Happy Hallowalli!

Happy Hallowalli

Today is Halloween.  Halloween has always been my favorite holiday of the year.  When I was much younger, I don’t think I knew why, but I loved it.  And it wasn’t for the candy (not that I didn’t love the candy).  As I grew to know myself I realized that for someone naturally shy, an observer more than an eager participant, I love Halloween because I could try on any persona without being judged.  I could try to be scary or funny or silly or sexy.  I could be Marilyn Monroe, the Cat in the Hat, a snake having eaten a rat, a witch, a pirate, a jester.  Once I had kids, I loved making it special for them, hoping to make it magical.  For George’s first Halloween I made a little lamb costume.  I do believe he was the cutest little lamb to ever live (at least until his sister wore the same costume some years later). 

George, age 2.5 months

Grace, age 5 months

Alexander, age 5 months

This year was much more difficult.  I didn’t plan ahead for Halloween when we were leaving Seattle, and didn’t think about how hard it might be to find costumes in India.  Grace and Alex’s preschool did a Halloween celebration about a week before Halloween.  Luckily I did OK for that.  Grace was happy wearing clothing with kitties on it and having whiskers and a kitty nose and mouth painted on her face with my liquid eyeliner.  Alexander had his Buzz Lightyear costume, including inflatable wings and he wanted me to  draw Buzz’s silly eyebrows and chin dimple! 

Then we had another lucky break when Chris had to go to Europe and England the week before Halloween and his Mum, Nana, came through amazingly, buying each child a skeleton costume, bags of candy and Halloween decorations.  Saved by Nana and Daddy!

Halloween, of course, is not a celebrated holiday in India, but the kids didn’t want to miss out.  The final day of Diwali was the 30^th, so our house was nicely decorated with colored lights and orange flower gardlands.  On Halloween night, our wonderful expat neighbors, Rose and Ian, brought over fireworks for the neighborhood men to do for the kids.  So George, Grace and Alexander dressed up in their skeleton costumes, and Grace and George had me paint their faces like Day of the Dead, and I did mine too.  Chris put on a Farm Co-Op hat and a scary face and he was a “Trump Supporter.”  (It was a Wheaton Co-Op hat, so I hope I didn’t insult my wonderful Wheaton cousins.)  

We went outside to join the neighbors (Indian and English and Scottish) to oohs and aaahs at the costumes, and “wow,  Mam!” to my facepaint.  The men lit fireworks and the kids laughed and played and watched with glee.  Then, anxious to Trick-or-Treat, we sent Rose and Ian home so we could knock on their door.  They were lovely and invited the kids in to get some Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. 

Just so that wasn’t the end of the Trick-or-Treating, Chris ran home and we went to the double front doors of our house and the kids rang the doorbell.  Daddy opened it and passed out candy.  And because they were exhausted, the kids ate some candy and went right to sleep.  So with fireworks, facepaints, colored lights and candy, we had a very happy Hallowalli.

Our First Diwali

We celebrated our first Diwali this week.  Diwali is India's biggest and most important holiday of the year.  Diwali is a five day celebration that Indians nationwide celebrate with strings of lights, oil lanterns, festive sand decorations called rangoli, flowers, fireworks, sharing sweets, and for many, worship of the Goddess Lakshmi.  Diwali is known as the Festival of Lights, honoring Lakshmi, Goddess of prosperity.  Many people light their doors or steps with glowing candles or glittering oil lamps to guide Lakshmi into their homes.  It is a family celebration where the family feasts together on the foods they've prepared in Lakshmi's honor and stay up all night to bring in the new year and welcome prosperity.  

In Pune it seems to be celebrated mostly with really loud fireworks.  But unlike fireworks celebrations in the US where people tend to gather to attend large shows or gather in neighborhoods to set some off together, here it seems that every home does fireworks, and large, loud explosives are especially popular.

