which means they are open targets for male entertainment whenever and wherever the men choose to use their "privilege".

So does this mean legal and organized sexual entertainment for men, using a woman's weaknesses, be it moral, emotional or economical, in the form of strip clubs etc has no connotations of sexual harassment??

Aren't both eve teasing and the regulated sexual entertainment industry different symptoms of the same problem? A forgiving acceptance of uncontrolled male libido and objectification of women? Well, of course, eve teasing is not legal and not considered acceptable...at least in theory.

Eve teasing is another instance of a universal problem assuming a unique form in India.

Note:
1. I am aware of the existence of male strippers, male sexual harassment by females etc...but this post is chiefly about female issues in response to the comment, not a comprehensive analyses of this topic.
2. I am not branding the entire male population as repressed or sexually uncontrolled, only those who get their joys out of eve teasing/sexual harassment.

India Bashing...Popular Tourist Activity

2011-08-19T02:31:00.000+05:30

I think the Indian Tourism Dept should get together with our Great Indian IT Wizards and create centers of India Bashing activity for the unhappy tourist...

I have read plenty of writings written by Foreign Visitors to India, "concerned" about our various "issues"...traffic, pollution, corruption, heat, smell, etc etc. There have been some really "thoughtful" and "deep" complaints...some real "heartbreaking unhappiness" over this issue has been expressed as well. But none made much of an impact on me as listening to a writer actually read such a piece.

Suddenly, I had this vision, of setting up India Bashing Centers (IBCs), preferably near airports and around hotels. As soon as they land on our soil and actually see soil and freak out and before this terrifies them completely along with the traffic, the air, the dogs, cows and hidden snakes, they can destroy everything potentially hostile in the world of virtual reality and create a pure, sterile India sans traffic snarls and holy cows, pollution and power cuts... in short along their own needs, in those IBCs. Maybe after this kind of cathartic activity, they'll have a better chance of being happy in India for a week or two or three whatever... we don't want our guests spending so many days of their life in unhappiness now, do we? Athithi Devodbhava and all that....

Are you wondering why listening made me so sad for their ordeal while reading didn't impact me much? While reading it in a book, no matter how evocative the writing, the tourist trauma did not come through as clearly as it did when the writer actually read it out. Can you imagine, making all those plans, spending all that money and getting to India, only to collapse in utter disbelief and discomfort? Their vacation utterly ruined! How devastating that must be to them!! We are actually making them forget their very human status by inviting them to our dirty country...if you don't believe me, pay close attention to their complaints for heaven's sake! Their misery is all encompassing...they feel so brutalized that they forget concepts like compassion, analyses, balance, cultural and lifestyle peculiarities and priorities...

How can we be so blind to their sufferings? We can't change our country unless a combination of plague, fire and earthquake (PFE) wipes out half the population, which is obviously not happening...so the alternative would be to create IBCs...with the PFE option of course, so, if they want to indulge in virtual destruction, instead of verbal destruction and jump in glee, they can do that as well!!

Home...

2011-08-15T11:44:00.000+05:30

Studying and traveling in the UK...Oxford Uni is awesome, just doing a summer course and gaining so much from it! Tremendously enjoying the weather, the ease of getting around, the gorgeous countryside, the sights and sounds and things...everything...but it's not home! Dreading going back to my searing hot country but looking forward to it as well!!

Happy Independence Day India! You are the best...

Bombay Bombing...

2011-07-17T08:57:00.000+05:30

More bomb blasts in Mumbai. Considering they were RELATIVELY low-level, I fear if this is a forerunner of worse things to come. The crucial question? How can this be stopped?

Many people here compare the condition between India and the US, specifically the fact that after 9/11, the US has successfully prevented more attacks. Well, the stories of these two countries are entirely different. The US does not have home grown terrorists like India does...and as for the differences in systems organization and population...I really need not say anything.

The way I see it there's only two ways this situation can be resolved. The really ideal, Gandhian way would be to engage the darn militants in peace dialogues and cause a change of heart....I better stop dreaming!

The other way as I see it...train the citizens for some kind of citizen watch. Let's be realistic, India is too vast and crowded and multicultural and contradictory and unpredictable for us to rely solely on police protection systems. Considering how easy it is for people to just disappear in the crowded streets and by lanes of cities like Mumbai, there is no other solution. It is not enough for citizens to simply be alert...especially when you don't know what form the next attack may take. People need to know what to look out for and where and how to respond if someone or something appears suspicious.

The logistics of organizing a citizen watch program may seem incredibly complex...but honestly, what other choices do we have? If it were only a question of preventing outsiders from coming in, it would have been a different matter...when the madmen are either from this country or can pass off as Indians very easily, how can they be apprehended without proactive citizen help?

Another thing...pay and train the poor cops...it's foolish to expect a house cat to do a tiger's work! For instance, when I found out the pittance of a pay that our traffic cops who spend hours on these insanely crowded, polluted city roads under this harsh sun get...I had to appreciate them for being smart enough to figure out the entire bribing system...(Who pays how much for what!...long back I once had a cop who first inquired what my monthly pay was before asking for a "fine")...so they can also live a comfortable life. They even have to chuck the crappy cloth they get towards making their uniforms and end up spending their own money to get good stuff!! Not to say all cops are helpless victims of the system of course...but still...!

We really don't need to live in the past...

2011-06-14T08:54:00.000+05:30

Another Midsummer madness...went out down with a cold, sore throat for a few days...just when I was beginning to think maybe, just maybe I am done with my sick days after all! But no big deal, it is on its way out too....

Anyways, to dispel the boredom brought about by this, DH and I visited the Calico museum, the famous textile museum of Ahmedabad. It was beyond anything lovely. Personally for me it was awe inspiring! I struggle to maintain my focus almost every few minutes when I am doing anything else other than reading and these people focussed for hours, days and years to create such beautiful pieces of cloth!. And to think they even supplied cloth for Egyptian funeral services where they buried a whole lot of household goods with their mummies and made them according to the designs provided by the Egyptians! To think foreign trade in such exquisite and highly refined ( custom made designer?) textiles has gone on for thousands of years from these shores is mind boggling.

The guide who showed us around was knowledgeable and totally immersed in the glories of the past, extolling the virtues of the days gone by and bemoaning the sad state of people and affairs in the country today. She certainly has her points I suppose...but then life moves forward, demanding our attention and commitment to things beautiful and strange, regardless of how everything compares to everything else, past, present or future. Sometimes chaos does give way to clarity after it has destroyed a few extraneous things in its crucible...so why become so hopeless and keep running back to the past? Be it individually or collectively?

R2I Blues? Don't let the monkey out....

2011-06-10T09:37:00.000+05:30

Coping with reverse culture shock can get messy unless you develop some internal boundaries and let them gate-keep your emotions. There's only so much emotional excitability that a body can tolerate at any given time. Although I wouldn't go so far as to say that you need to sit down and make a list of things that you will allow yourself to be bothered about (stuff you can do something about) or not be bothered about(stuff that is really not under your control), some sort of mental exercise along these lines wouldn't hurt!

The Desi Bahu...or the Indian Daughter-in-law...

2011-06-09T09:46:00.000+05:30

Those of you conversant with what's going on in India are probably familiar with the Baba Ramdev drama. In the midst of all that hullabaloo, one line struck me forcefully as one of the many ridiculous things that continues to drag our country down. His remark about Sonia Gandhi - "She is the daughter-in-law of India, she doesn't understand her mothers and sisters".

Let me analyze this line in its entirety as it does not make sense to me...

Sonia Gandhi has made this country her home for a zillion years now, she is clearly a citizen , albeit of foriegn origin and was a prime ministerial candidate who gave up her chance to lead the country to Dr. Manmohan Singh. To begin with, she is an individual in her own right...not solely a "daughter-in-law". But then, despite her high profile status in the country, whenever there's a political issue, she gets branded as "the daughter-in-law". If someone of her exalted status is still open to attack as the "daughter-in-law" by an equally exalted yoga guru no less, is it any wonder that women continue to suffer because of their gender in this culture?

"Daughter-in-law" of India...I am sorry but Baba you need to get your facts straight, she is not the daughter-in-law of this country, she is the daughter-in-law of the Gandhi family and an ordinary citizen of India, an "individual" who also happens to be the president of a major political party.

"She doesn't understand her mothers and sisters".....????What? Now here, I am completely lost. Why does it become her responsibility to understand the rest of the women in this country? How many people in the sphere of political activity and social activism including Baba Ramdev himself have tried to understand this group categorized as "mothers and sisters"? Oh! Since they are not the "daughters-in-law of this country", they don't have any duties in that direction...is that it?

Ever heard of any person, political opponent or social activist, taking on the government at the center, at any point in Indian Political History, attack each other saying, you are the "son" of this country, you don't understand your fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, dogs, cats, parrots, snakes....etc etc?

(I am leaving out the "daughter" tag because it's gonna get too tangled to explicate...for one, there are not that many compared to "sons"...for another...I would have to unearth their history to determine whether they should be referred to as "daughters" or "daughters-in-law" - because that matters right?? and it's beyond the scope of this blog article)

So who or what on earth is the concept of a daughter-in-law and/or a woman in Indian culture? An individual with the normal rights, duties, emotions and limitations that go with being a human being or a human ball of clay to be formed and reformed according to the ideas put forth by all these babas and swamis and acharyas or whatever...the so called "learned men" who wrote all those nauseating tomes about the rightful "position" of women in Indian society?

Any thoughts anybody?

P.S Women moving back to India, brace yourselves for some discomfort coming from having to negotiate with a culture that is still deeply androcentric, beginning with shamelessly demanding that women include marital details while filling out forms but does not require men to do so...etc etc.

Adiga's White Tiger...Author's Pride, India's Shame...

2011-06-08T09:46:00.000+05:30

I don't like to keep referring to books that I read because this blog is not about books...BUT just finished reading Arvind Adiga's "The White Tiger" and feel rubbished and roughed up and what not...really, may be writers should have the freedom to write and publish what they want, however writers like these need to be dropped into those dungeons that have no outlets...only entry points through holes in the ground...and oh yeah! drop all the damn books written by them in there as well...right on top of their big fat brainy heads!

Whew! That feels good...actually I could get more violent but don't want to be clapped up in a prison somewhere myself as a potential threat to the author's safety!

I wonder what the author was dreaming when he wrote this book? Is he aiming to become a Voltaire or a Rousseau and incite a modern day Indian Revolution?

Ok forget his intention...he probably just wrote a story that was sitting in his head slowly driving him insane...may be I should ask what possessed me to pick it up and read it?

To begin with, it is a smart piece of writing worth every penny of whatever the amount of that Booker Prize was. A free flowing, easier to read version of the Dostoevskyian novel...from beginning to end the book screams, everything is because it just is and that's the way it is. Ok...the reader gets it.

