Mommy Knows Best

"Oh but he is just a musalman,a punjabi, a maddu."
she spat.
"And they are like that. All of them.
There. its final then."

Parsed all identities into bite sized pieces,
"Understand?"
so sitting in her lap he watched her
and learned.

"And that my child is how we do it,
see its easy
Chew their looks with your eyes to tell apart
us from them."

"Waste no time asking questions
shaking hands"
she pushed his hair back from his face
"Dog eat Dog."

"The road to success is tough
and crowded
So dont stop and ask or think or nudge
just walk over"

She turned his face to her and looked squarely
eye to eye
"I know whats best for you, my child
Would'nt I?"

I need to wake up earlier. By the time I am up, the kid next door is already watching cartoons. I know this because my bathroom forms a diagonal to the neighbors balcony and their balcony is off of their living room. As I brush my teeth to the sound of Mr. Squarepants, I know I should get up earlier. That would be one way to get more done in the day.

By the time I am back from the gym and taking a shower, the kids are still watching TV and their mom is threatening to wallop them for not finishing their lunch. The kids sound belligerent. Their mom sounds whiny. I am too tired.

Christmas in India has changed rather India has changed and it reflects in everything this time of the year. Street vendors sell red caps with faux fur linings at intersections, Father Christmas masks that look deceptively like Santa Singh are everywhere. Right next to my local vegetable seller an enterprising young man is selling chinese made fake Xmas trees and he seems to be doing brisk business. The local Indian shop/restaurant that sells the usual array of Bengali sweets and suchlike has set up extra tables near the counter with fruitcakes, plum cakes and an assortment of "western sweets".
Young Indian parents, who as kids had read storybooks with Santa Claus, stocking, and snow can now provide for their little angels at least the first two, if not the last.
All those songs they sung mindlessly at their English Medium Schools extolling the virtues of
"being good for goodness sake", all that waiting for gifts that never arrived and all the
meetings with the mysterious bearded stranger who never visited- its all going to be fixed and taken care of now for their precious little ones.
We went out for what we thought would be a quiet weekend dinner in Connought Place but the restaurant had been taken over by revelers from an office party. After dinner we walked around CP and at 10:00 clock at night it was bursting at its seams with people, the shops were still open, people...entire families...walked around weighed down partly with shopping bags and partly with excessive calories. Street vendors hawked noisy knick knacks to distracted kids, others sold "ethnic jewellery" ( most of it made in China) to young girls. Parking lots were full and there was as much "parking rage" as you would find on any normal working day!

In a country where the majority Hindu middle class is often taken over by fervent religious sentimentalism often bordering on fundamentalism, Christmas is not being seen in any way as a religious festival. It in fact has that distilled secular quality that is typical of shop-till-you drop American consumerism this time of the year.

You may think I had given up and disappeared...not so. I am here, only things around me moved so fast, they left me dizzy and disoriented. Here's a quick recap of all thats happened in the past few months since I arrived in India-

1 wedding in the family
1 skirmish with the land mafia
1 house renovation
1 surgery of a loved one
1 launch of a new business
1 divorce in the family

To call it a whirlwind is to assume it is over. It is a regular, undeterred, unrelenting onslaught- more emotional and psychological than physical. It also surprises me that I have been able to withstand it all...so far,so good!

John Lennon said and I paraphrase: Life is what happens to you while you are making other plans. Thats what happened. The PLAN was to get to India and quickly settle down, relax and resume work. None of this happened. In true Bollywood tradition, we had a wedding in the family, a skirmish with the land mafia and our business plan got delayed. We were frustrated, then enthused, then nervous, then resolute and now finally stoic.

