Road Trip!!!

So we bought a new car! The experience was surprisingly very smooth unlike some friends of ours who have been waiting for their car for the last 3 months. The decision took a long time but once we decided on the car, it took about 10 days for them to clear the loan and deliver the car with registration. I picked a nice red one with a spoiler( we are all fans of lightning mc queen ) and of course the boys were very happy with it.

The car is beautiful but unfortunately the roads don’t do justice to it. The potholed overcrowded roads are not fit for nice cars. The surprising thing is that regardless of the status of the roads people are still buying expensive new cars. We bought something that is on middle ground between basic models and luxury ones and even this one I think is overkill for the roads in Bangalore. The drive is smooth, acceleration great but the sad part is that by the time you pick up speed you would either hit a speed bump or get stuck in traffic. My advice, when buying a car in India pick the one with nice interiors and a very good air conditioner because you will be spending a lot of time inside the car J

So one week after we bought the car DH has the brilliant idea of taking a road trip to Hyderabad. He and the kids had been there a couple of times by overnight bus so he knew that the roads were nice. So, on a whim we decided to drive down there with the kids and the nanny in tow.

We wanted to start at 4:00 pm but it was closer to 6:00pm by the time we started and we got stuck in the office rush of the infamous outer ring road in Bangalore. If you are ever in Bangalore, pray that you NEVER have to be on the ring road or for that matter any road during office rush hour which stretches over a period of 2-3 hours in the morning and the evening.  We fought through the nastiness in Bangalore to hit the “freeway” around 7:00 and from there the traffic thinned and we could actually accelerate. That’s when we started enjoying the car for the first time J

Now night driving on Indian freeways is practically torture but we were determined to go to Hyderabad so on we went. The kids were really excited to be in the new car and thankfully tired enough to sleep through most of the drive there so we didn’t have to endure “are we there yet” every 5 minutes.

The road itself was very nice. And once we crossed into Andhra Pradesh there were no speed bumps either! Karnataka is infamous for “unauthorized” speed breakers on all roads. It doesn’t matter if it’s a national highway or an illegal road going through an illegal village. The local population invariable gets together and donates towards speed bumps which are actually multipurpose. One, they make sure any vehicle trying to speed (even within the speed limit) breaks an axle (That’s right! Actually break the axle). The speed bumps are so high it’s a miracle there aren’t accidents because of them.

The other “purpose” they serve is that of making drivers trying to speed by on a freeway slow down and notice the roadside eateries. How else are they going to survive if everybody just speeds by! So in an effort to support local businesses, the local businesses get together and pay for illegal speed bumps on national freeways.

Thankfully we were in Karnataka for only about an hour of the drive and then crossed over into Andhra Pradesh. Now AP also has “check points” which serve the same purpose of slowing down drivers on the freeway. Especially when the highway is going through a town. Of course they are also strategically placed close to eateries which would otherwise go unnoticed but who am I to judge?

Once in AP the drive was smooth until you saw headlights coming directly in front of you! Yes, you read it right. It is completely normal for vehicles, even the heavy kind, to drive on the wrong side of the freeway to avoid driving a few extra kilometers to make a U-Turn. It’s just easier to go in the wrong direction in the fastest lane, freak out some poor uninitiated driver driving happily in his/her lane!

But I think I was the only one worried about this. Everybody else just took it in their stride and changed lanes for oncoming traffic on a divided highway. It seemed very normal for people who have been driving here for some time! I actually screamed a couple of times and was sitting on the edge of my seat expecting some huge truck to come onto to our lane until we reached Hyderabad. Oh BTW some of the trucks driving on the highway at night have only one working headlight. So when there is something coming at you on a divided highway and it appears like it’s a two wheeler with only one headlight, DON’T be fooled. Just change your lane and maintain as much distance as you possibly can. You won’t find out what it is until it is almost upon you!

And tail lights are apparently only a suggestion. Imagine driving on a highway with the infamous Indian trucks and not knowing they are there until you are within 10 feet of them. Yeah, NOT fun! I almost thought tail lights were not required in India and asked DH as much. Of course they are required! On the other extreme, some truck drivers like to decorate their entire truck with flashing lights so you would think you are driving towards a wedding procession and not a truck!

So, night time driving was a little stressful and we decided to drive back early in the morning so most of the journey would be in daylight. Well at the end of it we decided night driving was way better! Daytime driving is a different beast altogether. I started the drive back from Hyderabad. Yes, that’s right! I not only drove the car, I drove it on a highway no less. For three out of the 8 hours that it took to get back to Bangalore. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be because it was early in the morning and traffic was light-er. I wanted to emphasize on the ‘er’ because I have decided that there is no such thing as light traffic in India. Everything is subjective.

