Motherhood and Apple Pie Charts

I went back to work about a month ago after more than twelve years of full-time parenting. It has been a little strange, to say the least, to let go of my mommy persona for a few hours everyday. But I have to admit it has also been liberating - to actually be in a situation where you feel that you largely control the outcome. Where toddlerhood and pre-teen angst don't collide with variables such as hunger, tiredness, exam anxiety, teacher trouble and homework overload.
I am happy with my new job description - a content development role in a PR firm - and am looking forward to making a difference. I am usually home shortly after the girls return at 4:30 pm although A. is back by lunchtime. Nagamma, the maid, is there for him till I get back: changing and feeding him, taking him to the playground and trying to get him started with the basics of conversational Kannada. A. seems to have adapted to the situation as have the older ones and the whole thing is working out well thanks to the support crew of Nagamma, Ramji (the cook) and Ravi (the driver).
But still I thought that maternal guilt would strike sooner or later. That all-too-familiar feeling that has plagued me from time to time over the years: for not breastfeeding long enough; for breastfeeding too long; for clipping V.'s nails too short when she was an infant causing her to bawl in pain; for forgetting to show up in D's class for a Halloween party that I had signed up for....the list of my parental lapses is long if non-discriminating. I spread the wealth of my failings as a parent pretty equally among all three of my kids.
So I was surprised when guilt didn't make an appearance this time around or at least not a noticeable one. Maybe Michelle Obama had something when she talked about keeping her family happier by taking care of her needs first. Motherhood doesn't always have to be about putting yourself last; about eating the burnt pieces of toast so that the rest of the family can have the good slices.
Having said that, I would never ever consider the years I stayed home with the kids as my share of burnt toast. That was precious time spent with some incredible individuals who taught me some valuable life lessons. A few of these are: 1) Don't sweat the small stuff: the world does not depend on your unfailing ability to find matching socks every morning; 2) Some kids are just designed to help candy makers and dentists rake in profits; accept that and move on; 3) Develop a healthy relationship with the walls in your house as you may find that you spend a lot of time talking to them when you think you're actually talking to your kids.
In all seriousness, though, I love these guys and I think that the biggest lesson I've learnt recently is to appreciate each one of them for who he or she is.
If we're talking about motherhood, it's hard not to mention my mother and others in her generation who handled the whole maternal act with such grace and aplomb. Who perhaps had fewer options outside the home than women in my generation do but who did such an outstanding job inside it that it hardly matters in the end. Definitely no room for guilt here.

'Tis the Season (to be holy)

With Navratri and Dussera behind us but Diwali around the corner, we're still officially in the throes of festival fever. There are smashed watermelons and crushed lemons in the most unlikely of places like in the parking garages of malls. Sandalwood and kumkum is applied liberally to all kinds of inanimate objects including the elliptical machine that I clambered onto this evening in our clubhouse to try and burn a few calories. And so while the agnostic in me still maintains a safe personal distance from the many religious rituals of the season, it's impossible not to be drawn into something that's as much cultural as it is religious.
In August, Ganesh Chathurthi provided the opening act to the bigger festivals. There were multiple stalls set up in the friendly neighborhood village outside our development to house the Elephant God and we woke up every morning for the next ten days to the sounds of bhajans that traveled in with the breeze. Enthusiastic devotees first installed Ganesha on the road just outside our community gate until it was pointed out to them that cars may also need to use that road from time to time. They then whisked him off to another undisclosed location where they could continue the party. One hoped that, in the interest of the environment, somebody checked to make sure he wasn't made of plaster of paris or covered with a lead-based paint before dunking him in a body of water. But it's impossible to hold that against lovable Ganesha though, with his rotund, child-friendly persona and his fondness for modakams and laddoos.
Muslims celebrated the end of Ramzan on September 20th this year. Since this was during Navratri, pooja-related activity was also at its peak at this time, largely for the leading Goddesses of the Hindu pantheon: Durga, Lakshmi, Saraswati, a religious nod to female power. In Karnataka, Durga Puja is also called Ayudha Puja and it's a day when one worships any tools or implements used to do one's job. And so Ravi, our driver, spent a good two hours decorating our Toyota Innova with flowers and patches of smeared sandalwood. It looked quite spiffy at the end of that treatment. It reminded me of the time in California several years ago when I took our new car at the time to the Livermore temple for a vahana pooja and the priest ended the ceremony with a flourish by painting a big red swastika on the hood. I couldn't imagine motoring down Highway 580 with that in the front and so I hastily rubbed it off as soon as he was out of sight. Ravi's handiwork looked better and was infinitely more tasteful.
For Dussera, our community hosted a cultural program that ended with the traditional burning of Ravana's effigy. He may be the dark lord of Hindu mythology but you can't help feeling a little sorry that he has to be subjected to this year after year. After all, as legend goes, he was also well-read, a talented musician, practically a Renaissance Man in Lanka circa 7000 BC...you have to cut the man some slack. The kids enjoyed the display, however. A. came running up afterwards to gleefully inform me that "the fire guy" was dead.
So that just leaves Diwali...a childhood favorite - for me at least. The one day of the year when it was fun to wake up at the crack of the dawn and acceptable to have greasy oil rubbed in one's hair. A time when we enjoyed delving into our small but respectable stash of fireworks to work our way up the bravery scale from sparklers to atom bombs. I'm sure the kids will love it now but we grown-ups will stand around complaining about noise and air pollution and about how unsafe it all us. All true, mind you, but still.....
Despite my ambivalence towards religion, I can't deny that the festival season in India is a lot of fun, a cultural celebration of the many colorful stories in Hindu mythology. But just to provide a dose of secular leavening after all this, Halloween arrives at the end of the month.