Hola! It has been a real long time since I blogged here. India has me both by the throat and by the heart.
I hate the traffic and the blatant disrespect for the fellow travelers. I hate the noise and smoke and dust (there I said it! ) and I hate the fact that none of this is likely to change anytime soon. Despite all this I love that I can now catch the metro train in Delhi and get anywhere in a half hour- max!, that people actually stand in a que and buy tickets, I love that I can hear birds and the vegetable seller and the children laughing as they get off the school bus , all sweaty and dirty. I love that I can never go anywhere in Delhi without going past a monument or building that is at least 200 years old, if not more. I love that there is so much life around (that cliche- the breathing, pulsating mass...open the window and its right there!)
I am finally doing something concrete with my time- Getting our flat renovated so that we can move in. Read about those travails and adventures at
http://throwitonthewall.blogspot.com/

The ads and services section in the newspaper is like a fruit laden tree. Just reach out for what you want. And currency notes in people's pockets have given a certain buoyancy that was unheard of ten years ago. I have been seeing ads for "Movers and Packers" in the papers almost everyday. It is not just that businesses and services like "moving" did not exist ten years ago...its that people simply did not move that much! A generation ago if you got the much coveted Government Job, you were golden. You got health-care, a house and pension. Now, for a vast number of people (though still perhaps not the majority), the world and world-view has grown to geographically embrace itself and the world . For those that grew up in Indore or Patiala or any of the many "Tier 2 cities"( Newspaper's classification, not mine!) , it is obvious that one would move to metros like Delhi or Bangalore after graduating from school or college and get a job in the any of the many new private businesses/industries. A cousin who works for the government at a fairly good position wants to move into the private sector too. The reasons he states are many- opportunity to grow, less red-tape and better pay are a few. He says he works six days a week, in a far from glamorous office, using a software that is bug-ridden,slow and barely useful. His bosses and colleagues are bribe mongers and he sticks out like a sore thumb. Yet, with a wife, a kid and another one "planned soon" along with the fact that once he quits the government job he will not be able to join back ( Government jobs are usually competitive and have an age limit) makes him postpone his decision until the "next year". This is a kid who is bright and intelligent and the government of India, the largest employer, has no place for him. The only reason he is staying on is that old promise of stability. How long will he hold out to pressures around him and the aspirations within him.
The government's employee today is a frustrated bystander while corrupt politicians continue to give themselves pay hikes and perks. The Armed forces are reporting record number of voluntary early retirements and shortage of officers. A country needs its armed forces to defend its borders and keep its people safe but what happens when in the not too distant future the only people who will join the army will do so not out of any sense of patriotism or pride but because it was their only option. Will we then have an army of mercenaries?

Bangalore has a brand spanking new airport which was built by a private company. The roads leading to it though are nowhere near complete- that was the part the state government had to take care of. I guess you could still fly into and out of Bangalore but you may never get to leave the airport. This is the absurd reality of most infrastructural projects that the government undertakes in India today.

With so many people moving into the city, there has been a spurt in new housing developments in satellite towns. Private builders promise "24 hours electricity back up" in their high rises. That's because there isn't enough electricity even for the existing number of houses, let alone the gazilion that are coming up. So the private builders will run petrol powered generators to provide electricity for the high rises and also use the aforementioned generated electricity to suck the water up from the ground below, because there's no water supply either. So then we will burn gas/petrol to get water & electricity. Sort of like Mary Antoinette's fool proof solution- we can eat our cakes, since we will certainly not have any bread to eat!

Can a country really run on private businesses and its shining markets alone? The reality is that all private businesses need infrastructural support for them to function efficiently and for long.

Are these symptoms growing pains or a diseased core that will ultimately eat its way outwards until we remember these couple of decades as the brief flicker of hope that died sooner than it was born? Perhaps it is for the economists of the present and historians of the future to tell us.

Articles about the "new" India, the one that is shining, the one that is at the cusp of becoming the next super-power , the one that has shown jaw-dropping rise in economic growth, have become a regular feature in magazines and newspapers across the world. (In the Indian newspapers, it often borders on gloating). A recent article stated that the current middle class in India is equal to the total population of the United States. This, quiet obviously is not the result of the super rich sharing their bounty with their less fortunate brethren, as the mighty socialist phase of post-independence era promised us would happen. The reasons are many but not surely the generosity of the "haves". I am not an economist...in fact never studied economics in school either. What I can share is what I see around me. Sometimes that is the "shining" youthful side of India and at other times the less than perfect,old hurting, aching bones that is India.

