NRI Parents' Association in Vadodara

Via e-mail I received a link to the website of an organization serving the needs of NRI parents (parents of non-resident Indians) in Vadodara:

http://www.nripagujarat.com/

The website also provides information about a similar organization in Bangalore (http://www.nripagujarat.com/nri/other-nri-organisations/). The following few paragraphs is from their "About" section:

NRI Parents Association, Vadodara, Gujarat was formed on July 21, 2002 by a group of concerned NRI parents who felt the need to promote the Association with following aims and objectives.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

To promote fellowship goodwill and mutual support among members and others.

To build a network of support in the areas of Health Care, Help in Ageing Processes, Cultural and Religious, legal help for protecting rights to properties and assets.

To utilize the expertise, experience and resources of parents and their children for the benefit of the society at large.

With a view to achieve above objectives following activities are planned:

Publication of Newsletter to promote contacts among parents and children.

Arrange lectures, seminars, workshops to give information with regard to Visa, Passport, Medical Insurance, Foreign exchange regulation and other related topics.

Contact the Government agencies, Foreign Missions and other related agencies to sort out the problems of NRI parents.

Set up a small library of books, magazines and journals and documents related to NRI affairs and helpful to them.

A couple of years ago I wrote about an article in Outlook magazine about NRI parent associations mushrooming in cities across India and how these groups help aging parents cope with having to live far away from their children:

Here's a social sub-group that my parents belong to, but it never crossed my mind until I read this article in the Feb 6, 2006 edition of Outlook magazine - NRI Parents.
In other words, parents of Non-Resident Indians.

These parents have a lot more in common than just their children living away from them in foreign lands. They face common issues at home - loneliness, lack of a support system, travel issues, management of funds, etc. So they banded together to form associations. Many such associations are already up and running in almost every major city in India including Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Baroda, Ahmedabad and Coimbatore.

The entire post is here.

If you are aware of anyone who might benefit from these associations, please direct them appropriately.

Mind-boggling Marketing by McDonald's

We opened the (snail) mailbox a couple of days ago and found a flyer from McDonald's, addressed to us specifically, advertising their new McCafe coffee line. It caught my eye because we'd just listened to a segment on the launch of McCafe on NPR's Marketplace in the car on the way back from C's swim session. I flipped it over and saw this:

A line of Hindi in English script - "Taste ki baat hai", meaning "It's a matter of taste". It was just so totally unexpected that I needed a moment to figure out I wasn't in India. This is not the first time I've had this "clash of the worlds' experience, but it never fails to get me.

P.S. The original "Clash of the Worlds" post is below. We lived in India then and were visiting the US for a "home visit" (and C was known as N on the blog).

N and I were at the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) a couple of days after we got to the US to get our car license tags reissued. We took a number to get in line, I filled out the application form and we sat in the row of chairs facing the 17-odd customer service counters. Christmas decorations were everywhere - green imitation pine streamers hung from the doors, windows and ceiling, red bows punctuating them every two feet or so, and red stockings hung from every counter with the name of each employee written in shiny colorful markers across the white furry borders.

As we sat waiting, we read the names on each of the stockings. When we came to the one with lettering in gold-colored marker, I blinked. The name looked like it had been written in Kannada. I blinked again, but it wouldn't go away.

I asked N to go up closer to the stocking and see if it was written in Kannada. He looked at me like I was nuts ("You've got to be kidding, mom"), but he went to the stocking and looked. It said Safiana. In English, of course.

Snippets of conversations I could not catch in crowded places seemed like they were spoken in Kannada. I looked around and there was not a single Indian face to be seen. It's not just me. On this trip, N sometimes thought he heard Kannada too.

This was not the first time my two worlds have clashed in my head. When we're driving around in the US on a stretch of road empty of other vehicles, with relatives or our Indian friends in the car, listening to a Hindi CD, it comes as a complete shock to me when we come to a traffic signal and there are cars with non-Indian faces in them.

We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

And my brain doesn't just transplant India into the US. The reverse works very well too.

A few months ago I was at my uncle's house in Bangalore for a pre-wedding family get-together (my cousin was getting married). I was dressed up in Indian clothes, of course, with bindis going a mile up on my forehead and bangles clanging on my wrists. On the way back home I needed to stop at the grocery store for something.

As I was leaving my uncle's house, an image flitted across my head. I was going to show up at the grocery store in all my Indian finery. Just a thought. And an awareness that I would get a lot of stares and smiles and perhaps some questions. A second later it struck me.

Duh! I'm in India! I'm not going to the local Safeway, I'm going to Monday to Sunday!

Confessions of a Newly Returned Indian

If you are considering returning to India and would like the viewpoint of someone who has returned recently, consider following the adventures of neoIndian (via DesiPundit). Commentary on social issues plus thoughts on schooling and such. From the About section:

While your overworked spouse screams at you to take the garbage out, Neo is calmly munching on Samosas prepared by a suspiciously good-looking maid.

While you are stuck in traffic, Neo has outsourced road-rage to his overpaid driver and is lounging in the back-seat of his car tweeting from his iPhone.

While you are busy trying to outsource everyone’s job except your own, Neo makes a shitload of money working for a software company in Bangalore where he manages a group of engineers who are smart, but not smarter than Neo. Not even close.

No harm in having a little fun while plotting your move back. No?

