This will be my last post under the "return to India" blog. I feel I have nothing new to add anymore on this topic.

I'm going to address two questions that I've been perpetually asked over the last few months, in person, over email and in a couple of comments as well:

1) Ideally, where would I like to live?

Given enough money, both places (and many others too) :D

First of all, I think there is no "ideal" set in stone for me. The "ideal" perfect life changes with time. I spent my 20s in the US, and for that "era" I think it was ideal. I studied, lived and worked there, did some travel, made some money etc. I could definitely have done a whole lot more, but am quite happy looking back. Not many regrets..

Right now, with small kids, with D exploring a new career path I think living in India is close to ideal for our family - we're closer to family, we can afford for me to stay home, and don't have to worry about job security. Of course, there are days when I roundly regret ever coming back, and I'm not sure personally that this whole "stay at home" break will be good for my career at all.

Some people also turn this whole debate into a India vs. US thing - if you move back, you're anti-US and if you stay, you're ignoring parents in their old age, etc etc. I really don't agree. Although I got my US citizenship reluctantly (D pushed me into it), I now like the fact that I still have links to that country. D and I both hope to continue to travel there, and maintain our contacts there. If all our kids move there to go to University, I'm going to work in a Starbucks and finish out my 40 credits to qualify for social security :)

2) Would I recommend the move to others?

Yes, with some reservations.

Moving is painful for anyone, whether to another city or country. Its doubly difficult with young kids, and both spouses changing careers. You would think moving back home is a no-brainer, but the actual process is very challenging. I read somewhere that once you travel abroad you can never really return home. That is true. People change, plus our image of how things are "back home" is different from reality. India has changed tremendously, but has (sadly) remained the same in many ways.

For someone considering a similar move, I would say, make it as informed a move as possible. Consider make a trial move of 6 months if at all possible. Don't make assumptions about anything. Plus, if you're moving your stuff, move every single thing possible. Don't throw away or sell or give away anything. It'll make your life much easier here, less shopping to do, plus you can make several people here happy by giving away your unwanted junk!

Well thats it for me folks. We moved, we're getting adjusted, and are mostly happy. I'll start a blog with more mundane stuff / some creative writing sometime soon, check back if you're interested. And, keep in touch - we'll do the same!


P.S: Welcome Anjali, I hope you read this someday :D

November update

Another month gone by, its now 6 months since we returned. It already seems like ages, and our stint in the US is settling into very pleasant memories.

Took in another trip to Bangalore between my last post and this one. The kids' pediatrician asked me if I go to Blr every weekend . I will freely acknowledge that if I could, I would go every other weekend at least!

Went to Mysore from Bangalore to attend my cousin Teju's wedding. Ani thoroughly enjoyed his first wedding, and bonded tremendously with my posse of teenage cousins. The twins were kissed and cuddled and loved to death. It was a good trip on the whole.

However, 3 days after we got back to Blr, my grandfather passed away. This was a tremendous shock to all of us. Coming on the heels of Deepak's grandmom passing away, two grandparents left us in a month. My grandad was doing fine, his death was very sudden and swift. I was in the ER when they tried to revive him. I won't go into details, but suffice to say that my current opinion of medical processes and systems in India is not high at all.

In happier news, the "handsome twins" turned a year old today - hurray me! :D They were born on Thanksgiving day last year. We're planning on two birthday bashes, one in Hyd next month and one in Blr early next year. Two bashes for two boys seems somewhat appropriate!

Quite a few people (including my parents) have asked us recently if we're happy after 6 months back in India. Led me (and D) to think about it. We're happy to report that on the whole, we're happy ;). In the tradition of Dave Letterman, I'll attempt a list of the top 10 things I'm happy about, and also another of the top 10 I'm not.

And, drumroll please, Paul, here goes -

Top 10 things Paddy likes about her return to India (purely subjective, off the hat, compiled at 1 am list) -

10. The food! Can't beat fresh Indian veggies, fruits and South Indian food for anything in the world.
9. Did I mention the trips to Bangalore in previous posts ? ;=D
8. Ani bonding so well with all our relatives.
7. Ani speaks fluent Kannada now.
6. No winter! (Yes, yes, I know, I used to live in CA and not Detroit or Minneapolis, but winters were cold enough in CA for the kids to keep falling sick..)
5. Did I mention the food? Its a veggie foodie's paradise out here - especially, of course, Bangalore!
4. Calling my mom is no longer an international call - its just an STD or long distance call. Does not make the phone bills smaller, but still
3. I'm finally using all my salwar kameez and sarees.
2. Am enjoying the festivals.
1. Kids have bonded so well with grandparents, parenting here is so much easier. We finally have a support structure!