What the reader also gets, especially if you happen to be an average Indian is a massive kick to the gut, a bleakness and devastation that is beyond anything you have ever known could exist. When everything from your land to the person next door to you and everything else in your life in your country is presented to you covered with dog shit and arsenic but stinking of selective truth and reality, how do you come to terms with it?

I finished reading the book at one sitting and came out with a depression so deep, I felt I had finally achieved a state of Nirvana...the nirvana of depression. Then, came the anger. What need for him to fill pages and pages with his sense of hopelessness and flood the markets with it? Yeah I know...it's not his hopelessness, it's the hopelessness of the poor that he's filled those pages with...however what rankles is the finality of the hopeless state. Is that all there is to life and art? A final resting place in the dungeon of despair?

Sure, the protagonist lifts himself out of his miserable state at the expense of one sure death, a few possible ones and maybe a future murder...Is this the best hope a poor man or woman has? If so, do we really need to create a work of art around it? Do we need to normalize it through non-judgmental, "realistic" writing?

I have no quarrel with the possible reality of the picture portrayed by him. What I couldn't stand was the relentlessness of a single-minded and overwhelmingly bleak narrative that stubbornly refused to inject some sense of hope or beauty into the book. I suppose he can argue that that is how life is for a certain section of society. How real is that? Basic human nature contradicts this. No matter how difficult or harsh the life or circumstances, people find a way to find some relief, some joy, somewhere. Our survival instincts demand this...otherwise mass suicides wouldn't be uncommon. However, in this book, initially the protagonist's joys are tainted by mere foolishness and stupidity, later by murder. That gets to me, in the entire book, there is no single instance of untainted joy or hope or happiness or even a mere lightness of spirit at any point in anybody's life. This actually makes me question the author's grasp of reality and his claim to have the authority to decipher the "real India" which apparently lies somewhere beyond current economic progress. What does he think is going on here? An economic holocaust?

My ire boils down to this fact...writing an entire book focussed on one aspect of life, "poverty" and using it as a weapon to strike at the heart of hope and the dream of a decent life in this country is a petty war to wage against one's nation and her people in the name of exposing reality.

To quote Balram, quoting Pinky Madam, "what a fucking joke!". What a fucking joke Mr. Adiga, what a fucking joke!

Growing Fatter and Lovin...it! Or where you live matters more than you think...

2011-06-07T09:56:00.000+05:30

I am beginning to think that much of a person's ability to be productive, effective, whatever has to do with their surroundings especially the climate. Was dragged to the gym by DH yesterday, no matter how much I whined and complained about it and once there, it really came as a rude shock to me when I realized just how badly out of shape I have become since moving back to India. After 20 minutes, I had to bite my teeth, limp across to a chair and flop down carefully trying hard not to scream in pain...jeez!!

To begin with I never was much of a "gym" person but back in Cleveland, I loved working out at home and the local Metro Parks, so was in fairly good shape. Since moving here, my motivation levels are below zero. I simply feel too hot and lazy to lift a finger...forget working out.

Going to the gym also gave me a chance to actually see myself in an alien mirror (which has become rare of late as I have given up shopping) where I looked so ghastly and unhealthy that I couldn't believe it was me! At home, looking at ourselves in our own friendly, gotten used to for a while mirrors, we never look as bad as we truly are I think! Strange mirrors have a way of shocking you out of your complacency!

The final Piece De Resistance that I tried to prevent myself for indulging in but some kind of sick fascination with my deterioration led me to - the weighing scale - showed that I am slowly but steadily gaining those dreaded pounds.

The worst thing of all...my response....ah! Who cares? It is too hot to do anything...this city probably has to be the shittiest possible place that way...limited breathing spaces, no beautiful outskirts so to speak of...once read in the paper that this city is either the 1st or 2nd ranking place in India for lifestyle diseases...am not surprised at all. Soon, I'll probably be one of those "lifestyle diseases" statistic too....ah who cares....it is too hot to do anything and anyways there are good hospitals here, albeit expensive!!

So dearies...planning to move back to India? Start with your requirements, absolute must haves in terms of climate, city amenities, pleasant living in clean, pure, unspoiled settings (for this you may just have to move to Bhutan not India) anyways....what I mean to say is try to move to a place where you feel motivated to live and won't spend the better part of your days becoming a "who cares?" philosopher!!

To end on a reasonable note, there's pros and cons everywhere. For instance, electricity is not a problem in Gujarat, no power cuts/failures etc which is a huge blessing in a place where life literally depends on AC systems ...at least for those who can afford it - the flip side of the coin...these very same things are increasing atmospheric heat.

Away from the city, the heat is intolerable but does not feel as lethal...makes me wonder, would it have been truly impossible for us to develop eco-friendly ways to deal with the heat instead of compounding the problem with heat generating climate control systems? In this case, we only had to look at history...after all, people lived, survived and thrived in this climate for centuries before electricity came in to save our lives!!

So life goes on in this blessed manner...

Killed by a speed bump? Do we really need to use our money to rain sorrows down our heads?

2011-06-06T09:03:00.000+05:30

I woke up this morning to read some really sad news in the newspaper. Four young engineering students from wealthy families crashed an Audi and two of the kids ended up dead.

I couldn't help but question, what on earth were they thinking? Well, obviously they were not thinking....

Back in the US, for a while I used to drive a Subaru Impreza WRX, manual transmission. I still remember how we ended up buying the car. One boring weekend, because we had no plans and because DH loves cars, we decided to take in the auto show at the Cleveland IX center. Once there, we immediately fell in love with the Subaru STI...me the totally uninterested one in cars fell hook, line and sinker for that one and encouraged DH to get rid of his beat up old Honda Accord and buy this car. I used to drive a sedate Honda Civic at that time. Well, first of all an STI was impractical for our needs and secondly we couldn't even dream of affording it and so bought the Impreza WRX instead, as the next best choice. After DH left for India, we sold the Honda Civic and the Subaru was entirely mine.

Initially I found the sheer exuberant power of that car intimidating but eventually, I fell in love with it so much that it was a wrench to part from it when I left the US. In fact I can get quite maudlin and talk about all the drives my car and I took together and thoroughly enjoyed...one of the finest being tooling it around the curving, mountainous highways of West-Virginia. However, right from the beginning, I was conscious of its power and was careful to both give it its head and not take liberties unless I was absolutely sure of my skills in handling it on any fun or difficult stretch. Looking back I guess I was old enough and experienced enough to not lose my head and do something wild that would turn out to be a foolish risk, nothing more.

Coming back to these kids, the Audi is a powerful car for our Indian roads with its massive traffic, unusual occupants like dogs and cows and infernal speed bumps. These kids were driving along at 2.00 AM,on an empty stretch of city road, did not spot a speed bump, hit it full speed , the car flew high in the air and crashed, mangling itself and killing two of them.

Makes me wonder, do we really need to use our money so recklessly? I know this is talking after the fact but should young testosterone driven kids be indulged with stuff that's beyond their true understanding as they have neither the experience nor the patience for caution and forethought? Isn't it ridiculous that two kids on the threshold of life die on an empty stretch of road within the city limits because they didn't understand their car and didn't spot the speed bump? Killed by a speed bump? What can be sadder than that? And no, they were not drunk or high or anything like that.

I am beginning to think there's more to the traditionalists' claim of diluting our culture than what meets the eye. In some ways it worked in the past when parents were strict and the kids did not have a freedom that they were not capable of using responsibly. But then, most parents did not have the kind of disposable income that they have now to indulge their kids either!

So the question, how much freedom is too much freedom? Is it really necessary to spend money thoughtlessly because we have it and end up with heartaches and heartbreaks? How will the parents of these kids come to terms with such foolish tragedy?

For those of you planning your move back to India, please don't remain focussed on recreating your past lives here! The realities are far too different for life to flow along the same lines as it did on the other side of the world or any other country you might be coming from. But that doesn't mean you cannot be equally happy here. You can, if you work with the differences instead of going against it!

And now...let me go try to practice what I am preaching...working with the differences instead of against it....

Is it my choice after all? To settle down or not settle down?

2011-06-05T08:59:00.000+05:30

It has been a year since we moved back to India. However, the feeling of being a repatriate continues. I am beginning to think that this just might be a lifelong "feeling". On the other hand, being back here is beginning to feel good too. What a confusing mess this process is! Despite all this feelings I talk about, I can't for the life of me say that I am happy to have moved back or still unhappy about having moved back!

It's not all about feelings either. Even, as I consider and compare lifestyles, vocational requirements etc, I still see how being here, makes everything a little harder, a little more difficult, somewhat crazy, sometimes impossible etc. On the other hand, I seem to be slowly growing into this personality who, if not able to do something to change the circumstances, can change shapes to accommodate myself within that circumstance, whatever it is.

Is this a positive aspect? I don't know. Am I truly making peace with it or compromising for now, which might just result in an outburst later?...I don't know that either.

But strangely, ask me, do I want to move back to the US now?...and I'll say no. Do I still miss living there? Yes I do. So, how does one make sense of this?

I am telling myself that this is just another step in the process of getting reoriented and settling down in one's home country after being away for a while. Maybe, just maybe, when I am writing here after another year has gone by, I'll be saying...yeah! this is where I want to be, in India and in no other corner of this earth!

As I write this, I am beginning to realize, it need not be that random or "happened to me" kind of event after all. Maybe I have the choice to work towards making that happen - towards putting myself in a place, or creating a state of being within me, where I am truly content to settle down here and put down my roots. Maybe in this journey of repatriation, I still haven't reached the place where I can make that choice...yet...but soon, I might just get there.

First rains and spiritual joys...

2011-06-04T09:48:00.000+05:30

It rained yesterday. I woke up from my afternoon nap to find the world enveloped in a pearly pink haze and the wind blowing strong, chasing immense amounts of dust in all different directions. And then, it rained. The first rains, especially in this part of the country feels so unbelievably glorious that you feel as though you've suddenly broken through the gates of hell and reached heaven!! Ok...too much exaggeration maybe and I don't really know what that feels like anyways...but truly, you not only feel a lift in your mood but also sense your entire body, mind and soul rejoicing in the event...the strength probably comes from the fact that every creature around here, human being, animal, bird or reptile is happy when the rains begin. It is almost like collective spiritual joy and you crave to squeeze out every last bit of beauty from it. The feel of it, the smell of it, the taste of it, the sight of it....

Sadly it ended almost before it began around my place...apparently on the outskirts of the city it rained a lot.

Can't think of many things in life that induce such an exquisite feeling of joy and wellbeing like the first rains after a torrid summer in the arid regions of Western India.

What is home? Is it a personal concept or a political one?