Immigrant Voices - Reactions to Shoba Narayan's "Return to India" Article

If the number of blogs dedicated to the 'return to India experience' and the google searches that lead to my blog looking for schooling information and hospitals in India are any indication, returning to India is on the minds of a number of Indians (and those moving to India as expats for work reasons). So, when I came across Shoba Narayan's vividly descriptive article about her family's 'return to India' story, I sent it to a few friends who I thought might find it interesting and also posted it here as documentary proof of the kinds of struggles immigration, repatriation and parenting involve.

The anxieties she painstakingly chronicled, particularly about raising children so far away from grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, were familiar to me as a first-generation immigrant myself (as it is to Orchid). When my son was first born, finding no role models in my immediate family or circle of friends, and wanting to hear personal stories, I wrote about it for a local magazine and in doing so, took heart in the successful experiences of other immigrant mothers. Generations of immigrants have been raising children here, and while their issues may not be exactly those of parents raising children in their home countries, by no stretch of the imagination were these problems insurmountable.

We'd already lived with this issue for so long in all its complexity and devised what solutions we could as we went along - Indian friends became uncles and aunts, then their children became surrogate cousins, festivals and pujas and American holidays were all celebrated or commemorated together with them, we tried to go to India as much as we could, my parents and in-laws visited, we seized the completely unexpected opportunity to live in India for a couple of years and eventually we returned to the US - that I could not relate to Narayan's urgency and desperation. I chalked it up to differences in background and experience.

Growing up in India, our family led a rather migratory existence - we moved every two years every time my father got transferred at his job. That meant new homes, new schools (sometimes in the middle of the school year), new friends, new neighbors, new languages, no extended family nearby. My mother was the glue that held us together. We would move in to a new house, the lorry would come in, my dad would go off to take over his new assignment, my brother and I would go off to school and by the time we all came back, the house would be completely set up as if we'd lived there for ages. I'm not kidding. Within a few weeks, my mom would be fully involved in her neighborhood and my dad would acquire a gazillion "walking friends". I never heard my parents complain about having to start over every two years or having to move away from their siblings. Rather, there was an air of excitement. This taught us nothing if not resilience and the idea that when faced with a situation, you put your head down and did what needed to be done and moved on.

As a parent, I could completely understand Narayan's yearning to do what, in her mind, was the right thing for her children, but reading the essay reinforced my inkling that most decisions involving migration (those that are not influenced by compelling political or social reasons or natural disasters) are matters of the heart. Your bones know your decision long before your head backtracks to identify the justifications for it. In the end, her essay made it seem like it was a choice between two equally undesirable options, when in fact it is only a small subset of the populations of the two countries that are lucky enough to be presented with that choice at all - a choice between two of the more desirable destinations to boot.

Over the last couple of days, the article has elicited a few thoughtful and passionate discussions - some laudatory (commenters who said they identified with Narayan's confusion and anxiety and commended her honesty), some critical - from Indians bloggers living in India and abroad. I've lost track of all the issues that have come up in those posts, but they are all very interesting and relevant to those of us who are bringing up our children as second-generation Americans (or Brits or Australians or New Zealanders or South Americans, etc.) and to immigrants in general. So to make it easier on myself, I'm linking to the posts here so I can find them quickly. If you come across any that I've left out, please let me know.

Author Jawahara Saidullah takes umbrage at Narayan's employing the poverty in India as a parenting tool,

while it raised many excellent points about a family deciding to return to India after many years in the U.S., it also pissed me off. The author talks about how earlier she would tell her kid about not wasting food because there were starving children somewhere (how does eating when someone is starving help anyway?), but now (lucky her) she can actually show her child the starving children in person. Wow! Glad their starvation's helping her child-rearing skills.

DotMom found it unpalatable that despite her doubts about living on in the US, Narayan went ahead and did all the things necessary to obtain US citizenship,

You cannot want to be a U.S. citizen simply because having a U.S. passport makes travel hassle-free. Or simply as a fall back incase you decide to live elsewhere (then why acquire citizenship if you have no desire of living here?) There have to be better reasons if you are going to be a citizen. You cannot be a citizen and criticize the American people with a “these people have no ___ [insert suitable anything].” Because you are one of them now. “These people” must turn into “We people.” Because now, you are Americans of Indian origin.

DotMom's point reminded me of this essay by novelist and Booker contender Mohsin Hamid in The Independent earlier this year in which he says exactly what DotMom finds objectionable,

It is clear to me that I have much to gain by becoming a British citizen: the right to travel more easily, the right to be more free of the fear of a change in the public mood followed by sudden deportation, the right to exercise my vote to have some say in how the taxes I am paying will be spent and in how my new country will be governed, the right to be less self-conscious in calling my home, home.

but offers a compromise,

But then I remind myself that I am allowed dual citizenship. My situation is not analogous to that of a husband who is leaving his wife for another woman. No, I tell myself, I am more like a father who is about to have a second child. Of course I am nervous about neglecting my first-born. But surely I can find within me the affection and commitment to be true to both.

One of the threads that the discussion veered off into is the subject of assimilation in your adopted country. How much involvement should immigrants have in the countries they live in? Poppin's Mom (PM) makes the excellent point that no matter where immigrants choose to live, they should not merely hanker after the life they left back in their home countries, but actively try to celebrate and adopt the values of their host countries. She asks,

Let’s take festivals for example. By all means celebrate Deepavali in your local Indian Community Center. And if you don’t want to celebrate Christmas that’s fine, it’s a religious festival after all. But Thanksgiving? July 4th? Do Indians living abroad celebrate it at all. How many of you know the words to Stars and Stripes or teach it to your children at home.. It is your child’s national anthem, is that not enough reason for you to learn the lyrics?

