Again it was R who said, ‘Well…Meija is leaving school too. She needs to be recognized and it needs to be a separate ceremony. This child cannot be in her sister’s shadow all the time.’ We were never expecting this and were super thrilled, most of all Mieja was very excited. She chirped to all who cared to listen that she was going to have a circle goodbye ceremony. We decided on a small ceremony in circle where the children sang a small song, the teachers talked about the significance of the song and the children shared their views on friendship.

Getting to say proper goodbye, however painful it is, is an absolute necessity, especially for children. They learn that their old friends did not just vanish, but are still there and it gives them the confidence to make new friends in the new environment.

Here is to the (g)old and new.

Make new new friends
But keep the old
One is silver
But the other is gold.
A circle is round
It has no end
Thats for how long I want to be your friend.

When we first told Chula’s class teacher(also the school founder) that we are planning to move to India, R’s first question was, ‘Of course only after she finishes her graduation ceremony with us right? Because you know how much she is looking forward to graduating’. When R found out that it was not the case, she was more upset than us. She said, ‘Its only a month, so leave her with me, she can graduate and then join you guys in India’, we both laughed it off and pretended that it was not a serious offer. Two days later she asked me again if we are serious about moving before the graduation. We were, with school starting in India on June 13th, I wanted a month in between to settle down. ‘Well, in that case’ said R, ‘Chula will have a graduation. A special one, a proper one, with all bells and whistles. Even if she is the only child who is graduating in this ceremony, we will not cut any corners. The child deserves it.’

So the school sent a letter to all parents that Chula will have a special graduation. From time to time they discussed in circle time about what would be a fitting farewell for Chula and Mieja. Ideas were pooled, teachers made a special graduation hat and the children practiced their songs. Chula wore the school’s traditional graduation attire, sang songs, recited a poem, did a special Indian folk dance and made a ‘WHO AM I?’ poster. It was a touching ceremony. Almost all the adults present cried. Who wouldn’t when you hear a bunch of children singing this?

Iam a child by child1

PS1: This is 1/5 songs the children sang.

PS2: Mieja wasn’t left out. G Is For Gold(And Silver) follows soon.

We got water.

We have been relying very much on Team-BHP for car reviews, comparisons and such. But if you want to post a query, then plan ahead. These guys are serious about the content that goes on their website. They take a week to approve your registration.

We came across an organic exhibition collaborated by Deccan Development Society, Sahaja Aharam and Chetna Organics. Apparently every Wednesday they bring their vegetable truck to our apartment. Also there are options to order small/large vegetable basket. Their price chart seems nominal. I compared their prices for rice, jaggery, pulses and flour with Hypercity prices and the difference was less than Rs10/item. Also found 24Letter Mantra on web through MetroMela reviews. Will try out all the three places and update.

Search is on for organic milk, but I am not hopeful. The habit of getting a gallon of milk and having it at my disposal in the fridge for a week is very much second nature to me. So this half liter milk packet business is going to take a while for me to get used to. Since Mieja is still not over her lactose intolerance thing, I am buying soy milk cartons and masala buttermilk cartons for the children. At least two members out of the variable for now.

The amount of added sugar in the flavored milk, soy milk and butter milk is appalling. I find myself reading the nutrition content over and over again.

Have you read the Roscoe Riley series? The titles go ‘Never glue your friends to chairs’, ‘Never trade your sweater for a dog’ and so on. Hilarious books, much enjoyed by Chula. Along those lines, if I were to write a book and want the title to say it all, it would be, ‘NEVER TAKE YOUR CHILDREN WHEN YOU BUY UNDERWEAR FOR YOURSELF’.

We have moved in to the apartment. There is no water in the kitchen. The story goes like this. The rubber pipes connecting the faucet to the water pipes are small->They leak->Solution change pipes. New problem->the granite hole is not big enough to fit big rubber pipes->Solution: drill a bigger hole. New problem: Special granite guy has to be procured and no one wants to come all the way for such a small job. Cribbed to the landlord enough and he has arranged for some one to come, with a full day pay(for a 30 min work) and transportation to come and drill. Today is the promised day and hopefully there are no new problems. Till this gets resolved I have to walk for 10 minutes, in the glorious Sun, with two children in tow, to the supermarket in the apartment complex and get a crate of Aquafina, carry it back to the apartment and cook. Though it took me three hours, made paruppu rasam, beans curry and stuffed kathirikkai poriyal yesterday. Chula hugged me and said that I am the best cook in the whole world. Washing dishes is a biiiiig story, MGM has reserved rights and I cannot share it here.

