Sindhu Turns 10 Today!

Sleepover Gang

I thought I was going to write up this prolific post and sum up Sindhu's last 10 years but it's not as easy as I thought. So instead, I'll write about how she celebrated her birthday

Friday - Sleepover with three of her friends. Pasta dinner, hoola hoop contests, they wrote up a play and peformed for us, saw the movie Enchanted and they finally fell asleep.

Saturday morning - Friends from school and the complex all strolled in at 11AM. We started with a few games until Prasad was ready with the main event, a Treasure Hunt. He hid envelopes which had pieces of a puzzle throughout our building so we had 15 kids running throughout the building and amazingly, they actually found all the envelopes. Then he wrote a clue behind the puzzle which led the group to the cupcakes at the security entrance. By the time they got back to the apartment, half the cupcakes were already eaten. Pizza, snacks and more cupcakes were served and back to more games. We were exhausted, at least Prasad and I were. The kids then headed upstairs for another birthday party, they certainly had a fun-filled day.

Sunday - Today is Sindhu's actual birthday. Sindhu and Rushil spent the morning doing their homework. Our original plan was to take them to see the movie, "A Christmas Carol" but it wasn't released in Bangalore yet. We went to the mall and spent an hour at Crosswords, Sindhu's favourite bookstore. I read 1/3 of Chetan Bhagat's latest book, Sindhu finished yet another Geronimo Stilton book, Prasad browsed many of the shelves and Rushil more or less wandered around the bookstore.

Rushil is a little proud his sister has two digits in her age, he can't wait till he turns 10 but I can. One of Sindhu's 5th grade teachers summed her up really well. She said that Sindhu is always smiling, friendly, sweet tempered, considerate and really loves to band the class together when a reward is involved. I'm amazed that 10 years have gone by.

Government School Visit

Today my team and I visited a school and volunteered during their lunch period. This program was arranged by a wonderful organization called Akshaya Patra which feeds 2 lakh children a mid-day meal in Karnataka. They also feed senior citizens and the leftovers go to other local schools nearby. The program has been extended to others parts of India due to its huge success. They have 2 kitchens in Bangalore and apparently it's marvel to watch the production line they have setup to achieve this enormous task on a daily basis. The student teacher ratio in government schools is 40 children to 1 one teacher. This school had 40 children from grades 1-5 all in one class taught by the same teacher. The children were thrilled to see us. Since they only spoke Kannada, it was hard for me to communicate but some of the Kannada speaking team engaged the children. They asked them to sing songs which they obliged, two girls did a small dance while the students sang a song, they introduced themselves and one girl bravely introduced herself in English, that same girl later said that she wanted to work at Cisco when asked what she wanted to be when she grew up. 80% of the girls wanted to be teachers, the rest doctors and engineers. 60% of the boys wanted to be policeman and the rest cricket players, doctors, engineers and one boy wanted to be a soldier. When asked how they would achieve their goals, they all chimed, "They need to study hard!" The food arrived in these huge pots, the children washed their own plates, stood in line for kichidi and a sweet (menu varies everyday) , sat on the ground and ate the food with their hands. Later they asked us to try the food (I must admit, I was a little uncomfortable eating on their plates as they only cleaned them with water and the plates were still wet but I didn't want to be rude). The food was delicious! A representative from Akshaya Patra accompanied us and told us that the government subsidizes 50% of the meal and the rest comes from donors. Originally, they started with a few schools but when enrollment increased in those schools, the goverment asked Akshaya to provide meals to more schools. This is the only meal of the day for many students, they all ate every bit of food on their plate although some of the children opted only for the sweet but we were told the children are offered the meal again later in the day. It seems that many other programs were tried, the government gave rice to the families but the fathers would sell the rice in exchange for alcohol. They also tried providing rice, lentils, and vegetables to the schools but the teachers did not have enough time to cook for the children and teach the curriculum and most of the food was taken home by the teachers. This particular project seems to be successful. The whole experience was certainly an eye opener for me.

House Hunting

Last year when we were looking for apartments, it was mind boggling to see how dirty and filthy the apartments and homes were. It was either because they were still under construction, uninhabited for many days or the family simply didn't bother to clean the home. At the beginning of our search, we were discouraged, the only complex that I was impressed with was the one we're living in now and even then the apartments were dusty and dirty. Most of the time, I couldn't even enter the bathrooms for fear of what I would see :-) The relocation expert assured us that the bathrooms and kitchen would be acid washed. After a few weeks of searching, we became accustomed to viewing unkept apartments and started visualizing how they could look rather than looking at them at face value. Considering how cheap labour is, we don't understand why people don't hire someone to keep the property clean, I can understand if the apartment is under active construction but if not, there is really no excuse.

