Me and the Kerala babies...

After my cousin Babi's wedding on my 2nd to last day in India, we were sitting on the patio outside the Parish Hall waiting for the reception to begin. In the small space between the church and hall was snuggled a English-Malayalam medium nursery school. I had noticed kids there, and asked Mummy if I could go to visit... but she warned me that if I left her side I'd get lost in the crowd of 1500 at the reception, and most importantly, not get a place to sit for lunch. It was a risk I happily accepted, and I headed down the yard to the school's window.

A few children noticed and came to the window of their classroom, where they appeared to be just coming back from lunch. I was staying hello and shaking hands though the window while they called "Aunty, Aunty!!" at me; but one saucy fellow flashed a million dollar grin and yelled, "Hi Chechi!" (big sister)

A few spilled out onto the porch... and the closer I got, the more came.

Suddenly I was surrounded. A teacher and a sister (nun) came out to supervise. Communication was minimal but not really necessary, as I was ready to pack them all into my suitcases after they performed a heartbreakingly sweet rendition of "Are You Sleeping", complete with hand motions. I clicked a few photos, and then thought it would be nice to be in a photo with them myself. Passing the camera off to the sister and seeming school head on the porch, I asked if they could "snap a photo" and posed, not realizing that all the kiddies were still staring and chattering away in my direction. How to get them to face the camera? After a few futile attempts at pointing forward and "photo, photo!" from me, they still didn't get the concept. Realizing they're just little kids and that I had the Malayalam vocabulary of an even smaller one, I had an idea on how we'd communicate. Using one of the very very very VERY few Malayalam words I knew, I threw my hand up in the air and triumphantly shouted, "kai!" The sister smiled with understanding, and one by one, I saw little hands fly into the air. "Kai in the sky!" I shouted again, making a game of it, and then waved...




Then thought I'd try showing the kids their photos on the digicam's display screen... but suddenly 35 little children were hopping up and down shouting "endhu, Aunty, endhu?" (what is it?) I just couldn't keep up :-)

Perhaps my presence was missed at the reception by the photography crew (doubtful as guest number 143 of 1500); more likely, someone came out to smoke and noticed me surrounded by children just a few yard away... but either way, this shot was caught from the steps of the Parish Hall.

Home!

What a lackluster blogging performance. After being denied by the DSL folks in Ponkunnam for a home line, and fewer trips to the internet cafe than I have fingers, my intentions to write the most interesting and intensive Indian travelogue have amounted to jack.

So, without further ado, I'm home.

Reached Wednesday at 11:45pm in the familiar Frontier Airlines baggage carousel. Had an uneventful ride ALL the way home, meaning even from the moment of pulling out of the driveway in Kerala - and if you haven't been able to tell from previous posts, few drives in Kerala are uneventful. But apparently they saved the best for last, and we wound our way back down out of the golden hills and rubber estates of Kottayam district towards the airport without incident. Shed a few tears, but had to collect myself in order to take a photo of the huge "AMALA BHARAT GAS - Cook Food Serve Love" sign that is painted on a building just around our corner of the KK road. (good friends of ours have a shweetie baby named Amala)

Mummy fell asleep on the drive, and I stared out the window trying to recognize anything from the first drive back from the airport that had brought me home back in November. We were retracing that route, and it was a road that we never had been down since I had come there. I remembered it seeming very small coming in... but now it was just another road, same size as all the others I had come to know.

I started taking pictures out the window with the flash, but stopped when the driver flipped his side mirror out at the exact angle to give me a steely death stare.

Reached Cochin Airport (which is actually in another city, Amalagam or something like that... Amalgany? Angary? There's an A and a Y in there somewhere) and packed my two 52 lb bags onto a trolley. Knowing I had the potential to stand there and bawl for hours if given the opportunity, Mummy and Daddy both bravely said "okay! safe trip!" and we hugged, I kissed them both, said I'd see them in a year, and headed tearfully off to run though the airports hoops that would eventually get me on board a plane headed towards the U.S.

One neat-o thing about the airport... it's always cool to see "white" people again :-) Usually you're bound to see a few... more often than not hip Europeans, Brits, or Californians that seem to be on family vacation. There will be a chic granny type in capris, with hair that she's proudly let go gray and reading glasses on a chain, and following her will be a 12 year old who is probably thrilled to get back to cheeseburgers, but sad to go back to having to wear his seatbelt in his home country. There'll be a balding dad who looks lost and always a younger, more sunburned version of granny as his wife.

On my three occasions at the airport, none of my honky brethren have ever made eye contact with me. Bloody fellows ;-)

Whereas, when we dropped Saby off to the airport, I had the ultimate pleasure of properly earning OMS (open mouth stares) as opposed to just getting them for being a firenge (foreigner). Our little farewell committee was myself, cousin Vinod and his "awezzum" wife Cynthia. Saby was stressed about clearing security in proper time for his flight, and he was getting noticeably anxious as we stood there now waiting for Anil, the driver, to return with some ibuprofen... as Vinod, before leaving the house, had accidentally shut the end of Saby's ring finger in the hatch of the SUV.

