What a week - part 2

My last day of teaching was bittersweet for multiple reasons.   Yes, I will miss some of my students very much.  To some, I definitely will be glad to say good riddance.  But there is one to whom I can never say goodbye.

I haven’t been using proper names in this blog, but his name deserves to be mentioned.  Abdul Aziz Qureshi.  Just a little boy, with a round, happy face, and eyes that smile.  One of the well-behaved students.  A bright boy who took advanced mathematics classes twice a week.  Whose smile was genuine and happy and made one involuntarily return the smile.

Two Saturdays ago, while the world was glued to CNN, hearts dropping and sending panicked facebook messages to friends in Japan, one family was oblivious to this earthquake.  No TV at home, but they were still in mourning.  They were mourning little Abdul Aziz.  

Two Saturdays ago, Abdul Aziz was playing with his friends.  The city is a dangerous place.   I recently read, in Maximum City, by Suketu Mehta, that breathing Mumbai’s air is the equivalent of smoking 2.5 packs of cigarettes per day.   That Mumbai’s air has 10 times the permissible lead levels.   But there are so many more dangers than just breathing the air.  The ground is uneven, not due to hills (though, on a rare clear day, you can see some large hills/mountains in the background), but uneven due to unkempt roads.   Rubble and trash line every street, regardless of whether the rich or poor live there.  For adults, walking is a constant battle with uprooted sidewalks.   For children, there is no green grass on which to play.  If they play sports, they play them on the streets, which are cleaner and less rubble-strewn than most areas.   There are very few playgrounds with slides and other things to climb.  So they find other things to climb.  Not trees, which don’t exist where Abdul Aziz lives.  But there are plenty of construction sites, none of which are well secured.

Little Abdul Aziz was playing with his friends on one such site that fateful day.  Spotting a crane, they climbed up to play.  But something went wrong this time.   Something on the crane moved.  It moved, and crushed the bright little boy.

I can’t imagine how horrible this must have been.  To be Abdul Aziz. Or to be the friends, playing with him, running frantically home to his mother.  To be Abdul Aziz’s mother, probably running frantically back to his tiny body.   When I close my eyes, I see his face.

Because I was in Bangalore on Monday, I wasn’t notified of the event until Tuesday.  Just a text message, stating only that he passed away on Saturday in an accident.   My stomach just dropped.  Earlier in the day I had heard from one friend that she still had not heard from her Grandma in the earthquake (fortunately, I have since heard she was found okay).   It is just too much at once.

I was completely unsure as to what my actions should be.  Will there be school counselors available?  No answer.  So I did what I find calming.  I bought 29 packets of crayons, and 18 coloring books.   I took them in, and talked a bit with the students.  I passed out the crayons and coloring books and told them it helps me to color when I am feeling sad. 

When I first arrived at school, some students seemed excited about the death.  I don’t think it was in a bad way, or that they are bad people.  But I don’t think death means as much to little kids, perhaps.   It was exciting news to share.  Sad, and they cried, certainly.   But they still wanted to be the first to tell me.  Some wanted to share feelings, some didn’t.  They asked me if I cried.  We talked, colored a bit, learned a bit, and went back to coloring.  I hope I handled it okay.

The next day was to be my last, so I felt doubly guilty for leaving them in this  situation.  Fortunately, there is a new volunteer who is quite good, and she will be taking over for a couple of weeks, so it is good to know they are in capable hands.

Of course, in the previous blog, I already described my busy morning of the last school day.   But the teaching portion…here goes.

I arrived, as usual, a bit too early.  I had taken an auto, since my driver was busy with the funeral plans, and it drove faster than I remember.  Being an open vehicle, and a warm day, I also arrived with large sweat marks covering my back, and a huge plastic bag filled with 300+ pieces of paper for the students to work on while I am gone. 

I smile at the four security guards stationed at the school entrance, and they grin back and escorted me to the plastic waiting chairs just inside the school grounds.  Fortunately, the chairs are in the shade, so I drop the bag of lessons and pull out my blackberry to continue on the quest for higher points in the game of brickbreaker. 

Shortly, two other teachers joined me, and we head upstairs to our classrooms.  They tell me that today we will release balloons to honor Abdul Aziz.  Apparently on Monday each student had written him a message.  That afternoon, I had peeked at one kid’s message.  “Abdul Aziz, you are my best friend in the world”.  The day before, the same kid was the boy that his classmates had been shouting at to say something when I asked if anyone wanted to talk. He had declined.  I feel like he, at least, understood that the loss was forever, and felt much more than a temporary sadness.  

The day went much like the others.  We did a reading comprehension and worked on our math skills.  I still hadn’t decided how to tell my students that I was leaving, so as time clicked by, I kept putting it off.  Eventually, twenty minutes before school ended, one of the teachers came up and told me it was time to end so we could do the balloon release.    Well, it was now or never.

I said something, very briefly.  I honestly can’t remember exactly what I said.  I didn’t want to cry or do anything sad. But then the other teachers brought me a gift and cards!  The school does a lot of art projects, so they gave me a candle and paperweight that had been made by students of the program.  Plus signed cards.  It was very sweet. All the children crowded around me, shaking my hand and telling me ‘best of luck’.  I only pretended to read the cards, because I felt myself tearing up.  I read them when I got home a few days later.  The messages were so cute.  Some just told me they loved me and would miss me, some apologized for doing nasty (what they call being in trouble).   It was very nice.

Earlier in the day, the other teacher kept pulling students out of my class, and I even went to ask her what was going on.  Of course, now I know that she was pulling them out to sign the cards!  But I didn’t figure it out at the time.  I’m glad I didn’t.  It was a very nice surprise.