Because of all the activity, all my attempts to kick start activity, we have taken to eating lunch at 3.00PM and skip dinner. Having a child who does not believe in food and one who can live on white rice has its advatages I am finding out!

The language barrier is a H.U.G.E barrier for now. I am bad in languages to start with, some people just don’t have the ear for it. So learning a new language at this ripe age, even though I am trying hard, is not going well. I know a few nouns and few verbs in Hindi and try to make a sentence with lots of actions. For the most part people understand, or at least have an idea of what I am trying to say. The other day, I introduced R to my helper as, “Yeh, mera pathni hai.” She laughed non stop for almost six minutes, clutching her stomach, with tears in her eyes and all that, but she understood. Same way, I told the washing machine guy, “I(pointing to me) live hotel(making inverted V shape with hands). OK. Apartment empty. OK. No saman(shaking my head). No people(head shake again). Bada(making a random shape with hands) lock outside. OK. So dho(two fingers) gante-ki(showing wrist cos thats where a bloody watch goes) bath(throwing hands behind my shoulder), you call(telephone action) mobile-se. You come, then I come. OK????” I think, if I make enough hand movements and add se-ki-hai every now and then, I am speaking Hindi. I will not even go in to my conversation to supermarket guys asking for electric toothbrush. From far away, people thought I was displaying some kind of primal territorial dance. All the above I put down under effective communication. The difficult part is when I have to talk to some one on the phone. Oh god, just kill me.

Speaking of electric tooth brushes it is like finding Waldo, it is somewhere, but haven’t found one yet.

48 hrs after landing, I took my iPhone to a place to get it unlocked. I was worried about data loss and other general screwups, it being an iPhone and all. So the guy gave me a sarcastic smile and said that the unlocking part will be the easy part. I understood the full meaning of his statement when we were waiting for Airtel gods to grace us. Multiple trips, document copies and 10 days later, we finally got a SIM card. That too only after R completely lost it when the guy said, after we made multiple trips, gave all document copies, that R’s driving license(that is valid till end of July 2011) is valid only for two months and asked us to come after two months with a renewed license.

Gas connection is said to happen six months from now. We are not a bit hopeful. Solar stove in the balcony seems like a more viable option at this point of time.

Current neighbor report – many really nice, one acted as if I tried to snatch her husband when I asked about finding house help, one nosy. R is telling me that not every question needs to be answered. If I cannot give a suitable reply, I have to smile and switch conversation.

Getting landline and broadband can be checked off our list. Though it took a week, by far BSNL was the easiest thing. Managed to find a bank close by and opened an account. Now we have two documents as address proofs. Yay!

Hyderabad is a foodie heaven. Here are two more of my finds. Prego Italian restaurant in Westin serves the most awesome ravioli. Fluffy little pillows made with lots of spinach, very little ricotta cheese. The tomato-basil sauce on the pasta just blew me away. After I finished eating, Chula commented, very innocently that my plate need not be washed! The great kabob factory – have heard many good things about this place, finally tried it couple of days back. Hmmmmmm!!! Their rajma patty is so moist and mouth watering. Adding vellari vidhai to the sweet sauce is genius. Liked, no make it loved, everything they served us. Very friendly host.

Last week went to the Chilkur Balaji Temple. Its a 17th century temple, very unassuming and is 40 minutes from Hi-Tech city. I was very impressed by the fact that the temple does not accept any donations. It is a no-Hundi temple! The head priest speaks at least a hundred languages, may be even klingon, told me in tamil that the only thing a devotee needs to give god is his heart and not money. We were told that people usually make 11 pradakshinams in their first visit and make 108 when their prayer is answered. The temple closes at 8.00PM sharp. If you land there at 7.45PM, you will be sucked in to the whirlwind of people trying to finish their 108 pradhakshinams and you will be carried around the temple with no effort on your part 🙂

The girls have taken to the Puri Jagannath temple in Banjara Hills, because they have picture stories on the walls. Krishna is not in the Dasavatharam picture, I wonder why.