There's all the other unrealised potential pluses of being in India - like being able to do something on my own (instead of being a salaried rat), exploring India etc.etc., but for now, this list will do.

OK, here's my sob list of stuff I miss about the US -

10. My house! I've gone to maps.google.com and put in our house address a few times... I do miss you, 5859 Southbridge Way.
9. The familiarity - I'm sure any merchandise in the world is available here, but I don't know where. Whereas I know exactly where I can find potty seats for my twins in Target or Babies R Us.
8. The cleanliness on the streets and public areas - Don't get me started on this. As I think I've written before, I feel sad I can't take the kids out on a walk on a decent pavement, or to a park without having to drive a distance. The roads suck, the pavements are the pits, and public places are filthy. Don't think it will improve in my lifetime :( Its just getting worse.
7. The lack of privacy - I think I've written enough about this before.
6. India may be on the cutting edge of medicene and all that, but neighbourhood hospitals and clinics (even in the big cities) are just not at the same level as the US.
5. California. Good thing I don't need a visa to visit the US, because it would be a shame to have to stand in line in Chennai in order to visit Yosemite or San Francisco or Disneyland... or just that little restaurant called Chutneys at the intersection of Camino Tassajara and Crow Canyon Road in Danville. Their Gobi 65 and Mango creme brulee are to die for (and if you have not realized I'm a major foodie by now, you've not been paying attention).
4. My job. Since I'm unemployed and a SAHM right now, it seems only appropriate to (sometimes) long for that little 6 by 9 cubicle in gray in SC-3.
3. The cars - You could buy an Accord or a Beemer here, but it would be a sheer waster of money - you'd never go over 40 kmph in the city at best on these roads and in this traffic. My Santro is perfect for conditions here, but can you blame me for missing a V6 engine?
2. Friends - Most of our good friends (and most of our cousins) are in the US. We don't have a good friends' "circle" here..
1. Target - I miss this one store so much, because I am a Target addict (like others - http://www.womenswallstreet.com/columns/column.aspx?aid=428) and and suffering major withdrawal. The next time I visit the US, the first thing I want to do is rush to the nearest Tarjay store, grab one of those red carts and just loiter down the aisles slavering at all they have - and blowing a major hole in my RBI-alloted dollars..

There's a zillion things I probably miss about my life in the US. But its 1:20 in the morning and I think I'll finally hit the sack.

About the kids

I stumbled on this link today - http://scrolling.blogs.com/mothering/2005/01/one_slowass_daw.html

- and am longing for the day when I can be a "regular mother"! That day seems far off right now...

Another miscellaneous posting

Deepak's grandmother passed away 2 weeks ago. She was a very lively, very independent and energetic 82 year old lady, and will be greatly missed. D went to Bangalore for a day for the cremation etc. Her passing reinforced D's feeling (and mine) that being closer to parents as they grow older is the right thing to do - not just for themselves, but for us as well. We had spent time with her during our last visit to Bangalore, and were thankful we got that chance.

I'm hunting for a "mancha" (bed frame) and mattress for our guest room. My parents will be visiting soon, so am equipping the house to receive them. You find really good quality furniture here at prices much lower than the US. A very good quality teak and steel frame bed would be around 10K rupees (250 dollars) - quite unthinkable in the US. So it seems like our decision not to get any furniture back is quite justified.

On the other hand, real estate prices here (even in Hyderabad) are galloping sky high. I visited a friend's new place last week (during Dasara). Standard 3-bedroom, 3-bath apartment in a complex with 45 such other "flats". Boasts of marble flooring, a "modular" kitchen, shower cabinet etc. Modular kitchens are quite the craze here - the kitchens are equipped with factory-made cabinets with tallboys, lazy susans etc. The drawers are all steel grilled. The place is in quite a desirable neighbourhood in W. Marredpally (near Ani's school). Whole package cost them around 33 lakhs - that's around 75k $. Maybe cheap by Bay Area standards, but not elsewhere I think. I felt the finish was quite shoddy for such a high-end place though. The grout in the bath rooms was not neatly done, the woodwork finish was quite bad- there was polish all over the wall.