During the day you can expect to see fewer trucks and you don’t have to really worry about missing tail lights because you can see traffic from a mile away. But there is a lot of foot traffic. That’s right foot traffic on the highway. Especially when you are passing through a town or village. The townsfolk are not the issue. The government built the highway through their village and their main street suddenly became a national highway. They just continued to do what they were used to. Open stores on the side of the street, walk their cattle on the road to get from one field to another, run across the street to get to the school or bus stop. Nevertheless it was scary to see a town come up and somebody suddenly crossing the street when you are going at 75 MPH.  I was thankful for the makeshift speed breakers/barricades they had installed right outside the village which forced us to slow down even though the posted speed limit said we could go faster. I finally understood the purpose of the speed breakers J

So on we went with some more traffic coming in the wrong direction, people dashing across the freeway, cattle crossing the street when you are going at 75 MPH. DH almost hit a cow that ran onto the highway suddenly and swerved just in time to avoid hitting it. As per him, he hoped the animal wouldn’t decide to turn back midway! It didn’t seem to bother anybody else but I was scared when I saw a woman on a two wheeler with her 7-9 year old son coming the wrong way on the freeway. Some things are just wrong.

One thing is for sure, you will NEVER be bored while driving on Indian roads. There is always something to keep you on your toes. The highway was actually very well paved so it was very easy to go into the US mode and relax only to receive a jolt when you suddenly saw somebody crossing the freeway. Sometimes with 100 cows in tow. Or even 150 goats. You take your pick.

As for city driving, I drove in Hyderabad city! Believe it or not, the traffic in Hyderabad seemed better than Bangalore or maybe I just got lucky! I drove the extended phamilee to Lumbini park from home in Padmarao Nagar. Yes! On Tank bund on a weekend and didn’t flinch once J. I LOVE automatic cars. I have been driving a little bit in Bangalore city but the traffic is horrible and I haven’t dared to venture on main streets here yet.

Other than the few people coming the wrong way on the highway, the drive was pretty good. I was amazed at the quality of the road but also appalled at the lack of public conveniences. DON’T DRINK WATER! I guess Indian highways are not set up to cater to families on road trips yet. Most places were truck stops with a few “family” restaurants here and there. Some even had decent bathrooms but you have to know which ones are the good ones J The food of course was as always AMAZING.  We even had street hawkers selling fresh fruit at tollbooths! I ate “Tati Munjulu” after almost 20 years and LOVED them J. In all, the trip was pretty exciting even if it was for reasons we hadn’t originally planned for J

Planes,Trains and Automobiles

No, this is not about the movie. And it is not about the “desi” remake of the original either but I will shamelessly plagiarize the title because it is very apt for this post. It is an account of my “first” experience travelling in India. Travel in the US is either by plane or by car so I had pretty much forgotten how train travel feels like. I spent a lifetime travelling in trains, a lot of it without a reservation but it is strange how quickly you forget things and places you thought you knew like the back of your hand. As for buses, I had only travelled by an inter-city bus one time back in 1998 so obviously my experience was outdated and I didn’t know what to expect.

I went to visit family in Delhi and this one was by air. The journey was fairly predictable but the one thing I noticed is that the airports in Delhi and Bangalore are very nice. The ride to the Bangalore airport is a different story. With real estate within established cities sky rocketing and the need for bigger better airports rising, the cities had no choice but to build new airports outside city limits. Much like our very own DFW a few years back. It takes me an over an hour to reach the Bangalore airport when there is no traffic which is only at about 2:00 in the morning. At all other times, it takes close to 2 hours to get there. So, air travel is only for places that are not accessible via road or train. Other than the time it took to get to the airport (god forbid you forget something at home) travel via an airplane is pretty much the same as the US although I think the service is a little better in India.