When everyone was done shaking my hand, our bags were back, and we said the school prayer together for one last time, we headed down the stairs to release our balloons.   Everyone was fairly orderly, for being kids, and the teachers passed out green balloons that the kids started to blow up.   I hadn’t been part of the planning for this event, so I hadn’t thought through the logistics, but very quickly, a teacher points out that we don’t have helium. These balloons will just fall to the ground, not take off in the air.  

And there you have it.  That one day completely summarizes the school program. There are plenty of sweet, hardworking, and well-intentioned teachers in this program. But there are always unexpected bumps in the plans that seem to screw up the organization and follow-through.

We didn’t release the balloons.   I guess they decided to buy helium and release them another day.  I’m glad I didn’t have to watch.  I know that events like the balloons help, for some people, to heal the pain, but it doesn’t for me.  I just think about the poor little balloon landing somewhere and getting swallowed by a cow that I will eventually eat.  Yeah, I’m not a romantic.  Just often too practical.    

So, after a very anti-climatic non-release of the balloons, the children slowly walked to their tiny little homes, and I walked with the other teachers back to the rickshaws.   As sweet as the candle and notes were, I just felt growing excitement to be done.   

What a week - part 1

It has been an entire week since I have written, and I have been itching to do so each day.  I go to sleep at night, penning fantastic stories in my mind that I promptly forget each day.  So finally, today, I have free time.  In fact, from here on out, I will have free time every day, because today is my first day on my new, selfishly me-oriented schedule. 

I woke up at 4:30 am to wish my husband a happy birthday, but was so excited for my day, I found it hard to go back to sleep.   Eventually I did, and I settled into my routine of waking up, eating a quick breakfast and gulping down as much water as possible (since I do believe we sweat half our body weight each night), and headed off to the gym. 

My husband says I am a creature of habit, and desperately in need of a routine to be happy.  I do believe that is true.  Every day, after the gym, I stretch on a bright orange yoga mat while watching exactly one episode of The X-Files (I’m up to season three already).  I eat some lunch, watch the end of the episode, and then shower.   Usually at that point I had worked on stuff for teaching, went to teach, came home, ate dinner, prepped for teaching until 11:00 pm, and then watched Two and a Half Men and went to bed.   And repeated the next day.   The only variable is what flavor ice cream I eat on any given day.

But I still wasn’t happy.  Something about doing all that teaching, 8-10 hours a day with the prep work… it just wasn’t exactly how I planned to spend my free, unpaid time this year.  Yes, teaching kids is worthwhile, but I discovered it wasn’t the way to my happiness.  At least, not when I spend each night googling information about random countries like Sri Lanka, compiling it into a reading comprehension worksheet, and then making sure a 10 year old, mostly Urdu-speaking child could read and comprehend it.  

So, as I said, I finally get to start my selfish me-schedule today, minus the daily episode of Two and a Half Men, which has been suspiciously absent from the channel line-up since Charlie Sheen was fired….  The wheels that got the schedule (the me-schedule, not the TV schedule) in motion started spinning nearly a month ago.  As everyone who has been reading this knows, I haven’t been too happy with this teaching position, and had been considering quitting for awhile.  Of course, I didn’t.  I am (1) a non-confrontational wimp (except when I am cut in front of in line), and (2) I don’t like disappointing people.  So I continued with it, becoming less and less happy, and spent less and less time on the googling each day.   But then my husband’s job got incredibly busy.

His case is consuming so many hours that he hasn’t been home in Mumbai for the entire month of March (save a pair of layovers totaling about 30 hours, most of which he slept through).   So, as a dutiful wife desperately missing her husband, I travelled to Bangalore each weekend instead.   Some weekends he was so busy that I mostly slept and read books while he continued in the office.  But we did have lovely meals at the Leela Palace, with the best hazelnut ice cream you could possibly imagine.  It was even topped by a piece of sculpted chocolate.  Amazing. 

The upshot of this is that I was missing at least two days a week teaching, and I was resentful of the teaching job, because it meant I couldn’t stay longer if I so desired.  As this case seems to go on infinitely (as far as typical cases go), it was no longer worth it.  During my three days in Mumbai, I worked twice as hard to make lesson plans covering five days, making me even more irascible (great word, I picked it up from Anna Karenina and use it every chance I get).  

Finally, after the second weekend of Bangalore travel, I got my nerve up, called, and quit.    Despite my many attempts at a clarification, half the people still think I am MOVING to Bangalore, which I am not. But I do plan to spend more time there.   So no, I couldn’t quit for my own goals. But I could quit to see my husband.

Regardless, I gave my two weeks, and they are now up! 

I know it was the right decision because of how happy and calm I am.   Certainly, I felt a little guilty.  I am abandoning these children.  I genuinely like and will miss about half of them.  They also have no teacher.  But they had no teacher before I came, either.  This class is at a weird time and is far from the train.  It is hard to find someone who will do all of that work for only $111.11 a month….  But overall, I am just happy and relaxed. 

As evidence for or against that happy and relaxed state I claim to have achieved, see my actions for my last day of school.  I had an incredibly busy morning planned- I needed to get my lehnga blouse fitted for a weekend event, the copy machine at the school wasn’t working, so I had to make a few hundred Xerox copies of future lessons to leave for the students, I had an appointment with a potential car insurance guy, and of course, my personal training session at the gym.   It isn’t hard to do all of that with a driver.   The tailor’s is on the way to the gym, and my driver can have the copies made while I am working out.   Pick up the altered blouse on the way home, shower, and be ready for the 1:00 pm meeting with the car guy.

But you should never make plans here, because they always fall apart. 

My driver texted me early in the morning, saying he couldn’t come into work. Well, what he actually wrote was, “My uncle elder son is off today terefor i am on leave today” which confused me.   I wrote back, asking his meaning, and he just called.  Apparently, his cousin (his Uncle’s son) died that day, around 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning.  And my driver had to take care of the body.  So he was taking the day off.  Ironically enough, just the day before I had been asking him about Muslim funeral practices. 

