I’m running out of decent titles for these entries….
On Christmas Eve, 2006, my sister and I created ‘Family Fun Day’. We woke our parents at the crack of dawn and told them we were taking them out for breakfast. They were none-to-thrilled about the early awakening, and it took a good amount of prancing about and annoyingly chanting that today was ‘Family Fun Day’ before they dragged themselves out of bed. When we took them to Denny’s, they were doubly confused. We were terrified our secret would be given away- everyone else in the restaurant was wearing Detroit Lions jerseys and we thought our real gift, tickets to the game played later in the day, was obvious. Fortunately for us, they were still sleepy and didn’t quite realize their gift, even after we spelled it out by handing them a brown paper bag with eyeholes cut out for viewing. And thus, ‘Family Fun Day’ was born.
Now, whenever we do anything extra special as a family, we christen the day as ‘Family Fun Day’. The past 10 days or so, though minus my dad, certainly count as ‘Family & Friends Fun Days’, or FAFFD.
Six people came to visit my husband and I! My Mom, ‘Auntie’ (as they use the term quite liberally in India, I can apply it here), my sister and her boyfriend, and our former foreign exchange student all came to visit. The exchange student loved the TV show That 70’s Show, and thus I can easily call her Fez. The visits were slightly staggered, with Mom, Auntie, and Fez coming to Mumbai for a few days before my sister and her BF. We then travelled to the golden triangle (Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur) before spending a couple more days in Mumbai.
Very late on March 31st I went to the airport with my driver. Traffic was awful, and I was worried that they would arrive first and be lost in the sea of people. Of course, in reality their plane circled for 45 minutes and their baggage was last off of the plane. My driver and I, clueless to these details, just kept standing outside, waiting with the mosquitoes, for an hour and a half. Goodness it was boring.
The airport is actually pretty nice. When people arrive at the international airport, they go through extraordinarily laxed customs, grab their bags off of the baggage claim, shuffle into a line, run the bags through a scanner, and walk outside. If you are good at pushing your way to the front, and have a bit of luck at the baggage claim, you can easily be out in 20 minutes. In fact, my Mom was such a typical confused American, they let her skip the bag scanning process altogether….
The one door leading to the outside of the airport is surrounded by a gate, which keeps us waiting people at bay. Above the gate are large white awnings in funnel shapes, presumably to keep the sun and rain off of the patiently and not-so-patiently waiting people. The swarms of people surrounding the gate (aka me) are all holding white signs with the names of their guests printed on it. The arrivees step through the doorway and face hundreds and hundreds of people. Hence the little white sign with their names on it!
My driver was bored and alternatively sat and stood, pointing at white women asking if they were my Mom. They never were. I started to worry that she would never be able to exit the baggage check- the line is pretty cutthroat- when she and Auntie finally emerged, dragging two large suitcases, one smaller roller carry-on, and a couple of big purses/bags. Too much baggage, but most of it was for me, essentials that I can’t find in India, so I can’t complain! I spotted them, and began jumping up and down, trying to attract their attention- at least I had the blonde hair as a target- and eventually caught Auntie’s eye and met them at the narrow exit.
While my driver was pulling up our car, we hugged, smiled, and of course, with Mom’s camera, took photos of their arrival. The drive home had much better traffic, though I don’t believe we made any better time, as we stopped to take photos of anything moving or standing still!
When we arrived home they partially unpacked, and I had a wonderful time opening up the gifts they brought: Fruity Pebbles, a smoke alarm, pop tarts, Cadbury mini egg chocolates, new tank tops (laundry wrecks everything here), toothpaste (no fluoride here), dental floss (I’m just picky about that!), Honey Bunches of Oats, Thin Mints and other girl scout cookies, a pair of jeggins, books I’d ordered off of Amazon, and probably other things that I’ve already forgotten to list. Thank goodness I have fluoride toothpaste again. It just felt like I was abandoning everything I’d been taught as a kid!
I played happy host and got them settled into their room, found them towels and wash cloths, and taught them the confusing process to turn our TV on, assuming they’d awake much earlier than me due to jet lag. I put 500 rupees by the door, telling them repeatedly to wake up if they heard the doorbell ring. The money was for the car wash guy, who gets paid on the first of the month. I am sure he wanted to be paid at as early as possible based on last month’s repeated early-morning doorbell ringing experience, and was hoping my jet-lagged Mom would be awake to pay him and let me skip the conversation.
They woke, earlier, of course, than myself, despite the car wash guy never coming to collect his money, and they started a tradition of sitting on our porch and watching the pigeons and crows fly by while enjoying their morning coffee. Our day’s schedule was already planned- Auntie stayed at home for a couple of hours while Mom and I went to the gym.
The gym was a lot of fun. We decided to walk there, so we enjoyed the relatively cooler early morning air and strolled along, sweating only a little, looking at the local neighborhood, and stopping for photos frequently. You can tell which photos come first as my smile slowly turns to an exasperated frown in the later photos. While at the gym we did lots of kicking and punching, which was exhausting, but I disappointed Mom by refusing to let her take a photo of me inside the gym with my trainer. I pointed out a Bollywood singer, but she got confused and thought she was a different person. Oh well.
We took an auto rickshaw home, which is always fun when they can go fast and give a good breeze. When we got home, Auntie was already part way through her morning schedule- a massage! Mom was next, and after they were both done and feeling relaxed, we ate some very delicious parathas for lunch.