The next trip was to Chennai to visit a friend which was close enough for a train. I could only get a reservation while going there so I decided to take a bus on my way back.  It was a 4 hour trip so I thought how bad can it really be? DH was a little worried but I put up my brave face and even though I was freaking out inside, I kept saying I would be fine. The train station is less than 12KM from home but as expected it takes about two hours to get there in traffic. At 5:00 in the morning with barely any traffic it took me all of 20 minutes!!!! Seemed like a good start…

As soon as I got off the taxi, I was hounded by coolies even though all I had with me was a small carry on! I ignored them and moved on. I even got some catcalls saying “Madam, shatabdi?”and some other things which thankfully were in Kannada and I didn’t quite understand. I started to get a little scared but I wasn’t going to chicken out and go back so into the station I went. Imagine my horror when all the boards showed up in Kannada only!!!! I felt like an illiterate person trying to find their way. After the cat calls I was also unwilling to ask anybody for directions. Thankfully the display changed to English within a few minutes and I was able to figure out the platform.

The “angrez” in me kept looking for escalators. I wasn’t trying to be snooty or anything but I guess my brain is conditioned to look for escalators every time I am lugging around a suitcaseJ. Finding the platform number was an adventure in itself. I was expecting something like Nagpur, Hyderabad and New Delhi stations but sadly the signs at Bangalore station were not very easy to find. The cat calls earlier and stares from everybody who passed weren’t helping boost my confidence either.

Now if you are a woman who grew up in India, you develop a sort of defense mechanism which lets you ignore all the cat calls, stares, comments that you encounter while walking on the street, travelling by public transport or at any other public place. You sort of become immune to it unless it is extremely bad. I found that my defense mechanism was still in place and it finally kicked in J.

As I neared my platform, I suddenly heard something about the shatabdi express over the public address system and surprise, they had changed the platform! It felt like I was living in one of those comedy sequences in a movie where anything that could go wrong does go wrong but ‘all is well’ in the end. At least I heard the announcement at the right time so I didn’t go to the wrong platform and get into the wrong train. That would have been a disaster!

I got to the platform and into my seat without any more adventures. The compartment was a pleasant surprise. I think Indian railways got a makeover since the last time I travelled in a train. The train had nice seats, neat aisles and even a television in the compartment! I hadn’t been in a train for over three years so I was not expecting any of this. The fare wasn’t very high but it included bottled water and breakfast. That’s better than air travel in the US!

I kept looking for a seat belt even though I knew I was on a train. Muscle memory I guess J. Things were fine until the entertainment started. They had music blaring out of the TV at 6:00 in the morning! I don’t think anybody got to take a nap after that point. The worst part was the bathrooms. The less said the better! If you have been to India and had the misfortune of experiencing a bathroom on a train, you know what I am talking about!

I also had a very talkative middle aged person sitting next to me who insisted on trying to engage me in a conversation in spite of the fact that I was reading a book. He even told me that the bread was stale and advised me not to eat it!! All I could say was thanks. I was sorely tempted to taste the bread just to see how bad it was but this person stared at my food until he was sure I was not going to eat the stale bread! It was funny to see some stranger take such deep interest in my food. Other than the over zealous breakfast snob and the loud entertainment forced on the entire compartment, the journey was fairly comfortable!

The journey back was in a bus no less. DH’s friends at work had suggested a state transport AC bus. Very good they said, very comfortable they said. Liars! Even my friend’s driver was surprised I was travelling via state transport bus and not a private bus! My experience with intercity buses was very limited and the one time I did travel, the guy sitting in the seat behind me tried “something” so I actually stood up in my seat and beat him up. Not kidding, true story, I actually hit him very hard. I am proud of that but in retrospect that probably was not a very smart thing to do on an overnight bus when I was travelling alone.

I got to the bus station without any problems but once inside I couldn’t figure out which platform the Bangalore bus left from. The signs were in tamil, kannada and telugu. Some were in English but as luck would have it the one I needed to read didn’t have an English translation! (Kicked myself mentally for never learning to read and write in Telugu!)It was broad daylight so I wasn’t afraid to ask for directions and after making a few wrong turns arrived at my bus. The good part, I had an e-ticket that the conductor verified on my mobile phone. Technology has touched every part of life in India! The bad part, the seats were old and the bus not very comfortable. I wanted to kick the person who recommended it. Especially after I saw one of the private buses! They were so good, it was like watching somebody eat chocolate ice-cream while you were stuck with a popsicle! I called DH and told him NEVER to book a ticket on a state transport bus again and to follow travel advice with caution! The worst part was that there was barely any fare difference between the two! Lesson learnt- when in doubt; go with a private bus service.

The saving grace was that there weren’t too many people on the bus so the seat next to me was empty. The ride itself was another story. I don’t understand why entertainment during public transport has to consist of bad movies played at a deafening volume but that is what I was subjected to for the 4 hours on the bus. I had my iPad but I had to set it at a deafening level to hear it over the din of the movie. That movie affected me so much I still remember it in painful detail! It was quite possibly the worst movie I EVER saw. I do have to say that the freeway was very well maintained and the ride was pretty smooth. I think next time I will take a private bus though. One word of caution if you are travelling by bus in India- DO NOT drink any water. Enough said.