We also found out that pretty much everything didn't work (water, electricity, internet connections, gas connections, etc..) and we should have planted ourselves at the apartment every day rather than waiting till the day before we moved.

Tips and what to look for:

1) Talk to your neighbors and find out how active the community is, whether they allow tenants to join their alias, (if you're renting), whether they have a cultural communitee and how often they have events. Unless you're local to the city, the best way to enjoy your stay/move is to socialize with your neighbors. If you don't think you'll be on the same wavelength with them, think twice before moving there.

2) Smells, you need to visit the complex at different times to see if there are any odd smells or if they burn the garbage next to your complex or something odd like that.

3) Check the complex between 5-6pm, if it's bustling with children, you know that your children will have a lot of fun, if it's quiet and hardly anyone is out, they likely won't.

4) Check the clubhouse on weekends or evenings to see how active it is. If the gym is not being used, then likely the equipment is not in good condition.

5) Ask repeatedly if there are any other clubhouse or maintenance charges other than what is listed on the lease. It should be stipulated in the lease that no other charges will be made. We were told after moving into our first home that we had to pay another 10K Rs to use the clubhouse, we were not pleased.

6) Get to know the maintenance staff and be nice to them, they'll be your saviours as something or another will go wrong every few weeks, namely your power will randomly be turned off either because some fuse has blown or because you were late in paying the bill (they will turn off the power 2 weeks after you paid the bill as a warning not to make a late payment or even if you weren't late, some computer error will trigger the shutoff).

7) As soon as you move, maids, drivers, cooks will come calling, initally, I was worried about how to find them but they find you.

8) Check to see if the community has a water problem. If a tanker is the primary source of water, you should probably avoid that complex.

9) Make sure the complex has an automatic power backup system that works, it's a must!!

10) A gated community is the way to go. You will feel safe, your kids can roam safely and there is usually enough space for walking or doing other sports in a somewhat pollution free environment.

The Alchemist

Prasad and I went to see the theatrical production of the novel "The Alchemist" written by Paulo Coelho. The play was directed by Mahesh Dattani and the screenplay adaptation was written by Deepa Gahlo. It was very well done, more professional than "A Brief Candle". It's about a young boy Santiago who has dream to go to the Pyramids and find a treasure and how people that he encounters in his journey especially the alchemist encourage him to pursue his dream . The actor that played the Alchemist was excellent, the young boy who played Santiago also wrote the musical scores is very talented at such a young age. There were certain parts that were a bit slow and needed more energy but the show inspired us to go and read the book. I'm really quite impressed with the Bangalore theatre scene, next week Naseeruddin Shah is acting in an English production, we won't be going but I'm sure we'll get a chance to see him one time or another. One thing we haven't done is attend a classical dance or musical program which is pretty pathetic, we need to schedule that in soon.

Amar's Visit

After much complaining and whining on my part, Amar booked a quick trip to Bangalore and spent Friday night and Saturday with us. We mostly hung out at our apartment on Friday night and Saturday morning. For lunch we went to Rajdhani's at UB City Mall, then I dragged everyone to Ritu Kumar's and then we headed to Commercial Street. I'm sure shopping was not Amar's favourite way of spending the afternoon but he was a trooper! It was great catching up with him, he shared pictures and short videos of Ananya on his iPhone and filled us in with the latest on Sonu and the playgroup. I'm impressed with the way Amar and Sonu are managing a successful business and how they are still able to balance spending time with their family and friends.

Too embarrassed to say anything

Rushil's class had a small End of Unit celebration at school today. Prasad attended the event. At the end of the show, Prasad noticed that Rushil's eye was puffed up and he had bumps all over his face. One of his friends shared his snack and Rushil had an allergic reaction to it. The worst part was that the teachers were so wrapped up in the celebration, they didn't even notice. I asked Rushil if he knew he had reacted to the food and he said yes but he was too embarrassed to say anything so he endured the uncomfortableness and carried on with the show. Prasad took him to the infirmary and got him some benadryl. I guess he was fine as he went out to play with his friends after school. But when I saw him, he looked like he had gotten into a fight, his eye was still puffy. He hasn't had a reaction like this in a long time, it was a reminder to us that we still need to be careful with him, ofcourse his eczema will never let us forget. I'm thankful, it was nothing more than this .

Inspiring, yes?

