1 year anniversary of our return to India

Nov 3rd, 2008 – we landed at Mumbai airport after an 8 hour flight from Rome, planning to surprise Appa’s parents on Diwali. We were exhausted, after a 3 week trip through Italy, with N still a toddler of a year and a half.

Yesterday, Nov 3rd, 2009 was the one year anniversary of our return back to India. Appa celebrated with his colleagues – by going drinking at the Boulder Hills Club. Me? I celebrated by being a good Mom. No exasperation or frustration. Just taking things as they come.

The last year has been, well, a mixed bag as they say. Alongwith the candies and the sweets we had really nasty things coming out of that bag. And our return, sadly, started with something nasty.

Here’s what happened  just the week that we returned – bomb blasts ripped the foundations of Guwahati, the city that I grew up in, and in which my parents and relatives lived. 18 bombs, killing more than a hundred people. I was struck with horror, and hollow with shock for a few days.

Then, just a month after, Mumbai was rocked with the brazenness of the terrorists who brought down the city to its knees for a harrowing day and more.

Appa and I thought, in all selfishness, was it right to come back, and put N in a country where there was such a blatant show of terrorism?  On the other hand, most of the people we loved and knew were here ( and after all, terrorists had already struck at the heart of the US too, no place was safe, as it were). At least this was our country, good or bad. Maybe the good would show up soon.

Of course, one of the good things that come out of that mixed bag was the constant touch with parents, and my sis, and other relatives who we would rarely get to see. We were counting the other day how much family N has met since we got back – and its been great. As soon as we came back, she spent Diwali with her Tata and Paati in Mumbai. ANd then of course there was the meeting of the two great devils in my life, my little sis and N.

Then I went to Guwahati for a month and a half with her , where she had a rollicking time. And she started speaking good Assamese. Okay okay – so it was a mix.

“Aita, Another Sau”, meaning Aita, move again, in Assamese, N said one day, asking my Mom to move coz she was trying to sweep the floor. Ma died with laughter that day.  Koka was buying her Chocolates every day.

In April, I went back again, this time to attend my cousin’s Thread Ceremony, something that I  never could have done if I were living in the US.

In March, and then again in June, we travelled to Bangalore for Appa’s cousin’s engagement and wedding. AGain, unimaginable if we were in the US. For the wedding, Appa’s brother came down from Canada, alongwith his daughter Anoushka. This was great, because Aswin and his family are now faraway, and N will get to see her cousin only occasionally.

During this time, Paati, Appa’s Mom, broke her leg – hit by a speeding maniac on a Bike. She is still hobbling around on her leg, and gaining the strength to walk, after 6 months of the injury. Definitely, one of the worse things that came out of the bag this year. N and I spent some time in Mumbai helping out.

In July, Paati and Tata came to visit us inHyderabad.  Before that, my Mom, her sis and Riku, her son who’s only 10 came over. We had a blast, showing them around. My sis visited with her boyfriend, and I found myself driving for the umpteenth time to Charminar and Laad Bazaar ( not that I did not enjoy it).

And then, in September, we made a 10 day trip to Delhi, to make sure we met up with everybody in India we knew pretty much. It was a blast, especially because we were there during Durga Puja.

During this time, of course, Gypsyfeet Travels was being born. I spent 10 days in December and 10 days in April travelling, minus N. The first trip was to Upper Assam, all the places that I had always wanted to visit while growing up. In fact, more, I travelled all the way to the Myanmar border. In april, I travelled to Bhutan, a trip that was, to put it simply, exhilarating.These trips were also pilot trips for Gypsyfeet, the travel company that we were starting. I blogged quite extensively about these travels.

We did our first trip in the NE, called Walk in the Clouds. It was in July, 2009.

Our second in September, Land of the Thunderbolts, in Sept 2009.

And our third trip is coming up soon, in Nov, 2009. We have many more trips lined up for the coming months.

And I have published a series of articles in various papers and magazines on my travels, so I can call myself a travel writer of sorts. And my children’s stories may get published, sometime in the next year. So personally, I have done some very different stuff from what I was doing in my corporate job. Of course,  I had teething problems, and some of them still remain.