Even with all the craziness involved with travelling by bus or train, I would say the journey is far more interesting that getting on a plane. There is a lot more to see and it makes for very good writing material :P

Planning...

A lot went into planning the move to India and like everybody else we had very limited time. It doesn’t matter how long you have known that you will go, when the time comes you will be scampering around trying to figure out what to do. To top it all there will be a struggle going on in your head about the sanity of the decision you just made. Even after you move, you will still keep thinking about it for a very long time. My suggestion would be to keep thinking about it. Let it out of your system, talk about it with friends, do whatever it takes to get your head around it! At the end of the day you made the decision based on what was right for you at the moment and you shouldn’t have to defend it for the rest of your life.

Now, comes the planning part. You will thank god for the internet every single day of your life until the move is said and done and for a long time after that. It is the best resource to find out about schools, accommodation, travel options, moving companies and everything else under the sun. The Indian counterparts may not have as many options as the USA but if like me you are trying to manage things from there, then you will thank your stars for it. Even after you have moved it is a good resource to find out about local restaurants, activities for kids, transportation and anything else you can think of. You will be surprised how much you can find out by doing a web search in India these days J. This is very different from when I grew up where word of mouth was how you found out about everything.

We moved though my husband’s company and although they provided monetary help with the move, they didn’t have the experience to provide us with any practical help. They didn’t have resources to help us find schools, accommodation, temporary travel arrangements etc so we were on our own there. Fortunately we had a few friends in Bangalore and the Internet on our side J

So, I set about trying to find the basics while I was still in Dallas. I went to work during the day and scanned Bangalore city websites by the night to research schools, temporary accommodation and permanent accommodation. We had never lived in Bangalore and didn’t know that distances shown on online maps could be deceptive because of the traffic conditions in the city and we couldn’t make up our mind about the livability of the so called serviced apartments advertised on the web.

After getting overwhelmed for two days, I decided that a school was the first thing on the list so I set about trying to find a school for Vivek first. We decided on a general area we wanted to be in based on DH’s office and as luck would have it our friends lived in the same vicinity so we were able to get some idea of the area. I then scouted the web for a few weeks trying to find out information about schools and after a few rounds of research, talking to schools over the phone, discussions with family and finally a tour of the school by my in-laws, we finalized the school. It wasn’t as difficult as I had imagined but I was glad it was over. I will put more details in a separate blog entry which you can read if you are interested in the specifics.

The next was trying to find accommodation. DH’s company would pay us for the first three months of accommodation in addition to the move so we decided to stay in a serviced apartment while I came back to the US to take care of things in Dallas. DH’s friend was very helpful in identifying service apartments ad well as rental properties for us while we were still in Dallas but we wanted to look at them before we signed up for it. That was a very good decision! The service apartments were nothing like the pictures put up on the website and after looking at a few we decided to rent an apartment for a year and furniture for 3 months while we waited for our stuff to arrive from Dallas. Again, more details about finding an apartment in a separate blog J

So with the big things taken care of we started talking about what we need to take with us. The last time I moved across the world, I was younger and travelled light. My entire “move” happened with two suitcases that weighed about 70 pounds each. This time around it took ¾ of a container which ended up weighing close to 9000 pounds. What can I say, it is difficult to travel light when you have two kids :P.

We had read a lot of R2I blogs and forums so I set about making lists and more lists to keep track of those lists and then I went around town frantically buying everything on my list and finding more stuff that I “thought” I would need and adding them to my shopping cart and when I was finally “done”, I remembered there were some other things I “needed”. The planning and shopping for the move was going on till the last minute. So much so that when the packers came and packed half my stuff on a Saturday, I went shopping again on Sunday so I could add more boxes when they came to finish the packing on Monday. Wait, I actually went again on Monday afternoon as well. The list is never ending. Even after you get here, you will remember a hundred other things that you should have bought when you had a chance. My thought was that everything else will be a big adjustment anyway so if we had the same or similar comforts at home, the transition might be easier. I am glad I made that decision.

