The Staff :-)

I agonize a lot over how to behave and where to draw the lines with the maid, the cooks and the driver. We also need to be careful about security especially since Prasad and I are generally lax about these things. How often do we need to check up on them when they are in the house. We don't want to appear not to trust them but at the same time we don't want to appear to be lax. They all come with good references but the disparity of income is so huge and for them I'm sure they think that we won't miss the item and really we won't. Rushil especially likes our driver and he likes to horse around with him and play with him. I want the driver to be focussed on driving which he is but with Rushil around, it's not always easy. Indians love young children and generally you will find at least one or two people in a store, doctor's office, hotel, contruction zone, that will want to engage your kid. It's a very lovely trait that Indians have.

Move into our new home

We moved to our new home about 1.5 weeks back, we're quite settled in and it seems like we moved in a few months ago. We're not unpacked fully but since my Oct 15th deadline (going back to work) is creeping up quickly, I'll have to be unpacked by then. We found a maid, a cook, a gardener so we're fully staffed now ;-) Kids catch a bus at the gate which is a very short walk from our house and Rushil has plenty of space to ride his bike in the compound. There is a clubhouse which has a pool, park and tennis courts. Many kids convene at the park in the evenings. The kids have made a couple of friends in the neighborhood. Our shipment from the US has arrived in very good condition. The rooms are large in the house so our furniture fit in quite well. We have a lot of windows though (the house is very bright) so I've spent quite some time getting curtains. I'm not sure if folks remember our dining room chairs, but they are a bright cream colour and only after 2 weeks, we already have food stains on them, luckily I found an upholsterer so I'm getting covers made for the chairs. After the first 2 nights , Prasad had to go to the US, so I was on my own with the kids. Initially I was scared but the place feels quite safe since it is a gated community so we all did fine. There is a lot of construction in the area as new houses are getting built every day and typically it takes a least a year for a house to be built. At least one set of contruction workers stay on site, intially I was a bit worried about this but I think it actually works in our favor since someone is always overlooking the house. They are very curious and always know who is entering and leaving the house.

This community has many NRIs but mostly folks that have moved back from the US. There are a few foreign expats but they mostly keep to themselves. It has a nice mix of a crowd and therefore still feels like you're in India but probably a more affluent one. Most of the kids from the Sindhu and Rushil's school live in Whitefield mainly in Palm Meadows or Prestige Ozone communities so playdates with friends from school is not easily possible so they will have to make friends in the neighborhood (the pitfalls of not going to public school :-))

More on schools

I'm still amazed at how the school is able to put on these multiple big events on short notice and with frequency. In the US, the kids had one or two events of this size and we've already had 2 of them in the first month of school. I had volunteered to do a poster for Rushil's classroom for International Day. The theme was the similarities of Pakistan and India. I don't even know if Rushil understood the theme. My poster was on the similarities of the climate and geography of the 2 countries, I know Rushil really did not get, it's more of something Sindhu would understand. Anyway, I spent a whole day researching the project, downloading pictures and a good part of the day trying to find a place to print out the pictures. There are so many internet shops but very few have color printers. After trying a few places, I finally found a photo shop that would print the pictures for a much cheaper price. They said they would give me the pictures the next day but I begged them to print them out that day. They agreed, this is what I love about India. If you beg/cajole, people are willing to bend the rules for you because they have "heart". Anyway, the kids have too many projects, we need to get our color printer working, otherwise, I'll be scrambling every other week like this :-) I'm using more of the books/resources at home then I ever did in the US.

Sindhura and Rushil's school provide breakfast, lunch and snacks so it's quite wonderful since I don't have to provide meals. This week, Rushil came home and said one of his friends brings a lunch from home every day and he wants me to pack a lunch :-( After much negotiating, we agreed I would provide 2 week and he would eat lunch at school the other days. Now I need to get the cook trained to make this lunch for him :-)

Pest Control

My friend Raji has prompted me to blog more often and especially about some of the incidents we've experienced at our new home.

First off, day 1, we had ants. These tiny ants but boy are they pesky. They were getting into everything. I called a pest control company and they said they can give a herbal spray which I can use whenever I see ants. When I asked them what was in the spray, they had no idea but assured me it was herbal. I decided to give it a try and the ants are gone for now. When the man was spraying in my kitchen and I was moving all the items, he said "m'am, it's herbal, don't worry " He didn't even know what was in the spray, how can I believe him? I'm just waiting to try out the herbal cockroach remedy which I'm sure I'll have to use sometime during my stay here :-)

A few days after we arrived into our home, our porch lights and doorbell stop working. After pestering the electrician for a few days, he finally arrived and told me that rats ate the electrical wiring and it had to be replaced!! Our bathroom is located in the same area where the electrical wiring is located. One day later, my maid found a decapitated rat on the bathroom floor!! I freaked out and sent an email to the landlord asking him to close off all passages for rats to get into my house, I'm sure he thought I was a fool but he did agree to look into it. I guess the positive aspect to this is that the maid had no problem cleaning up the bathroom and removing the rat and I'm extremely grateful for this... To be honest, every time I walk into the bathroom, I'm a bit scared of what I will find in there...

Everyone has seen lizards on the walls in most people's home in India. I'm a little freaked out over them but have accepted that lizards will be in the home, the kids get excited when they see them. So the other day I see small lizard on the wall and thought I would ask the driver if he can somehow remove and put it outside. The driver came in and was successful in pushing the lizard outside and the kids were there and there was a lot of excitement in the house. He however told me that lizards are very poisonous and if they contaminate the food or water, it is certain death. The maid also qualified this. So I did a quick google and it seems the household gecko is harmless and if anything it eats bugs and keeps the number of pests down, maybe I should invite the geckos to our house to keep the mosquitos down because Sindhu found out about malaria and is paranoid if she gets one bite.

Impresson of Americans

This weekend I read Chetan Bhagat's "one night @ the call center". Chetan Bhagat you may recall is an IIT/IIM graduate who wrote his first book on his experiences at IIT, I didn't read that one. He is the biggest all-time English Indian . A movie based on the call center book was just released this week. He has authored three books. The call center one is a very easy read, can be finished in one day. It was however somewhat of an eye opener for me. He seemed to be quite a American basheror at least the characters in the novel did not like Americans. They portrayed Americans in a bad light (unintelligent fools) . I wasn't sure if this is the general opinion of Indians or just call center workers :-) Throughout the book he took potshots Americans but at the same time, the characters were envious of the Americans. I'm curious to see the movie now mainly to see if Americans are portrayed in the same way. I guess I shouldn't be surprised since the rest of the world has a similar opinion, they seem to hate America but at the same time are awestruck by Americans.

On a side note, I was telling Prasad, that it would have been fun to work at a call center as my first job. He looked at me like I was crazy but why not? You hang out with young twenty-somethings, they all travel together to and from work, and they socialize outside of the office. Although the work may be mundane,the pay is apparently quite good.