Connie & Kamini: The Garbage Eaters

Being environmentally responsible has always been a one step forward, two steps back process for me. Yes, I have those reusable shopping bags but I can never remember to take those darned things with me when I go out. While I recycled to the best of my abilities in the U.S., I also routinely pumped yogurt containers and soiled diapers, among other things, into landfills. And at grocery stores I would pick up the organic broccoli with a self-satisfied smile only to turn the corner and balk at the price of organic milk.
A little green handbook that I once bought at a Barnes & Noble exhorted me to bigger and better things in the eco-friendly area. "Go solar", it urged or "Consider wind power". "Reuse dirty water", it said in a reprimanding tone as I poured day old water from the children's water bottles into the sink. And "why not simplify your life?" it inquired politely as I struggled to squeeze clothes into dresser drawers and find ways to organize an out-of-control toy and book collection.
And so I was really happy the day I brought Kamini home. She is a comely lady who I picked up from a house in Bangalore's Indiranagar area last week. Once I got home and deposited her in the backyard, I went and opened my little green handbook to a page headed "compost your organics" and did a triumphant fist pump in the air.
You see, Kamini is a composting system made up of three stacked terracotta chambers. She joins Connie, a similar composter that my sister-in-law across the street acquired the day before from the same source, a small Bangalore-based venture called the Daily Dump whose model for putting waste to good use is beautifully simple. Take some pots, throw in some compost starter and lots of garbage and voila, you soon have plenty of rich, nourishing humus (not to be confused with the mediterranean chickpea dip) for the garden. Then - even if you are horticulturally challenged like I am - just watch this garden grow!
My sister-in-law and I also picked up a couple of packages of the Daily Dump's Soapy Nuts, a natural plant-based alternative to laundry detergents and a way to limit chemical run-off into water streams. So far the experiment is working reasonably well. The clothes don't come out smelling great but they look clean enough and can pass a quick inspection test.
Next up on the list of environmentally friendly actions: dusting. It's in keeping with the spirit of this blog and my little green handbook informs me that regular dusting of light bulbs and appliances improves their efficiency and reduces energy consumption. So bring on the feather duster.