Visited the Golconda Fort last Sunday. Picked up a tour book for Rs.20, bad editing, but kind of gave us an idea of what we were seeing. Be it Machu Picchu or Golconda, it is not the fortress itself that is impressive. It is the design, the acoustics, the aqua ducts, the engineering behind it is what is amazing! BTW, Golconda dates with the Machu Picchu 🙂 Walked up most of the 380 steps, shocked that they were cooking biriyani inside the fort and saw the light show. We carried water and mosquito repellant. The light show starts sometime around 7.00PM and is a compilation of many historical facts about the fort. It is good, but there is room for improvement. I was expecting visuals, different color lights on many different spots can hold ones attention only for so long. Even Chula said after the show, ‘Amma, I was almost expecting fire works at some point amma.’

Its been two weeks, since we landed in India. Has the transition started? Yes and no. No because, we are still put up in a hotel, so we are still in a bubble. Yes because, we are getting the flavor of the city.

Let us start with the food. If you like your jilebis warm+crisp+fresh+just a hint of lime juice without the scary red color, go to Ohri’s @ Banjara Hills. The jilebis hit all the right notes. The kids being used to grocery store jilebis, declared that the Ohri’s jilebis are ‘odd’. I said, ‘fine’, packed the rest and devoured them at 2.00AM, when jetlag wouldn’t let me sleep any more. I also tried their Dhai battata poori, very forgettable.

After eating americanized Indian food in the hotel we are staying and eating indianized American food in food courts, I was thrilled to be at Bhimas Chithram restaurant @ Jubliee Hills. Their chutneys are to die for. I ordered a spicy masala dosa and as I ate it, I cried, drank tanks of water, profusely perspired and thoroughly enjoyed it. If you are planning on ordering the Bhimas spicy dosa, it is a ‘complete’ cleansing experience, so plan accordingly.

Little Italy in Film Nagar, Jubliee Hills serves my kind of Pizza – vegetarian, thin crust, low on grease, with little cheese, some spice and a touch of paneer. They have a very interesting mocktail list also. I tried something with green grapes, mint and lime – tasty and refreshing.

Also tried the famous Paradise restaurant at Hi-Tec city and 36Chattees. Guess a carnivore would love it, but as a vegetarian, I nibbled on the vegetarian options and made sure that meat did not touch my vegetarian food.

Hyderabad boasts that it has the biggest mall in South India and Inorbit in Hi-Tec city is HUGE indeed. Sprawled over 5 floors and a massive Walmart Super Store like grocery store(Hypercity) I run to it for my every need. But I swear on all things good in my life that I will never set foot in Inorbit on a weekend evening, not if I can help it, so help me god.

Read about DIALOGUE IN THE DARK restaurant and badly want to try it out. R is the kind who wants his food to have name, so that he can form his biases even before tasting it. Needless to say he is not that keen about DITD. If I am in San Jose right now, I would have left the children with the husband and would have gone with YaadaYaada. Sigh.
(For more details regarding the dialogue in the dark concept read this.)

Hunted down a juice shop where they sell sugarcane juice. Unfortunately they do not crush ginger and lime with the sugar cane. They add ginger juice and lime juice to the sugar cane juice. The taste is not the same. Planning on asking them to improvise the next time.

I find myself repeating to every driver, attendant, store keeper, sales person, waiter ‘DON’T TOUCH MY CHILD’. Might be a simple display of affection on their part, but I find it very disconcerting.

The potty process has taken a major set back. At last when I thought that my assistance is no longer needed in their daily ablutions, the water element intervened. ‘Amma, why do India people like to spray their butt?’ is the top why question of the week. I gave up and picked up a bundle of toilet paper from the supermarket.