2011-06-03T10:52:00.000+05:30

I was up half the night reading Tiger Hills by Sarita Mandanna and was captivated by her vivid descriptions and fast paced plot. It being historical fiction set in my hometown of Coorg, I was further intrigued by the fascinating glimpses this book provided on the development of Coorg under European but chiefly British influence, their club culture, pioneering coffee plantation, influence on language, food and costumes but most of all their gift of education. Despite all this bonhomie between the colonizers and locals, albeit with lingering superiority on the part of the colonizers and distrust and equally lingering superiority amongst the locals, generations of Europeans continued to make Coorg their home, until the Nationalist movement and impending freedom from British rule, wrenched the connection apart and the Europeans left en-mass.

It made me wonder the question of "home", again. What is home? The Coorg-European relationship was free from formal struggle and surrender, the Coorgs having actually invited the British in as an ally against Tipu Sultan who was hellbent on not only annexing Coorg for Mysore State but even went in for forced conversions of Coorgs into Islam. So, despite starting off as allies, the relationship ended pretty much the same as it did everywhere else when India gained independence. The Europeans were the outsiders and they had to get. out. now. Seemingly, nothing that they had done over a few generations, qualified towards them considering Coorg their home as well.

I am not romanticizing the colonizers here. Political supremacy and racial superiority as a collective evil did exist. However, beneath all this, there was also the matter of simple human connection, relationships built on shared land, society and economics. How easily that seems to have disappeared in the face of political freedom!

Why am I obsessing about this question of home?Well for one, I have been pondering this question ever since I first became an expat in the US and continued to ponder the question when I moved back as a repatriate. For another, home truly seems to have become an amorphous concept today.

Today, in the modern world, moving around from place to place in search of security and stability with even international borders feeling porous, what is home? Can any place where we settle down and be productive be called home? If this is so, then is there a place in our life for our heritage?

The Europeans had to get out of Coorg, because no matter what goodies they brought into the land, their heritage branded them as outsiders. Does this attitude hold good even today?

Although, individually we do not take up significant political space when we "move" to another country, will collective appropriation of economic space be considered consuming political space by default and thus come across as undesirable at some point? Does this mean, the meaning of home will always be in a state of flux changing with shifting fortunes and attitudes?

What is home? Any ideas, anybody?

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Of Gandhiji and life in the check-out lane...

2011-06-02T09:05:00.000+05:30

I was out shopping for groceries yesterday, deliberately chose a weekday morning as weekends are a downright bedlam in stores like Reliance and Big Bazaar. Then, I realized I had forgotten to count in the stay at homers...the stay at home, home-maker and mommy brigade was out in full force....oooooops!! I am a stay at homer too, aren't I??? Dang Dang!! Anyways...

The store was choke full of women, some with their houseboys (young male, jack of all trades live in servant) in tow piling their carts with enough fruit, vegetables and dry goods to outlast a famine but the ultimate joke was one such lady at the check out counter. Her cart looked as though she was planning on feeding a houseful of wedding guests, the amount of cash in her hand and the bored looking houseboy beside her did not by any means scream that she lacked for money...but she held up the line for a full half hour after her stuff had been priced and packed, haggling over the total, a couple coupons in hand and a bag of sugar going back and forth between her and the cashier. The coupons were worth a hundred rupees by the way, but her total bill was undoubtedly somewhere in the thousands.

The lines were serpentine in every counter and the others and I in this line just kept waiting, thinking at least her stuff has been checked out, so there's no point in moving to the end of another long line - and ended up irritated and tired. At one point, I wondered if I should step in and ask her to stop haggling and leave, I mean, if she is that fond of saving every penny and bargaining for her rights, she shouldn't be shopping in a busy supermarket...she would be better off going to one of those veggie vendors whose prices go down dramatically the more you buy from them and the the local kirana stores where she can quibble and haggle to her heart's content while the shop fellow engages with her and serves ten other customers at the same time. He doesn't have to worry about fancy cashier machines, that won't let the cashier in a supermarket multi-task but accepts only one payment at a time!

But of course I did not do any such thing, can you imagine the fracas that would have resulted if I had done so? In a minute there would be a mob, two parties and for lack of stones to pelt( stone pelting is very hot on the hot streets here this summer) we would start pelting packets of potato chips and bottles of juice, both being the handiest items near the check out counter!

More and more, as the days go by in this hot hot summer, I tire of city life and look for ways to simplify. It is ironic that I should live in the city that houses Gandhi Ashram and dream of a simple life but remain absolutely clueless on how to make it happen here. But then again, the only simple spot in this city is the Gandhi Ashram. If you go in there and walk around the large open grounds, stand by the banks of river Sabarmati and take in the cool simplicity of the buildings standing under the shade of beautiful old trees it's hard to believe that life can or should be anything but simple living and high thinking like Gandhiji advocated. Then, you come out of the ashram gates to be stared at by the glaring face of 21st century, urban India and thoughts of simplicity simply flee like frightened rabbits...

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The New India...Where a Millionaire's daughter is my maid...???

2011-06-01T09:10:00.000+05:30

It's been a long time since I wrote something here. Having fallen into a lethargy brought about by this stunning heat and focussed on survival and future plans, words kinda disappeared from my life...until today!

My maid came in requesting that I allow her to change her timings from morning to evening for a few days as she is busy scouting for a house that her father would buy for her. Ok, sounds reasonable...and then she goes on to say, he sold some land for a few million rupees...in fact just a little short of a million dollars and check this out, he only sold half his land!! So of course his darling daughter gets a house and some 50 odd tolas (don't ask me for conversions, the mind boggles simply at the thought of calmly paying cash for all this stuff) of gold, her older sister already owns three houses so she gets some 100 odd tolas of Gold.

Ok...and that's not all, apparently her brother has been dealing in gold bullions and has had some stacked up already so his sisters need not look far to buy their mighty tolas of gold. And then she says, I kept meaning to ask you if you wanted to buy gold from my brother but I feared that "Bhaiya" meaning DH, would wonder what these people are upto approaching me to buy gold....well I don't know what he would think about them but he would definitely be concerned for me if I suddenly started talking about buying gold bars and biscuits! When our house was burgled last year my first thought was for my "antique looking" Nataraj statue, thoughts of my gold only came much later but on the other hand my dear, I do have a lot of dreams and plans that require a lot of cold hard cash. So may be you could convince your "papa" to start a interest free, take as long as you want to pay back loan business!!! I would definitely sign up for that!!

All this while, she was calmly doing my dishes and was about start on my clothes....yeeks, the clothes I wear these days, especially my home-wear Ts are old, worn out, shabbily out of shape with a hole or two...simply because they are the most comfy clothes I can find to wear in this atrocious weather...hmmm, should I explain that to her? I mean, she might be thinking, forget buying gold, this woman seems to be unable to buy clothes even...Good God! What a sobering, saddening thought!

On a serious note, this is actually a common phenomena here these days...rural farmers and landowners are becoming millionaires overnight due to the urban sprawl hiking up land prices in the surrounding areas. The developers of course make obscene amounts of money so in comparison what these people receive is probably a pittance and the implications of this kind of progress...better left un-thought! But then again, who said progress and development is clean, cool and linear...it is a messy messy process and that's where we stand now as a country and a people...one more thing to ponder over if you wish to move back. Do you have the patience to live in a messily progressing country? Or are you too comfortable in an already developed environment? A maid with a millionaire father is a non-issue compared to everything else that you have to get used to when you move back.

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Bleakness in Summer...

2011-04-01T20:32:00.000+05:30

A year ago, I was under the impression that nothing could be bleaker than the endless winters of Cleveland, Ohio. The bitter cold and grayed out sunless skies that would last for days together gave you this eerie feeling of being buried alive. Until today...
The doctor tells me that my problem is inability to adjust to this climate as the temperature's steadily soaring...he gave me more medications and advised me to take it slow, stay home, drown myself in drinks (the non-alcoholic kind!) inside and out and stay out of the sun...
So, essentially he is telling me I am going into a decline because of the heat and I need to spend the next how many ever days mollycoddling myself...if that means till the end of summer I am dead...From the endless winters of Cleveland to the endless summers of Ahmedabad...What a life!! Be careful what you wish for dearies, all that wishing for sunshine that I indulged in over the last few years in the US has been granted me with one big bang right now and boy does it hurt!!
So the next few months I am scheduled to stay home...and do what else? Read myself blind I suppose! I felt buried alive in Cleveland but I am truly buried alive here...Hmmmm maybe it's time for me to get out of here....Can't believe that the land I grew up in is turning against me with a vengeance...sighhh....

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Polyandry Advocacy Club Anybody?

2011-04-01T15:13:00.000+05:30

...Shocked? Scandalized? Read on Dahlings!!

In my previous post, I moaned n groaned about a possible typhoid relapse. After waiting out the mandatory 48 hours with my fever showing no sign of loving me any less, we went back to the doctor today...I was expecting a typhoid relapse verdict and was all set to work on kicking the little bugs(gers) out of my system again and the doc states it doesn't look like typhoid...it's probably something else!! So after shelling out some more bodily fluids for some more tests we came back home...results will be out in the evening.

Anyways, to get back to my point...

I spent the past couple days home alone alternately starving my fever and throwing things at it (read pills) as DH had to go out of town on business. Yes...my illnesses dare not be an excuse for him to cancel his plans anymore as they are too much and too frequent...after all somebody's got to pay my medical bills! And make sure we don't end up homeless, which if left to me seems to be a distinct possibility! The cook and the maid can do all I need and my books have always given me awesome company. However, none of these can be a real substitute for your husband or wife...so you see where I am going with this?

By the time DH came back home, I was ready to do some gentle in home socializing with an actual human being...which means, I would lie on the couch like a pathetic little sickie, DH would sit beside me holding my hand and engage me in gentle low voiced conversation on mellow topics perfectly suited to an invalid.

The reality? This pathetic little sickie is on the couch clutching her kindle while DH is sitting beside me clunking away on his laptop...which he has been doing ever since he came home yesterday ( he calls it "follow up" work...after that he needs to focus on "move forward" work). ?????? WHAT am I supposed to do??? SO, I decided to take a stand to ensure my wellbeing as well...the solution?

I will take a lesson from ancient history...(Nothing new eh? We Indians are so fond of referring back to our glorious history and culture every chance we get)...Heck! my life needs a new purpose outside of exploring the wonderful world of tropical diseases...I will go back to the Mahabharata and emulate my dear Draupadi (will also ignore the teensy weensy fact that she ended up with five husbands by mistake!) I will begin Polyandry Advocacy.

The first step is to walk the talk...so I informed DH I need a second spouse, quite definitely unemployed and DH can have the privilege of supporting us both! DH reaction...Thunder and Hailstorm!!...Fireworks, Verbal Bombs, copious tears and going down on his knees to beg my pardon....ah! how sweet is fantasy....REALITY - flying kiss aimed somewhere over my right shoulder which went right out the large windows behind me and even louder clunking! And Horror of horrors! One hand is reaching out for his "out of body mouth and brain"...his cell phone...fizzle...phish...whimper.... whimper...