"I am not comparingggg!!!". I could scream from the top of a mountain, till the cows come back home from city streets but no one listens. One of the crosses one bears for coming back /returning home to/moving back (whatever you want to call it) to India is that there is no way you can say anything even remotely critical of India. Family, friends even complete strangers all band together and give that collective look of disapproval - the one that instantly makes you feel like the pompous NRI/the ugly American or God forbid! the ones who forgot their roots! In smaller towns, you can't visit someone without them passing a quick and snide one about your not drinking tap water. My friends ,not in NY, Not in SFO...but in New Delhi and Mumbai buy mineral water to drink for God's sake!! The Indian bottled water industry is estimated at about Rs. 10 billion and is growing at the rate of 40 percent ( statistics from a recent rediff article) But dare we the recent returnees buy bottled water. Its taken as a personal affront, an abandonment, a betrayal like none other.

Things don't stop at water. Everyone complains of traffic and pollution. We can't. People complain of how hot it is getting every year, we don't dare break a sweat. Even if we never ever ate at fly infested street side eateries even before we left the motherland, we have to give trial by fly if not fire to prove that our bellies and hearts remain Indian. M got bit by a poisonous bug and had to go to the doctor. The doc gave him a good dose of " you guys can't handle Indian bugs anymore" before giving him a medicine that surely is not being used only by the three NRIs in the region. Even as Delhi-ites eat golgappas only at places that declare "Only Mineral Water Used to make golgappas" , eyebrows arch and lips smirk when we order a bottle of water at a restaurant.

One can't worry about these things too much. It is a cross we carry, sometimes with humor and other times with some irritation. One thing is for sure, for any new people we meet- we will not let on that we ever lived abroad.

Friends have been asking about my India experience so far. To that I chant the Hindu Advait Vedanta matra- Neti, Neti, Neti meaning “Neither this, Nor That”. There really is no one way to explain what India is or has become (even the past, present, future tense stand still here).

I get up every morning and along with chai (that mom makes) get the newspaper. At that moment I feel love and belonging like none else. As I read the paper the feelings get a little more complex. The newspaper reads like an absurdist tabloid. There is an article, two full pages long, about a conference held for and attended by the worlds leading luxury goods manufacturers who see India as their fastest growing market. Jostling for space is another article about farmers who are unable to pay off their loan and are forced to commit suicide. Sharing the same page is a news about record yield of strawberries and how India is to become the largest exporter of strawberries to Europe. There is an article in today's newspaper about the influence and power wielded by women politicians. Yesterday there was one about a woman in rural India who was accused to being a witch, tied to a tree and beaten up- all this on broadcast TV. A school teacher beat up a student with a stick and she died (parents say due to injuries, doctors say its unclear). Another article tells me that the government has announced plans to set up eight more IITs and seven more IIMs- those hallowed corridors of education that catapulted India into the world technology and business arena. When then does one begin to rejoice and when lament?

Even if one were to step out of the incongruous and confusing world of the newspaper on to the roads of Delhi, the contrasts are hard to miss. I am not even going to go to the absolute lawlessness of the roads (that is now a subject too blasé for discussion here). The new metro public transport system shines as truly a much needed and much awaited blessing. A sign that things are improving- slowly yet surely. Yet we get power cuts that last hours ( I dread the fast approaching summer), everyone buys mineral water because what comes out of the taps is undrinkable and every year everyone digs deeper and deeper to pump water from the ground. No one seems to care or talk about the time when there is nothing more to dig and what when you can't dig anyways because there will be no electricity to pump water with.

I went to a mall with a friend last week and I am sure I was very irritating company for all my surprise oohs and aahs. There isn't a creature comfort that you can't get. From designer clothes to Brookstone kind of stores that tell you what you may need and then sell it to you. It could be a mall anywhere in the US. The service was impeccable, even if a little amateurish. Most of the salespeople are young college or school graduates who still haven't developed the professionally polished calm and disassociated politeness of the salespeople of the west. They are so eager to please they stalk you through the aisles and don't rest till they have found what you are looking for (that you are having to move an inch to look for something on your own is an insult to their profession). At the restaurant where we ate the manager asked several times if the food was ok and did everything to accommodate our needs- something I don't remember ever happening in my past life in Delhi.