Children of a Well-Connected God

We now know that a US immigration officer in Newark is as likely to have heard of SRK as an Indian fruit vendor is to identify Tim Robbins in a line-up of Caucasian men. What the hoopla over the "my name is Khan" incident revealed, apart from the immaturity of certain Indian politicians (read Ambika Soni), is the "VIP complex" in the Indian system, a long ingrained habit of trying not to inconvenience the rich and famous. This complex was evident in the way newspapers compared the SRK case to the time Abdul Kalam was "frisked like a commoner" at the New Delhi airport, 'in clear violation of protocol".
But the case that best demonstrates this preoccupation with pampering the privileged in recent times is that of Sanjeev Nanda. Nanda, the scion of an influential New Delhi family, was the prime accused in an infamous hit-and-run incident in January of 1999 when he rammed his BMW through a police checkpoint, killing six people and injuring one. He was initially acquitted of all charges for lack of reliable witnesses but after a lot of public outrage over the acquittal, he was retried and sentenced to five years in prison in September 2008, more than nine years after the crime.
But then last month a Delhi high court reduced his sentence from five years to two after downgrading his offence to a less serious one of causing death by rash or negligent act. The trial court where Nanda had previously been convicted had found him guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder since he was drunk and driving well beyond the speed limit. The Delhi high court disagreed. Here's why:
"[Though] the appellant caused the accident in which six persons died...., it was not a case where the appellant had any knowledge of the presence of these persons on the road..."
SAY WHAT???? You mow down six people without being aware of their presence on the road!!! What made the whole thing more convenient for Nanda was that he only had four or five months of the two year sentence left to serve since he had already put in some jail time during the protracted trial process. And the final cake, complete with icing, was delivered to him a few days ago when the Tihar Jail Superintendant let him out three months before his sentence was due to end as a reward for his "good conduct". Could they have fallen over themselves more in trying to smooth the guy's way to freedom? Why didn't they just dispense with the sham trials and let him walk a long time ago - slipping a few mints into his hand as he headed towards the door and expressing the hope that he had found the service satisfactory?

In Loving Memory of....

Terri, my sister-in-law's dog and faithful companion of thirteen years, succumbed to a stomach illness and passed away on August 13th. He had a full and eventful life starting from the time she picked him up as a pup from a Phoenix-area animal pound to his final months in Bangalore. After their move to India more than a year ago, he settled in happily, developing a keen appreciation for roadside delicacies of all kinds and showing no signs of missing the sterile environment he had left behind. For lifelong dog lovers like my sister-in-law, the loss of a canine friend comes with a lot of heartache. She would probably concur with the view of an anonymous person who said that "the problem with loving is that pets don't last long enough and people last too long". Apart from being the tail-wagging mood pick-me-upper of the family, Terri was also the irreverent voice behind his mistress' entertaining blog. Visit this to read the beautiful farewell tribute she has paid her beloved pet in it.

Hold the Hair (and other horrors)

It's always a little unsettling when a familiar or favorite food turns out to contain some inedible element, or at least inedible in your book. It's like having a cute family movie suddenly turn into a blood-curdling horror flick. It completely snuffs out the warm and fuzzy feeling that's kindling inside you and leaves you in this cold, dark place from where you emerge, shaken and disturbed. I know I felt that way about a decade ago back in California, the day I pulled back the plastic seal on a big container of Mountain High yogurt and picked up a spoon to delve into the creamy white stuff. Except that....it was neither creamy nor white! The top of the yogurt tub was covered with a layer of grayish-green mold! My dairy fix had been taken over by fungi from the dark side.
B. probably had a similar feeling when he ordered the one vegetarian dish on the menu in a restaurant in Brussels during a trip there a few years ago. It was gazpacho soup and it arrived at the table, steaming and smelling reasonably good. It wasn't the best soup he had ever had but at least it had recognizable ingredients. Or so he thought until he got to the end and saw, coiled up at the bottom, what he swears was a bundle of worms! It adds a whole new dimension to the dilemma of whether you wrap noodle-like food around your fork or chop it up before you eat it.
And I know Ramji (our neighborhood cook) had another such Stephen King moment the other day when he cut open the packet of Vijay Malai Paneer that I had left thawing on the countertop. He sharpened one of the knives in the knife block and lowered it into the white slab of cheese only to feel it crunch into something. What he saw next made his hair stand on end. Go ahead and supply the ending here. You can use the photo for inspiration if you like.

It's a Boy!