Any supportive voices out there? Anyone interested in joining me to form a Polyandry Advocacy club?.... (Most definitely not interested in helping form a Polygamy Advocacy Club...yeah yeah I am happily unfair)

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Moving back to India? Preventative Health Measures...

2011-03-30T10:07:00.000+05:30

It looks like my typhoid fever is back again after a couple weeks' break. How I wish I had taken some preventative measures before leaving the US! I never even so much as thought about it.

Much as we would like to think ourselves Indian and the matter of moving back as simply getting up and getting back home, it is not so. Whether we like it or not, long term stay in a country like the US changes us physically as well.

This is not to say that everybody who moves back will be prone to illnesses the way I have been. However, if I had but given it a though I would have realized some of this before I moved. The only problem I had while growing up in India was health issues. I would very often have little niggling problems ranging from respiratory infections to allergies and sinus inflammation. The healthiest I have ever been was in the US. So, having gotten my body used to the environment there, I should have been a tad more thoughtful before hurling myself onto the relatively harsher environment here.

What would I have done differently?

1. Considered vaccination and immunizations options before moving.

2. Moved during the Winter months.

3 Being very careful and taking my first year as easy as possible - stayed put in one place as much as I could instead of running around and travelling like the world would come to an end tomorrow - Tried my darnedest not to use public restrooms - Avoided eating out as opposed to frequently eating out ( You would think that that would be a no-brainer except it is kinda hard when you step out of home in the evenings and come smack upon deliciously spicy aromas all around you from street food vendors to cafes and restaurants !!SO, GUARD AGAINST TEMPTATION!) In my defense, Food addiction seems to be a major issue in this city and just happens to be another one of those contagious diseases that you can easily catch upon moving here. Ok...to put it in a nutshell placed myself under voluntary house arrest for at least a year.

Why do I keep saying "a year"? Apparently, the human body needs to experience one complete cycle of seasons to thoroughly acclimatize itself to new environments.

The key is to be extremely careful and guarded when it comes to issues of health and personal property when you move back to India. The casual, carefree attitude fostered in you by the relatively comfortable lifestyle in fully developed nations is best left behind when you move back home.

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"Talent is a species of Vigor"

2011-03-18T09:28:00.000+05:30

I came across this line somewhere along my always intense reading journeys. This made me ponder about the talent required to readjust as a repatriate in home country. I am beginning to think that the key is to rigorously or VIGORously persist as that is the only way out of this conundrum of feeling alien but you are not an alien, you want to belong but you secretly long to fly back to your previous life, you love being back home but hate everything about it, you are supposed to be the host here but feel like an unwelcome guest...etc etc.

In other words, like everything else in life this too requires some hard work, persistence and also talent to recreate yourself to meet the needs of your familiarly unfamiliar environment and feel at home again.

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The dreaded heat has begun...

2011-03-17T21:22:00.000+05:30

The temperature's steadily climbing up and my body's steadily revolting against it...feeling burned inside and out...wonder how to survive the summer....

Hanging upside down with a bad haircut!

2011-03-13T12:08:00.000+05:30

Ever heard of a little guy called Trishanku? If not, you can read up on him here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trishanku

The longer I live in India this time round, the better I appreciate the poor fellow's condition. I am not drawing an exact parallel here, for instance, I don't presume to choreograph any metaphorical dances with the concept of heaven and earth etc. I mean to draw just one definite line of connection between Trishanku's state of being, hanging upside down in a world created due to his desires and my state of being in the land of my birth.

There are days when I FEEL as alien as if I am walking around on my head. Then there are days when I feel I LOOK alien with my short crop because women in this part of the country have such lustrously luscious long hair that when I go out I spend most of my time shamelessly ogling female heads...which reminds me...keeping my hair short here is such a trial because hair stylists are so inexperienced when it comes to short hair cuts.

The first guy I went to did a fairly good job of cutting my hair except in the course of the conversation when he finds out I just moved back from the US goes..."Oh, my short hair techniques are American" and I am impressed and relieved when he goes on to say "Yes! I learn from YOU TUBE and CDs"....whew! Do you mind if I snatch my head away from you boy???!! However, I was happy enough to want to go back to him except that the next few times I went/called to get an appointment with that guy I began to get the run around which in the end made me fear I might be mistaken for a cougar (he's a very young guy you see!) so I had to give up and find someone else...and someone else again...and nothing's worked out so far...they do a fantastic job of coloring but short cuts are another story altogether....so then I proceeded to give my dear husband a heart attack by announcing that he needs to start funding my periodic trips to Paris for fashionista purposes...thereby also rounding up my identity as an alien Desi! (To clarify, by history, heritage, nature culture etc etc we Indians are happier saving our money rather than spending it...just like it's said in the new Maruthi Ad!)

So now, what with a crazy hair cut that's growing out into it's "in between" stage, typhoid induced weight gain because when I am not eating, I am sleeping and my general air of bewilderment at finding myself in a little alien world of my own creation where I am happily empathizing with Trishanku, I truly well am hanging upside down and boy is it enervating!!

When Typhoid comes, can Malaria be far behind? And the lucky thief...

2011-03-12T13:26:00.000+05:30

It has been a while since I wrote anything here or anywhere else. Moved back to India in May 2010 and life was a whirlwind of activities - settling down stuff, family issues, travelling frequently - come Feb 2011, I heaved a sigh of relief as we had nothing significant to focus on and I determined to put an end to aimless travelling and refocus on my LIFE. I planned on finally staying put in Ahmedabad and looking into my career needs and options as well as finish up something else that I had committed myself to months ago in the writing field.

Well, so much for my plans! I spent the first two weeks feeling progressively ill, then it looked like I had come down with viral fever but it finally turned out to be typhoid fever. Spent a few days in the hospital getting, I know not how many bottles of IV fluids and antibiotics and came home with more medications and extreme weakness. Now I am focussed on "regaining my strength" and "trying not to eat anything that might overwork my weakened digestive system"...apparently it will take some few weeks to get back to normal again...groannnnnnnnn! BTW, this is by no means the first time I have fallen ill since I moved back to India, this is the second time I was hospitalized and I have lost count of the number of times, I have been ill at home...whew!

As if this were not enough, one day I had DH take me to a book exhibition as I was beginning to get cabin fever staying cooped up at home. Now, when I am around books I forget everything else including my existence and some lucky thief made away with my wallet which had everything from cash to cards and ID cards etc!!

SO anyways....I am beginning to think I need to consult an astrologer and see if my stars have all aligned themselves in a way peculiarly inimical to my existence!

And Oh! When Typhoid comes, can Malaria be far behind? Hmmm...maybe I should spend the next few months vaccinating myself with every known vaccine to man...along with consulting the astrologer of course!!

Do you want an Audi?

2011-02-18T22:43:00.000+05:30

Hey Ya'll! Do you want an Audi free of cost? Just come on over to Ahmedabad, India. I am right now on an "Audi Agent" hunt and I am sure to find one soon...If you are wondering what this is all about, here goes;

There was a very interesting bit of news in the paper today. A guy with flashy clothes and jewelry walked into an Audi showroom nearby my place and took an Audi Q7 for a test drive accompanied by the sales guy. After he had driven it for a while, he requested the salesman to drive it so he could sit back and enjoy the drive and the "view" alongside SG Highway (What view???Grimy rooftops and massive hoardings???)

So the poor fool got out of the car and walked around to the driver's seat, when the "cool customer", slipped back onto the driver's seat and drove away, literally and figuratively leaving the sales guy choking on his dust!!! How easy was that?!

Check this out..the showroom does not have security cameras, so they have no way of identifying him...apparently they have relayed information to the police check posts along the highways. Will this guy really try to get past police check posts with that car looking the way it did? My guess is, he will lie low for a while somewhere around here, change everything he can beginning with the color of the car and drive away with his aged parents, wife and kids or a bunch of kids or in some such "good citizen" avatar!

Anyways, I finally got myself a bank locker and stowed my remaining jewelry in there...I don't recall if I ever mentioned this but our apartment was burgled a couple weeks after we moved to India and the stupid fools that we were, we had left some of our valuables here while we went out of town so, the thieves definitely had a ball...the police then told us that this city attracts out of town robbers due to its wealth but now I have this sneaking suspicion that it is not wealth alone but carelessness as well!

So, people moving back here, do watch out! We have some of the world's most enterprising people in our country!!

India Repatriate - to be or not to be? Or Why relocate to India?

2011-02-08T18:53:00.000+05:30

I received an email from a blog reader who is currently pondering this question. As I finished reading her mail, I began to think back to my decision to move and how I would go about making my decision if it were now - that is, when I actually have first hand knowledge of what it is like to move back to home country.

It had always been my intention to move back to India but in my case, the timing sucked....however that's another story!

I never really had an answer to the question "why do you want to move back?" The reason being, there is no material reason to move back. Much as we would like to tout the progress India has made in recent years, it is still far from being the United States. It probably never will be...India is too tropical and too crowded to ever have the kind of space and resources that makes the US such a pleasant, easy place to live. Philosophically, we Indians are too relaxed, easy-going and fatalistic to constantly innovate, recreate and figure out the next best thing to improve our lives and our country at a rapid pace.

Living in the US, I not only had access to every single thing that I needed but was free to let my "wants" grow like weeds on steroids, fully secure in the knowledge that they would be gratified sooner or later! Living in an atmosphere where space, system and technology conspire to help you grow rapid and large it was easy to believe myself to be this bold, confident person who can make it anywhere in this world...and then I moved back to India, thinking, "so what if this is not exactly the right time in my life for relocating, I can make it work!"

India brought me down to earth with a nice big crash. Wading through my swampy first few months here, I cannot find words to describe how badly I regretted my decision and how many times I have spoken and still speak about moving back to the US. The question "Why did I move back?" haunted me endlessly until one day a few weeks ago, I realized that I will never really have an answer to that question...There is no answer to that question. I don't have reasons;

I am not here under the illusion that India is progressing and so this is the place to be.

I am not here under any delusion that my country needs me and I need to give back; whether I am here or not, whether I do something or not India will survive and move on. To put it another way, I need my country far more than my country needs me!!

If you ask me, I will say that I loved my American life better (and that despite being a totally stressed out mental health social worker for most of my life there!) than I love my life here.

If I did not have the option to move back and were forced to settle down permanently in the US, I would have happily made myself at home there for the most part. (Once upon a time, I would have thought that a traitorous attitude but not anymore. We are who we want ourselves to be and if you are born Indian but feel American and are happy being one, then so be it...all of us are human beings first and different nationalities next!)