My poor, poor driver.  He has had the worst possible month.   His mother, who had heart bypass surgery last year, has been back in the hospital.   She stayed for about a week, and seems to be okay now.   His wife, just days before the text message was sent to me, was also admitted to the hospital.   I’m still not entirely certain what is wrong with her.  Something in her women’s area gives her pain while menstruating (none of the women here use birth control pills, which eliminates those cramps, and thus every single female complains about cramps, even to me, a relative stranger).  He calls it a ‘bubble’, if that sheds light for anyone else as to what the problem could be.   But the pain was much, much worse this time.  It is so bad, she can’t keep food down.  I tentatively asked if they were worried about cancer or something similar, but he said no.   He told me he’ll bring the medical records for me to see, but I haven’t seen them yet.   They seem to make any visit to the hospital last 7-10 days here, so she was still in the hospital when this cousin died.

So I was sympathetic, and also, sadly, slightly suspicious.  I mean, who has this many health issues in a row?  I had promised him I would give him an advance on his salary (to pay for all of the hospital bills), so I met up with him in the evening.   He looked so amazing!  He was in his traditional Islamic attire.  He had an all-white dishdasha complete with a white kufi cap (sort of like a bigger Jewish yarmulke).  I’m so used to seeing him in jeans and novelty T-shirts that I didn’t even recognize him at first.  His son was accompanying him.  I was so excited to finally see this kid.  Despite being 12 or 14, he didn’t look a day older than 9 or 10.  He had a round face, smiling, and was utterly adorable.   The three of us walked to the bank together (I refuse to carry that much money alone), and it was so evident how much my driver cared for his son.  He kept making him walk to the side, in the middle, away from the cars.   It was very sweet to watch.   His son was incredibly shy, though.  I shook his hand, and tried to get him to speak.  My driver had warned me he was shy (though he said he doesn’t stop talking at home), so I wasn’t surprised.   So I mainly just smiled at him (which even made him shy away!).   

As we walked, my driver told me details about his day. The cousin had died around 3:30 in the morning. He apparently had to go over to the house, prep the body, and take it to the site.  I’m not entirely where the ‘site’ was, but my driver had to personally carry him, on his shoulders.  It sounds sort of like the pallbearers we are used to seeing in America.   But the American pallbearers don’t carry the body for too long. It sounds like my driver had to carry it for quite a distance.  Either they don’t exist, or cost too much money, but they didn’t have a hearse for the body, and no taxi driver would let them put it in their car.  So they carried it.   My driver told me he couldn’t ever remember being in so much pain.   His shoulders just ached.   

As a side note, as these activities took place a week ago- his wife is again in the hospital.  He is supposed to hear something further today….

But that was the end of my day.   Let’s go back to the morning, when I had just gotten his text message stating that he wasn’t coming in today.    I hopped out of bed, worried, mainly because I wasn’t sure where to make the Xerox copies, knowing I had to do it so that my students would have lesson for a week or so, even after I left the teaching job.   I don’t live too far from the gym, nor the tailor, so I decided, for the first time since moving to Bandra (aka, 6 weeks ago), to actually walk outside by myself.   I went out, walking on the street, enjoying the views.  Women sitting on the street, with baskets of fish, cats prowling and meowing around, were smiling and chatting and smiled at me as I walked past. The autos honked and swerved around me.  Basically, I was treated like everyone else, not the sideshow freak to stare at.   Yes, Bandra really is the place for the white folk to live.  I was relieved to discover this, and relaxed, enjoying the fairly shaded walk. 

While walking, I kept my eyes peeled for a copy machine.   Yes, the shops all look like tiny abandoned buildings, but they are actually thriving businesses.  I found one, and mentally tucked away its location for later.  After five minutes or so, I came upon the small open corner of a building where the tiny little old tailor with sparkling eyes sits at his sewing machine.  Various articles of women’s clothes adorn the white walls, and two other men are cramped in the tiny space, chatting over coffee or tea.  The tailor gave me a huge grin when I walk up, and I asked him to measure me and fit the blouse.    The cost?  50 rupees, or $1.11.  And it will be ready to pick up whenever I want.   I tell him I’ll pick it up at noon.  

Grinning, I hail a rickshaw and head to the gym.   This isn’t too bad or hard at all, I thought.  I began to immediately wonder why we decided we needed a car at all, but of course it will be wonderful come summer, with the air conditioner, and during the monsoons, with the windows that successfully roll up.  Plus, despite my grumbles, our driver is amazing and knows where everything is, pays our bills for us, etc.  So it would be a very tough life without him.  

I arrived on time for my personal training session, and went upstairs to run for 10 minutes as my warm-up.  When I came back down to the main floor, and hunted for my PT, Trainer V, I was distracted and cajoled to enter into their fitness contest they were holding for the day.   I eyed them suspiciously, but their enthusiasm was convincing, and I reluctantly followed them to an empty bench and mat which had various weights scattered about.

The contest was simple.  Fastest time wins.   It started with 30 weighted stair-steps onto one of those plastic aerobics steps.  With five or six trainers around me, shouting personal encouragements, I started stepping as fast as I could.  Of course, once I started, I enjoyed it.   After the 30 steps we quickly switched to 30 push-ups, then 30 sit-ups, then 30 squats.  30 shoulder presses. I did pretty well up until they made me jump over a bench 30 times.  That was exhausting.   It was a flat bench press, and I stood with my hip perpendicular to the length of it.    You put your hands on it, and jump side to side, OVER it.  It was exhausting.  And after that, I had to do 30 up and down jumps.  Not easy jump rope-like jumps, but jumps where you try-to-kick-your-backside jumps.  Those were really hard.   We also did a ‘burpee’ but it was different from what we call burpees in the US, so I lost some time as they explained to me their version.   It ended with 60 seconds of plank, which I am utterly amazed that I finished in one go after the rest of the events. Regardless, after 7 minutes and 15 seconds, I was done, exhausted, and breathing heavily. 