I wouldn't have thought that this was an issue at all. Where ever you live, wouldn't you want to take a look around and jump in and get involved with all that your community has to offer? All of the Indian friends we have here seem to have figured out a way to do just that and celebrate Indian as well as American traditions - granted with tweaks here and there to allow for food preferences. But it did surprise me that there was some discussion about not celebrating Thanksgiving, presumably because they see it as an "American" holiday.

Well, nothing could be further from the truth. As Gawker commented on this Thanksgiving menu post from a couple of years ago, Thanksgiving is the holiday tailor-made for immigrants. If you are a non-vegetarian Thanksgiving doesn't have to be about Turkey at all. In fact, it is not just about Turkey. It is, as I describe to people who haven't heard about it, the American version of Sankranthi - just being thankful for the bounty of whatever happiness and good fortune has come your way during the year.

I couldn't say it any better than Beatriz, the single mother of three who emigrated from Bolivia when her children were very young,

"We did not have that [Thanksgiving] in Bolivia, but here there is a special day. We love that holiday," says Beatriz, obviously delighted at the concept. [...] She initially introduced that holiday to her family so that "when the children went back to school on Monday, they have something to talk about….They have to be a part of their school, our community; they have to belong somewhere."

PM's post also describes the "insular" lives that Indians lead in the US. To an extent, that is true of most immigrant communities (and so we have Chinatowns and Little Italys) and it is human nature to seek out the familiar in strange surroundings. Methinks it only empowers you to deal with the unknown and is not necessarily a negative.

Nikki's mom puts across her thoughts wonderfully about what assimilation means to her and how she might feel a few years down the road about where she might want to live,

I have been here only 3+ years but I think I have assimilated more than those who have lived here for 10 years. We celebrate Halloween & Thanksgiving understanding it's spirit fully. Thanksgiving is exactly similar to Pongal that we celebrate back in India, thanking Gods for the bountiful harvest. Our Thanksgiving feast did not have a Turkey though, we had a store bought chicken on our table. I am planning to throw a vegetarian Thanksgiving feast this year, adapting it to my style of living. [...] As Nikki grows and has American friends, I will start celebrating them too, because it is his country and I do not want him to feel alienated here. He is an American by birth and if he grows up here I will let him be an American, but one with Indian roots. American to the extent that it does not conflict with the ethics and values of our family.

In the comments to these posts, Noon, Kodi's Mom and Tharini expressed the wish that their children would grow up to be global citizens - comfortable in their country of birth or in any country they choose to live with strong roots in their heritage. This is something I fervently wish for my children as well. Children already seem to come with some kind of a finely-tuned barometer built into their systems that tells them how to adjust to a particular situation, particularly if they've been around people from different religions or areas of the country or the world. For the last couple of years, my son would adapt his conversations (accent, content) to suit who he was talking to - he would talk in an Indian accent with his Indian friends and with an American accent among his expat friends in Bangalore. A comment to the post (on our quest for identity) in which I described this filled me with hope that that wish is not far fetched,

the type of identity switching you've described in your son is common even amongst "true blue" Americans in America, not just immigrants.i'm an "ABCD", the first child of Indian immigrants to America, and I grew up in a small, conservative town in Oklahoma. i was a "smart" kid who wasn't content being labeled as the typical nerd. so i experienced first hand what it means to have multiple identities. Indian, American, intelligent, cool, ambitious, sexy. I aspired to be all these things in different contexts. and with each label came a different style of speaking, gesturing, and even thinking. but not all my identities were defined by my ethnicity. as karmic_jay points out, the desire for acceptance is a fundamental human trait. so i think our tendency to wear different masks for different occasions is not simply a cause of a cultural mismatch with our environment. rather, our cultural differences add to the number of masks we feel obliged to wear.but, as you mentioned, we are all different people in different contexts, to some extent. i am a daughter, sister, friend, etc. And my personality adapts to the context, within the bounds of who i am. i don't think that type of adaptation constitutes hiding one's real identity. the question is, are we being true to ourselves? that's what matters most.

No matter what side of these issues we belong to - returning to India, staying on abroad, choosing which holidays to celebrate, having our kids go to tabla classes or ice-skating - we all, as parents, try our damnedest to do the things, make the decisions and adapt the strategies that we think, hope and wish will equip our children with the tools they need to lead the best lives they possibly can. Our reasoning might be screwed up sometimes or we may find out later that perhaps one or the other of our strategies did not work. But we tweak a little bit and we move on.

At the bottom of it all, when you clear the noise of who should do what, why and how, and which way is better, is this simple idea:

There is a place for my kind too in this world, however foolish I sound, as there is a place for all of us. All of us, who carry only one thing in our hearts. The well being of our children. And somewhere along the process of living, this simple intention will get cleansed and purified of all selfish associations and we will together raise the children of the world, the best way we know how.

Update 1

On a highly pertinent note, Ammani and Kowsalya both ponder the meaning of culture (via Kathambamaalai). Kowsalya says,

If as a parent, you don't want to celebrate certain things you can always explain that to your kids and when we do things consistently and confidently, Kids generally don't have any confusion. Even if we try to celebrate Thanksgiving or Haloween, it will not change the external color of your child, so why try so hard to change the internal color.

Ammani asks,

Indian culture. What is it to you? To me, it seems like a convenient and rather hazy area that covers everything from dress code to Bollywood to wedding ceremonies to prime time tv soaps.