Our caretaker, Balu, helped us to decorate with strings of lights, and his wife made a different rangoli each night on our front steps and in the driveway below a lighted decoration, in the reflected light from above.

In Aundh, the closest part of town where we usually shop, there were piles of marigolds everywhere, with men and women stringing them onto garlands to be purchased to decorate homes and businesses.  We bought some from a couple different vendors and hung them on our driveway's gate and above our front door. 

I didn't ask this man if I could take his photo, which was really rude.  But when I apologized he gave me a giant smile.  And I bought two garlands from him.

Each night the rangoli changed to represent the different days in the festival.  The children were even invited to help create the rangoli on 2 of the days.  

Even the malls and shopping centers were highly decorated with rangoli and festive lights.

Balu works as our caretaker.  He came with the home.  He and his family live in a small apartment behind our garage on the driveway.  They are lovely people who have helped us out so much.  When George got sick and needed to be rushed to a doctor, Balu's wife and 6 month old daughter rode with us to translate and make sure we made it there safely.  Their kindness has made us feel like we can do this.  Without them, I'm not sure I would feel like we could get past the culture shock and make a real life here.  Usually people give their staff (they're still called servants here, but I am really uncomfortable with that word) a bonus at the end of the year.  Diwali is the biggest holiday, so that is the best time to make the gift.  While Balu has only worked for us for one month, he's been a lifesaver.  I think he was very pleasantly surprised when we gave him a month's salary as bonus on Diwali.  He went out the next day and bought some beautiful little dresses for Adniya.  We chose to honor him early in our relationship both to recognize his kindness and show our thanks, and as a good faith gesture.  He rewarded us with a very fun Diwali celebration, lighting fireworks for the kids and putting up lights and creating rangoli.  He made us feel like a welcome part of the celebration.  And the best part is that he truly delights in our children.

 

Even Starbucks had a beautiful rangoli out front.

View from our tuck-tuk ride to do some shopping

Our housekeeper's daughter, and Gracie's new friend, Gaytri, dressed in her holiday best.

The decorations on our gate.

Balu and Sudniya, giggling like school kids when the fireworks go off.

From National Geographic Kids: http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/diwali/#diwali_candles.jpg

Over the centuries, Diwali has become a national festival that is enjoyed by most Indians regardless of faith: Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, and Sikhs.

Hindus interpret the Diwali story based upon where they live:

• In northern India they celebrate the story of King Rama's return to Ayodhya after he defeated Ravana by lighting rows of clay lamps.
• Southern India celebrates it as the day that Lord Krishna defeated the demon Narakasura.
• In western India the festival marks the day that Lord Vishnu, the Preserver (one of the main gods of the Hindu trinity) sent the demon King Bali to rule the nether world.

In all interpretations, one common thread rings true—the festival marks the victory of good over evil.

Non-Hindu communities have other reasons for celebrating the holiday:

• In Jainism, it marks the nirvana or spiritual awakening of Lord Mahavira on October 15, 527 B.C.
• In Sikhism it marks the day that Guru Hargobind Ji, the Sixth Sikh Guru was freed from imprisonment.

INDIAN NEW YEAR 

SEE MY SHOT PICS OF DIWALI

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Five Days of Diwali

On the first day of Diwali, people consider it auspicious to spring clean the home 

and shop for gold or kitchen utensils.

On the second day, people decorate their homes with clay lamps and create 

design patterns called rangoli on the floor using colored powders or sand.

The third day is the main day of the festival when families gather together for 

Lakshmi puja, a prayer to Goddess Lakshmi followed by mouth-watering feasts and 

firework festivities.

The fourth day is the first day of the new year when friends and relatives visit with gifts 

and best wishes for the season.

On the last day of Diwali, brothers visit their married sisters who welcome them with 

love and a lavish meal.