My trainer finally found me, after I was done, so that was disappointing he didn’t get to watch!   Some one kindly passed me their homemade version of Gatorade, which was just as gross as the real thing.   But I drank it gratefully and watched the next female competitor, mentally comparing.

Her sit-ups were much better than mine.  Have you ever seen the movie Bend it Like Beckham?  Have you seen the scene where they are doing sit-ups?  They were like that, where they come fully up.   I guess we always do ‘crunches’ in the US, which I thought were better for your back….    But my push-ups were much better.  We both did girl push-ups, but rather than a flat plank from head to knees, she was bent at 90 degrees and only lifting weight from the hip to chest, rather than knee to chest.   I looked around, but no one else seemed concerned about her form.  In fact, my trainer, just like an obnoxious kid on the playground, got down and started counting the wrong numbers!  16, 14, 10, 21, 19, etc.   Just when you think our worlds are similar, you find the differences!   Everyone was laughing at him, not annoyed.  Her bench jump?  She stood at the end and made baby jumps, not actually jumping over the bench!  

It really surprised me that no one was correcting form. Now I wonder if my form was okay in all of the events. I feel like in the US we’d have been told to do it right and they wouldn’t count until it was done…. Of course, that probably holds true for my sit-ups, as well!   But here no one cared. They thought the short cuts were funny.  

But- here is evidence for the fact that quitting my teaching job was a good decision- I wasn’t annoyed at the cheating.  It just amused me!   After watching one other person, I was convinced that there was no way I’d be able to place, having actually done the proper form rather than racing.  But I wasn’t mad. Just satisfied I had tried my best.  What a difference in mood from other days!   

Days later I could still barely lift my legs.  So it was a good workout.  Later, I found out I placed second in my age group.   I asked them how many people were IN my age group.  No answer. But at least three since the top three were listed….

Exhausted from the gym, I had to finish my busy goals for the day.  I hailed another rickshaw, went home, showered, and headed downstairs to pick up my blouse from the tailor and make the worksheet copies.   As I exited the building, I ran into K. who was accompanied by the car insurance guy.  K. is our landlord’s go-to-guy.  Confused, as it was only noon and our appointment was for 1:00 pm, I escorted them back in to the building.  

Now, the gym story was evidence for my good mood.  This story is further evidence of my irascible nature.  I was a bit grumpy, because I had told the tailor I’d be back at noon, and I don’t like going back on my word.  But it is India, so I figured he wouldn’t mind.    I brought K. and Insurance Guy upstairs.    I have probably mentioned this before, but we’ve had a right struggle trying to find car insurance.  It seems like it should be easier to get people to take your money.   So I was overjoyed that I would finally get this done. 

They sit down. I offer water.  It is declined.  Insurance Guy pulls out a bunch of paper work.  Tells me it will cost about $180 for the car.  It is expensive (for India), but I say fine.  I’m sick of running around. Where do I sign?  I write the check, etc, and then he says, “the car is still in the previous owner’s name?” to which I reply NO.    What kind of idiot is he? Who buys a car from someone but doesn’t transfer ownership?  Maybe I am the idiot, actually.  Maybe that is normal behavior here.  I don’t know. But regardless, he tells me he can no longer give me my old rate.  It is now an extra 250 rupees, or about $5.56.   I just lost it.  I said, “No, you already gave me that rate.  Look at my driving record in the US.  You’ll see I have no accidents (pretty easy, since I don’t own a car!), etc”.  I argued.  Finally, I told him to get out of my house.  I don’t want it anymore.   They both try to say no, we will work this out.  My voice got louder, “I don’t trust you.  I’m not paying this extra money.  And you, K. I’m not at your beck and call.  You don’t show up yesterday, you show up an hour early today. Get out! GET OUT! GET OUT!”.   I swept up my folder of car information, turned my back on them, and dramatically put it on a shelf that is probably out of reach for the general height of the Indian population.  I stared at them, fire probably shooting out of my eyes, until they opened the door.   I grabbed my purse and bag of student lessons waiting to be copied, and followed them out the door.   Yep.  We took the same elevator.  I didn’t look at them, ignored them, and marched out of the elevator first and walked down the road.   

I immediately called my husband.  By this point my firm attitude was crumbling, and I was nearly in tears when I told him what had happened.  I was just so disappointed that we lost the insurance, again.  I should have just paid the darn money.  But at the same time, I was SO incredibly happy to finally bellow at the top of my lungs and release some of my anger.   In the end, my driver told me that cost was way too expensive, so it was good I didn’t pay it.   So I guess it turned out okay, as long as they don’t pay the $20 hitman to get me knocked off.  Apparently those killings are on the rise again…   A poor 74-year-old man was just killed by a hitman…who needs to kill a 74-year-old man?

Anyhow, I walked along the road, picked up my blouse, and headed to the copy shop.  I spent about 300 rupees, or more than the disputed car insurance money, on copies of paper for my students that I will never see filled out…   regardless, I was done, and headed home to relax a tiny bit before my last day of school.   

Power outages

Power outages are fairly common in India, so it shouldn’t surprise me that I am writing this (well, the first draft of this) in the complete dark.

This outage actually appears to be isolated to the Bangalore guesthouse my husband stays in while working on his current case.  The English-speaking employee of the guesthouse assured me that this particular outage is not a city outage, but is entirely my husband’s fault!   Apparently his propensity for hot water combined with air-conditioned cool air has short-circuited the electricity three times this week.  We always did wonder why people turn the water heater off.  I guess we now know why!  