Yet most of my mom's needs are met within a km of where she lives and she finds little use for malls and grocery chains. A banana seller comes every morning, followed by a vegetable seller and a fruit seller. They all ring the door bell, bargain without much gusto- as if they just need to go through the motions to justify the sale they made. Last evening I went to the local grocer with mom. We have known him forever and a few days- since the time his dad ran the shop. After his father passed away he took over the family business. His mother helps in keeping things organized. People come and rattle off their list of requirements. The mother assigns tasks to a couple of helper boys who then bring whatever you asked for and put in a basket. The basket then goes to the son who with his brand new handy dandy computer calculates your bill for you. I had barely made it to the front of the shop when my mom reminded me to say “Namaste” to the grocer's mom (“she always asks after you”) Not only did the lady remember me but also every detail of my life. She inquired after me, my work, my life. All this while the rest of the people waited for their turn to rattle off their grocery needs. If this wasn't enough we realized that we were a few hundred rupees short (on account of my having made my mom buy a few “healthier” things). I was going to tell him that I could come by and pick up the stuff later but he raised his hand, palm facing me (a universal gesture for “ I shall hear none of that”) and made mom sign the back of the bill, then put it away on one of those little spears that hold loose papers. There was a thick wad there from other people who hadn't paid the guy yet. He did not take any money at all saying that he would rather clear it all later. How is that for a credit card? No APR either.

It is an India of many Indias- owned equally and unequivocally by the farmers -ones who commit suicide and ones that find the next big cash crop, by stores in malls that aim to make life easier for you the consumer to shop owners who are an an intrinsic part of your life, by politicians who are caught taking bribes and by those few that hold up the hope for sustainable development, by parents fighting to get their kids into high end private schools and by kids that shine despite their less than perfect circumstances. India is a promise and promises can go either ways. Until then India remains, at least for me, Neti, Neti,Neti.

So much time has lapsed between my last post and this one and so much has happened. The roadtrip was great. We made it to Boston, MA, stayed there for a few days and then drove back to NJ to catch a flight to India- so technically we covered the width of the continent and then some! It was absolutely fantastic at that level. The chains- of restaurants, motels, gas stations. The unflinching appearance of rest areas along the highways.The very things that were a comfort factor also make the country somewhat homogeneous. This gets thrown up in contrast (not in comparison) as I return now from Goa. An hour and a flight from New Delhi and it may as well have been a different country- food, language, religion, architecture. But I am getting ahead of myself. With the lack of internet access for the last part of the road trip I did not get a chance to update the blog regularly.

After Austin, we drove through Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia,West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and finally arrived in Massachusetts. We stayed in Memphis, TN and Roaneke, TN and finally in Westborough MA.

Without going into too many details (which might yet show up in my future blogs) here are some top award winners.

Starting with the important first...
The poshest Restrooms- TN
Most fun- Austin TX (of course having friends in Austin, bends it in its favor)
Larget expanse of nothingness, mile after mile after mile- TX
Funniest state sign ("Dont Mess with Texas" having lost some of its luster)- Virginia
"Buckle Up Virginia- Its a law we can live with"
Most promise of fun- Memphis
It would have been more fun if we had stayed there overnight and been able to to go to listen to some live music and also if we could get all our friends there.

Hola from Austin! We are taking a break in Austin. We both are spending quality time with our respective college friends. After a rather heavy lunch of piles of tortilla chips, fajitas and a wonderfully moist tres leches cake, my friend is comatose next to me. I have promised to make chai and wake her up. We totally reverted back to college days with trying on clothes in a store, eating, shopping, talking about life, plans, families etc etc.

On our several road trips back and forth between California and Texas, we always took I-40. We rather liked it, with its stunning views, quaint roadside shops and abundance of rest areas. The streach of I -10 between Arizona and Texas has been rather bland in comparison. The landscape did not change much. El Paso was very interesting. It was a bit bizarre to see Mexico-right there! The shanty slums across the street were Mexico. I couldn't help but wonder what goes through their minds as they watch the freeways and across the freeways the malls, the stores the comsumer glut.

Yesterday we stayed at Demings, New Mexico. A small one street town and that one street was called Motel Drive. We stayed in a Gujarti owned Best Western, with its "barely there" amneties and "could have been better" standards of cleanliness. Could have stayed at the one across the street that declared " American Owned and Operated"...I guess the Potels will have to wisen up if they want to keep business.