I didn't think I could go through it again for the fourth time - the feedings, the cleaning up and picking up after, the toilet training. The very thought gave me panic attacks causing me to wake up in a cold sweat some nights. I was just starting to feel like I was regaining some control of my life again. A. is mostly out of diapers and can go for prolonged periods without a tantrum, a full-blown one at least. There are mornings when I can pick up the newspaper and read an entire article without someone demanding to be fed, changed, or just noticed. In a pinch, my 12-year old can, with the able assistance of her sister and cousins, babysit her 3-year old brother. Without activities to drive the kids around to, my evening stress-o-meter on most days barely registers a reading after having hovered in the red zone for several years.
But the girls insisted that the family was incomplete and that they needed that one other member, that fourth sibling, to complete the picture! Before we left NJ, we had caved in the face of their unhappiness over the move and promised to think about a new addition once we were in India and now they were holding us to that promise.
And so, despite all our misgivings, B. and I decided to take the plunge. We knew we wanted to adopt this time around. I found out about a place in Hebbal, a home for abandoned babies. And so we set out for this place on a Tuesday morning - A. and I and my sister-in-law, the latter providing some much needed moral support.
The babies were in a large outdoor playpen. A few of them were napping, huddled in a corner. As I gazed at them, one walked unsteadily up to where we were standing by the gate and looked up at us with his large, brown, slightly mournful eyes. "I like that one", A. said. I put my hand in through a gap in the gate and was rewarded with a lick. "Hi, doggie*", I said, "do you want to go home"?
*Ringo is a five-month old pup of unknown pedigree that we picked up from CUPA, an animal shelter in Hebbal, Bangalore that provides refuge to several homeless animals including cats, dogs, and cows. They even have a camel!

That Place Called "School"

The first time I tried to put A. in a preschool back in NJ, I gave up after about a week. He would scream loudly, clutch my shirt and lash out wildly at the teachers who emerged to transport him inside. I would hover near the door for a few seconds as the sound of his wailing drifted up to me. But then some other teacher would gently but firmly push me outside and the door would close behind me, blocking out the sound. By the time I went to pick him up, he seemed happy enough. But there was just too much physical and emotional currency spent in readying him for it every morning. And he seemed unable to forgive his teacher transgressions such as asking him to "calm down" when he was bawling his lungs out.
So I decided to forgo the non-refundable deposit I had already paid and wait until we were in India when I could channel all my energy into the task of sending A. to school.
Once the girls were somewhat settled in in their own school, I started looking around for a small, cozy, friendly place where A. could embark on his educational journey. I thought I found it in a newly opened playschool close to our house run by a young woman with a wide smile and a child-friendly personality. Like a lot of new preschools in Bangalore, it attempts to cover all the bases when it comes to early childhood development, offering a "scientific curriculum" that borrows elements from the "Montessori, play way, theme-based, and multiple intelligence" teaching models. In between all of this, we hoped, A. might have a little bit of fun too.
But after about a week, B. and I started having our doubts about the place. A. and his classmates were closeted in a tiny room during much of their time there while the teacher ran them through a litany of activities. The teacher seemed inexperienced and insisted on political correctness from a three-year old. "Your son says that girls can only play with dolls while boys have to play with trucks and trains," she informed me in a disapproving tone one day. "Maybe you should talk to him." I wondered if it was appropriate to tell her then about his fascination with unclad Barbies.
So we started preschool shopping again even though again I had already written a large check to this school! We considered starting an "Attempts to Send A. to School" fund. Finally after weighing a few options, we decided that the girls' school might be worth a shot. It's not the small and cozy place we had aimed for originally. It's large and sprawling and possibly intimidating for a preschooler. But the classrooms are bright, the teachers are pleasant, and there's a new playground coming up to replace the existing one with the rusty equipment. And on their website, they don't waste time on abstract child developmental theories, citing training children to be "disciplined" and "to memorize" as some of the main objectives of their program.
Maybe this one will work.

So How Are You Really Doing?