Of course, when I told my husband that amusing little theory, he quickly countered that it was impossible.   You see, when you enter the guest room, you put the key in a socket that supplies electricity to the room.   Sure, it saves energy.  But it also means, for example, that the mini-fridge is completely useless, because each time the guest leaves the room, the power goes out, thus spoiling that leftover gnocchi I so diligently saved after one dinner.  As my husband is only in the room for the sleeping hours of the day, that leaves a full two-thirds of the day with no power consumption whatsoever from the room.  I think my husband’s logic wins.  Just don’t tell the guest house guys.  I want them to keep making me toast in the morning.  

We don’t have power outages in Mumbai, so I had relaxed my guard and was a bit startled when it happened.  Fortunately, I faired much better this time around, having a nice bright computer screen to tote around the room.  It saved me from stubbing my massive big toe on something.  But it reminded me of a power outage I had experienced in Jaipur, which is an amusing/embarrassing story worthy of being re-told.

In 2009 I was doing the golden triangle tour  (Delhi-Agra-Jaipur) with my husband and some of his classmates.  The tour stopped at this amazing store, which sold inlaid marble work.  It was all incredibly beautiful, and expensive.  I didn’t even want to fork out the money for the coasters. 

It was a very hot day, so I was dressed in Indian attire, which is much cooler  (temperature-wise, not appearance-wise) than wearing jeans.  I mean, there are lots of beautiful Indian clothes, but this particular style is dorky looking.  Kind of like mom jeans in America.  It is a long tunic (very nice) paired with incredibly baggy pants (super ugly, as compared with the really cute tight pants that can also be paired with the tunic shirts).  Imagine Princess Jasmine’s pants, but covered up by a big top, thus eliminated the nice curves of her body.  We aren’t cartoons, and they just make your hips and legs look huge.   But all of that extra room for air really insulates you against the heat.  It is refreshingly cool inside the pants, as opposed to the stylish tight pants, where are super hot (temperature-wise AND appearance-wise). The upshot of all of this is that my pants had roughly a 50 -inch waist.  Similar to drawstrings that we are all familiar with, there was a flat, thin piece of cloth strung though them.  However, they were very unlike our gym shorts and pajamas in that the PJs usually have a sturdier string, and big security knots tied at the end to ensure the string doesn’t slide into the pants.  These pants had no such security measure. I, silly and un-initiated in the wearing of baggy pants, had not yet thought of the ramifications of this drawback.

One of my unspoken life mottos is to take advantage of every bathroom when traveling, because you never know (especially in India) when the next one will appear.   Also to always carry toilet paper on my person.  Taking advantage of these mottos, I used the public restroom of this marble shop right before we were planning to leave. 

The moment I sat down, the power went out.   Now, the bathroom part of the process wasn’t too bad, but the dangers of those drawstring pants!   In the darkness I lost my grip on the string, and it dashed away to hide in the folds of the baggy pants.  I tried SO hard to fish it out to re-tie, but I couldn’t find it!   The dark remained.  It was, until tonight, the longest power outage I had experienced.   Five minutes or so isn’t a long time if you are in front of your computer, or have a cell phone or flashlight.  But if you are sitting on a toilet in the pitch black, frantically trying to fix your pants so you can wear them, it is an incredibly long time!   Since the waist is twice as big as my own waist, I can’t even pull them up loosely for the short walk to the car.   They would just fall to the floor if I tried.   Grasping the pants with one hand, I finally got up to wash, figuring I’d wait until the light came back to look for the string. 

Now, everyone has bumped and stumbled through their own home in the dark.  But here I was, in a bathroom that I had never seen in my life, bumping and stumbling, with one hand protectively holding my pants up.  I honestly don’t remember whether I found the sink or not.  Thinking back, it seems highly doubtful- how would I have washed my hands if they were occupied elsewhere?  Regardless, it was still dark.  I heard people calling my name, looking for me. Everyone was ready to leave.  But where was the door?!  It took me several more minutes (well, at least it felt like forever), with one hand against the wall, searching for the door, and the other hand holding my pants up…. but eventually I found a door, and pushed through it.

Shock.   I hadn’t found the exit.  I had found the men’s room!  Complete with a man inside of it!  And light!  I was confused and embarrassed; he was amused and showed me the door.  I guess the women’s room must have had a circuit that was tripped during the power outage, because the men’s room and the rest of the building had power…. And it had been back on for a long time!

I quickly rushed though the three rooms of merchandise to our van, doing my best to keep the arm holding the pants up on the wall-side of the room. I sat in my seat, and patiently picked and prodded, until, thirty minutes later, my efforts paid off and I got the string back and securely tied my pants.   For good measure, I added knots to the end of the string, too.  

Just in time for our next stop on the tour.

Airport Grumps

I dislike flying in general.  

In third grade, our teacher would annually hold a paper airplane contest.  The person who made the best flying airplane had the honor of taking a flight in her private airplane.   I purposely made a lousy paper airplane. I was afraid to fly....  Of course, my brave sister flew with her constantly!

I am no longer afraid to fly, but I still dislike it.  It probably has to do with that sea sickness/air sickness/car sickness that I am so prone to succumb to.  So I am automatically not in the best frame of mind whenever I am required to travel.  Unless I am walking.  Them I am quite happy.  Except here, of course, where I am stared at like an exotic creature and sweat drips off your body at a previously unheard of rate.  But in general, walking is my preferred mode of transport. 

I am sitting at the airport today, waiting for my flight, and silently yelling at a man.  Yes, it finally happened.  A man (rather than a pushy woman) cut in front of me.   It was very obvious, too, because it was at a food stand, complete with the red ropes to separate the line.  He?  He saw the long line, and decided to bypass it and walk straight past the counter, through the 'pick up here' section, and walk in front of me to the 'pay here' front of the line.   When the person in front of me finished, I very dramatically pushed past him, and dropped my single bottle of water (loudly) on the counter.  I looked him straight in the eyes, and said, "There is a line." He started some pathetic attempt of, "did I not say you could go first?  Am I not chivalrous?" (well, he didn't say the second part exactly like that, but it was what he was implying.  And no, he did not 'say' I could go first.  I pushed my way in front of him).  I rolled my eyes, and said something to the effect that there are a lot of people behind me, still, even if he isn't cutting in front of me.  I wasn't worried about him cutting in front of me.  I had already pushed my way there.  But I was concerned about the people behind me.  I did my best to block him when I left, but to no avail.  He cut in front of the other people.