Do read the comments to her post. They are illuminating and entertaining!

The Chronicle of One Family's Decision to Return to India

Writer and journalist Shoba Narayan painstakingly chronicles her family's decision to return to India. The words jump off the page as she describes her longing, confusion, determination and excitement.

It was after I had a child that I first entertained the previously heretical possibility that, perhaps, America wasn’t home for me. I was tired, sleep deprived and encumbered, and the “land of the free” no longer seemed so to me. I was saddled with a toddler and missed parents, relatives and other potential babysitters. I missed the respite that came from dropping off a child with a trusted aunt for a few hours.

India’s social fabric seemed more conducive to raising a family. There, I could call a neighbor, any neighbor, at a moment’s notice and ask her to watch my child while I ran out for some milk. I missed the septuagenarian grandfathers who patrolled my neighborhood and reported back all naughtiness and babysitter negligence. I had hated their interfering as a child; now, as a mother, I viewed them as allies. I missed the whole village of people who had raised me, who would help me raise my child.

The whole thing is here (via SAJA).

Updated to add links to previous posts on this topic:

Where is Home?

What Makes a Community?

Parenting from an Immigrant Perspective

Identity - The Quest for Comfort Within our Skins

Bangalore: The Insider/Outsider Debate

Life in Palm Meadows, Bangalore: A View From the Inside

On the day we headed back to the US, we had lived in Palm Meadows exactly one year. For a year and a half before that, we lived in one of Adarsh's other developments, Adarsh Palace, an apartment community in Jayanagar. We had heard a lot of good things about Palm Meadows and the quality of life and amenities, but the biggest attraction for us was that it would be close to our son's new school, Greenwood High.



Palm Meadows is on Airport-Varthur Road close to Whitefield and Sarjapur, about 45 minutes away from MG Road and Jayanagar, and about 20 minutes away from The International School of Bangalore, Indus International School, Inventure Academy and Greenwood High. It is also close to Ryan International, Gopalan International School, Deccan International, GEAR Academy and India International.

It is a gated community of about 600 single family homes, with 10 or more security guards manning the gates at any given time. Some houses are big and some are small, but most houses have at least three bedrooms each. Residents of Palm Meadows are a mix of original owners, returning Indians and expats.

In terms of amenities, it has a club house (with three swimming pools including an indoor pool and a kiddie pool, two restaurants, a full-size gym, sauna, spa, salon, library, and indoor and outdoor children's play areas), three grocery stores (a convenience store and 24-Letter Mantra and Namdhari's, two organic food stores), two gift shops and a tea/coffee/juice shop. The community has 24-hour water and electricity supply.

The layout is beautifully conceived, each house has its own lawn areas, the roads are neatly paved with footpaths, landscaping in the common areas is lovely and the residents' association has hired a veritable army of gardeners and landscapers who painstakingly work every day to preserve the vibrant trees, flowers and plants that are local to the area. There are at least 12 varieties of palm trees within the community and the lawns are manicured - literally - at the hands of day laborers wielding scissors and squatting on their haunches on the grass.



The clubhouse is a hub of activity in the community. There are swimming coaches on staff, tennis lessons, aerobics classes and Bollywood dance lessons are available. The community also has an arts center run by one of the residents that offers Indian classical dance lessons, piano/keyboard lessons and lessons in various other Indian musical instruments.

The streets within the community are filled with kids playing cricket or biking in the evening, mothers going for a walk with babies in strollers and with people walking or jogging in the early morning hours.

The main issues about life in Palm Meadows have to do with the rents and home prices, and cost and difficulty of hiring and retaining reliable, trustworthy domestic help.

When the community was first built close to 10 years ago, the original owners apparently bought the houses for around 80 lakhs. A few months before we left one of the houses had an asking price of 4.5 crores. Although there are many communities now coming up that are similar to Palm Meadows (Prestige Developers' Ozone, about five minutes away is one), the demand for housing and for the lifestyle Palm Meadows promises is mind-boggling.

The rents are not very far behind in terms of the shock factor. There are three resident real estate agents that have all the houses sewn up between them and manage to jack up rents to stratospheric levels. The rents are totally arbitrary (whatever the agent feels like quoting at that moment based on how desperate he or she thinks the renter is). The quote for the same house may have gone up by a few thousand rupees within a span of a few days. Most of their clients are expats, some of whom have no clue as to what is reasonable and what's not and will shell out whatever rent is demanded because they are in India for only a few days before they have to settle housing, schools, work-related issues, etc.

In fact, the situation is so good for home owners that many of them rent their houses out and they themselves go rent a house somewhere else in Bangalore because they make more money that way.

This air of a feeding frenzy pervades the domestic help market as well. The average drivers make is about Rs. 7,000/month. Some drivers make as much as Rs. 10,000/month, mostly working for expat employers. The situation is similar with the ladies that help with household chores. The minimum salary is about Rs. 2,000/month and sometimes as much as Rs. 6,000/month. It is not uncommon to find groups of drivers and other domestic helpers standing around discussing who's paying what and who's looking for helpers.

The section of the Palm Meadows population that is at the raw end of the deal is the group of returning Indians, most of them having purchased a house in Palm Meadows years ago and now are returning to an untenable situation.