Car hunting is going on in full swing. All my dreams of driving a hybrid automatic Prius has been crushed by the fact that Toyota Prius is being taxed at nearly 125% of its original price. So I researched Carwale and Cardekho and the only hits I got for key words ‘hybrid automatic transmission’ was the Mahindra Scorpio. There I was dreaming that I will be driving an eco friendly, non-polluting vehicle and will go around the city like ‘Sorna akka’ and again the dream was crushed by the Mahindra’s hybrid farce. Whoever in the world put Mahindra Scorpio and hybrid together, needs a serious hybrid101 lesson, even if the person defends themselves that it is a micro-hybrid technology….my @$$ is my response to them. But I am not budging from the automatic transmission. Currently after reading this, I am convincing the husband that we must buy an used automatic car and fit it with a made to order hybrid engine. Here I am trying to save the world and what does the husband do? He takes a dig at my (non)Hindi speaking skills. Life can be difficult when one is surrounded by dream crushers.

More transition notes to come.

Chula was in a mixed age classroom setting with preschool – kindergarten children in the same room. The California cut off for kinder is Dec 2nd, which means that Chula, being born a few days after Dec 2nd was still in pre-school and her friends born few days before Dec 2nd were in kinder. She was really looking forward to 2010-2011 school year because she starts the much awaited kinder, where she gets to do the special parts, she gets to graduate, walk the aisle with the graduation hat…basically the whole nine yards. But with every situation there are pros and cons, this Chula didn’t expect.

Sept 1st 2010, saw Chula start kindergarten, some of her best friends from kindergarten move on to a different building to start lower elementary and her best(est-est-est) friend move to a different school to start public school kindergarten. Chula went skipping to school and came back crying. The whole of 2010-2011, I had to give her pep talks, multiple times, about being open to make new friends, recognize the people who want to be friends with her and give them a fair chance instead of agonizing over what is not there etc. From my part, I arranged play dates with her old and new friends to show her that she did not loose her old friends and that at times we have to move on. I prided myself on doing the right things at the right time.

But little did I realize that somethings are easier said than done. It is slowly dawning on me that none of the advice I gave Chula makes any sense what so ever, when I apply it to myself, as I sit in India, 8700 miles away from my best(est-est-est) friend of 18 years, typing this post. The UTBT family has R2Ied. I am missing a part of me, the children are missing their godparents and it feels like a big void that nothing can fill. There is a lot to be said about this friendship, but I am leaving you all with what Yaadayaada said, ‘We have been with each other for more time we have been with our parents.’

Location: Nordstorm, Handbags and accessories department.

A gentleman holding two Coach handbags, same design, two different colors, same price, one in each hand and comparing.

Gentleman to the sales person: These two bags are the same design and price, but one is bigger than the other. What does it mean?

Sales person: It means that one bag is stuffed with more paper than the other.

Clueless people buying handbags means only one thing. HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY folks.

 

Anitha tagged me as The Versatile Blogger. Thank a bunch Anitha. The rules are, on accepting the tag, I must tell seven random things about myself. Since the kids are much more interesting, here are seven random things about Chula and Mieja. As for passing the tag, if you are reading this post, you are tagged.

Seven random dialogues in seven random scenarios with Mieja. You can come up with your own conclusion about her.
We watched Toystory-3 at home. Mieja is weird about movies. One sad note/night scene/loud sound scares her and she hides behind me and cries. I put her on my lap, coaxed her and finally pull her through the whole movie.
Me: See???? It wasn’t that scary. Isn’t it? What do you think of the movie?
Mieja: I hate it. All that the toys do are to get lost. They keep getting lost and lost and lost. This is not a happy movie.

I am explaining the concept of money, budget, buying out of need vs buying for the sake of buying etc.
Mieja: I know amma. Let us go to Target and buy some money. That way we will have lots of money and need not prioritize. We can buy anything that we want.

Mieja playing with her close friend. Friend is wearing Gap shoes. Mieja is clueless about name brands.
Friend: Mieja, look what I am wearing. Gap.
Mieja: <Frantically looking around her> Where?! Where is the gap?

I am taking Mieja to the doctor to finish her five year old vaccinations. This is the second visit in the last three weeks. She had two shots last week of March and is having the last two vaccines this appointment.
Mieja: <Lips quivering> But amma….. why do I even need shots? I don’t like shots.
Me: Shots are for your own good. It helps you to be healthy.
Mieja: That is not even true. I had two shots the last time. Right now I have a cold. If shots are supposed to keep me healthy and the germs away, they are not even working. So I will not come to the doctor. Ever, never, never, ever again. Never in my life.