Although there is nothing that you cannot find in India, from toilet paper to kitchen towels, EVERYTHING is expensive and the quality is nowhere close to what you are used to. It is strange that a lot of things you find in the USA including clothes have a made in India/Pakistan/china tag but you will not find the same quality over here although you pay the same amount of money. I wonder what the logic behind that is. I bought everything I could think of for 2 years including clothes for kids, myself, Kishen, shoes for all of us( multiple sizes for the kids because they grow like weeds!), kitchen essentials like non-stick cookware, kitchen rags, towels, furniture, you name it, I bought it. I raided Bed bath and Beyond and Target like I was planning to go into hibernation for the next 2 years!  I had the experience of quite a few friends to fall back on and after talking to a few of them and looking at the R2I Blogs, I decided it was better to have too much stuff than get here and get frustrated about the small things.

Believe me, if you take care of the small things and are not frustrated by them, it will be a much easier transition than if you just pack 8 suitcases and try to set up everything from scratch!  So, the shopping  was done, the movers hired, the packing done and the container finally shipped. At which point I remembered 30 more things I should have bought and packed J. So much for planning and keeping track of things. Oh well, I was still in the US so I had an option to ship more boxes when I moved J which by the way I did…

 

Deciding to Move

We had been thinking about the move for a long time before it actually happened. It was never if, but when it would happen. A lot of people who move out of India have plans about moving back. Some of them materialize and some don’t. Everybody has their reasons to move or stay. Ours was to be closer to family for some time, maybe help the kids identify with their own culture a little more than they would while living overseas and also for us to reconnect to India the way it was today and not get a culture shock each time we visited because India had changed so much since we left it.

 

So, after a lot of thinking and deliberating, we decided this was the right time for us when the kids were still young enough to adapt without rebelling and we were not too old to take on the challenge of moving a family across the world. Believe me, it wasn’t an easy decision.  

There were a few things we were thinking about when we talked about making the move. The first one was always education for the kids. We wanted to make sure they got a well-rounded education with a good balance of academics and extra-curricular activities. I didn’t want to subject them to the school system that I remembered from my childhood where academics were the priority and any semblance of a balance between academics and extracurricular activities was a fact of dreams.

We also had easy access to a variety of extra-curricular activities for the kids like soccer, swimming lessons, little gym, vocal lessons, karate etc. My younger son was too young for any of these activities so we weren’t worried about him but the older one had been going to soccer for almost two years and finally getting to like the game when we decided to move. He was very disappointed that he won’t be able to play soccer in India but he quickly came up with his own solution saying, “it’s OK mommy, I will play cricket instead”.

Growing up in India me and my sisters learnt Indian classical dance as well as took Karate lessons but trying to find a swim lesson or sports coaching outside of school was very difficult. As a result we never learnt how to swim until we were adults. Most of our friends from India had the same experiences and like many of our generation we thought India was pretty much the same as we left it 10-15 years back.

I haven’t found any extracurricular activities for the kids yet but based on experiences of friends who had moved to Hyderabad a couple of years back, things have changed a lot. You can easily find lessons for swimming, tennis, roller skates, dance, music and instruments (Indian and western). It may not be as easily accessible as things would be in the USA but there are a lot of options.

The next thing was housing. We lived in Texas where land is cheap and easily available so houses are huge and spacious. We were also blessed with a huge backyard which our kids enjoyed playing in. I wasn’t very happy about leaving the house especially since we built it from scratch. Our house also happens to be on a closed cul-de-sac which gave our kids a lot of room to play outside in the evenings and the kids from our street used that area to its fullest.  So, in my mind housing in India was going to be a step down. I couldn’t bring myself to make the decision to sell our house so we decided to rent it out instead. We eventually put it up for sale because it just didn’t make sense to manage a rental property in the USA from India.

Although housing was one of my biggest concerns I knew that housing in India has changed a lot and along with the old style apartments and independent houses from my childhood there were also the brand new state of the art villas which would give houses anywhere in the world a run for their money. Be prepared to pay skyrocketing prices for that kind of luxury though.

Finally there was the fear of not being able to “fit in” in a new place anymore. We are past the age where we make friends easily. We had a support structure in Dallas, people we had known for as long as we could remember. People who had become our “adopted” family there. How do you replace them? You cannot. It almost felt like when I first went there. I was leaving behind everything that I took for granted, everybody I knew, the streets I knew like the back of my hand, the stores I shopped in regularly, the walls I woke up to everyday in the morning, the car I drove all day, the familiar faces of strangers I saw on my early morning runs and innumerable other things that I didn’t even realized I would miss and moving to a place that was frankly very alien to me. I thought about it a lot and eventually I decided not to think about it too much and just go with the flow. Try to reconnect with old friends in the area and hope to make new ones soon!