Padmasree Warrior, Cisco's CTO was visiting Bangalore last week and I attended a WAN (Women's Action Network) event which hosted her for an hour or so. Every time I attend one of these sessions where a female executive gives advice to a room full of women, I ask myself, do I really aspire to be her? Most of the time, the answer is no. I asked Prasad and he said that I definitely don't aspire to be CEO or a high ranking executive at a large company and that if I did, I probably would have shows signs of it years ago :-) I was curious to meet Padmasree, she is very attractive, slim (apparently works out every day), hair set just right, was wearing an elegant sari and jewelry . She obviously knows how to present herself. She speaks eloquently, is calm and confident and was able to respond to all the questions with ease, I found that aspect of her to be very impressive. Because it was a WAN event, she shared some details about her personal life: she has a 16 year old son that attends a top notch boarding school in Illinois, she grew up in Vijaywada and her mother tongue is Telugu, she did Chemical Engineering at IIT Delhi and met her husband there which explains the last name and she discussed how she was able to juggle or integrate being a mother, a wife and a successful career woman. She started at Motorola as a line engineer at a manufacturing plant, was promoted to line manager within a year and shortly after that, she ran the engineering team and eventually promoted to CTO of Motorola, a remarkable career. I usually pencil these events into my calendar and something or another comes up, I'm glad I took the time out to meet her, if nothing other than to satisfy my curiosity.

Mithun and Nikki's Wedding - Part 2

Snathakam Ceremony - Mithun is on his way to Kasi and Nikki's brother intercepts him and asks him to marry his sister and go to Kasi later.

Sthali Paakam Ceremony.

Us with my 2nd cousin Sagar. His father is my mother's cousin.

Shilpa (Mithun's sister/my maternal cousin) and Ravi (my paternal cousin)

Me and my pinni (my mother's sister) . Wonder if I'll ever stop slouching...

Kids were on cloud nine when they discovered they were serving cotton candy at the wedding.

Highlights of the wedding:

• Pelli koduku ceremony in the morning at an ungodly hour. I'm sure it went well, although we wouldn't know, we were sound asleep.
• Snathakam at around 10AM. Poor Mithun had to endure a homam first thing in the morning. We all snacked on delicious pessaratulu (andhra style dosa made with moong dal) for breakfast.
• For lunch, we had a scrumptious pelli bhojanam (wedding feast) served sitting down. I highlight this because the meals served on the banana leaf during weddings are the most enjoyable as you can have a leisurely sit-down meal. During the reception, the meal is served buffet style and usually there are never enough seats, you can only enjoy the meal to a certain extent if you have to stand up.
• After lunch, we stopped in to see my cousin, I changed into a new sari, got my hair done at a salon, Sindhu got her nails done and the stylist helped me redo my sari, I was wearing a chiffon style sari which is hard to put on and keep on. I highly recommend the Lakme salon in Himatnagar, I went there based on Shilpa's recommendation and it's the best Lakme salon I've been to.
• Mithun looked like a model in the suit for the edurkolu. Nikki looked stunning in the madhu parkham (white sari with red border). They both seemed to enjoy the festivites and were beaming. I think it was only at the end of the ceremony during the homam that they looked exhausted and tired which I remember from my wedding as the most painful part of the ceremony.
• Indira Attaya (Mithun's mother) is related to Jaya Sudha, a Telugu movie star from the 70s and 80s and she attended the wedding. I was briefly introduced to her and after the introduction, I didn't know what else to say to her. Apparently others took pictures with her but my camera was downstairs somewhere so I didn't bother. I was later introduced to her mother who was very sweet and we spoke for a few minutes.
• There were some relatives I recognized, some I met for the first time. I especially enjoyed chatting with my Suvarnam bamma (my paternal grandmother's sister), she reminds me of my grandmother and her zest for life. There are so many relatives in Hyderabad whom we cannot possibly meet during our short 2-3 day trips, so weddings are a great way to reconnect with them.
• Next morning, we popped in to see Kishore and Prasad's uncle for breakfast. Next we headed to the last wedding festivity, Satyanaraya Vratham followed by another fantastic meal. Lastly, we stopped in to see Prasad's mammaya for a couple of hours and took the flight back. As always, our trips to Hyderabad are too short.

Children's Day

Today is Children's Day and they had a huge celebration at our complex. They had setup 20-25 stalls selling clothing, jewelry, food, promoting new businesses, and there was a one section for children's games. Sindhu and Rushil each participated in a game stall. They had Bollywood music blasting throughout the complex and they had setup karoake so even the adults were entertained. I was quite impressed with the whole affair and S & R had a wonderful time!

Mithun and Nikki's Wedding - Part 1

It was the wedding I had been looking forward to for months. It was an opportunity to see my cousin's wedding, to go to Hyderabad and see relatives we had not met in years, to get all decked up, to shop for saris, and for the children to experience a wedding in India.