However, would I have completely forgotten my country? No, somewhere, deep down, I would have continued to miss India and that emotion would have resurfaced from time to time, preventing me from resting content. And that is the only answer I have to the question, why I moved back to India. This is home, this is my heritage and ultimately, this is where I want to be.

Having said that, I will also say that I could have timed it better and prepared myself better for the move, in other words, I could have been a little smarter about it!

Settling down but not settling down...

2011-01-15T11:06:00.000+05:30

The longing to be back in the US, living my previous life has been steadily receding, I am also beginning to feel happy about being back in India. I still continue to feel alien for the most part but I also feel at home more often. I still struggle to accept the easy manner in which people invade our privacy here but I am beginning to harden myself into maintaining my boundaries according to my needs. I am still confused about my place and my sense of self but I am beginning to accept that I will never be one thing or the other but a cultural mongrel of sorts and that is ok.
What I have not been able to do so far is actually work on putting down my roots here. For reasons unknown I balk at the thought of complete acceptance. This is funny because I remember going through the same feelings during my first couple years in the US. There was this fear of letting my old familiar self go in order to become the different person I needed to be to survive in a totally different environment. I never once thought I would feel the same on my return to India. But then, that's how matters stand, I am going through a similar struggle all over again and sometimes it all gets so overwhelming that I long to fly back in time and space to my cozy little apartment overlooking the chagrin valley in Northeast Ohio. At other times, it feels good to be back in this country of mine with her relaxed air and abundant sunshine. Go figure!

A WEDDING in the Family...and...

2010-12-03T22:16:00.000+05:30

"There is an upcoming wedding in the family, that is, my dear husband's (DH) brother is getting married in January 2011". Innocuous sentence eh? No!! There's a wedding in the family is synonymous with "yours truly is on a shopping frenzy" and DH is alternately losing his mind and fearing for my sanity.

Being back in India is insanely exciting come wedding and saree shopping time.

Excitement aside, this woman has hardly ever shopped for sarees in her life and never before has she done it without mom or an aunt beside her to give her moral support...now I am dependent on DH for moral support while BUYING SAREES...ouch!!

The scene kinda goes like this, we walk into a store having decided beforehand what kinda stuff we are looking for, gape at a hundred different varieties of sarees flown, flung, draped and defined for our benefit -

by the end of which we are too stunned to decide anything - shrug apologetically, give perplexed smiles and inch our way out murmuring that we would be back the next day...knowing full well that we won't go back and the sales guy knows it too!

For those of you wondering why all this bewilderment...try figuring out stuff like pure georgette, dye-able, brocaded, self embroidered with silver tikkis (Not stones!) with traditional border vs synthetic georgette(that's why it is cheaper madam), double colored, velvet floral bordered shimmer material with stones (Not tikkis!)...yada, yada, yada....

or how about a Benarasi pure silk patola vs, Benarasi Brocade vs Benarasi Jamaver vs South Silk (meaning kanjeevaram) plain or south silk enhanced with Kutchi work, kundan work, kantha work...etc etc etc

or better still the latest fad...net sarees with beautiful handwork including tikkis, crystals and uncut diamonds ranging in price from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars...whew! I wouldn't mind paying thousands of dollars( one day in the future if and when I can afford to that is!!) for an elegantly woven and worked silk saree...after all the production of my saree begins with thousands of poor little silkworms (which means my saree is organic, right?)...but I cannot imagine paying so much for what to me appears to be gorgeously colored and worked mosquito nets....but on the other hand some of these net sarees are out of this world elegant...so maybe they are not so bad after all....

...and this is just the beginning, we still haven't touched silk cotton...Italian crepe...pure chiffon...raw silk...paper silk...tussar silk...moonga silk....blah blah blah...or sarees from all different states and districts...cities, towns and villages...handcrafted vs machine woven...chemical dyes vs vegetable dyes, royal vs rustic....oooooooooofff...gasp...some water please...

If this is not enough to fry your brains...you must be made of one of those pure silk with pure gold thread border kinda material that they promise will live on in full glory for eons after we depart this saree laden earth...

After going through this process(torment?) in some smaller boutiques and indie shops, we felt braver to approach the big guns of the city. (Or may be the fact that the wedding is less than two months away has something to do with this sudden spurt of courage??)

So now we have actually started buying sarees!! More about that later...coz you see after buying comes the drooling and draping...and plenty more ings....

Of Me, my Dear Husband(DH) our Maid and Cook....

2010-12-02T16:10:00.000+05:30

To continue with the story of trying to manage a maid and a cook....

After weeks of getting up in the morning and sweetening our morning cup of coffee with squabbles over what instructions to give the maid and cook on that particular day and which of us would do it, I had had enough and came to a decision; to split "them two" between "us two".

I bagged the cook and gave DH the maid as in our former lives I used to be master chef and DH the sous chef and he was the janitorial supervisor, me the imbecile cleaner ( which basically meant that I was too stupid to do the bathrooms etc so he got to do all the heavy duty stuff...hehe!)

Today happened to be the first day we could put this into practice as DH happened to be at home( he is usually out of town, either for a day or for days together on business) BUT when I woke up this morning he had just gotten back from his early morning yoga class thoroughly thrilled with the weather and sighting my daily plumpening (is there such a word? If not, there should be, coz there's no better way to describe me...)he "encouraged" me to go for a nice long walk and offered to pass on my instructions to the cook AND promised to remember everything I had pointed out around the house to him so he could instruct the maid.

I went for my nice long walk and stayed out for about an hour soaking up some sun before it got to be burning hot and then went back home to find...

...my DH busily typing away at his laptop.

Cobwebs continued to lurk in both dark and bright corners while the maid was apparently on the point of finishing up her day's work...the toilets did not look like it had been cleaned...on questioning DH, he asks me, "doesn't she clean it everyday?" (????)...on questioning the maid, she explains that she cleaned it with plain water (?????)...

Went to the kitchen to inquire after my dish of thinly sliced and sauteed raw bananas only to see that the thin slices seems to have transformed to big fat cubes...so I ask DH, "did you forget to give her my instructions?" and he goes..."No! I told her that the bananas have to be "thinly sliced", hasn't she sliced it?"...ok who do I yell at? DH for assuming that a woman who struggles to articulate basic numbers in English would understand the term "thinly sliced"? Or my cook for assuming to understand when she hasn't understood his instructions?

Well...I didn't yell at anybody...after all it was a nice morning and I had just come in from a nice long walk...and also DH excused himself on the score that he was preoccupied with his work...yeah yeah...

Fast forward to our luncheon conversation...DH is telling me how my cook's alcoholic husband has ruined her life...the cook told him her story this morning and apparently the maid too added her two cents to abuse the cook's husband...ok! whew! The two women hardly ever shoot the wind with me despite me being at home all the time, while DH sprints in and out of the house like a freakin olympic athlete and the day they get him alone they gossip and all my instructions are gone with wind....

Jeez...whenever will I acquire the skills required to manage my servants and teach it to DH? Coz, you can't simply give orders to Indian maids or you will speedily find yourself without household help. You've got to learn the value of well placed smiles with your regular requests, special smiles for special requests, playfulness while delivering corrections and criticisms, the ability to turn a blind eye towards certain negligent behaviors while wholeheartedly appreciating positive behaviors, just the right mixture of coaxing and command while instructing, not being too uptight about (for them immaterial) things like punctuality and keeping you informed in advance about a change in their plans....the list goes on so I will stop here...

The day I master all this, I'll apply for a position as a foreign ambassador and have myself sent to our favorite neighboring country...eh?

Back In Ahmedabad

2010-11-25T23:21:00.000+05:30

Got back home to Ahmedabad almost a month ago and working hard on settling down. Our things arrived from the US bringing some much needed cheer to our home. It's lovely to have all my favourite things and books around me again!
Also, the Arabian Sea was kind enough to send some really cold winds and misting rain our way so I actually got to stomp around in my much loved jeans and knee high boots, helping me create the illusion of being my normal self as I knew it over the past few years! Oh! The frivolous stuff on which my happiness rides!
And then, there's the new things that I get to enjoy now...the world's best oranges and guavas, custard apples and big fat gooseberries, winter vegetables, winter fashion (by which I mean wedding fashions because the wedding season of this part of the country is in full swing now!)
I want to say that life in India is good after all but I won't for fear of provoking the evil eye...

South Goa - A Story in Pictures - Part 3

2010-10-20T00:14:00.000+05:30

Our beautiful sunset ride on a motorcycle took us to the heart of Agonda, a fishing village comprising chiefly of local fisher folk with foreign visitors happily slumming it in the middle of nowhere. Riding through the village, looking at the tourists hanging out in the rustic shacks and stores, I wondered why someone would take the trouble to travel all the way from far off places to end up in the boondocks, especially in a country like India where you can spend years travelling and still find out there's more to see and do than what you have done already!
While still pondering this question, we came upon Agonda beach and all thoughts of the primitive village flew from my mind to be replaced by awestruck admiration. I could have happily lived in a cave wearing skins if I could wake up to this view and sleep to the sounds and sights of this magnificent expanse of water, sky, hills and sunlight...

...If ever you feel a overwhelming need to experience absolute beauty and innocence, go to Agonda Beach during the monsoons at the hour of the sunset...

South Goa - A Story in Pictures - Part 2

2010-10-08T23:26:00.000+05:30

Another Day in Paradise

1. Our first morning in Goa began with another stroll on the beach to a food shack for some breakfast. We sat there in a sunny dream watching the azure blue sea, devouring banana pancakes, thick sliced bacon and steaming hot coffee.

2. Another short walk on the beach to watch some men wrestling with their fishing nets…

3. …the colorfully dressed women beach cleaners…

… Men clambering up coconut palms to pick coconuts...

Now, we were ready to take on the town and the first thing we did on going into town was to try to rent a scooter for easy mobility and ended up renting a motorcycle instead. VJ had a ball zooming us around the twisted little roads and lanes, pretending he had finally bought his dream machine!

After spending the day exploring Palolim and Canacona town on the motorcycle, we decided to ride down to Agonda Beach, which is about eight kms away from Palolim. We had an unbelievably glorious ride through unspoiled countryside wrapping ourselves in the cool evening air and chasing the golden sunset. I thought I had found perfection in Palolim and then I saw Agonda…but that as they say is another story…for another day!

South Goa – A story in pictures - Part 1

2010-10-06T17:50:00.000+05:30

(Note: After the recent spate of cynical writings here, I thought I would write about one of the many beautiful experiences I have had while exploring this country of mine over the past few months).

Palolim

1. Towards the end of the monsoons, my husband and I spent a couple days in South Goa, in a little fishing village, which also attracts a ton of tourists seeking quiet beauty and warm sunny serenity during the winter months. We stayed on the beach in the village of Palolim, which is a gorgeous place nestled between the Arabian Sea on one side and thickly wooded Sahyadri Mountain ranges, on the other.