Appa loves our move back to India. He takes off on his Enfield Bullet everyday from home, off to work at Microsoft, where he does a hard day’s work ( or not!). He comes back in the evening to a well-kept house ( relatively speaking ) , because we have help at home, and I have the time to look after the house.

Life, in short, is very different from when we were in the US. We have much more family engagements ( commitments!), and we travel often to meet family, whereas in the US we simply travelled to see a place, or, sometimes, friends. I spend more time taking care of the house, and of N. N is growing up very differently from how she would have in the US – for one, she has a South Indian accent instead of an American one. She is also learning Telugu, something her Mother has not managed over all these years!

We continue to play a lot of sports, and I have started doing some more demanding athletic activities like longer distance cycling, and running. Even then, we end up spending more time indoors or in some AC environment, because the outdoors are just not pleasant – there’s fumes, and there is dust, and there is dirt. Or there is traffic. So I go out in the mornings and evenings, and avoid traffic hours where possible.

Gypsyfeet takes up a lot of my time, and I am travelling to the NE in December for another month, to set up things. Busy times ahead.

Appa is happy and secure and confident that the move back was good. That we did the right thing? Me? I don’t know. I feel we made trade-offs .. and got some good things and some not-so-good. Would I do it again? Probably. Maybe just for the little pleasures.

 

Great to run with the girls

For the longest time, I have been thinking about getting up early, biking down to the Hyderabad Botanical garden ( a great chunk of green space very close to where I stay, the only one in the area, as a matter of fact), and going for a run there.

Finally happenned today, thanks to this group of girls, who decided to start running together.

We did 6 kms. People ran or walk as they wished, each at their own pace. We all loved the paths through the forest areas, and some of us who hadn’t been on those paths before were surprised at the greenery. The morning was nice and cool. After the first round of the park, we all felt we could do more. Ammie, with her child on the stroller, was raring for a longer run. So were the others. So off we went, on a second lap of the gardens.

Was a great way to start the day, and hoping the enthusiasm continues. Next meetup is at KBR park, one of my favorite places in Hyderabad.

Eventually, the group would set up as the local chapter of RunnerGirls India.

http://www.runnergirlsindia.com/

 

 

Customer Service takes a back-seat, yet again

You would think that given we have so many service providers competing with each other in almost every sector in India, you, the customer, would finally be the king. Or Queen. Demanding and receiving prompt, hassle-free service.

Poor gullible you. Or poor gullible me, to even expect reasonable service, let alone stellar service.

Case #1: We moved houses, just two floors down, same apartment. I call Airtel Broadband services to come and fix the line at the new flat. They take down the service request, and inform me, to my surprise, that they would disconnect me immediately, and the  service people would come over to my apartment any day over the next 3 days to fix it. I try to explain, calmly even though I knew  it was going to be quite futile, that I work from my home office, and 3 days of not being connected puts me in spot, so please could they disconnect on the day when the shifting service folks would come. “No Madam, our process does not allow it, the request will not go through to the shifting dept unless we disconnect you now”. Process?? What goddamn process? I get all mad and fired up, and ask them why not, to which of course there is no reply, except that the process would not allow it. It felt like I was trying to break through a stone wall. Deep breath.

Case #2: The Airtel guy comes to shift. Disconnects everything from the apartment above, comes to the new apartment and fiddles around for 3 whole hours one evening, and again 3 hours the next morning. No connection, nothing. “Madam, problem with the wiring”, classic if you don’t know whats wrong, pass it along. Turns out he was trying the wrong point altogether.

Case#3: I’ve not watched any TV for the last 2 weeks, thanks to the Tata Sky guys. Same story – guy comes, rips out the Tata Sky disk on the roof-top to make sure the connection is gone, comes down and demands extra money for fixing it in the new apartment. This one is down-right extortion. Unfortunately, he did not realise not everybody is a TV addict. And he did not realise how stubborn Appa can be at times. So off we packed him, and the disk is still lying in the balcony of the old apartment.