Most residents feel that the problem is not with paying the domestic help the money (the economy is rewarding the high-tech sector, so why should the prosperity not trickle down?), but the fact that there is no assurance that you are getting reliable help. We discovered that our driver was making money on the side by using our car as a taxi service whenever the car was empty. And the way we discovered it was the police caught him and impounded the car for using a private car as a taxi. We also discovered later that he had come to us asking for a job although he was employed by one of the other residents. One day he just decided he wanted to make more money and started asking around and ditched his previous employer. They kept calling him for a week, they told me later, before one of their friends saw him at our house and they figured out what happened.

There are scores of similar stories. The issue is that there is a limited pool of helpers and now with Ozone already open for occupation, the situation is only going to get worse.

If you are aware of this issue and are prepared to stand your ground and deal with it and you are prepared to deal with traffic (especially over the Marathahalli Bridge, the only viable entrance to the Whitefield area from the rest of the city), Palm Meadows is a great place to live. It's a breath of fresh air, literally. I like to call it the bubble because it's so different from the rest of the city, but it's a very nice bubble.

Update:

1. Boo's comment to this post reminded me that I'd forgotten all about the service apartments and rooms in the clubhouse. Many companies have rented rooms (of which more were being built as we left) in the clubhouse for employees who transfer into their Bangalore offices for the short term.

2. One of the cons of living in a gated community like Palm Meadows, as a chat with Firang Squirrel, a friend and an expat from the US, reminded me, you totally miss out on the quintessential Bangalore - street hawkers selling fruits and veggies, kadle puri, the umbrella repair man and the knife grinder selling their services, etc. Of course, you also miss out on power cuts and water shortages. For now. Even Palm Meadows and other gated communities might not be able to avoid these in the near future if the expansion of the city keeps going at the current rate.

Expat Life: Repatriation Tips

It's been a month and a half since we got back and now I feel like we never left! The first few days flew by in a whirlwind of activity trying to get life back on the rails heading in the right direction. If you've been away for a while and are on your way back stateside, here are a few things you can do while still in your host country to ease the transition. Many of these you will have already thought about, but here they are anyway.

1. Get a Vonage connection or some other internet phone connection that'll give you a US telephone number:

That way it's easy for you to make the calls you need to make to the US and for the people in the US to call you back in case you have to leave a message. US domestic and long-distance rates apply. Check with Vonage.

2. Set up as many of your utlitiy connections as you can online:
Most gas, water, electricity and telephone companies are online, so it's easy to set up accounts and have them turn on your connections before you get back home so everything is up and running and ready for your arrival. I learnt this the hard way. Our gas was turned off unintentionally and after two weeks of staying in hotels on vacation on the way back from India, we had to check right back into a hotel for four days when we got home just so we could take a shower everyday. If we had arrived back in the winter, things would have been much worse in the house without any heat!

3. Make sure you collect all of your child's school records:

Our school here wanted to see all the work our son had done in the past year. Also, be prepared to have your child take a test pre-registration, especially if you speak another language at home. If possible, call your school from your host country and let them know you have a child that might be entering their school so they are prepared. And if you can call them then it's a great time to check exactly what documents they need for registration.

4. Medical records:

Particularly a list of vaccinations you and your children might have received. Your doctors here will need those to update their files.

5. Packing:

Remember to have documents such as birth certificates, marriage certificates, divorce decrees, medical and school records and all other important documents with you. Packing these to come along with the rest of your shipment is not a good idea because you will definitely need them before your shipment gets here.

6. Activities for Children:

Check with your community, the local YMCA or your local REC center for activities for children when you are back. Even if you're coming back to your old house, remember people may have moved on and your children may not have their old friends. These are great resources for finding friends with similar interests, both for you and your children. Jumping in and getting involved is a sure-fire way of settling in fast.

This is all I can think of right now. Will add if I can think of any more. In the meantime, if you have any tips for repatriating families, please do leave a comment.

Some things have changed

Spanish seems to be everywhere now. Instructions for everything on every product come in Spanish as well. Home Depot has Spanish translation of nearly every English word they use (wonder what took them this long).

Shops don't require to sign your credit card slips anymore if the total bill is less than $20. I think I scared the Chipotle check out guy by insisting that I need to sign the slip.

There's no Peter Jennings, no Ed Bradley, no Tom Brokaw, no Dan Rather, no Sopranos.

Within the first week of being here a guy at the grocery store started a conversation and talked about India, and actually knew that there was a language called Kannada. In all the years I'd lived here before, Americans always assumed that for some reason I'd decided to talk about Canada when they'd asked me about my mother tongue. Now someone actually knows about Karnataka and Kannada. He also invited himself over for Dosas and Samosas. Two days later an American who'd spent five years in Pakistan asked for detailed instructions on how to make chapaties, and a neighbor (who I met for the first time two weeks ago) asked to borrow my Indian cookbooks so she can make chicken curries. I'd fielded a lot of requests for information about good area Indian restaurants, but never came across anyone who actually wanted to cook Indian dishes.

There's On Demand TV! I don't know if this has happened to you, but very often, when I switch to a movie channel the chances are pretty good that I'll catch a rerun of a movie. For a few days I unfailingly catch the same movie every time and, most frustratingly, will catch it at exactly the same point every time. With On Demand TV, none of that anymore. The movie will start when I want it to.

Change in Dateline

When we first found out we were moving to India for a couple of years back in 2004, we had all of three weeks to prepare - to figure out what to do with the house, the furniture, schooling in India for my son, how much stuff to take, what to leave behind, etc.