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Contrast, Part 2

I am constantly trying to quantify the contrasts that are India, or at least Pune.  But they evade me.  It’s as if I cannot fathom all I can see.  My brain does not know how to translate it.  I remember the Nisqually Earthquake in Seattle in 2001.  I had just finished an appointment with my broker in downtown Seattle.  I came down the elevator from the 24^th floor, the elevator doors opened, and as I stepped out, the ground shook and there was an enormous boom.  There was a lot of construction going on outside, so I assumed it was related.  I walked out the doors to the sidewalk and looked right, up 4^th Avenue.  I stood and stared as the road, the entire, asphalt city street for several blocks was making a wave.  It was actually rising and falling like a sound wave.  And the high-rise buildings on either side were swaying with the rise and fall of the street, left to right, tilting at improbable angles.  It was not possible.  It was impossible.  My mind could not interpret what it was seeing because it was so beyond my realm of experience and of belief.  I just stared, frozen to the spot, until my brain heard someone say, “earthquake.”  That word was within my realm of experience and understanding, so I was then able to react and move.

This is how I feel about India.  So much of what I see is within my realm of experience.  I understand it.  But right next to all of the things I can comprehend, are things that I cannot.  I think it’s like the earthquake.  I know something is happening, that I’m seeing something different, but I can’t comprehend it.  My brain cannot translate it into anything familiar. It’s too far outside my realm of experience. 

But then you begin to adjust.  Enough becomes known or experienced, that you start to put things into your own perspective.  Today I was being driven to a shop to buy my kids “traditional Indian wear” for Diwali celebrations at school tomorrow.  And as we went around a corner in Aundh, my mind said, “that looks like that neighborhood in San Francisco where Andy used to live,” without, of course, using words.  When that thought reached my consciousness (it’s infrequently instantaneous), I took a closer look.  It wasn’t anything like San Francisco, really.  But the layout of the shops and perhaps the height of the buildings, and some of the colors, brought my lower consciousness to San Francisco.  To something known.  To something within my realm of experience. 

So when I see dirt and piles of garbage lining the road, and it’s dusty and dirty and unpleasant to look at, with cows and street dogs and a gigantic pig all eating the rubbish, and walking down that road, past those animals, over that filth, is a beautiful woman in a bright, colorful sari, and behind that woman are 5 schoolgirls in traditional Indian wear laughing and chatting and looking for all the world to me like any teenager, I’m shocked by the contrasts.  When I see a mall and movie theatre with all shining surfaces and gleaming glass and familiar lines, but right next to it is a fax and printing shop that is literally a tin hut with canvas and plank walls. A family clearly lives there too, and business that includes electricity and phone and internet, in a place that can’t seem to even have running water and probably doesn’t, is conducted, my mind draws a blank.  My mind can’t quite pick out what strikes so deeply in my gut.  Part is known, part is not.

The other day I saw three very young children.  A boy of about 9, a girl around 6 and another girl around 4.  The boy and the older girl were each carrying a smaller child-the boy an infant, the girl a small toddler.  Each carried child was asleep in a sling, carried carelessly, yet tenderly, by the elder children.  It was a devastating picture of poverty.The children were so dirty, their clothing torn.  Their burdens far too big for their little bodies or their ages.  Yet the 6 year old was sucking happily on a bright red lollipop, and they were prancing around, laughing and chattering.  They looked so carefree, yet so burdened.  The little girl was so small and so young.  She seemed as if she could only be innocent, a little girl dancing in the street as she plays with her brother and sister.  

But when some university students came by with leftovers from their meal, this little girl was fierce and determined, physically tripping them up and grabbing at them and pulling them, dodging amongst their feet like a swarm of rats.  The fact that I can equate a 4 year old child with a swarm of rats-this is the feeling I get in my gut, that my mind can’t fathom, or can’t face. 

 

The contrasts are stark.  They are harsh.  They are somehow also beautiful. 

Contrasts

This seems to be my view for much of my day, every day. 