Chula and Mieja playing ludo with my aunt.
Aunt: Don’t throw the dice like that. If it gets lost or broken, then we can’t play ludo.
Mieja: Its okay if the dice gets lost or broken. The dice any way gives us a random number between 1 and 6. So when it is my turn to roll the dice, I will tell a random number between 1 and 6 and move my coin. We can still play like that.

Mieja goes ‘walking’ with my aunt. In two seconds she places a request to be carried.
Aunt: Come on, we have come for a walk.
Mieja: Yes. But I don’t like walking and you like walking. So you carry me and walk, I will be carried and not walk.

Mieja and my aunt ‘walk’ to the local Target. Meija asks to be placed in the shopping cart.
Meija: Now…. I am looking for something. So follow my directions and push the cart.
<After multiple left, right, u-turn, stop, circle, left, right, slow, yields later…..>
Aunt: What is that you are looking for? My head is spinning.
Mieja: Okay, okay, okay. I want something, but I don’t know what it is. So let us look on the computer.
Aunt: How is that possible?
Mieja: Why not? That is what amma does. She looks online about things. So borrow a computer from Target and let us look online and find out what I want. May be we can ask Google and it will tell me what I want.
Aunt: ????

Seven things about Chula:

She C.A.N.N.O.T take it if she loses a board game. Friday nights are game nights. The idea is to spend time together as a family. So we make alterations and try to make the game cooperative. But on those rare occasions we play the real version and she loses, hell breaks loose.

She believes that the world is a happy place. She believes in fairies and magic.

“Amma, do you know that people and animals never die? Everything that dies comes back to the earth in one form or another.”

She is my litter police. The rare occasion, I throw something as inconspicuous as a strand of hair, she is on my case.

She is a people pleaser. She would try out things that she hates, just to please me.

She has a gift for music, rythm and languages.

She prefers a book over TV, friends, playing, tech toys etc.

I have been silently following CSAAM for sometime now. I went for lunch with a friend and no prizes for guessing what we talked about. I came back thinking that I must put up a post, but quickly scratched the plan within hours because I didn’t want to attract any trolls. So far I have always written about safe topics and have stayed in my comfort zone, do I really want to jeopardize it?

Today morning I read Kiran’s tweet.

This reminds me of the “they came for the Jews, I kept quiet”. All ye who kept quiet, tomorrow it could be you.

That was the decision point for me. I mean, I am a Early Child Education professional and if I hesitate to advocate for the kids and their families, then what is the use of my education?

Irrespective of one’s age, one inappropriate touch, even if it a hasty groping, is enough to open one’s eyes to the world. Suddenly the world is not a safe place any more. Even a ten year old will develop a bat sense that teaches her to steer clear of some people. This is all in retrospect, but it is very confusing when you go through it and you are only ten years old and are not equipped with a good support system. I remember thinking hard about this negative attention but for the life of me couldn’t figure out why. The only explanation I could come up with was my non-existent breasts and the potential of what they can develop in to. I also came up with ingenious solution of wearing baggy clothes and molding my spine in to a convex shape that would give Manthara a tough competition!

I have been subjected to an occasional groping in public transportation, exposure to inappropriate language and despicable behaviors of a few individuals while in college. As difficult as it was to deal with it at that time, I must count my blessings. When it comes to my children, how do I deal with it? Gamble on luck? I wish I can put them in a bubble. But that ain’t happening. I cannot look in to those wide, innocent eyes and say that there are big bad wolves out there and they can potentially be affected by them. I just finished teaching them about widening their circle of trust and letting on people other than me in to this circle. Do I want to give them mixed messages? Though the girls already know certain aspects of appropriate and inappropriate touch, I had been afraid to go any further with this.

Thanks to CSAAM, I have been thinking about this topic for the past month. I am trying to remove the emotional ‘parent’ aspect from this equation and approach it as I would any lesson plan and I must say that helps. With this in mind, I have split what I want to do in to two categories – objectives and goals. Objectives are very concrete set of achievables which come with a definite time frame. Goals are something that we walk towards and at times we find this expanding and elusive.