One unexpected morning adventure involved my maid. When Mom and I arrived home from the gym, it turns out a pigeon was stuck on our porch! Now, our porch is fenced with both mosquito netting and pigeon wire, but it found its way in through a zipper in the fencing. Yes, my pigeon wire has a broken zipper. Who knew such things even existed?
Our maid asked if our driver was downstairs- I guess she wanted to call him to catch the bird. But he was downtown with my husband, so she and I tried to catch it instead. My helping consisted of grabbing a pillowcase and squawking louder than a bird whenever I got close enough to actually catch it. But her? She just calmly grabbed it in a hand towel and walked it to the front door! She even stopped and posed for pictures with it. She might be afraid of mice, but she sure is good with the pigeons.
After the massages, late breakfast, and pigeon adventure, we walked along my neighborhood. I had dropped off my husband’s suit jacket at the tailor, so we figured we could walk there and pick it up. It was a Friday, so I knew the tailor would close shop a bit before 1:00 pm to pray. Along the way, we could hit the ATM and get some spending money for everyone. We got distracted, first, however, by the beauty salon a block from my house.
Mom and Auntie decided to get mani-pedis. I personally find it incredibly creepy and disgusting to let a stranger clip bits of your skin off, so I just sat and watched. The salon was dark green and guarded by a well-fed furry cat. It was shabby inside, with the plastic-coated couch covered with endless drip marks from spilled nail polish and creams. I guess I understand the reasoning for the plastic cover! It had entirely too many smiling employees for the small size of the place, and they were all wearing plastic disposable aprons with the words, ‘disposable apron’ printed upon them. Despite the large number of employees, they were all working and keeping busy, by working one to three employees per customer. The one male employee was the exception to the hard work, and sat at the desk sleeping.
Of course, this is India, so you can’t escape hawking forever, not even at a ‘fancy’ nail salon. At one point, while Mom, Auntie, and I were discussing how we’d go shopping for a salwar kameez, they took this as permission to pull out a stack of clothing from the basement and try to convince us to buy it. Urgh. Not even at a beauty salon can you escape the torture of a pathetic sales pitch.
About halfway through the mani-pedi process, Auntie turned to me and pointed out that there was no nail polish in sight. Weird. We looked around, but never found it. Just different from the US, where there are shelves of polish everywhere. Eventually they pulled out a small tray with maybe two dozen colors. Both Mom and Auntie asked for French manicures, which confused them for a bit. Eventually they headed down the staircase again, and came back with Sally Hansen do-it-yourself kit, which made me laugh! But they insisted that Auntie’s fingernails were too short for a French manicure. I looked at them. They looked perfectly long enough to me. But you can’t argue with an Indian woman. Push, push, push. In fact, they even decided the color she picked for her fingers were wrong, and removed it and re-did them in a color of their own choosing! Fortunately, we all laughed, too happy to be together enjoying the day to care about the quirks of the employees. In the end, Auntie got a French manicure on her toes, and my Mom on her fingers. Auntie’s nails were painted a beige color, and my Mom’s toes a red. The manicures took forever, as they also massaged their legs and hands. Their poor feet, swollen from the airplanes, got two massages that day! How nice.
Of course, the shop, as it seems like with everything in India, did their best to take advantage of the foreigners. They insisted the cost for the French manicure was more, despite it clearly not being written in their salon brochure as costing more. Yet another shop that I will never use again. My choices in this country just keep decreasing!
We were curious how to get home- we were wearing flip-flops, and the road, of course, is nothing but dust. The nail shop didn’t have that quick-dry light, so their toes were certainly still wet. Fortunately, my husband happened to be driving home at the exact same time, so he picked us up for the one block and saved their nails.
After a nail-drying break at home, and conversation with my husband, we headed to the mall for some clothes shopping. Along the way we dropped off my husband’s shoes for shining. The shoe-shining place was a bit of a shock for Mom and Auntie. It is basically an open wooden hut propped up with bamboo sticks and a tarp roof, with a dirty newspaper floor and an often-snoozing shoe-shiner. The walls were covered with pictures of gods and backpacks. I included a picture of it that Auntie took:
We next stopped to pick up my husband’s jacket, but the tailor was already off to pray, his shop closed, so we headed the mall directly. The mall is sparkling and breathtaking to behold, but the drive to it is slow and tedious. We stopped in traffic behind a truck, the open back containing a family moving with all of their possessions. It was sad to see the entire family in the back of the truck, not even filled with much…. We also watched as a woman with the grumpiest imaginable face walked past. She was so angry I just had to stare. Just as she walked past a tree, without looking, she grabbed and ripped off the new leaf shoots, and tossed them to the ground in the next step. It was so meaningless and comical that my driver and I just looked at each other and cracked up.
The mall is really something else. Full of clothes that most Americans couldn’t afford, I don’t understand how Indians can afford to go there. But fortunately, they have a pair of shops similar to Target and K-mart, so we spent some time picking out outfits for Mom, Auntie, and my sister. We then headed home, picking up the jacket and shoes along the way.
When we arrived home, we found out I dropped off the wrong shoes to be shined! Not sure how I managed that, since I placed them on the floor that day, but who knows. Life is full of little mysteries. We had a nice dinner of okra, smoked eggplant, and mutter paneer. I taught Mom and Auntie how to make chapattis, and we relaxed before picking up Fez from the airport.
Mom accompanied me on the late-night trip to the airport, and even had a cute white-board with Fez’s name on it. But Fez spotted my blonde head, not Mom’s sign, in the crowd of waiting people, so that was disappointing. But it was nothing a round of photos couldn’t cheer up. We headed home, ready for bed and day 2 of our adventures.
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