And then there are a lot of creature comforts you will miss. Frankly there is nothing that you cannot find here in India but you will be surprised how much more expensive everything is here. You will have to pay a price for “luxury”. If you want to stick to the brands you have known and loved for the last 10 or so years, you are in luck. You can find them all here, for practically as much as you paid there in dollars! My suggestion, try the local brands. They are not bad at all and they have been tested in the local environment!

We did have the experiences of a lot of our friends who had moved back in the last few years to give us hope. They have been living in India for anywhere between 2-5 years and they love it. I have also seen people who came here and decided it wasn’t for them and went back. So, we decide to try it out for ourselves. I have been told that it takes at least a year to get used to living in India.

So, after thinking about it for 5-6 years, planning our careers around it, looking for options for two years we finally decided to make the move last year. And here I am blogging away about the craziness of the last 6 months.

 

What the kids feel

I thought it would be difficult for the kids to adjust to a different lifestyle in India. They have visited every year for extended periods of time but have never lived here. To them, India was a place they visited every so often, met their grandparents, got pampered while mommy shopped till she dropped and then came back home. Most kids don’t travel very well but we have been blessed with kids who love to travel as much as we do so although the journey was long, it never bothered them or us.

When we first decided to move, my 7 year old was distraught. He just didn’t have any means to express his feelings. We didn’t figure it out until our friends threw a farewell party for us that he was really upset about moving and would miss his friends as much as we would miss ours. We had a circle of friends whose kids routinely had sleepovers at each other’s houses and played endlessly while the adults had their own parties and I never realized that my kids were forming bonds and friendships of their own.

The day of the farewell, we went over to a friend’s house for an after party with those folks and when we left, my son asked me if we would have a birthday party for him in India? When we said, of course we would, he asked if all his friends from Dallas would be there. We stopped a minute before answering and told him, they probably won’t be there but he would make new friends. Poor kid burst out crying and said he wanted his old friends to be there, not new friends. At that moment, I was pretty much feeling the same and there was nothing I could think of to say to him that would console him!

My kids are troopers, they let us move them across the world, stayed without me for months while I tried to sell the house in Dallas and didn’t complain once. They missed me more than anything but they didn’t give my in-laws or DH a hard time. They just waited for me to ship our stuff and take care of the house. Vivek went to an entirely new education system, with new subjects, teaching methodology, not to mention new attitudes from teachers and classmates but he figured out his own ways of dealing with it. When kids teased him about his “British” accent, he put on a fake “Indian” accent which sounds like something out of Madagascar. No amount of pep talk would make him revert back to his original accent! He wasn’t upset about the teasing, he just hated the fact that they didn’t know it was an “American” accent, not a “British” one! More on the school later…

When we first decided to sell the house, it broke my son’s heart. We had told him that we were only moving temporarily (which is true although temporary is about 4 years long) so when we told him that we had decided to sell the house and not rent it out, he was very upset. The first thing he said was, but if you sell the house, where will we live when we go back??? We told him we would buy a new house but he didn’t like the idea. After a while he decided he better get used to it but he still doesn’t like it. Even my 3 year old recognizes the house in pictures and tells me, that is his house. He keeps asking me when we will go back to Dallas.

I realized today that with me being away, they thought this was all temporary and when mommy returns things will go back to normal and they would go back to Dallas and their regular life. This morning my 3 year old asked me when we were going back! I told him we weren’t going any time soon. I asked him why he wanted to go back, he said because his house was in Dallas. I told him, well this was our house now and since all of our stuff from Dallas was already here, there really was no need to go back. He immediately said, but we can always get new stuff in Dallas or ship our stuff back! That is when I realized that even my 3 year old misses Dallas and his life over there.

Vivek would call my friends’ kids and talk to them on the phone, want them to play with him on the phone, all because he missed them. Nakul talks about his old babysitter and some of the friends he does remember. He saw pictures of the house and immediately pointed out the front door, his room, the garden and the garage! He even remembered that he used to play on the cul-de-sac with the neighbors.

Until yesterday, I was getting adjusted very well but after having this conversation with Nakul, I realized how stressful this has been for them as well. Moving across the world is not easy but we assumed that since the kids were young, they would adjust easily. I realized today that it is as difficult for them as anybody. In fact, it is probably worse because they can’t really express themselves very clearly except in the little ways that mine are trying.