Today instead of heading home after the kids went to school, I sat in a café.  That was fine for some days, but it won’t be for all days.  Some days I think I’ll start to venture out and walk a bit to explore.  I’ll begin in Koreagon Park-a largely expat part of the city.  I can’t wait to get my new camera so I can go explore with photographing in mind.  There is so much to see, and the contrasts are so vast.  I am constantly trying to describe what I see, the contrasts.  But they are everywhere and so different from my prior experiences.  I find it difficult to describe even in my own mind.  Alexander is a wonder with what he notices.  He loves to point out the “ninjas” all over India.  And if he sees someone getting onto a motorcycle, including our Baru, he lectures them on wearing a helmet.  When people try to stop him to look at him and take his picture, he declares, loudly, “we are from America.  We are from the United States of America and we are just visiting this place.”

There are giant billboards everywhere.  Advertising here is vast and gleaming and glamorous.  Most of the models have very fair skin, many even with green eyes.  Yet the people around are dark, beautifully so, but much darker than I expected having mostly known Indians in the US.

As you drive down the road there are thousands of cars and motorcycles, mopeds and autorikshaws.  The infamous tuk-tuk.  And in and among those throngs are cows and water buffalo, handcarts and bicycles.  Crossing the road here takes such courage, yet is done with such non-chalance: an extended hand the only thing separating the pedestrian from the vehicle.  If there are 4 lanes for traffic, there will be 8ish lanes of vehicles.  And if the roads are not divided by large physical barriers, traffic may be heading right at you even if you’re in the right lane.  Even when there is a divider, you will have some cars or motorcycles going the wrong way.  And even when there is space on the road, you can be sure your driver will drive over the dividing line, with it right down the center of the car, for no reason I can fathom.

I read something today which struck such a chord with me, resonant and deep.  It’s Jhumpa Lahiri in The Lowland, a character who has just moved to the United States from India, “The difference was so extreme that he could not accommodate the two places together in his mind.  In this enormous new country, there seemed to be nowhere for the old to reside.  There was nothing to link them; he was the sole link.  Here life ceased to obstruct or assault him.  Here was a place where humanity was not always pushing, rushing, running as if with a fire at its back.”

Again, the contrasts.  Everything does seem to be pushing, rushing, running, honking.   Yet the men all walk with a langorous kind of lope.  It’s a tropical walk, like a Hawaiian with nothing to do but surf and chat up wahinis.  It’s long and loose and slow, and it’s everywhere.  Even in amidst the pushing and rushing and running.  Yes yes, madam.  Yes yes.

It's Just a Tuesday, Part 1

Sometimes I feel like I’m going to start all my posts in tears, or because of tears.  I’m not used to feeling so helpless, so powerless, so trapped.  Last night my cell phone was inactivated because of lack of verification.  Chris got me my SIM card, so I could have a phone here.  I have to have one.  I need to call my driver.  I need to answer texts about the kids schools.  I have to be able to reach people or I risk being completely stranded alone in India, or alone with my kids in India.  This is not the India of the movies.  This is dirt roads and wandering cows and horses and goats and wild dogs and cats and snakes.  It’s men who glare at me and women who stare at me.

The phone is in Chris’ name.  I can’t get one yet, not in my name.  I think I need my Foreign Registration before I can get one.  I worry I may not be able to get one at all because I’m on a dependent Visa.  To get the phone, Chris has to give them copies of his passport, his Indian Visa, his Foreigner Registration, and a passport sized photo (or four).  He gives them all these things, and then a week or so after the phone is active they do a “Welcome Visit.”  Or they say they do.  When they don’t, they text you saying to call this number to schedule your welcome visit.  When you call that number, it says the phone is switched off, try again later.  So you try a few times and give up. Oh well.  Um, not oh well.  Suddenly you cannot make outgoing calls and your data is turned off.  So you can’t call your driver when he disappears when you’ve dropped the kids off, or after he’s dropped you at a shop.  That’s when you realize that you’re in a foreign country where everyone speaks just enough English to not understand you and not be understood,  your husband is away on business on another continent (it’s OK, you can’t reach him anyhow), and you feel completely lost. 