After leaving Chandler Arizona we took a short detour to see wild flowers in a national park. Beautiful yellow poppies and purple flowers whose names I forget at this moment growing wild and abundant amidst cactuses that were two stories high!

Tonight we plan to eat yet another heavy mexican dinner, sleep well, do our laundry at the friends place and head out again. We have been travelling eastwards on I-10 mostly all this while, now we will head north to our final destination, New York.

Greetings from Phoenix!
We left LA dusty and stormy, a beautiful sunset in the rear view mirror. A sign board tells us that we are traveling "at sea level". We stayed with college friends catching up on old times planning to meet soon in the future. They have been very busy with two kids-one a toddler and the other a six month old. In our friend's words he has been so busy he thought "No Country for Old Men" was a documentary on the future of social security...seriously.

On a more general note, the beautiful long stretches of freeways are a constant source of amazement to us. That someone had the foresight to build freeways that wide, that strong...those beautiful webs of interchanges that we see flying past in the moon roof. Then of course the ultimate - the kohl dark freeways of Phoenix, so smooth it feels like one is slipping over a slab of melting butter.

We stayed last night with our friends from Nepal and woke up to the beautiful smells and sounds of prayers. Our friend's father is visiting from Nepal. Their little daughter is peeping from the other side of the door , too shy to come and talk. She speaks no Hindi and little English and I can barely understand Nepali. She is asking her mother why I have a white computer (Mac) while they have a black one (Dell) and which one is better- Ah the big question that many have fought over!

Stay tuned!

Greetings from LA!
We have started our cross -country road trip. A slow goodbye to the US. We will travel from the west coast to east and then fly awayyy!
There was one annoying thing after another on the last day. Each could be a blog posting in itself.

We shipped all our stuff in a container a few days before our final departure. It went smoothly with four packer and movers working in perfect synch. We packed all the small stuff to save money and let them handle the furniture, art work etc. They rocked and were laughing and chatting as the day wore on while our respective backs were burning and our smiles fading by the end of the day! The rest of the condo -owners in the building (mostly elderly people) gave us grief over all things big and small- Dont let the main door stay open ( one of us was always watching), dont move the door wedge( wedge!getting worked up about a door wedge!!),they wanted to know how long the loading will take because of "security concerns". I don't think the fact that the movers were two turbaned sikh gentlemen helped. (but I sincerely hope this is only my hyper active albeit tired imagination).

Selling the cars was another interesting experience...but more on that later. We have a couple of hours before we have to get on the road again! Auf Weidersehn!

Thumbs up! Shumbs up!...the landlord is trying to find as much wiggle room as he can to deduct money...argh!!! We got stood up by people who were going to buy our car...double arrrgh!!! Last minute, badly ditched. An old "friend" tried to make the most of it and offered to buy it for pittance plus had an attitude as if he was doing us a huge favor. Why? Why is so hard for some people to resist the urge to take advantage of others.
Last minute stresses are inevitable, but there are many many things to be thankful for. We have had a steady stream of friends helping us. We had an impromptu party last night when some friends arrived and helped us late into the night, they cooked using all we had in the fridge and ribbed us about all our "possessions"( mostly my collection of assorted glass bottles I use to store everything from lentils to paper clips.) It was an evening spent chatting, laughing, singing, debating and of course packing.
Thats what I want to remember from this experience and not the unpleasant stressful hours.

It is almost the middle of the month and this isn't your average sized month anyways...so the big d-day (departure day) is fast approaching. Some of the major milestones achieved in the last few days- decision about retirement accounts etc (the boring laborious stuff), decision to book a container that will carry across the seven seas everything we have- ah priceless! We feel there should be at least some continuity to this whole thing. Small reminders of what we built for ourselves here.
The landlord came by today and gave two thumbs up to the house. He said in his adorable "Gherman Aaacent" that we have "kepht da place soo kleen". Goody! my last two days of chlorine obsession seems to have worked. My better(?) and usually a little less cluttered half believes I went over-board but what the heck!

The landlord said that he hopes and wishes his doctor son would move back to CA from Texas where he lives now. Different country ditto parents.
Several more steps to go...shall report.