We're debating whether to continue Ani in the montessori school past next year. Mainly because of one thing- we learnt that to get into a "good" school for 1st gradehe'll have to face an written entrance exam consisting of questions like "What color is the sky?". He's actually expected to read sentences like this and write answers to them, plus, also know the 4 basic arithmetic operations!!!! I honestly don't know how they expect a 6 year old to know all this. His montessori teacher and a couple of my relatives in the education business assure me that he'll be able to do all this by then, but I'm still sceptical. Seems to me that sooner or later Ani will have to join the ratrace :(

Because of all these apprehensions, I went on a survey of "good" schools in the area along with another mom. First off we went to Oakridge, "the" school in Hyderabad. Its got facilities comparable to any US private school, and the tuition fees are sky high (60K for kindergarten, and we can expect a hike of 5-10% every year). Deepak instantly calculated how much it would cost to send 3 kids thro 12th grade here - will blow a big hole in our bank account. However the other big factor is that the school is at least an hour away in moderate traffic conditons. He'd go in a school bus (airconditioned bus, no less!) but if it is an hour away in today's traffic, I shudder to think of how long it will take in a few years..Couple of other really good schools don't take kids in till the 1st grade (and that includes HPS too, Keshav!) so Anirudh is going to stay in Bhavishya at least for another year and a half.

In general, schools fall into two categories - the learn-by-rote, stress-on-academic schools where fees are quite decent, entrance is quite easy. The other more innovative schools where teaching is more student-centric rather than exam-oriented are quite expensive. Add facilities like swimming pools, tennis courts etc. and these schools become very elite and snobbish. I do want Anirudh to go to a school where sports and music and art are as important as academics, unfortunately this is still viewed as a luxury in India. Academics are still all important, the door to success for all.

Back from Bangalore

We did a 10 day visit of Blore. Even a short 1 hour flight is no fun when you're lugging 3 kids along. But as always spending time in my mom's house is great - I can really relax, and kids have a great time. We had our nanny Leela join us (she traveled by train). She seemed to like it there too, plus she earned extra and got a lot of festival goodies (it was Gowri-Ganesha time during our visit).

We're sort of getting settled now, although you would not think it if you saw our house. We've managed to get the boxes down to 1 room in the ground floor now, but the room in the 1st floor is still a big warehouse. I even have a couple of friends, courtesy Anirudh - they are moms of Anirudh's friends at school. One of them has proposed shopping expeditions, trips to the zoo with the kids etc., have to see how that pans out. I think in the phase of life that we are now, making new friends is sort of dicey - they have to be exactly the same phase of life as us, otherwise our obsession with our kids will drive them crazy (or bore them to tears). Fortunately one of the moms has a 3 year old and a 10 month old, *and* they recently returned from the US - eerily similar to our circumstances!!

I'm pestering Deepak to take me out to see a movie. The twins (plus Leela, our nanny) can easily be dropped off at the in-laws' for a few hours. Anirudh is not so easy to "dispose" of - he is used to going with us everywhere, but hopefully we'll give him the slip one of these days. I want to see "Salaam Namaste" - apparently it is quite good.

In other news, someone from my previous employer has sent email enquiring if I'm interested in working for them again. I've responded in the positive, but I doubt if they know that I don't live in Bangalore. This person is not India-based, so they don't know of all the logistical issues with working remotely in India - easily surmountable according to me, but not according to top management in Bangalore.

We finally got broadband today (yeah!). Speed is not great (100 kbps or less), but at least our phone line is not tied up anymore.

I'm quite mobile in the streets of Marredpally nowadays, have to test my driving skills in "real" traffic one of these days. I truly believe that automatic transmission is the way to go in this stop and go chaos on Indian roads.

One sad thing is that kids no longer seem to come out and play here anymore. Anirudh is quite starved for playmates around our house, and nowadays spends a lot of time telling stories to himself. The stories are quite intricate and he can literally talk for hours. I don't know what this trait indicates - that whether he has a vivid imagination, or that he is becoming more of an introvert. Anyways, once the twins are a little older, he won't lack for playmates anymore.

Hurricane Katrina got a lot of coverage in media here. While most people are sympathetic to the people who suffered due to it, there is definitely a mild feeling of ... I don't know what the exact word is... that the US is as chaotic, or ill-organised or ill-prepared as any other country to face these type of disasters. There were emails being forwarded endlessly about how Bombay coped better with the rains here than New Orleans.. I'm not sure if the comparison is valid, given how vastly different the topographies of the two cities are..

NY Times now requires subscription to access Maureen Dowd's column. She is one of my favorite columnists. I can read other columnists like Tom Friedman and Paul Krugman in syndication here, but somehow Mo Dowd has not caught the Indian public's imagination here.

As I type this, Deepak and I are talking about how we miss two things still - the Wall Street Journal and Don Imus. We are right now getting 4 papers daily and 6 papers on Sunday as we're trying to figure out which ones we like. But one thing is clear - none of them have the kind of in-depth reporting that WSJ does. The Hindu comes the closest, but its opinion pages are very left-wing. Its fortnightly magazine, Frontline, covered the Katrina hurricane in depth this time - the cover story was titled "America's shame". That about says it all.