I am definitely going to get into a shouting or fist fight before I leave this country  I just can't take the rudeness. 

Coincidences

I just had a lovely evening.   For all appearances, it was a completely normal evening.   But sometimes, you are just in the right mindset to turn something ordinary into something inspiring. 

My day actually started off in a rather creepy manner. I awoke to a mysterious sound emitted from my phone.  Confused, I knocked over four items to pick it up, and on the third try correctly spelled my password to access the screen.  Finally able to look at it (much easier to do in the morning since I had my LASIK a few years back), I noticed that I had just received an e-mail from Mom.  My phone shouldn’t be buzzing when I get e-mails.  Slight spooked, I read it.   Gramps isn’t doing so hot, and is waiting for blood tests to see if anything is wrong.

Not only was I sad about the news, at this point I was also confused and feeling superstitious.  Why had my phone alerted me to wake up and read bad news?  It very tactfully had ignored all of the other e-mails I received throughout the night.  But it seemed to know I’d want to read the information about Gramps right away. 

On its own, this isn’t too weird.   After all, I was sleepy, and had gone to bed with a fever.  I didn’t, but maybe I COULD have imagined the e-mail sound….   But to add flames to the fire of confusion, last night my computer was burping.  Yes, you read that right.  Burping.  I have no other way to describe it. It sounded like a random burp every few minutes or so.  Irregular and infrequent enough that it startled me and made me jump each time it occurred. It was, in an odd sort of way, scary.  It wasn’t a funny, nice burp, like my computer was playing a joke on me.  No, it was a loud and aggressive, mean one.  Like a good scientist trying to explore all possible sources, I closed my Firefox windows.   It still burped.   Now that is just plain weird.  So I have no idea how or why it happened.  And now my phone is mysteriously alerting me to bad news.   I’m beginning to think my inanimate objects have emotions.  Or digestive problems.   I guess Terminator 3, Rise of the Machines, is about to start….

By the evening, I had forgotten about the new, living status of my various pieces of technology and was excited to meet a new friend. 

You know how parents are.  They love to talk about their children.  Having always been perfect and wonderful children (please note that there is no sarcasm in that sentence, it is the full truth), they like to talk a lot.  For example, I was congratulated on my engagement many times before I was engaged.  He had asked my parents, they promptly told all 1000 people in our town, and I had to very politely act confused when people would congratulate me before he had actually asked me. 

So it comes as no surprise that my Mom fell into conversation with someone doing volunteer work at her school. Naturally they start talking about their children.  At some point, they realized that my sister had dated his son, back in 8^th grade or so.  They then discovered that their daughters have the same name.   Eventually they hit the jackpot and discovered that their daughters both happen to live in the same suburban Mumbai neighborhood!  Not your typical discovery for two white parents in a Michigan school! 

A few e-mails later, and we had an ice cream date for tonight. We smiled at each other, and then proceeded to internally debate the merits of adding walnuts or almonds, chocolate or white chips to our ice cream.  Once the important decisions were complete (she went with a small ‘vanilla’ with white chips and almonds, I had the medium ‘vanilla’ with dark chips and walnuts), we walked outside and sat at the glass table.  

It was a very nice evening, and the loud honking car horns were, for the most part, easily ignored.  For once, the mosquitoes were occupied elsewhere, and the giant rat that lives in the shop only ran across the floor twice.   All in all, very nice and peaceful settings for a good back home conversation. 

After a quick warning from the shop employees not to lean against the plastic chair backs (which had permanent marker ‘x’s on them to remind us), we, sitting up straight and munching on ice cream, settled into an hour and a half conversation.

 We shared our basic life backgrounds.  Further coincidences propagated quicker than our ice cream melted. It turns out that we both went to the same college.  We even lived in the same dorm, and enjoyed the same dorm foods!  But the best coincidence, I think, was to find out that I actually already knew her husband!  We were both in SNRE, and frequently even sat next to each other in Woody Plants (which we both claim is the greatest class on earth and we both still attempt to discuss the Latin names of trees with our spouses)!  He is actually one of the very few people I distinctly remember, and I always wondered what he has been up to these past few years.   It was my own personal episode of “Where are they now?”

But despite the many similarities in our lives, there was one thing that was completely different.   Our attitudes here in Mumbai.  She is so incredibly happy to try everything offered to her.   I have sat around, being grumpy.  She is busy, taking classes six days a week.  She isn’t spoiled with a car like me.  She even takes the train each day!  The train in India is an adventure only for the strong-willed.  Despite classes, and working to start a ministry here, she still has taken time to see and travel all over Bombay.  And she loves every minute of it.  Yes, she has frustrations here, too.   But her attitude- it was great.  She can just brush the troubles off and remain happy.    I really envy her great attitude.

Meeting her inspired me to try harder to enjoy myself.  To relax.  To put some effort in being here, and taking advantage of what Mumbai has to offer me. I think I am going to be a better person for having met her.  

I’m quite happy for the many coincidences that lead to our ice cream date tonight.  Thanks, Sis, for dating her brother twelve or so years ago… who would have thought it would led to this chance meeting?   

I just hope the coincidence that, in one night, two pieces of my inanimate technology apparently developed emotional and digestive capabilities was just that, a coincidence.   I’m going to trust Louis Pasteur and believe that there will be a much more mundane outcome than the beginning of T-1000 world domination…  But, to borrow a line from John Connor, “there is no fate but what we make for ourselves”.   So I’ll work to make my Mumbai fate a bit brighter! 