It's been more than three months since we boarded that Emirates flight at JFK with one-way tickets to Bangalore. I remember sinking into a surprisingly spacious Economy class seat, my relief at having made our flight only slightly marred by the realization that I had forgotten some laundry in the dryer. Since we've gotten here, friends back in NJ have been eager to know how things are going and whether we're kicking ourselves yet for trading a perfectly good life in the US of A for a more unsettled existence in the country of our birth (ours, if not the kids'). And we have to tell them that the transition has been much easier than we imagined and that at a surface level, our lives have not changed dramatically. Dig deeper and you may uncover a few differences. One of us still goes to work while the other stays at home doing (or facilitating) sundry tasks to keep the household chugging. On the days that A. agrees to go to his playschool without creating a ruckus, I might be able to sneak in a morning yoga class at the clubhouse. Or I could possibly leave him with a grandparent visiting from Chennai which is a convenient train ride away. The girls come home and complain about assorted teachers and unfair practices in school. The seventh grader gets two hours worth of homework on most days while the fourth grader gets none. By 6 pm, they both disappear into the wilderness of the community to join the scores of other kids who are out playing. Their brother, of course, has been AWOL for quite some time by then, coming home only if the food and water reserves in his body dip too low. I look into the refrigerator for dinner inspiration and miraculously pull out some dishes of dal and sabji that Ramji, the resident cook of the neighborhood, had made in the morning. So that means I can go for a walk (or talk, as D. sneeringly calls it) with the other ladies in the complex. I might stop to buy some tomatoes at the makeshift vegetable stall outside the clubhouse. Having a vegetable vendor come inside the community is a new development and one that the residents are very excited about. Back home to heat up Ramji's concoctions and wait for the girls to come home from tennis lessons (no more driving them around in this world where most of the teachers come to where you are) and for A. to return to roost in a predictably cranky state. The kids' cousins across the street pop in to compare ipod contents, among other business of a pressing nature. B. comes home by about 9 pm making for a 12+ hour day for him. We settle down to dinner: Ramji's dal is too salty and he needs to tone down the garam masala in the sabji but at least I didn't have to make them.

Dial "M" for Maddening

Trying to find a phone number in India is often like extracting a mastodon's tooth, namely, an exercise in frustration. A couple of days after moving in, we realized that we should call a gas agency to have one of those anachronistic red cylinders delivered to us. I looked up the number of a private gas agency online and called their Bangalore location. Wrong number. I tried an alternate number. The number was not in service, the computerized message informed me in Kannada. I called the main office in Hyderabad. Could they put me through to their Bangalore office? Sorry, ma'am, we don't operate in Bangalore. Really? Isn't it a little misleading then to have a Bangalore number on your site?
We experienced another case of number brickwalling when our phone and internet connection went kaput the third day after we moved in. We eagerly scanned the BSNL statement that our landlord had kindly left us to see if we could find a customer service number. No such luck. There was a number for public grievances but we were not sure if our problem could be termed a public grievance. I asked the management in our housing community if they could get us the number. I dialled and got through to BSNL but just when I was mentally celebrating our breakthrough, the person on the other end pricked the balloon of my happiness. Ma'am, you'll have to call 1500 from your landline. But wait, isn't the fact that the landline is not working the very reason why I am calling you now? Ma'am you'll have to go to a friend's house and call 1500 from their landline. OK, but what if I don't have a friend or I can't get to their house now, don't you have a regular customer service number that I can call from my cell phone? The BSNL guy seemed genuinely puzzled by this question. Ma'am, there is no such provision at this time.
I put the phone down and a wave of nostalgia washed over me: nostalgia for that sleepy, bored voice of a 411 operator saying "what city"? and for a phone company that doesn't expect you to be able to use your phone when you have a problem with your line.

Out of the Box

We were going to see it again after close to two months and the imminent encounter had been causing us some sleepless nights of late. How do you tell your stuff when it arrives at your new home that you have not actually missed it and could have managed perfectly well without it? And how would our relationship with it unfold in the days to come? Would we be able to tame it and keep it contained or would it take over our new space just as it did our old one? On moving day, when a smallish truck pulled up in front of our three-bedroom rental house, we exhaled slowly. Maybe it wasn't going to be so bad after all. Unfortunately this was just one of two trucks that were bringing all our worldly possessions home to us. It took the crew the better part of the day to unload everything. Still when we surveyed the final scene with the boxes neatly stacked in block tower formations in each room, we felt like we were in control and that we could handle it. But once we started opening boxes, it was like unleashing the monster within. Packing paper covered the floor and books, toys and clothes spilled out in every direction. Finally though, after five days, we were able to conquer the beast but that's when a lot of packer's regret set in for me. In hindsight, there were so many things we should have done differently when it came to boxing our belongings. Why, for instance, did I bring my countertop-hogging dosa grinder when you can get perfectly good ready-made batter in any store in town? Where can I find the local equivalent of a sturdy Rubbermaid laundry basket and what induced me to leave all of mine behind? Why does my Indian clothing collection fill two closets and include so many pieces that look like makeshift tents?
Once emptied, our boxes eventually fed the local economy when the household help and neighborhood cleaners who passed by picked them up and sold them to the raddiwala in the village just outside the gated community where we now live.