Friday night was the Ladies' Sangeet/Bachelor's party. Nikki's cousin used to be an event coordinator and has hosted Sangeet parties in the past so he put on quite a show. They had intros, impromptu speeches, short dance skits, mehndi artists, chat stalls, and lots of lots of dancing. Rushil spent most of the evening trying to show off his breakdance moves and finally got the attention of the MC and the videographer. Later he whispered to me, "I felt a little famous" :-) Sindhu hovered around the mehndi artist, she got one hand done and then waited patiently till everyone was done to get her second hand painted. She begged Prasad and I not to dance that night saying that I dance like a "crazy person" and Prasad like an "old man" :-) Nikki and Mithun enjoyed the evening, we all did, it was a great way to relax and chill before the next day's more serious ceremonies took place.

Shocking tidbits in the newspaper

Horrified to read in the paper this morning that a nanny who was hired to take care of a 7 month old baby was instead taking the baby out for begging. She rented out the baby for 100 Rs to other beggars while she sat at home watching tv. The mother came home early and found the nanny at home but no baby. When questioned, the nanny confessed that she had been sedating the infant and renting him out for begging. Just mind boggling and shocking...
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsgeneral.php?id=452949

The Train Ride

Prasad booked 1st Class AC tickets on the train to Hyderabad. Not sure why since if we dished out a bit more money, we could have booked flight tickets. Prasad looks forward to train rides, he has many fond memories of travelling by train with his family. I on the other hand dread train rides, awful bathrooms, cockroaches, need I say more? Since it was an overnight train ride, I was able to avoid the bathrooms but there were passengers going all the way to Delhi, imagine 2 days on a train!

He booked the tickets two months in advance but they seated each of us in a separate cabin! Prasad swapped cabins with another couple and we were all able to sit together. The first thing the couple said when they heard Sindhu speak was that if you're from the US, you will not like this train car. We were on the Rajdhani Express to Delhi and the first class cabins were old and tired. The 2nd class AC cars were much newer and nicer according to the kids. We chatted with the couple during dinner and they shared details about their daughter who lives in the US, how she did her master's, secured a job 6 months ago and that the US is such a horrible place to live so their daughter will definitely move back in a year. They are a well travelled couple, he just retired from the air force and has been abroad many times. Prasad and I were politely smiling when he said, that the life in the US is for the dogs, that Americans are so stupid and how the best place to live is in India. They were a lively couple and quite entertaining but it's interesting how every so often we'll meet a couple that is so passionately anti-US and so blatantly vocal about it :-)

So more drama ensued after that.

1) The train security brought in dogs to sniff out drugs and weapons, I screamed out so loud as I didn't expect a dog to enter our cabin.

2) Sindhu was mortified that there was a door to our cabin and with the possibility that we could get locked in. She spent pretty much the whole 10 hours on the train obsessing about the door and even woke up repeatedly at night begging us to keep the door open. We kept it open so we could get some sleep even though, I had gold jewelry and expensive saris and thought it would be safer if the door was closed. A couple of months ago, Sindhu got locked into the one of the bathrooms at the clubhouse and has since been nervous about getting locked into confined spaces. For a few weeks, she avoided the elevators and climbed up seven flights of stairs every day. The other day, she and her friend were stuck in the elevator for a minute when the power went out, Sindhu swore she wouldn't ever get into an elevator, fortunately, she has gotten over that.

3) Rushil insisted that he sleep on the top bunk. I was petrified he would fall off, another reason that I couldn't sleep.

I'm whining quite a bit here but the ride wasn't so bad. The staff on the train was wonderful and accomodating. We'll probably go to Hyderabad by train again but this time around, 2nd class AC for sure.

Charminar

Bangle Shop, this picture just doesn't do justice.

The man who took this picture charged us 5 Rs and he knew the exact spot where you could get a full view of the Charminar. He had to step out into the traffic to take this picture, not something I would do.

View from Charminar

Rushil was being ever so cooperative :-) Sindhu decided the trip to Charminar wasn't worth her time and stayed back at Prasad's aunt's place, she regretted the decision later.

We arrived by train on Friday morning, freshened up, had breakfast at Prasad's aunt's place, lunch at Prasad's uncle's place and then headed out to Charminar in the late afternoon. The last time I was in Charminar, it was maybe 20 years ago. We climbed to the top of Charminar and had an excellent view of the old parts of the city of Hyderabad and many examples of fine Islamic architecture, the key ones being Mecca Masjid andUnani hospital. Behind Charminar, they have a long street of bangle shops and I don't think I have ever seen such an impressive collection before, some of the wedding sets are simply stunning! The routine is that I pick out the bangles and Prasad and his cousin sweep in to do the bargaining. Prasad is tough and walks out if he doesn't get his price. His cousin, Kishore who was visiting from Dallas was more lax and Prasad joked how the US had softened him up. I picked up a few sets of lovely glittery bangles in different colours. The Charminar area is also famous for its pearl shops, Kishore had a family friend who owned a wholesale pearl store and I picked up a couple of string of pearls. What a fun day, we headed back home and got dressed up for the first of the wedding festivities, the Ladies Sangeet.