When the time came to head back to the US, we'd basically had all of the time we lived in India to prepare, but it was not enough, not by a long shot. When we left the US, we were coming to live close to family, close to our parents, brothers, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, cousins, and all our extended families who were minutes away rather than days away. We are heading back now to being our little unit again (although our number has increased by one more than we were when we came - my daughter who was born in Bangalore last year).

The house buzzed with activity for a week. Closets were emptied, clothes, shoes and toys given away, the pantry and refrigerator cleared. The pungent smell of reams and reams of packing cardboard and paper vied with the screeching noise of duct tape as it was torn off and plastered on everything from the tiniest spoon to the largest piece of furniture. The packers started off slowly and, fortified by many cups of tea made in the last saucepan remaining, became frenzied as the hours ticked away there were the pesky last few items still to be packed.

The whirlwind of packing and organizing the other aspects of the move had kept all our emotions under the lid. As was to be expected, there was a time crunch at the end. In the rush of taking care of the things on my list, there was, thankfully, no time for emotional, tearful goodbyes. My parents siezed the opportunity when it presented itself to make a quick get away (they had decided not to come to the airport) and my son and I waved them off in cheery tones and rushed right back into the house to finish packing the very last suitcase.

One final walk around the house and it was time to head to the airport. Just as we had finished checking in all our luggage is when the lid decided to come off. My son and my father, who had spent a lot of time together during our stay in Bangalore doing grandson-grandfather stuff, were the two people I was most concerned about. The finality of the move back sank in with my son at the airport check-in counter and with my parents on the long drive back from our house to theirs late at night. A single tear drop rolled down my son's cheek and landed on his watch followed in quick succession by many others and my own.

As is typical of children, he tried various permutations and combinations of living arrangements that would allow him to spend time with his grand-parents while allowing them to have their lives and family connections and him to continue on with his life in the US, negotiating right up to the point we got on the plane. Then, again, as is typical of children, the excitement of the journey caught up with him and the new TV/light/dinner table configuration on the plane took up all his attention.

There's a lot more adjustment to come, of course, once we are properly settled in at home in the US, but I am grateful for this opportunity we had after more than a decade to actually spend more than the three weeks we could scrape together during holidays in our hometown.

This, in brief, is the story of the change in dateline on the blog. There are a lot more posts on life in Bangalore coming up and about parenting and travel. I do hope you will continue reading.

Review Blogpourri at Guardian Abroad

If you are so inclined, please take a minute (or three) to review Blogpourri at Guardian Abroad. The Guardian has a bunch of blogs on various topics listed under "Your Blogs" and "Expat Life (the truth is out there)" is one of the topics.

Here's the link to the place where you can review this blog. There's also a link on the side bar on the right. Muchos gracias!

Expat life: Obtaining a US citizenship if your baby is born in India

Disclaimer: A friend who went through this process suggested I put this up. This is meant to give you some general information. Please consult the appropriate consulate for all the relevant and up to date information before proceeding with the process.

If you (one or other of the parents) are a US citizen and you plan to have a baby in India, you can record your your child's birth with the US consulates here in India and obtain a US passport for your baby.

You will first need to locate the US consulate that serves the city in which you live. This website of the US consulate (look under "Reports of Births Abroad" and "Passports") in Chennai, for example, provides all of the information you need to gather the necessary documents.

If you are pregnant before you move to India or if you know you are planning to have a baby when you move to India, then you can save yourself some grief by bringing these documents with you before you move here:

1. Your marriage certificate, or if divorced, your divorce decree;
2. Your hospital records with all the original ultrasound scans;
3. Proof of US citizenship;
4. Proof of residence in the US.

You can call ahead and request a package that'll set out in detail all of the requirements for obtain the record of birth abroad and the passport. One of the requirements is the baby's birth certificate (which of course you can only obtain after the baby is born here). For that you need to figure out the city corporation office that serves the area in which your hospital is located. Once you do that, they will need the birth report that the hospital will give you when you leave the hospital and an application asking for a birth certificate. A couple of days later you can collect it from the corporation office.

As I mentioned, your first stop should be the consulate's website for all of this information. Also filling out all if the forms they send beforehand would be a good idea.

Moving To Bangalore as an Expat: Questions and Concerns

Over the past few months I've received many e-mails from people planning to or thinking about moving to Bangalore from other countries. Most of them have the same questions and concerns. So here is a list of the most frequently asked questions and my responses. I hope that this information is useful to you, but I request that you verify the information and visit the places I've mentioned (such as schools and hospitals) and assess them yourself before arriving at a decision about them.

If you have further questions or have information about any of the topics mentioned here, please feel free to leave a comment. Thank you.

1. SCHOOLS - THE BIG DOOZIE:

By far, the issue that expats-to-be are worried about the most is schools. Here are my three articles on it and here's my post on our experiences with Greenwood High. Please take time to read the comments.

Some general information about schools in Bangalore that are not covered in those articles:

• School year (term dates): International schools start in August and end in June (with Christmas, Thanksgiving, Spring and Diwali breaks). Indian schools start in June and end in March (with Diwali, Dussera and Christmas breaks).
• Uniforms: Most schools mandate uniforms from first grade onwards.
• School timings: Preschoolers and kindergartners attend school from 9:00 am to 12:30 pm (there may be exceptions), from first grade onwards school starts at 9:00 am and ends at 3:30 pm.
• Lunches: Most of the international schools provide lunches to the kids, at others you will have to pack lunch.
• Transportation: Most schools have transportation, but there is no requirement that you must use school-provided transportation. You can arrange your own.
• Languages: Unless your child has a foreign passport, s/he must learn an Indian language. If the child has a foreign passport, then French (not aware of other language choices) is an option.
• Terminology: Children attend "nursery" from 3 years to 4 years, LKG (lower kindergarten) from 4 to 5 and UKG (upper kindergarten) from 5 to 6 years old. Nursery and LKG are what we call "pre-school" in the US, and UKG is plain old Kindergarten. At 6, everyone goes to first grade (some schools call it first standard).
  