Idli... Sambar... Waffles?

Well, one thing I can say about India is that the food is really good! However, I do miss my Eggo Chocolate Chip waffles in the morning. Ever since we moved here, our family has been eating out alot. (a minimum of once a week) What I have discovered is that there are a ton of Chinese restaurants here, as well as Indian (Duh!) There are also different classes of restaurants. The top notch, 5 star restaurants are located near, or in, UB City*. In UB City, there are lots of different restaurants like:
1. Tasty Tangles (this place serves Chinese food; I give it 5 stars!)
2. Toscano (Italian food; I would say it is 4 stars)
3. Rajdhani (Rajasthani + Gujarati food. I have not eaten at the UB City Rajdhani, i have eaten at the one at the mall, and the Chole Bhature had SO much oil, it made me SICK!)
Okay, so these are all the restaurants I know of in UB City, other than this place that serves Bisibele Bhath that Daddy gets in his office for 20 rupees!
So that's it for the fancy restaurants, but there are some pretty good places that are not as formal. (or as expensive) For example, take Wazir's, a restaurant that's close to where we are now staying. You can carry out a full meal from there for about Rs. 230. That's less than $5 I think. And their Baingan ka Salan (see picture) is AMAZING!

* UB City is a huge place that consists of a number of office buildings,
and has a large middle block that has shops and a beautiful open middle square. This square has fountains, and restaurants. (see post for restaurant details)

Where To Go. And What To Do

YAWN! I woke up to a late start today. We were going to look for houses for the 100th time this month! But I am not going to tell you about that because that’s not today’s news. Well, actually what I’m going to tell you and looking for houses actually happened on the same day. Anyhoo, I am going to tell you about Hippocampus. I know it sounded silly as I said it but Hippocampus is actually REALLY COOL! There are sooooo many books. I wish I could have been there all day. I read Mary Kate and Ashley and I read Nancy Drew.
And at Hippocampus there are games and really comfy bean bag chairs. Its SOOOOOO peaceful at Hippocampus. You can probably sit there for days for days without noticing it. You would be so busy reading books you wouldn’t notice a thing. Wait sorry got to go. Bye.

Stuck in the City

Outside the service apartment where we are now staying, traffic becomes this honking, snarling, fumes-spewing creature at certain times of the day. If we step outside the gates (which we sometimes do to get to the Foodworld across the road or to Namdhari’s, an organic market that is a short stroll away) we have to dodge vehicles, skip over stray piles of garbage and circumvent the open sewer at the corner of the main road. All this while trying not to inhale. Walking outside in these parts can be a nerve-wracking experience for the uninitiated. Long-time residents saunter across the main road, quietly confident of not getting run over by the bus hurtling towards them at full speed. But we can't share their confidence. And there is a very good chance, at this time of the year, that we might get caught in one of those surprise Bangalore downpours that starts without warning and departs after an impressive sound and light show.
So we usually turn to the auto, that boon and bane of Indian city life, to get to nearby places. Rs. 20 takes us to Richmond/Divyashree Park, the neighborhood playground, and Rs. 40 will fetch us a trip to Brigade Road for an afternoon of shopping.
But you can’t depend on autos all the time as the kids and I found out one evening after hopping into one to get to the city’s famed Cubbon Park. After five minutes at the Park we concluded that the place was grossly overrated and headed towards an auto lane at a nearby traffic intersection to catch one for our ride back home. But auto after auto zipped by us ignoring our frantic waving. They were all carrying passengers and the few that stopped were instantly grabbed by others in the lane who zeroed in on their ride with complete disregard for the waiting order. We finally had to call B. at work to come and rescue us from an area Subway where the kids chomped on paneer tikka and aloo tikki subs to recover from their “auto-less” trauma.
Still, though you may have a hard time believing it after all this, the collective family experience so far has been largely positive. (Read posts by other members to see how). But life in the heart of Bangalore city is definitely not for the faint-hearted or for those of us who are used to being on autopilot in the peaceful predictability of a US suburb.