2. We landed at Dabolim airport in the early afternoon and driving south for about 60 Kms, we reached Palolim in the evening. After finding a little place to shack up for the night, we walked to one of the places on the beach for some food. Therefore, our Goan experience began with some delicious crusted calamari and a tall bone colored mug of the world’s best coffee served black with steamed milk and sugar on the side.

3. After lingering lazily over coffee n’ calamari we decided to go for a sunset stroll on the beach and never have I seen such a breathtaking glory of colors in my life before! The western sky was a searing red gold, the waters a lustrous silver gray, the mountains a constantly darkening green black and it being the monsoons, dark clouds were gathering in the horizon promising us a stormy night.

4. We showered and changed into fresh clothes and went back to the Dropadi bar and Restaurant for a late dinner. The waiter displayed the fresh catch of the day for our benefit and it included a giant lobster, snapper, red snapper and bass. We chose a snapper and had them spice and grill it in the Tandoor (clay oven) for us. The prepared fish with a garden fresh-spiced vegetable salad and hot steamed rice on the side was especially scrumptious due to the freshness of the ingredients.

5. Having satisfied both our palates and our tummies, we decided to explore the town of Palolim. The town is a curious mixture of the indigenous and the sophisticated, as it needs to cater to both the local fisher folk and farmers and the international tourist. Then, our first evening in Goa culminated with us going to bed to the sounds of a stormy night outside our window.

Living the American Dream in India...

2010-10-04T05:30:00.000+05:30

I think I am beginning to get a glimmer of understanding into the secret for contentment in India vs the US. India has much to offer the person who plays by the rules whereas the US has a lot to offer the rebel rather than the conformist...OK this is some pretty strong stereotyping, however, consider this;
In India, if you belong to the very poor or the very rich classes, you can get away with a lot, either because you are poor and you have to do what it takes to survive or you are wealthy so you have a right to behave the way you want to and use your money to smoothen the consequences, not so different from the rest of the world!
If you belong to the great Indian middle class, your duty is to get a degree, a job, a spouse, a car, two kids and a maid and spend the rest of your life saving your money for your children and your retirement and raising your kids without breaking the mold. Majority of the people who follow this formula appear genuinely happy and why not? Society beams its approval and makes subtle allowances and adjustments to enable the family to continue this lifestyle without becoming dysfunctional. People talk about rising divorce rates in India but it is still relatively minuscule compared to the US and the biggest issue seems to be that the woman has moved on while the man continues to struggle in the caves...don't expect me to sympathize with that!!
In the US, playing by the rules appears golden but for the most part seems to end in two or three mortgages, a spouse without the "sparks" or "chemistry", unhappy kids, stagnant career because you are too busy running the circus to focus on yourself (this happens in a land that worships individuality...go figure!) obesity, divorce, stress and burn out, drug or alcohol addiction, as how else would you cope with steadily increasing disillusionment?

How is it different when a person refuses to play by the rules?

In India, all hell breaks lose...everyone from your nearest and dearest to the stranger in the streets who strikes up a conversation with you is worried about the "lack of progress" in your life. Any attempts to explain why you have deviated from the norm simply results in a lot of arguments, counter arguments and snide remarks...so much so that you feel like catching the next bus from here to nowhere! The really bothersome thing about this is the way it can drag you down and prevent you from accomplishing your goals, thus inevitably provoking "I told you so" comments. Whew!
In the US, as long as you are "doing something" with your life, nobody cares if you are playing by the rules or not. For the most part, people are too busy running their own show to have much energy left over for yours! In such a sanguine atmosphere, you can focus on you and accomplish your dreams without going through the enervating process of justifying them every step along the way and collapsing in a heap before you are halfway there!

Although the American Dream is a much maligned concept, it still attempts to pervade the country in its simple essence, To quote James T Adams from "Epic of America",
"The American Dream, that has lured tens of millions of all nations to our shores in the past century has not been a dream of material plenty, though that has doubtlessly counted heavily. It has been a dream of being able to grow to fullest development as a man and woman, unhampered by the barriers which had slowly been erected in the older civilizations, unrepressed by social orders which had developed for the benefit of classes rather than for the simple human being of any and every class"

It is just too bad that the American Dream is a travesty of its true meaning today and has generally come to signify expensive and exhausting house keeping within the borders of the white picket fence!It is even worse that there is no such thing as the Great Indian Dream! However, what really takes the cake is trying to live the American Dream (in its true sense) in India!

Battling tropical organisms and dreaming of epic journeys...

2010-10-02T09:45:00.000+05:30

After deluding myself that a walk in the dust and rain was delicious, I paid for it by falling sick immediately and getting admitted to the hospital which forced Vj to reschedule his trip to the US...and as if that wasn't enough, the virus got into him as well and he had to reschedule the trip a second time. Now that I think of it my biggest accomplishment to date since I moved to India has been to fall ill to a precise schedule every few days...It has been four months since I moved and I am still going strong and accumulating a record number of sick days...beginning to consider writing to the Guinness book of world records, after all we should make hay while the sun shines no matter what the nature of accomplishment!
On the other hand may be I should pay heed to what my cousins say and consult an astrologer and find out if and why the stars are aligned against me...
Or better still maybe I should simply walk out of this dreaded land and seek my fortune in some friendly corner of the world...that is assuming that there is a friendly corner somewhere for me...
I wonder...would it be foolish to start on an epic journey to find the most conducive place to live in for me?

Grappling with tropical delights....

2010-10-02T07:59:00.000+05:30

Currently sojourning in Mysore, generally pronounced to be a beautiful city with plenty of parks, gardens and historical monuments to attract people.
What is not so famously known is the peculiar mixture of sensory "delights" that can change this place from heaven to hell within a matter of hours.
You can wake up to soft sunshine and bird song, walk out of the house with a cup of coffee and sigh in pleasure when your eyes meet with a profusion of greenery and flowers both wild and cultivated...
And then, before you realize it you are wading through thick tropical heat, struggling with prolific allergens released by all this tropical glory and you have the beginnings of a sore throat, runny nose, itchy eyes, all wrapped up in sickening heat...
Cope with it all day hoping for some respite at least from the heat at night...no such luck. Nights belong to mosquitoes on coke, worsening allergy symptoms, sleeplessness from all this discomfort, all wrapped up in sickening heat again.
Wake up again...look at the morning glory, which now feels like the proverbial salt on the wound and curse the stars that brought you here.

I guess no amount of beauty in the world can make up for the bleakness within...

Distance is not just a matter of miles...

2010-10-01T21:05:00.000+05:30

Why do we even have the concept of "world peace"? Granted that it is just a term popularly used in beauty paegents but I have come across related terms and hopes in other places too. If repatriation after a relatively short time of geographical distance can get this complicated, how can people think of living in peace with other people who resemble them only in being human beings and whom they have never met?

Culture is deadlier than the nuclear bomb!

After coping with questions and comments ranging from why we have no kids despite being married four years (people are openly skeptical when I say it is from choice and that we do not have infertility issues) to the finer details of the reasons behind hiring a cook...
(Apparently it is automatically implied that I can't cook and we have plenty of money to throw around. Neither's true...what is true is our priorities are radically different from that of the people around us...another reason to feel out of place!)
... and everything else in between, I am beginning to develop culture phobia, unfortunately towards home country. I thought material homelessness was painful....wait till you begin to experience cultural homelessness!

This takes me back to my last few days at my workplace back in Cleveland. I informed a client that I was moving back to India and she asked me "Why? Don't you love our freedoms here?" and I replied, "I have pretty much the same freedoms in India". I am beginning to wonder if I had gone to work in a doped up state that day...same freedoms indeed! I'd bet you my last pair of boots that like everything else in this darned place even freedom comes in disguise...either that or individual freedom of thought and acceptance of differences is pretty much non-existent.

A maid or a crab???

2010-09-02T20:59:00.000+05:30

I think I should write a book called "Chronicals of the Maid"! My maid finally left me...like a crab walking sideways, she slid out of employment! I cannot even fathom why she could not simply tell us she's leaving and then leave! Her departure steps;

1. I will come twice a day instead of once ( I said no...once is bad enough considering the wait involved, twice would mean I would have to wait home all day)

2. I will bring my sister and we will share the chores ( after lengthy discussions of how the chores and payment should be divided between the two, this was okayed)

3. She turns up the next day with her "sister" and seems to be explaining all the duties to her. On questioning she says, she's going away to her village for a month so her "sister" will work this month and she will return to her duties here next month.

4. Then, it turns out the "sister" is uncomfortable about starting off all by herself so she is entreating this woman to come here with her for a few days...

5. Obviously we ask if she's not going to her village after all and she says no!

6. Finally we dumbos get the message that she wants to terminate her employment (grand words for a crab but I don't know what else to say! except may be that she's abandoning this hole!)

7. All this while my poor husband being the more proficient of us in the local language was trying to clarify the situation with these two women...and they were doing what women do best...fall into consulting each other on the silliest pretext and giggling endlessly...

8. When asked to clarify their relationship, both together reported with a straight face that they are "sisters"...the minute the previous maid left, the new one declared, "I am a Brahmin...we are Maharaj"...Ok I am really not interested in my maid's caste and lineage...I just want my Goddammmmm Work done...SISTERS my ass! They are not even remotely related... and the final touch...

9. My previous maid came by later for her salary and told us to call her if this maid doesn't do her job well...Phew!!

Man! I really didn't know how good I had it in America cleaning my own shit...

A walk in flowered dust and rain...

2010-09-02T20:34:00.000+05:30

Went out for a walk this evening, my nose thanked me for giving it a chance to breathe in the wonderful fragrance of plumeria and jasmine and my eyes kicked my butt for feeding it finely ground dust...and the rains saw fit to come down when I was still some ways from home and soak me to the skin...
Got back home for a hot shower and hot hot cilantro theplas...yum yummmmm....

Progress as a repat...

2010-08-23T10:35:00.000+05:30

I now have a cook added to my employees along with the maid and I must say it is a funny experience. My cook wanted to know all about my life in America and one of the first things she asks me is about the availability of household help. When I told her, it was difficult and expensive, so we did it all ourselves, she commiserated with me about how hard it must have been; and then said don't go back to America, life is much better here, you get lots of help...! I did not have the heart to explain the demographics and economics surrounding the availability of household help but she was geniuinely concerned and that was touching.

My maid continues to be as impertinent as ever asking me why we use all three bathrooms rather than sticking to one when it's just the two of us ( Maybe, I should have told her that's because she does the cleaning and not me!!) exclaiming over the number of undergaments used by my husband, telling me not to dirty the kitchen if I do something in there soon after she cleans up...she's a trip but she's funny and keeps the place clean and more importantly takes care of my plants when I go out of town, so I hope she doesn't leave in a fit of capriciousness!