2. HAVING A BABY IN BANGALORE - HOSPITALS, PRE-NATAL CLASSES:

Here are some notes about the childbirth experience in Bangalore and about the growing prevalence of C-Sections in India and abroad. Prenatal classes were not easily accessible here when I was preparing to have my second child, but I've received a couple of comments to this post with information about newly opened classes.

I should let you know that I had a very good experience with my obstetrician and gynecologist when I had my daughter and with my children's current paediatrician.

3. BABY NECESSITIES (BABY FOOD, DIAPERS, FORMULA, BABY FURNITURE, ETC.):

There is nothing that you need to specially pack for your baby (unless he or she has very specific, unique dietary or other needs). Diapers (Huggies, Pampers), Gerber's baby food jars, juices and cereal boxes are available here as are cereals made by Heinz (which I haven't noticed in the US, but is prevalent in Australia). Cereals made in India are also available, but you should know that they all contain added sugar.

You will also find Enfamil's baby formula in some of the stores. There's a shop called the Baby Shop on Ulsoor Road (behind Taj Residency - contact info at the bottom of this post) that stocks mostly American and European baby products (including baby furniture such as cribs, high chairs, car seats and strollers). There's also a store called Mothercare which mostly sells British products and expensive as hell, but you're most likely to find the things you want if you prefer to stick to the imported products.

Of course, the best option, especially if you are planning to stay here for a year or two, is to get yourself and your baby used to the Indian food, including the brands of baby food that are manufactured here (Nestle). That way you will not have to keep going to the one or two shops that sell imported goods and you will not face the problem of those stores suddenly running out of the one thing that your baby has gotten used to.

Stores suddenly running out of certain products is an oft-occurring problem here.

For older children who have not been exposed to Indian cuisine at all, there are all sorts of pastas (and the sauces, olive oils, etc.), cereals, cheeses, etc. available.

4. TRAFFIC AND POLLUTION:

Yes, there is traffic and plenty of it, and yes, there is pollution, but not much.

The best way to deal with the traffic is to find a home that is close to your place of work and your kids' school. Eliminating a long commute should be the key. No matter where you decide to live, there will always be markets, grocery shops, restaurants etc. So the main factor dictating the location will be the workplace and schools.

With respect to pollution, one of the things I've noticed is that the children cough the first few months until they get used to the stuff in the air and then they settle down. Doctors recommend that you boil filtered water the first few weeks (or longer).

5. SHOPPING:

Here's a detailed post on that topic.

6. HOUSING:

The real estate market (both for buying and renting) is a little bit nuts right now in Bangalore. Houses are being built like crazy and they are all sold out even before they dig the first clump of mud to lay the foundation.

As you can imagine, rents are going through the roof and there are certain localities, such as the Whitefield area near ITPL (where are all the big Bangalore-based IT companies are) that are getting expensive by the minute. Of course, the real estate agents are having a field day in this scenario.

The best bet for you to locate a good home for your stay would be to tap into your firm's relocation service resources. They can usually guide you to a competent relocation service.

7. HOSPITALS IN BANGALORE:

Here's a map of Bangalore that shows the location of some of the hospitals. There are newer hospitals now, such as Wockhardt and Apollo on Bannerghatta Road. Here are the names of some of the hospitals:

Bangalore Hospital
Sagar Apollo Hospital, Jayanagar
Vittal Mallya Hospital
Manipal Hospital
Wockhardt Hospital
Apollo Hospital, Bannerghatta Road
St. Philomena's Hospital
St. Martha's Hospital
M.S. Ramaiah Hospital
National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences
Kidwai Institute of Oncology

Apart from these, there are many, many more smaller nursing homes and hospitals all over the city.

8. RINA MEHTA'S Bangalore Mum's Guide:

From what I hear, this book has not been available at the book shops for a while now. I would try contacting the publisher (Navneet) directly or try purchasing it online.

All in all, moving to Bangalore and living here has been a wonderful experience. Your kids will love the weather and Bollywood music, you will love the exposure they will get to an entirely different and vibrant culture (if you're not originally from India and you've never been to India before) or you will love the fact that they are getting a good look at their roots (if you are from India originally).

Of course, all this is in addition to the huge strides you will make in your career after having a couple of years of work experience in India, no?

And most importantly, where else can you live and learn to shake your head (sideways for "no", up and down for "yes" and vigorously in all directions if you agree heartily with someone) like the Hawaiin Luau dolls?

Good luck with the move.

Update 1: The Baby Shop:

The Baby Shop
7/1 Ulsoor Road (behind the Taj Residency), Bangalore - 42
Ph: 080-25596104 or 080-25596105

Update 2: Documents to carry before you move:

1. If you have children that will be enrolled in school here, you will need their birth certificates and letters from the previous school regarding the work done there.

2. If you plan to have a baby in India and you are a US citizen and would like your newborn child to be a US citizen, then you will need the following documents to obtain the baby's US birth certificate and passport (which you can do through the US consulates in India):

• all of your hospital records (if you were already pregnant before you got here) along with the ultrasound scans;
• your marriage certificate or, if divorced, the divorce decree;
• proof of US citizenship;
• proof of residence in the US.