P.S. Upon re-reading this, many sentences probably won’t make much sense to you unless you have Terminator 2 memorized, as I have….  It is a great movie.  Watch it again. 
P.P.S.  Apparently Gramps just had the flu bug and is getting better.

Holy Cow

I just finished reading Holy Cow, An Indian Adventure by Sarah MacDonald.  Sarah is a bit more loose with her vocabulary than I typically like in a book (or in general conversation), but she creates an incredibly humorous and accurate portrayal of the troublesome life of a white woman in this country. 

I am certainly a much watered-down, boring version of her.  My husband isn’t risking his life in Pakistan and Afghanistan during the war on terror- he is just risking his heart from a lack of exercise with his sixteen-hour workdays.   But we are still separated for days on end.  Sarah tries everything India has to offer, including drugs, which are certainly not on my menu.  I’ve branched out only as far as trying a few Indian sweets.  She, rather than sitting at home grouchy (like myself), decides to go and find herself- she travels and explores the major and minor religious centers of India.  I am channeling my anger at the gym and by doing my very best (so far futile) attempts to quit my teaching job. 

The book evolves along, starting with her hatred of the country and its daily frustrations.  But then she begins to make friends and travel.  Her travels focus on learning about the various religious experiences India has to offer.  I find the fact that so many people in the world worship so many varieties of gods in so many different ways fascinating, so I enjoyed that section of the book, though I know it would probably bore many people who are less interested in the multitude of world religions.  She meets incredibly famous gurus and hears the Dalai Lama speak.  Apparently a living female religious figure makes her breast grow until she takes off the ring representing that mother. Eventually she finds her peace in the overwhelming country, and of course, by the end of the book, she loves India and is tearful to leave.  

I’m at day 69 of my own trip to this sensory overload of a country.  My brain is still stuck in her first few chapters, focused on the frustrations and hating the country’s behavior towards women with a passion.  But who knows, maybe I’ll evolve like her and wind up crying like a baby when I leave.  I rather doubt I’ll leave with her sense of religious understanding, however.   She travels, everywhere, and mostly alone.  I am not exactly a fan of traveling, and in this increasingly smothering weather, I am prone to throwing up each time I step out of doors.  Trust me.  I got heat sickness on top of a glacier once.  For me, a good day is starting to become a day when I don’t have to go outside and interact with the general public or weather.   A complete 180 reversal from the old me, who considered a day wasted if I didn’t get to go outside for a walk and enjoy the crisp fresh air and weather, or chat with a new person on a bus.  Granted, my favorite season for breathing the fresh air was winter…  an air condition that is impossible to obtain here in Mumbai. 

Surprisingly, rather than making me feel better about common shared experiences, or happy that the future will be bright, the book just depressed me.   I spend so much of my life angry here, frustrated with the futile processes and hoops that we jump through (the most recent frustrations revolve around our car - we bought it nearly two months again and it STILL isn’t in our name, and now our car insurance is expired, and no one even wants our money to cover us), that it is just awful to hear even more troubles.  I’ve developed my own mantra, “It’s just India,” to explain away the frustrations, and repeat it frequently on a daily basis. It does help to calm me down….  but I have also started giving Americans a bad name by blatantly pushing people in airport lines (of course, only if they pushed me first!), and mouthing off to the women who dare to cut in front of me in the various lines in which I am standing (well, not the little old grannies, just the women who are obviously NOT grannies). 

But each time I have to interact with the public, I build more, not less, anger.  Individuals are different than the public, of course.  Once you know a person, they are nice, incredibly helpful, and friendly.  But the nameless, pushy, rude faces?  I feel the strong urge to just push them back before I’m swallowed up.   Unfortunately, in a city with 14 million odd people, there are a lot more nameless faces than familiar ones! 

Last night, I watched the movie My Name is Khan.  It was amazing; it managed to make you laugh, make you cry, feel anger and feel hope.  It is a fictional story about a Muslim named Rizwan Khan who is born with Asperger’s syndrome.  As an adult, he moves from Mumbai to San Francisco, has a wonderful life, and then 9/11 strikes and everything changes.  The story of his journey across America sort of reminds me of Forrest Gump.   In the movie, as a child, Rizwan’s mother taught him that there are two types of people in the world- good people and bad people.  You can’t determine whether someone is good or bad by religion, but by their actions. 

I think, since being in India, I have come up with my own division of how to tell good people from bad.  Everyone I have met, or had some form of relationship with, is lumped into ‘good’.  Everyone I interact with, outside of an introduction, is ‘bad’.   No matter where you go, be it the gym or the teaching center, if you have an ‘in’, people treat you wonderfully, politely, nicely, even if you don’t know each other by name.  Offer you food, look at their cell phone pictures, etc.  But once you are outside that circle, shopping, waiting in line for a bathroom, etc, people do their best to walk all over you.  It is so odd.  Clearly, I am being silly with this categorization, but it really does, at times, seem to be a clear-cut line.  Perfect sweetness and politeness if there is a chance we’ll see each other again vs. complete rudeness/pushiness if we are strangers.   

But back to the book.  In Holy Cow (this is a complete paraphrase off the top of my head), one person tells Sarah that Indians are happy because they look at someone ‘below’ them in life and say, “I have so much more than them, I am so much better then them, and thus I am happy.”  Whereas an American looks at someone with more and says, “I wish I had what they had.  I’d be happier then.”  