So, my new life's making progress...what with a cook and a maid, I have so much more time to focus on my repat miseries...haha!

Holy Cow Sarah! Really???

2010-07-12T23:14:00.000+05:30

Today my mood is thoughtful…pensive. Did Sarah McDonald really need to publish her memoir about her time in India? She undoubtedly has a right to do it, nevertheless is it necessary to dispense with cultural and emotional sensitivity as completely as she has done?

Her writing is good, many times, I found myself laughing uncontrollably and even empathizing with her on some of her experiences. By dint of transforming contradictions to caricatures, she has managed to keep the humor going throughout the book. Her basic attitude can be simply termed as “poking fun” at all and sundry. The truly heartbreaking thing about it is most of her wit is a result of her lack of discernment and acuity into the culture and conditions of this society.

I know that India can be an overwhelming experience, especially for people born and raised in less populated, better-organized, simple monocultural societies. I am Indian, I cannot even pretend to begin to understand this diverse, tangled country of mine, and she has disposed of every aspect of this country in a shallow, flippant manner. If she aimed at caustic wit, she did not reach there, as there is no depth of perspicacity, just a superficial satire.

The key concepts of her plot like the airport beggar foretelling her future, her wish for bigger breasts being granted her albeit as a disease, the astrologer in Rishikesh coming up with correct predictions; all sound like blatant falsehoods created to give her “memoir” some significance. As otherwise, it would read like a tiresome travelogue of a bored foreigner unable to engage with the country where she happens to be a reluctant visitor.

The Indian government does not interfere with people’s religious beliefs in the name of bureaucracy, city governance or urban planning which is as it should be and the author terms it “inefficiency”. (Ref to Parsi Dakhmas)

There is no beautiful piece of land in India, every single square foot is dirty, dusty, dry, hot, stinky, muddy…the negatives are endless. She professes to understand the concept of multiple paths to God endorsed by Hinduism and persists in giving frivolous descriptions of different Hindu Gods.

I could analyze her book to bits and continue to ramble some, so I will stop here. This is not the first book about India written by a western visitor that paints such a starkly depressing picture of the country. Most of them invariably begin with extreme reactions and end up making peace with it under the “India is a land of contradictions with exotic eastern spirituality” theory. “Holy Cow” is no different.

The problem as I see it is developed nations function based on a “mainstream society” which also happens to be the majority population. There is a clear demarcation between the center and the periphery and it is obvious who is who and what is what and where you stand in relation to society the moment you land there. India has no such clearly defined mainstream. If you like, you can define Hindus as the majority population based on statistics but that does not translate to mainstream. Here everyone is mainstream. External visitors are fond of searching for the real India and gravitate towards urban slums and poor villages, which makes no sense. Why on earth are Modern India and Rich India considered illusory siblings of the poor and ancient?

India is not contradictory; she is all-inclusive. Every person, every thing, every culture and every attitude has a place up front and center thus creating a rich textured, multi layered social fabric that defies any attempts at mainstreaming and classification. No wonder, the wandering stranger ends up confused and bewildered at the gazillion seeming contradictions that attack his startled gaze. It’s like being locked up with Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and the rest of the Renaissance gang and their art with perspective and proportion since you were born and one fine day being kicked out on your ass and asked to appreciate and enjoy 21st century abstraction art with its pluralistic “whatever” attitude!

Of Thunderstorms and gay peacocks...

2010-07-08T23:58:00.000+05:30

The mayor of Ahmedabad prayed for rains, he, along with temple priests performed a Yajna sitting in huge copper cauldrons of water around the fire...hmmm...not sure if the cauldron was part of the ritual or just an ingenious way of coping with having to sit around a burning fire on a burning hot day. However, that's beside the point. A couple days after invoking the Rain God, the heavens opened up and drenched these dry lands in torrents. Monsoon has arrived in earnest. Now the days are blessedly cloudy and the temperature hovers in the balmy F80s...what bliss! I can't get enough of staring at the rains and standing in the balcony to soak in the spray. If I were younger or less self-conscious, I would have gone out to the courtyard, unfurled my non-existent feathers and danced like a peacock...but I am neither younger nor un-self-conscious, so that's a moot point.
Speaking of peacocks, heard something quirky the other day. There's a peacock around here somewhere that apparently loves men and hates women. He is very friendly towards the men who visit him but God forbid a woman tries to get close to him! He chases them down and tries to peck them to death...yes...these pecks are no little birdie kisses but serious attempts to draw flesh. I wonder, is this a case of a "gay peacock" who doesn't want the human being to be in anyway confused about his sexuality or a simple misogynist? What is being done about this? Nothing. The peacock is free to roam and attack any unsuspecting woman in the vicinity. Whatever...too bad this isn't the US of A where NOW would have called for stringent action against the peacock and PETA would have strongly objected and requested a psych analyses to check for PTSD and the bird would be clapped up behind bars for sure. But this is India, the land of infinite patience and acceptance...so what if this poor peacock hates women? It is peacock karma...so what if it seriously hurts a woman...it's the woman's fate...Hey Ram! Don't you get it?!

Life feels funny again...

2010-07-01T10:25:00.000+05:30

A female school teacher turns out be a bootlegger! This a dry state, an anachronism in these times especially considering this is one of the most industrialized states of India. How can industries flourish and business deals smoothened out without the mellowing influence of alcohol eh? They cannot and they don't have to when you have enterprising school teachers selling IMLF, for the ignornant, that is Indian Made Foreign Liquor - whatever that means! Apparently the woman's husband had no clue about her moonlighting as a liquor baroness. Really?! That is intriguing. Did the woman not store the liquor in the house then? Or was she hiding it in kitchen corners and sneaking it in and out in the voluminious folds of her sari? Now that I think about it, it is a possibility, he probably never enters the kitchen nor...no the sari is best left alone!

But...I am still awestruck....An Indian Woman who can be a school teacher and a Bootlegger at the same time?!

Check this out - They decide to increase the number of buses plying in Ahmedabad city and twenty brand new buses are prayerfully inducted to the existing fleet of buses. Duly decked up and garlanded they are paraded to the general public. And what does the fond public do? In their joy and excitement, in their loving anxiety to take a peek into the beautiful interiors of the bus, they clamber all over it and end up unwittingly destroying the windows. Last I heard seven of the gorgeous new twenty have gone into surgery...

And living here sucks!

2010-06-29T10:34:00.000+05:30

I did not think I would say this but there is a lot to be said for a lifestyle where home appliances are cheaper than maid services. It is alarming to be dependant on a maid for the cleanliness of your home, especially when that maid has no sense of time. From what I hear, all maids are supposed to be this way, so it is not even like we have a choice. What is the point in firing someone only to replace them with a similar person?

After having managed myself, my work and my housework by myself for the past year when I lived alone in the US, sitting around here waiting for the maid to come in and finish her chores before I can start my day is extremely aggravating. If I call her because she is late, she may answer the phone or she may not and sometimes after ignoring my call, she actually switches off her phone! And I am not exactly an ogre or a strict task master, I've told her that if she is delayed or can't make it in the mornings all she has to do is let me know. But I guess answering a phone call is too much work for her!

So, I decided I would take a look at the availabilty of appliances like a washer/dryer, dishwasher etc so I can dispense with the maid altogether. After all, I've been doing it all for so long, what's the harm in continuing to do so? But, the prices are ridiculous! Maybe, they are the same as in the US, I wouldn't know as I never had to buy them there as I lived in apartments. Here, most apartments don't even have closets, let alone appliances! But anyways, there is no way I would be able to buy everything I need in one day. Actually, at this point I am not even sure when I will be able to buy them as I have a serpentine list of things I absolutely need to buy before I even dream of appliances. Paying my capricious maid is a hundred times more affordable!

Nevertheless, it is annoying as hell. In hindsight, the smart thing to do if you want to move back to India is set up your India home first, while you are still in the US, fill it up with everything you need under every eventuality and then move during the winter months. Do not move like I did in the middle of a hellish summer to an empty apartment that did not even have air-conditioning and start running around in a state of heat induced insanity to make your home livable!

Do not think that IST has improved...it has not, Indian Standard Time continues to run hours behind any other time zone in the world.
Nothing and no one here is reliable and pretty soon you will also become an unreliable person. So be prepared to accept this before you move. Otherwise you may just break your heart at your own disintegration! And you have to prevent that at any cost, this country sure as hell does not need more broken down stuff...or people...

….And I struggle to go beyond clichéd descriptions…

2010-06-25T22:22:00.000+05:30

Something that a friend said to me would not go away. He read one of my previous blog posts titled, America Vs India and stated how things I mentioned about India did not feel strange to him, as that is how he has always known it but he thinks that, having experienced a different system, I thought it was something to remark upon.

On a superficial level, I was aware of this fact. However, it kept bothering me as I went about my day. Was I being too nitpicky about life here? It was hard to say because even when I lived in India before moving to the US, I had plenty of things to complain about India and the direction in which she was headed( like most every Indian I should say). Living in the US, I had plenty of opportunities to listen to Americans lament about the deterioration of the US, which rather made me wonder if citizens of any country are completely satisfied with their country and systems!

Nevertheless, I still wondered about my propensity to compare the two countries, with India somehow coming out sounding weird in my descriptions. I think I had my answer while driving out on one of my numerous shopping trips to fill my apartment with “things”.

I was driving past a huge mall, which has some of my favorite stores that I got addicted to in the US like, Lush and The Body Shop. There are numerous other stores and boutiques where you find the best, the most expensive and most modern of items in there. Right in front of the mall, going past all the fancy cars parked in street side parking spots was a good old-fashioned camel cart, as usual loaded with goods to be transported. If ever there is an instance of the ancient and the modern co-existing together, it was this.

Another time, driving along the Sarkej-Gandhinagar highway, a BMW M6 roared by taking advantage of a two-bit length of traffic free road to come to a full stop near a crowded intersection. The top was down and it was clear the hip kids in the car, in their designer tees and spaghettis were high on hot wheels. Then, a group of sari-clad women demurely covering their heads trying to cross the road surrounded the car. Another instance of old and new marching forth side-by-side?

There are old-fashioned communities in the US too, like the Amish, the Mormons, some Native American communities etc. However, like everything else in the US, organization comes into play here as well and you rarely see them beyond their villages and reservations as part of mainstream life in a direct manner.

India is another story! There are too many people and too many different ways of life for any of it to be tucked away neatly in designated places. The contrasting images provided by this fact are too glaring to be ignored. If you spend a day, viewing a monochromic picture unblinkingly and then move on to a huge canvas splashed with every color under the sun, would not your awareness of these colors and the contrasting images they provide be heightened? Something like this happens when you experience life in a completely modern society in a relatively young country like the US, then move to an ancient land like India that is trying to accommodate the old and the new, the modern and the exotic, and make everybody feel at home within her borders. Also, do not forget “the old” is usually thousands of years old; I would not be surprised if the camel carts are as old as wheels themselves!