It has been almost a month since I came here and until today I was only seeing the positive side of things. Somehow today the last one month feels like ages and I wish I could take all the stress we put the kids through back. I was talking to a friend today and mentioned how the kids were reacting. I couldn’t help but want to scream out that today it feels like ages even though it’s barely been a month and I practically wished I could go back if it would erase all the stress my poor babies had to go through.

They are adjusting pretty well, Vivek loves his school now, has made new friends, his teachers have great things to say about him and he is feeling more like himself now that I am back. Nakul is having a blast watching a lot of Diego on TV every day and not having to go to daycare during the day. They do remember that mommy used to work and they had to be at day care and I think they like this better but in their own way, they miss their old life and when they express that in their own little ways, it breaks my heart!

What I miss the most

A lot of people have asked me what I will miss about Dallas. How I will get settled in India after such a long time. Honestly, I have also been pondering these questions for a long time myself.In fact for over two years. The family moved here 5 months back and they were all settled by the time I got here. There were not many complaints from them including DH who had to figure out how to get to work without a car and my 7 year old who got his first taste of the school system in India. So settling down here was not too bad.

I was worried about not being able to figure out how to run a household in India, never having had to do that in the past! That was taken care of by the time I got here. I just had to take over the reins. I guess I will have some hiccups but because the kids and DH have had a chance to adjust already, it is much easier.

I haven’t looked for a job yet. Don’t know if I want to either. For the first time I don’t have a plan for my career. I don’t know what I will end up doing. I was conditioned to always have a plan. I freak out when I don’t have a plan or at least a hint of a plan. I don’t have a plan but I have options and happily I am not worried about the lack of a plan.

I thought I would miss the freedom I had in the US the most. The ability to go grocery shopping in the middle of the night, not feeling threatened walking down the street by myself and being independent. I have seen that things in India have changed since the last time I lived here. We may not have a 24/7 stores in India but I have been out fairly late for Indian standards and not felt threatened in Bangalore so far. Now, I went to Delhi for 10 days and that was a different story but it’s like the difference between being in Dallas and being in New York. As for Independence, I think there is a different kind of independence here. Public transport is easily available, and with the advent of cell phones, your reliable corner auto or taxi is only a phone call away! Last week I ventured out to do groceries by myself and all I had to do was call the taxi driver on his cell adn he was here within 10 minutes. I went to the grocery store, got everything and was back in 2 hours. The best part is I didn't have to drive or lug the groceries back to the house myself :)

I thought I would miss my workout sessions but even before I could get here, I enrolled in power yoga classes, tried it this week and liked it. We also have a pretty good gym with a personal trainer at the place I live in so I can’t really complain. What I do miss are my companions and my coaches. I had a camaraderie with them that will take some time to build up here. I do miss being able to go out of my house and running on the local streets though. The traffic and the condition of roads here is not conducive to running. Maybe if we lived in a huge apartment complex with nice paved streets, I could go running on the street again, until then I will have to find a different way to get my cardio.

I really miss my dance classes. I started learning dance within a year of moving to Dallas. Never thought I would start learning at that stage in life but a dear friend was learning and I loved to dance so I started taking classes as an experiement and almost 13 years later was still going to class until two months before I left. My teacher is an amazing woman who could handle teaching adults like me who had never learnt to dance their entire life but were enthusiastic about it even after life caught up with them J. I have started my quest for a new dance teacher in Bangalore but I cannot get my head around learning from anybody other than Padma.

The kids miss their activities as well. I haven't found a little gym where I can enroll the kids. I need to find swim lessons, vocal lessons and some sport that they can enjoy outside of school. I am sure I will be able to find it but I am worried about how to get them there and back without having to hire a driver. I think I better get used to the idea of driving on the streets of India soon!

What I do miss most is my friends, my support structure. The people who were an integral part of my life. Some of whom I have known since the first day I landed in Dallas, others who I had met along the way. The ones who were so close to me they were practically family. I might as well have been married to them! Anybody who has lived in the US for an extended period of time knows that we build a web of friends around us who become our family there. They are the ones who were but a phone call away any time of the day or night, the ones I shared my successes and failures with. Who were as happy as I was when I bought my house, had my babies or got a new job. They are the ones who would babysit my kids, tag team for drop off and pick up duties for kids’ activities, come to midnight shopping sessions with me, kept me motivated to continue my dance, music and workouts through all the craziness of being a working mother of two monsters.