So, I dropped the kids off at school and went home, and the driver asked to go to lunch.  I told him I needed to go back out in 50 minutes and he needed to be back.  He kept telling me to call him.  I kept telling him my phone didn’t work and he needed to be back.  At the mercy of an Indian man I only met yesterday who hardly speaks any English. 

I went inside, hung some laundry to dry,  folded some laundry, realized Danesh was not coming today, tidied up a bit and hoped he’d come back.  When he did, I asked Baru to take me to the Vodafone store because my phone wasn’t working, so off we went.

At Vodafone, first we were told, no problem, sir comes in Saturday for verification and all is OK.  No sir.  I have 3 small children and need to be able to reach people and be reached.  I’m told to step aside, sit down.  Baru sits with me a bit, then hovers.  So I hover.  But frustratingly, after 25 minutes, I’ve started to cry.  Silently, hoping no one notices, feeling helpless and ignored.  We finally get a woman to help me, but she has no power whatsoever, but spends 25 minutes sending emails (in painfully slow English using autocorrect  to correct message when she can’t spell it-resulting in massage, struggling with receive so long that she chooses another word, while I’m just dying to spell it all for her), and calling Jain sir who doesn’t answer his phone.  When he does finally call her back, there is not enough signal for the call (we’re in the Vodafone store), so she borrows a phone off a co-worker.  There are no land lines.  She tried and tried and eventually I’m told that in 2 hours I can restart my phone an it’ll work.  I am not holding my breath!

Welcome to India, My Friend (It's Just a Tuesday, Part 2)

The day got better! After Starbucks, I decided to buy some much needed groceries and guided the driver via pointing and gesticulating and praying we were not rear ended each time he stopped suddenly in misunderstanding. He dropped us at the curb, we dodged a street dog ("but it's SO cute mommy, and there is a baby one!") and got into the store. We found carrots and melon, frozen French fries and olives (that I'm now consuming with vodka). We got home and sent our driver off on his merry way.

Our amazing caretaker, Balu, met George at the bus stop as he does every day, while I was hanging laundry. I heard shouts of "Mam!" and a lot of screaming. I dropped the laundry and ran downstairs to find George screaming on the sofa. Really screaming. He had shoulder pain. He had it last night, but not like this. He'd had a tummy ache right before. He was really, really screaming.

Shit! What the f$/@ do I do? I called my husband's boss' wife-no answer. I had just been invited to Pune Mommies WhatsApp group! I posted, "doctor in Wakad for 8 year old screaming in pain." "Emergency, please hello". "Please help" (darn autocorrect.)  Within a minute I had a doctor's contact. I called the doctor while Balu called for a ride. 

Yay! Our first tuk tuk ride. It wasn't scary at all, really, because I could only think about my son having an emergency appendectomy in India! (He didn't). 

We got dropped off at an alley, a long, narrow, dark alley. I carried my 70 pound son the length of a city block, up 3 flights of dark, dingy concrete stairs in an apartment complex, entered a tiny, grubby office where I was scolded when I didn't remove my shoes...

But the doctor was good and kind and thorough and it was only muscles spasms and a pinched nerve causing George's pain. The good doctor was kind when I explained I had only arrived in India 2 weeks ago and had taken a tuk tuk to get to him and didn't even know how to find a pharmacy or get home. He took pity and got me an Uber. He also arranged to have the meds delivered (to the alleyway).

We got in the car, took the muscle relaxants from a woman in a sari through the car window in a dark alley, drove out the alley and it went dark outside. There is no dusk or twilight in the tropics. Just day, sunset, then night. The driver had no idea where to go and kept pulling over to ask directions in spite of the fact that I kept pointing where to go. Finally I insisted. And insisted again.  Then just yelled.  He then followed my wildly gesticulating arm and we got home to find the twins in the driveway bat watching with Balu.

Welcome to India, my friends. It's like no other place I've ever been.