Case#4: Tiresome, just writing about it. But for the sake of completeness, I have to tell it all. So today, I go to ICICI bank. I ask for a cheque book, in that it says clearly, “if your address has changed, please update it here”, with a form below for the new address. Lady at the counter tells me sorry, but first you have to update the address, and then ask for a new chequebook. Hello, why do you have it in the same form then, I reason with her. She is blind to reason – the dreaded word comes through again – “Madam, Process”. She may as well have told me sorry, but I am not allowed to think, I’m only supposed to be a machine replacement. I huffed and puffed my way to the managers office, who tried to tell me the same story, but somehow he could not put up the stony resistance of the teller, and promised to Try. Okay. Try. I know very well you are going to call me saying the Process did not allow you.

Case#5: Well, this one is not so bad, but it showed very plainly what is wrong with frontline service staff in almost all companies in India. A lack of a back-bone to make decisions, thats what. I went to pick up tickets for the Qadir Ali Baig foundation’s Theatre Feastival ( my rant about the cultural scene in Hyderabad worked) at HICC, Novotel. The lobby manager tells me tickets are with the sales manager, who is in a meeting for the next one hour. What?? I am coming here to buy your tickets, for God’s sake, and you tell me I’ve got to wait in the lobby for an hour because the sales manager is hoarding the tickets somewhere. What irked me more than anything else was the sheer servile attitude of the lady – she was actually scared of calling up the sales manager, because, you see, he was in an important meeting. After half an hour of waiting, I threatened that I would walk into the sales meeting, and give them a pitch about customer empathy. Magically, the sales manager appeared. Sad to say, sometimes you have to appear more mean than others to get your stuff done.

Happy news, I am going to two plays directed by Naseeruddin Shah tomorrow and day after.

Bad news, customer service is only lip-service. It rarely appears. Anywhere. At least not among the people I seem to be encountering. It would be wrong though to blame the boys and girls, mostly junior folks, who are routinely dealing out such lousy customer service. I would, in fact, blame the company, and specifically, those higher up the chain, who are supposed to, empower their employees to make some rational decisions on behalf of the customer. Somebody needs to tell them, processes are okay, but customers come first.

 

I hate to say it, but Hyderabad kind of sucks

I have lived in the city of Hyderabad for most of my working life – close to 7 years now.  You would think, after staying here all this time, I would develop at least some fond feelings for the city. Well, to be honest, I was happy to pack my bags and get going from here a few years ago to Seattle, US. But what do you know? Life ( job actually, not mine, the hubby’s) brings me back right here.

Why this sudden rant about the city? Well, when you are working, kind of a 9 – 9 job, then where you stay does not matter a whole lot. Okay, okay, it does somewhat, but you are too pooped out at the end of the day and only want to hit the sack anyway.

Life changes when you don’t have that 9-9 job. For one, you are more in touch with whats happenning outside the glass and chrome buildings.

And thats I, for one, realized how little the city has to offer. Die-hard Hyderabadis may beg to differ. Well, I beg to differ with them.

Lets start with one of the best things good cities can offer – good food. The lesser said about the gourmands out here, the better. You have only to look, and what you see on offer are buffets. All you can eat meals, – no mention of what you are eating mind you. Its all about how much you can heap your plate. And if it is with oily Biryani, all the better. Heap some more. And finish off with dessert buffets of the usual humdrum chocolate cakes etc. etc.  This is supposed to be a cosmopolitan city, and what do you have to offer? Apart from the Biryani, which was handed down from the Nizams, do we have a single speciality restaurant worth their name in this city? Chain restaurants is the best we can manage it seems. ( okay, I can name a few. But only a very few, mind you. One of two Thai, one new Bengali restaurant).

Okay, now that we have had our fill of Andhra thalis, which I don’t mind once in a while, but really is over-fried and over-spiced, lets get on to the entertainment bit.

For that, what you have is a wide and varied choice – of third rate movies at any of the multi-plexes. And Hyderabad has the most number of movie halls in the country, you’re bound to get a ticket for some movie somewhere. Though you may have to try hard, Hyderabadis will watch anything, and I mean anything.