Two thoughts struck me immediately upon reading this comment.  My Indian driver’s reaction and my own.  A few days before I had read the book, my driver asked me to give him music from my computer.  I was happy to do this, but he has only 2 GB of memory, so I can’t give him the entire 12 GB library.  I’m not exactly the kind of person who enjoys sitting and listening to music, so I sat him down in front of my computer, taught him how to use the mouse pad, and made him click and listen to each song.  After twenty or so minutes, he just ecstatically bursts out, “Look at me!  All of the other drivers are sitting outside in the heat, but here I am, at a computer, listening to music!” Apparently it was his first time at the controls of a computer.  And he wasn’t rejoicing in it just to be happy to learn how to use one.  He was happy because, as he said, he was experiencing something that those now ‘below’ him did not get to experience.   It set him apart.  He was special.  

I believe my reaction is a bit different than what was said in the book about Americans.  I’ve always known what I want.   When I was a kid, reading Little Women, I was always a bit worried when it came to the chapter on building castles in the sky.  For those of you unfamiliar with the story, it is set in New England around the time of the Civil War.  In this chapter, they are describing their dream futures.  Sixteen year old Meg wants a handsome, incredibly rich husband and wonderful dream home, fifteen year old Jo dreams of being a world famous authoress, twelve year old Amy of being a world famous artist, and thirteen year old Beth?  Beth just wanted a happy, unchanging home close to her family.   I was like Beth. For heaven’s sake, I cried when my parents re-sided our home and got rid of the tarpaper brick exterior.  I am not good with change. I was a bit ashamed of coveting Beth’s castle.  Sure, I wanted to be a writer, like Jo.  But not at the expense of my family.  I think it has always been most important to be near and dear to a family.   Of course, which book character dies?  Beth, the one with no ambitions.    So I was secretly worried that I too would die if I didn’t find something to be passionate about, career-wise rather than baseball-wise.  

Well, fifteen to twenty or so years later, I haven’t changed.  I'm still stubborn and fearful of change. Yes, like the person in Holy Cow said, I’m an American looking for something I don’t have.  But the difference is that I had it. And we voluntarily left it behind, to seek my husband’s castle instead.  No wonder I’m grumpy here.   I don’t care to own designer purses and jeans.  I don’t need a designer job.  Yes, a job is a way of ensuring your family can happily exist, but I could never exist just for a job (that is the problem with grad school….) I just want a family that can be close, care, and joke together.  Being here in India just puts that further and further away each day.  Thank goodness for Skype, at least.  

I was reading reviews on Holy Cow, and some people (read that as Indians) really hate it.   But her personal experiences are all true.  Women lose their self-confidence here.  Men creep us out when they look at us.  Fortunately, I haven’t been groped, but you hear stories about it all the time.  Instead of complaining about her text, why don’t these people tell men to stop harassing white women?  I can be dressed from head-to-toe in Indian attire, and I still won’t feel completely at ease around the men here.  That isn’t to say I am not safe.  But feeling safe and comfortable are two completely different stories. But it is the freaks that creep her out.  It is just honestly. 

I’m sure, when people look at America through new eyes, they see many issues that we are blind to, having been indoctrinated in the culture since birth.  When you are used to a country, you don’t see the glaring faults.  Maybe I will spot many more faults when I return home to America.  But it is the reviewers who are blind, not Sarah.  Every country has faults.  It is better to admit it, fix them, and move on then to ignore them and try to deny them.  Her book expresses exactly how I feel in the country, so there must be some truth in it.  

One dark night, while we were all in bed….

The opening words to the song immortalizing Chicago’s great fire. 

Last night in Bandra (where I live) there was a huge fire.  Apparently there were 26 fire trucks and 12 water tanks.  It was only two miles from my home, in a slum neighborhood that I drive past each day on the way to teach.  In India, expensive homes sit right next to every slum so it sounds like both houses and slum shanties were burned.  The articles talked about houses and slums, at least. 

It just so happens I was not in the city last night.   I’ve been home when they are burning trash (there doesn't seem to be any anti-disgusting laws here), and the smell is horrific. I can’t imagine how bad this must have been- sounds, sights. 

The fire started (so they suppose in one of the news articles) when five gas cylinders exploded.  It was apparently aided by a strong wind.  It lasted for six hours, and so far, eleven people have been injured, although the newspapers say that probably many people might have been trapped within the slums. 

 The other, more popular theory is that building developers started the fire.  It is a piece of prime real estate, and, if I’ve been reading the articles correctly, was scheduled for being demolished and built upon in a few months/years/some point in the future (you can’t really nail down deadlines in this country).  Apparently the same thing happened two years ago, and the fire was believed to be started by the developers then, too. 

Well, if that is true, it is absolutely disgusting.  I just don’t even know how to react to such ideas. People who already had nothing losing more.  2000 people who lost their homes.  Bad enough if it is an accident, but if it was planned?   How can people be so heartless?

For some reason, it seems like tragedies seem easier to ignore when there are many numbers of faceless people hurt, rather than just one face to focus on and pity.  So here is your one face- the female child star of slumdog millionaire.  She still lived there with her family.  She lost everything- her photographs and film memorabilia, at least.  Her money is in a trust she can't access until she is an adult.

The newspapers in India have of course been reporting the story.  What struck me as odd was how many of the comments by people were negative- people frustrated that the articles focused on this one girl, rather than the overall tragedy.  But I think people care more when they have a face to put with it.  It is just human nature to care more about people we know than we don’t know…   So I don't necessarily think it was a wrong or bad thing to discuss that girl.

Anyhow, I know it is short, and not too fun, but I just wanted to share this since it was so very close to my home, and so awful to think about. 

http://www.rediff.com/news/report/mumbai-fire-engulfs-slum-bandra-east-behrampada/20110304.htm

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Mumbai-Major-fire-guts-slum-in-Bandra-11-injured/articleshow/7629096.cms

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1363195/Child-star-Slumdog-Millionaire-loses-owns-huge-hut-fire.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/fire-in-slum-near-bandra-station-doused-9-hurt/145024-3.html