Goals:
#1 Create awareness.
#2 Giving the child the right to say no.
#3 Teaching the children that they have full control over their bodies.
#4 Keeping the line of communication open.
#5 Let them know that they are special no matter what.

Objectives:
If you have a set of goals in your mind, small opportunities present themselves and these can be turned in to objectives. Otherwise, introduce the topic through a book with good content that targets your goals.

-For quite sometime now, Mieja has been pestering me how baby comes out of a mommy’s body, for which my typical answer has been, ‘When it is time the doctor will help the baby come out of mommy’s tummy’. Three weeks back, Mieja refused to take the template answer and forced me it to a corner asking me, ‘Amma, I have heard this million times. Tell me the body part the baby comes out of.’ So I told her the name of the appropriate body part. This to me is one of the goals that keeps in line with goal #3 – Teaching the children that they have full control over their bodies, which includes every body part has a name and a related function.

Over the three weeks at multiple instances I have followed up on this conversation, stressing that it is the name of a body part and is not something to be giggled over/used as a joke; the need for hygiene; every part of the body has a certain functionality including private parts and the children need to define boundaries for every body part. For example – It is okay to hold hands, not okay to touch some one’s eyes, okay  to ask for permission and give a hug, not okay to touch private parts. By holding hands and hugging you tell a person about love and trust. By touching some one’s eyes, you can potentially harm their eyes. When it comes to private parts it is inactive currently and all they need to worry about is hygiene.

-Indian culture is one that expects compliance, especially from children. So when your child says no, stop and listen to it. If possible help the child to give a reason why they are saying no. When one blindly discounts every no a child says, the child is going to grow up thinking that they do not have the power to say no. This addresses goal #2.

This is a constant struggle for me. Expecting compliance from my children has been written in to my DNA owing to the way I was raised. So I have to really practice to count to ten to keep my reflexes under control.

-Post 6 years of age, all children experiment with lying. The intention is totally harmless. A simple, ‘Yes, I washed my hands already’ is not meant to make a fool out of you, but to move on with the next exciting thing. Stamp out the urge to make a lesson out of the situation. A simple and quite, ‘I can find out if you washed your hands or not. Please tell me the truth. If you are in a hurry to go out and play bubbles, I will ask your sister to wait for you.’ will do wonders in the long run. goal #4.

What would I recommend a friend to read?
Of course the whole website, but in particular

– Awareness about cyber sexual abuse

–Commonly asked questions

–Book references by Sandhya.

 

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April 6th, edited to add clues.

Clue 1: Yes, the island is Alcatraz, which all of you figured out.

Clue 2: Think young adult, 9 – 12 years.

I have one last clue which is as good as giving the answer, so I will hold on to it till Friday 9.00AM PST.

April 7th, edited to add last clue, as promised.

Many of you have guessed the correct answer already.

Clue 3: Think Newbery Honor. I am trusting you guys not to google.

April 11th: Please find the results at the end of the post.

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Here is the quiz for April 2011, yes, I am working towards a book quiz, first Monday of every month.

– Guess the complete TITLE and AUTHOR of this book.

– Quiz closes Friday, April 8th. 4.00PM PST.

– Results will be announced Monday, April 11th.

– Instead of picking the first person to respond with the right answer, I am doing a random number generation of the right answers to pick the winner.

– The prize is a book. I want to choose a book appropriate for you/your child. So will announce the title of the book after I announce the winner.

-Comment moderation is on.

– Clipart credit coolclips.com and clipartpal.com

Your picture clue is

Added on April 11th, Results:

-Seven people got it right before the announced closing time. Hema, Sreela, sorry, you guys were right, but your answers did not make it in time. Sandhya, you did not have the author, but I made an exception, because this is a tough one.

-I inserted the names of the people with right answers in an excel file, ordered by the time they sent their reply.

-To choose one person randomly, I used a RANDBETWEEN function.

-The winner is entry number 6,  N.Chokkan. Please to get in touch with me through gmail(utbtkids@gmail.com) and we will discuss the prize.

-Thanks for playing folks.