More on doctors and life in general

Sid has had fever since Saturday. Last night it was particularly high and being used as we are to 24-hour helplines in the US, we called the hospital (where his ped consults) at 6 am. This is a children's hospital, quite well known in the area. The guy who answered the phone told us there are no pediatricians there at this hour, best thing would be to talk to the doctor. He just gave us the doctor's home number. I spoke first to her husband and then to the sleepy doctor herself. She told us to sponge him down with cold water and he'll be fine. My MIL seconded this suggestion and we did it, it did help him.

Later in the day, I took Ani to see her for his immunization shots. She asks me how Sid is, and considering that today was his 4th day with fever, dashed off a prescription for an antibiotic.

Some glaring differences between US pediatricians and peds here - In India, most peds don't check for ear infections, which is one of the first things they do in the US. On the other hand, antibiotics are not the first line of defence in India. But, they freely prescribe antibiotics on the phone or without seeing the patient.

Guess there are good and bad things in both approaches. However the ability to wake up the doctor at 6 am and speak to her was just great. No way would they hand out the doc's home number in the US.

In other news,Arjun got his 3rd tooth. Sid is yet to start on the toothy front.

D got his car finally - Maruti Swift (http://www.marutiswift.com) - Azure grey color. Car looks very nice, feels solid. Maruti's well oiled marketing machine tried to sell all their rust proof paint, insurance, finance etc etc but by now we've seen it all to get the "topi" put on us any more.

We're now in our 4th month here. Slowly getting adjusted to a different cadence of life. There are infinite number of good things about coming back and infinite number of things we miss about our old life in the US.

Staying at home makes me restless but on the other hand I can't imagine leaving the kids and dashing off to the other end of the city and putting in long work days right now. I hope to find some happy medium one of these days. In the meanwhile, my days are filled with baby and kid stuff, packing lunch for D, calling the washer/dryer repair guy/plumber/water supply guy, picking up Ani from school, shopping at Foodworld, taking kids for their shots etc. Am quite a regular
soccer mom now, the Santro being my minivan of choice :)

Servants and stuff

I read this article called "Rich Desi Poor Desi Smart Desi" (a humorous take on "Rich Dad Poor Dad"). Basically talks about how the average techie desi will probably save a 1000 bucks a month throughout his tenure in the US, return to India and then end up saving around 500 bucks a month - prices in India being what they are, esp in the big cities like Bangalore, this kind of desi is destined to remain poor because he ends up actually taking a pay cut to come to India, spending as much as he would in the US and then actually saving less. The Rich Desi on the other hand is the one who made it big in the US and can actually afford servants there etc. This type will never return to India. The smart desi is supposedly the best kind - he buys property in India like crazy when has the US dollar power, rents it all out and lives life king-size.

I'm not sure which category we fall into - we're definitely not rich, or else we would not have returned, as per the theory ;D No property rented out to make us smart desis either!

Talking of servants, my observations (along with Deepak's) are -

1) You get a lot of hired help in India but they are totally unreliable. Any tales you heard of people arriving late here are very true. Our plumber turned up after 15 days today to finish what he had left had done.

2) The disparity between the "servant-class" and the upper middle/middle class is huge. I went shopping in Spencer's (Costco type outfit) yesterday for cleaning supplies, juice, fruit etc. My bill came to 2K, which is the monthly salary of our nanny.

Given this disparity it is natural that they will look at all your "stuff" and comment. We come in contact with several people during the day - the nanny, the maid who cleans the house, the chowkidar, the driver, the garbage guy etc. - most of them have commented on the "American" toys and furniture we have.. it becomes natural to keep valuables under lock and key and become very cautious about what you take out.

3) They don't know how to operate our washer and dryer or to clean my nonstick/ceramic cookware. So I end up doing dishes late in the night and lugging laundry up to the laundry room. Sometimes makes me wonder what we have all these people for!

4) Loss of privacy. This is a big one for me so far. I expect I'll get used to it as time passes.

5) The maid servant will clean the bathroom but will not touch the toilet - it is beneath her to clean it!

By now anyone reading this will say, comeon! You're grumbling too much.So let me list the positives.

1) Our chowkidar Sunkiah does the water management i.e., when water comes at some unearthly dawnish hour he turns the pump on and makes sure our over head tanks are full. Our house is relatively secure because of his presence.

2) Our nanny makes my day sane! Enough said.

3) Due to the driver (actually he is my FIL's driver, whom I borrow liberally), I don't have to worry about chaotic traffic or non-existent parking when I go out shopping etc.

4) Food never goes waste. There is always someone willing to take yesterday's rice etc. We eat a lot healthier here because the food is always made fresh.

All in all, servants are definitely a mixed blessing. Love them or leave them, once you get used to them, you cannot do without them!