If my descriptions of India come out sounding weird and clichéd, it is because I have not yet figured out how to go back to appreciating holistic asymmetry as I am still longing for the coolness of a monochrome picture as opposed to the blast of colors my aching eyes are faced with here!

Flying Thieves...

2010-06-22T10:12:00.000+05:30

Our home in Ahmedabad was burgled while we were away visiting family in the south. The burglars also hit our neighbor’s apartment at the same time as they were away holidaying as well. We received some interesting information while we filed a complaint. We assumed this had been a nighttime affair; however, the police stated that there were plenty of daylight robberies going on. Thieves break into locked houses knowing that the owners are away, clean the house out within no time, and flee the city. Check this out…apparently most of these people are from out of state who fly in, commit a robbery and fly out! Moreover, these people are supposedly from states like Bihar, MP and UP.

Despite being bummed out about losing a significant amount of my gold in this robbery, I had to laugh when I heard this. Traditionally, these states have harbored some of the most ruthless burglars, a number of whom were the best you could find in the realm of highway robbery. So now, it sounds like these people decided that there is no reason why only the local population should be granted the privilege of their visits. After all, India is a vast country with a growing number of wealthy people. What is wrong with a little cross-country charity, albeit forced? In addition, India is big on being a land of growing economy and huge opportunities today and nowhere does it say that opportunities are confined to the poor non-criminal elements of society like us!

So, while people like me are stupidly cavalier about their possessions and the security system, both public and private are still waking up to the fact that India is no longer a sleepy, laidback country, our intrepid robbers have outdistanced us by eons.

Don't I Belong Here?

2010-06-20T00:49:00.000+05:30

After traveling some in cooler places, I am back in Ahmedabad where the sun continues to burn earth and all her creatures. The heat is so intense and my inability to tolerate heat is so bad that I can slowly feel myself losing my sanity especially when it is mid-day and the sun is at its hottest.

My friend happened to call at that time and I was full of complaints. After listening to me for a while, she gently suggested that I should move back to the US and that people had to work harder here. That got me thinking about my decision to move. I had always said that no matter where I travel in the world, I would want to come back to India to settle down. When I finally moved, it was not a natural progression of my plans but rather a move forced on me by certain circumstances. I had a choice of continuing to stay on in the US or move back and get started on settling down here and I chose the latter.

I had no idea of knowing if this is the best decision and had to take a leap of faith and then try to make it work. I had anticipated many of the difficulties of uprooting myself and starting from scratch in a completely different place under forced circumstances. The one thing that made it easy for me to take this decision was the thought that no matter how difficult it got, I was still going home, home to a place that I always loved. I did not anticipate any significant barriers to settling down here.

This was just one more false notion of which I seem to be a connoisseur! It has been a month and I am still unable to do anything because of the heat. All the practical problems that I envisioned as a matter of course where change is involved continues to plague me for the simple reason that the heat does not let me even lift a finger to work on settling down. All of my energies are focused on simply surviving. I have never before lived such an idle life and I find it extremely demoralizing.

The typical response I get to this problem is a suggestion that I go back to the US. I could go back to the US if I really wanted to move back. I am sick and tired of living like a dehydrated animal with no purpose in life other than to find the coolest spot during the day to pass out in and cautiously venture out in the evenings to hunt for food. I have also had enough of never feeling clean no matter how many showers I take during the day or how many times I change my clothes. I am tried of breathing in dust every time I walk out of the house and I am sick of seeing the dust and soot deposits on all the older buildings that have not received a fresh coat of paint.

Add to this the general inefficiency of systems in India (yes they are somewhat inefficient, whether we like it or not) and you have the perfect recipe for a metamorphosis of the human into the sub-human. Consider this, we would not have had this heat wave if the systems had been working and the city developers had followed the environmental codes that specify the ratio of trees per square yard of land. This may sound simplistic but anything that would help reduce heat in a hot climate needs to be followed. Instead, officials have free reign to ignore these requirements and then lament when people including newborn infants die due to excessive heat.

Getting back to my original point, there are days when I feel that I would like nothing better than getting back to my former life in the US. My friend seems to think that people in India have to work harder. I am not so sure about that. If people here genuinely worked harder, we would probably have better systems in place, not to forget that household help and family support is widely available here thus making life a lot less stressful. The same cannot be said of living as an expatriate in the US.

However, leaving aside all these comparisons for the moment, the question I am pondering is, why is it considered so strange that I am struggling to adapt to life here? Is it really a solution for me to just give up and move back? Physically and emotionally, this has been a draining experience but that does not mean I am never going to feel comfortable here. At least I hope it does not mean that!

I may complain, whine, and even hate it here at times but that does not mean I am an outsider now. I may feel homesick for the US and on certain days wish myself back there fervently but that does not mean I want to turn my back on India. Do not get me wrong, it is not from any noble ideas of patriotism that I say that. The fact is, I was born and raised Indian and will always be one. It is important for me to maintain my connection to my country.

From somewhere in the mists of the past a line I heard comes to mind, “I need to hate you to love me”…I get the feeling that people think one cannot love two countries at once but I believe you can. I do not have to hate the US to love India and vice versa. Also, I do not need to believe that India is perfect in order to love her; I can do it despite her flaws. To put it simply, no matter what, I am Indian and that gives me the right to crib, find faults, lament my decision to move back here and yet continue to work on making myself at home here again!

A condescending Repat...

2010-06-15T02:44:00.000+05:30

When my husband read my previous piece titled “America Vs India”, he was a little pissed because he felt it had a condescending attitude towards India. My reply was if it comes across as condescending, then that is exactly how I feel! I probably opened a can of worms with that statement.

Like every other Indian, resident or non-resident, I have an aversion towards criticism of India. I think our flaws are unfairly magnified and beauty either totally ignored or facetiously exaggerated. On the other hand, people who genuinely try to relate to the country and culture find themselves hugely rewarded. Growing up here, I obviously had no problem relating to this culture on a visceral level and deriving huge benefits from it. In fact, I was so much of an Indian, that the highly organized, straight forward and fast-paced life in the US felt quite alien and boring when I first moved there. I felt that this made life too predictable and mechanical and longed for the vibrant chaos of life in India.

Where else would you find gutsy idiots riding their motorcycles on the raised medians between opposing freeways with an elephant carting firewood on the shoulder of the said freeway to boot? Or how about you open your office door to find a monkey in charge curiously inspecting the water cooler? Here, BMWs and bullock carts share the road with equal élan and progress and corruption continue to rise higher hand in hand.

I have no recollection of when I began to fall in love with the comfort of structure and predictability. Nor do I recall when I began to regard the lack of seamlessness of life in India to be a source of frustration rather than fun. The truth is, as a repat anything disruptive in my life here, of which there are plenty provoke intense reactions. To my chagrin, they are usually negative or “condescending” as my husband so kindly put it and I live in hope that it will change soon.

America Vs India

2010-06-15T02:43:00.000+05:30

Mornings in the US-

Curse the ringing alarm clock at 6.30 AM, jump out of bed at 7.00 AM and into the shower, do my hair and face, gulp coffee, more often than not skip breakfast and jump on the freeway for a 25-mile commute to the office.

Mornings in India-

Wake up around 5.00 AM sometimes 4.00, because it is too hot to sleep, have coffee, wait for the maid to come in and start her chores. Place a chair near the window and an air cooler near the chair and sit staring alternately at the cooler and the shimmering heat outside. I think I probably know the blades and blinds of the air cooler far better than I know my husband’s face despite having known him for almost ten years and my cooler for two weeks.

American Remedy for Insomnia-

(Or remedy for when your body is coddled and your mind is fried and you cannot sleep)

Half-fill a champagne flute with chilled whole milk, add lashings of vodka, a dash of sweet stock vermouth and some drops of kahlua…multiple flutes allowed until you pass out.

Indian Remedy for Insomnia-

Go out in the hot sun, catch yourself a baby heatstroke…leave the adult heatstroke alone unless you are on a suicide mission, go home and pass out…in the interest of remaining alive, multiple jaunts in the sun are not allowed.

Buying a cell phone in the US –

Walk into a store and buy a phone and a telephone plan.

Buying a cell phone in India-

Walk into a store and be seated respectfully to be told respectfully that you have multiple options. After you choose your desired plan, you are again respectfully told that you cannot buy it as you have not brought any legal document to show that you are legally present not just in the country but in the state and city as well. “Sir/Madam, can you at least, please get something from your bank showing proof of address? And Oh!, please get a passport size photo as well”.

You don’t have a bank account in this city yet so you take a document that says you are a legal resident of this city, procured God alone knows how, so you can get a gas connection for cooking, only to be told that it has to be notarized. Go out, get it notarized and go back with the photograph. “But sir, this is a stamp size photo! We need a passport size…”

American Highway –

If you are stuck in a traffic jam and all vehicles have come to a standstill, call someone to chat, listen to music, read a book, sing a song, fall asleep…whatever but stay put in your lane.

Indian Highway-

Stuck in a traffic jam with all kinds of vehicles, cars, trucks, motorcycles…trucks monopolize the lanes and crawl and truckers from their sky-high seats guide the cars and motorcycles along the shoulder…what fun!

American Maid Service-

Walks in to a dirty apartment and walks out leaving it a hell lot cleaner than what you have ever accomplished by yourself, and you are lucky if you even know her name.

Indian Maid Service –

Usually walks in an hour late, mine even brings in little satellites sometimes and delegates tasks to them! She multitasks, asks irrelevant questions, inspects new items in the house, complains about pains in the hip, hints that she wants a washing machine to do the laundry, all the while, I am chasing after her to make sure she has cleaned everything well and hasn’t left things half-done which is her usual style.

How can you hate living in a country that you love so much?

2010-06-14T23:45:00.001+05:30

Although planning my return to India was a bittersweet experience, I was more excited than sad about the move. I had loved life in the United States; however, I also had great memories growing up in India, so I was confident that my return would be seamless.

Well, so much for such high hopes!

After the jet lag wore off and the initial hoopla was over, I began to feel increasingly homesick for the US. I knew I would miss my life back there but I was not prepared for the gamut of emotions flooding my mind at the thought of permanently residing here again. The most bewildering thing about this experience is that I cannot honestly say I dislike my life here or find nothing to enjoy here. On the contrary, I am enjoying the abundant sunshine, delicious food, colorful towns and cities as I am traveling in country quite a bit these days, catching up with family, friends, and a host of other things.

Nevertheless, even as I am enjoying all this, something inside me screams for the US!

This has me in a quandary. How can I love this country, enjoy so many different things here but continue to pine for what I left behind?