The above list is for you to plan to bring before you move so that you don't scramble for them after you've already moved here. There are other requirements (such as the baby's birth certificate) that you can only obtain in India.

Here's a post on how to go about getting the US birth certificate and passport.

[Will keep updating this post as and when new info comes up or new topics occur to me.]

~

Update (June 16, 2010): After School Care in Bangalore - http://blogpourri.blogspot.com/2010/06/after-school-care-in-bangalore.html

X-pat Files

Thank you to Venkat for so kindly retiring his blog's tag line (he moved back to the US from Belgium) and offering it for use on my blog. As you can see, I've accepted the offer.

If you've never visited Venkat's blog, do stop by and find out, among other things, why you should no longer use the phrase, "Unless you've been living in a cave all these years ..."

I've been telling everyone I know about it and yes, I do attribute it to the proper source. Most of the time.

NRI Parents: Empty Nesters, But Lonely No More

Here's a social sub-group that my parents belong to, but it never crossed my mind until I read this article in the Feb 6, 2006 edition of Outlook magazine - NRI Parents.

In other words, parents of Non-Resident Indians.

These parents have a lot more in common than just their children living away from them in foreign lands. They face common issues at home - loneliness, lack of a support system, travel issues, management of funds, etc. So they banded together to form associations. Many such associations are already up and running in almost every major city in India including Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Baroda, Ahmedabad and Coimbatore.

How do these associations help? In more ways than you can imagine:

They meet every month; organise excursions, get-togethers and recreational activities; celebrate festivals; bring out newsletters and directories of members; and in times of need provide a rock-solid support network. At a more practical level, they provide lists of recommended vital service providers, hold lectures and workshops on typical concerns like travel, insurance, healthcare, and foreign exchange; teach members to become computer-savvy enough to stay in regular e-mail contact with their children; help those travelling abroad, especially first-timers, with visa and passport modalities, ticketing, medical insurance and the like; and stand guard over each other's personal and material well-being. Some associations even advise their members' NRI children on investment, property ownership, taxation, repatriation of funds, inheritance, and dual citizenship, and help returnees relocate and resume careers and children's education.

One aspect of this banding together that I love is the fact that these parents watch out for each others' well-being, especially in times of medical crises. The article tells the stories of aged parents having to go through medical procedures, but not having to have their children catch the first flight back home. Because this time around they had their buddies accompanying them on doctors' visits, staying with them at the hospital and taking them back home with them to recuperate after the procedures.

What a sense of comfort this must be, not just for the parents but for the children as well.

So if you're living abroad and have parents living in India, directing them to these associations may not be a bad idea.

Crossposted on Desicritics.org.

Clash of the Worlds

N and I were at the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) a couple of days after we got to the US to get our car license tags reissued.

We took a number to get in line, I filled out the application form and we sat in the row of chairs facing the 17-odd customer service counters. Christmas decorations were everywhere - green imitation pine streamers hung from the doors, windows and ceiling, red bows punctuating them every two feet or so, and red stockings hung from every counter with the name of each employee written in shiny colorful markers across the white furry borders.

As we sat waiting, we read the names on each of the stockings. When we came to the one with lettering in gold-colored marker, I blinked. The name looked like it had been written in Kannada. I blinked again, but it wouldn't go away.

I asked N to go up closer to the stocking and see if it was written in Kannada. He looked at me like I was nuts ("You've got to be kidding, mom"), but he went to the stocking and looked. It said Safiana. In English, of course.

Snippets of conversations I could not catch in crowded places seemed like they were spoken in Kannada. I looked around and there was not a single Indian face to be seen. It's not just me. On this trip, N sometimes thought he heard Kannada too.

This was not the first time my two worlds have clashed in my head. When we're driving around in the US on a stretch of road empty of other vehicles, with relatives or our Indian friends in the car, listening to a Hindi CD, it comes as a complete shock to me when we come to a traffic signal and there are cars with non-Indian faces in them.

We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

And my brain doesn't just transplant India into the US. The reverse works very well too.

A few months ago I was at my uncle's house in Bangalore for a pre-wedding family get-together (my cousin was getting married). I was dressed up in Indian clothes, of course, with bindis going a mile up on my forehead and bangles clanging on my wrists. On the way back home I needed to stop at the grocery store for something.

As I was leaving my uncle's house, an image flitted across my head. I was going to show up at the grocery store in all my Indian finery. Just a thought. And an awareness that I would get a lot of stares and smiles and perhaps some questions.

A second later it struck me.

Duh! I'm in India! I'm not going to the local Safeway, I'm going to Monday to Sunday!

Am baaaaack....

Got back to Bangalore yesterday.

Had a wonderful time in DC, seeing all the old familiar landmarks, meeting up with old friends, visiting the Christmas Tree and the Minora at the White House, roaming the malls choking with the rush of year-end shoppers....

Things hadn't changed much - the neighbors were the same, our favorite restaurants remained (even some of the waiters), Trader Joe's was still there, Beltway politics was in full swing.

Well, may be one thing had changed - the Redskins are on a 6 game winning streak!

Off On Holiday...

Going back "home" for three weeks after more than a year. Really, really looking forward to Einstein Bagel, Panera Bread, Bertucci's, California Pizza Kitchen, Oodles Noodles, Chevy's....Oh, and going back home, of course.