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.