The ones I would call in the middle of the night to rant about the insane people I had to deal with while trying to sell my house, the ones who would hear me cry on the phone and come over so I could vent some more. The ones who would show up at my door with food because they knew I was alone and sick and too tired to cook. The ones who stayed with me through all the craziness of trying to wind up things in Dallas by myself, the ones who gave me all the support I needed to manage that madness. They are the ones who formed my support structure in a foreign land. The ones who cried when I left.

That is what I miss the most. I am sure I will make new friends but there are some people who are irreplaceable and I left some of them back in Dallas. They are the ones I miss the most!

I do miss some of the creature comforts that I was used to in Dallas as well and I will blog more about that later but this is about what I miss the most :)

 

Getting a phone in India

Now this was an experience worth mentioning. First of all, anybody walking off the street cannot get a cell phone in India. DH came here back in August and he couldn’t get a sim card for himself so a friend had to apply for it and lend him the sim card! In comparison, I was able to get off at London airport, go to a cell phone store in the terminal and get a new sim card within minutes!

When I came here last week, we started looking for a service provider. Now, since DH has been here for almost five months, it should have been easy enough for him to establish proof of residence, proof of employment and get it all checked out. You would think all this could be done over the phone but since physical verification of the address is required, it took, brace yourself, four days for our sim cards to be activated!

I understand all this added security is important because there have been way too many times cell phones have been misused here but four days?

The first step was getting the sim cards. Regular stores wouldn’t even entertain us because apparently we don’t have what passes for proof of residence in Bangalore. Thankfully his office has an agent who is a representative of the cell phone company dedicated to help the employees( the perks of working in India! You get your own rep for the cell phone conglomerate).So, getting the sim cards with the number was a matter of hours. So far, so good.

And then the wait started. The cell phone company needed to verify his employment and residence before the cards could be activated. They called us to say they would verify his employment on Tuesday but DH was sick and at home so, it got delayed. I still don’t understand why they couldn’t verify the residence on Tuesday since he was home but what do I know? Anyway, the employment verification happened on Wednesday ( although now that I come to think about it, was it really necessary since the Airtel rep delivered the SIM cards to the office originally!!!) and we had to wait another day for the residence verification to happen. Why they couldn’t do both on the same day beats me!

Thursday afternoon, somebody shows up at our door and asks if DH lives here. I answer in the affirmative. He asks some legit questions about the duration of the stay, whether we are renting or own the place etc. Finally he asks for address proof! At this point I am thinking, hello! Did I not just answer all your questions? Anyway, he explains he needs a copy of a utility bill or something which shows him as the occupant and finally a light goes on somewhere in my head. I can understand the need for paperwork to establish proof of residence.

BTW this was a total surprise! We didn’t expect them to ask us for a copy of the utility bill. If that was all it took, was it really necessary to physically verify the location? When I gave him a blank look, he says, anything would suffice, even a visiting card!!!! At this point the entire purpose of checking and rechecking identity is lost on me because as far as I can see, anybody could print visiting cards and have their name on it. AND the visiting card that “sufficed” as proof of residence, didn’t even have our home address on it!

It is a mystery to me why they have such detailed rules and processes when there is always a loophole for all of them! I think the verification process is good because at some level it limits the misuse of cell phones by antisocial elements but if it takes 4 days for somebody to get a cell phone activated, I think there is room for improvement in the process.

This wasn’t the end of it either. After all this verification, the agent calls us and congratulates us on being proud owners of new numbers with the cell phone company. DH tries to get the sim card installed and SURPRISE! “No Service”. So, he calls customer service and asks them what was going on. The customer service is not only unhelpful, they hang up on him! So, he calls his office rep for the phone company who promptly conferences a customer service rep in, gives him a piece of his mind and asks him to figure out what’s going on. After being on hold for 15 minutes, they don’t know what the issue is. Finally somebody figures out that after all this verification, we had to call them back and ask them to activate the sim cards. It’s ok to expect a new sim card to be activated but it would have been nice if somebody had told us that!

So DH calls and gets the sim cards activated and 15 minutes later we had service! YAY! But wait; what’s this, we don’t have access to the data network! WHAT????? So we get on the phone again and you guessed it, data network activation needs ANOTHER call! At this point I am speechless! We want to call and yell at them but don’t see a point in it so we call back and politely ask our data access to be activated. Finally after another 15 minutes on the phone and ANOTHER 15 minutes of waiting we have both phones working! Phew, what an evening. Just thinking about it makes me feel tired! Jet lag is still keeping me up though L. Trying to go to sleep now, stay tuned for more…