Bad luck for anybody who’d rather watch a play, or something humdrum like that. There is one happenning every quarter, so you have to squeeze out every ounce of entertainment you can from that one play you do get to see. Like we did when Anupam Kher came to town, maybe, 3 months back. Since then, nothing, Nada. Zilch.

Okay, so there are the so-called Lounge bars. Okay, so Hyderabadi women have finally learnt to dress themselves ( though the other day I actually spotted somebody in a dress with skulls on it!!) , but what about the men? When, oh when, will they learn??

I can go on. Oh please, somebody tell me some redeeming feature of the city. Even the lovely rocks and the grandeur of the Golconda and Qutb Shahi tombs are gone with the high-rises around Hi-Tech city area. Green Hyderabad never was, and the highest point in the city, according to some hiking enthusiastic friends, is actually a Dargah in secunderabad area which is on a single-rock, about 100 steps and you are at the top.

There must be Hyderabadis out there who feel enough for their city to point out its niceties. If so, please let us onto the secret.

And please don’t say Golconda again. We are talking about living culture here.

< I found this great compilation of activity clubs by Ajay here.  Great job, Ajay! >

 

I gave birth to her, but is she mine?

What explains these then?

1. Her love for music and dance. Now where did that one come from? My entire family is tone deaf, and we wear this badge openly so that we will not be pulled into any musical event whatsoever. Including Karaoke.And here N goes plonking herself at the piano.

2. She’s coy! Now this one is new to us all.

3. And yet, she does not mind being photographed like this:

 

Durga Puja in Delhi – Pandal Hopping

The last three days have been a whirlwind of Puja Pandals  with our Bengali friends in Delhi.

A quick photo-blog:

At Chittaranjan Park , an Egyptian theme at the Pandal – a replica of the Sphinx.

Egyptian theme at the CR Park Puja in Delhi

At Matrimandir in Safdarjung enclave, the foodcourt was bigger than the Puja area.  Mughlai parathas were the flavor of the season.

Gorging on Mughlai Paratha at Matrimandir Pandal

The Goddess herself – resplendant – I think this was a award-winning one. The “Besht” idol in South Delhi.

Matri mandir Durga Puja Pandal

 

Exploring Delhi – Humayun’s tomb near Nizammuddin

Humayun's tomb facade

Steps leading upto Humayuns tomb

A beautiful gate in the Humayun's tomb complex

 

A few hours in the by-lanes of Delhi 6

We spent a few hours in the colorful, noisy mayhem of Delhi 6.

Our first stop – sweet potatoes nicely roasted and sprinkled with chat masala.

Appa drinks a lassi from a matka after eating jalebis, while N looks on in amazement.

At the Parathewaala gali, we gorge on Matar Paratha, Paneer Paratha, and .. this is true.. karela parathas. They were good, btw. There were Papad parathas, tomato parathas, etc. but you can only eat so much.

And after all that eating, a Banarasi paan to top it all off.

 

Three devils get together

One  a  photographer who can sell her soul to get a good pic.

One is a devil in general, who also has disguised herself effectively as a human being. The glint in her eyes gives her away often.

One is a devil in the making. You know which one.

 

Is it normal for a 2.5 year old to talk like an adult ?

N says: Ma, I want to eat some Papaya ( firstly, which 2.5 year old willingly eats fruit)?

ANyhow, so I get busy chopping up Papaya for her.

Me: I’m getting it for you.

N: Can you put some salt on it please? ( oh, so now she has culinary preferences als0)

Me: Okay, salt on it.

N: Actually, I think I would like some sugar on it. Actually.

Methinking: Is this a devious “foot in the door” game she’s playing to get to eat sugar? Or did she really change her taste preference from salty to sugary in a second?

Anyhow, I’m only the slave around here, so I present Papaya pieces in that orange bowl with that partciular fork with sugar sprinkled on top for her majesty, the reigning queen of our lives. Still reeling from the conversation we just had, which would have been just normal were it not with a 2.5 year old!