(When the hatch slammed shut and Saby screamed, I had thought he was joking... but poor Vinod said the image of his finger and the door coming down on it was stuck in his head)

So the time comes to go, and he gives us all a hug and tries to walk off. Lame! I scampered after him, grabbed his hand and hammed my best kissy-kissy face saying, "Come on... make a scene with me." He shoo'ed me away like I was a street kid asking for rupees. So I grabbed him and pulled him down for a wet one... which I think the crowd of Indians behind us appreciated more than he did. Their giggles and smiles (and OMS) lasted until long after he had disappeared into the airport.


Saby flew back Cochin to Dubai (United Arab Emirates), had a 13 hour stop and hotel room in Dubai, and then went London Gatwick directly back to Cincinnatti. He says Dubai is amazing, and has sung the praises of Air Emirates endlessly.

My flight route was Cochin to Singapore, a brief 2 hours there and then off to Japan for fuel and food to get us across the Pacific to Los Angeles. From there I would be flying domestically on Frontier (our favorite, hubbed in Denver - they have a super frequent flyer program!!) to Denver and finally Detroit.

I was blessed with a seat in the 5th row on my first leg, only to find it wouldn't recline because the exit row was behind us. The two computer engineers on either side of me were headed back to their jobs in Singapore after their first year of work abroad, and were intent on getting loaded with the excuse that it would "help sleep." I worried what damage two lightweights from Calicut could do on a 4 hour flight, but all ended well, especially after our conversation:

Computer Engineer: Did you enjoy India?
Me: Oh yes, Kerala is beautiful.
CE: For how long you are here?
Me: Forty days.
CE: (dismissively) Oh, four days.
Me: No, four-teeeee.
CE: (more impressed) Ahh, fourteen!
Me: NO. Forty. Four-zero. Forty.
CE:(looking shocked) Oh my God, what for?!?

Then I got to drop the "visiting my in-laws and family" which is my favorite secret code for "I'm married, and what's more I'm married to a Mallu and he's much bigger than you, so don't hit on me or he'll kick your scrawny programmin' ass."

Singapore passed by without much fanfare, although I did buy 27 Sing dollars worth of Tiger Balm and Brit export Thera-Flu in a pharmacy to battle the cold I felt coming on, plus Melatonin to counter jet lag. Since leaving India my watch had been set to Eastern Time and I was determined to only sleep at appropriate times. And sleep I did... slept through takeoff from Singapore and woke up only for food. Mmmmm, food.

My flight was apparently the birth control flight. I was packed into the back section with what seemed like hundreds of spoiled Indian babies and belligerent, equally spoiled ABCD adolescents. (ABCD being the less than complimentary anagram "American Born Confused Desi", with Desi meaning Indian) The babies cried, the children whined and yelled and fought, and the adolescents all told their parents to "shut UP!" straight through our stop in Japan and back over the big blue ocean. I disembarked in LAX vowing to never have children.

In LAX I had already been flying some 27 hours and was totally confused as to where I was... and almost missed my flight while I sat in a Burger King talking to my hubby on the phone. (I wanted to smell fast food, but wasn't brave enough to eat any of it yet).

In the mile-high city I bought some peanut M&Ms and a new Sudoku book, mostly because I needed an excuse to get up and move far far away from the girl telling whoever was on the other end of her cell phone that "yeah, he stayed over last night and in the morning, he was like telling me, 'I have strep.' So now, like, I'm all paranoid, and my throat feels all like, junky and stuff..." AHHHHHHHHH!

Strep free I reach Detroit. Cold as hell, it is... get picked up by Windo and deposited in the humble and empty abode of Rams and Lalee, who are currently still in India, and that's where I've been ever since. The last human being I saw in person was Windo around 1:15 a.m. on Thursday morning - since then, I feel like I'm in some sort of decompression chamber or quarantine. But it's been nice... rather than being flung back into the good ol' American hustle and bustle, I've been sleeping lots, listening to Malayalam film songs on my iPod shuffle, doing sudoku, and prowling around their house hunting for things to eat. (Rams and Lalee, let me replace the Maggi noodles, parathas, and oh-so-tasty crackers on top of the fridge before you return)

Today, actually in about an hour, Saby should be back from Dayton, and we'll be having lunch with Liz and Matt and then Sunday is our big moving day down to Dayton. Technically, we still don't have a place to move into, but that should be settled by 9:30 am on Monday morning.

I'll be writing more in retrospect as I get time... but to anybody who actually has been reading this stuff up til now, THANKS.

See you on da flip side...

No News Is Good News

I am alive. Have been all this time. Belated Merry Christmas. Id Mubarak. All that stuff. And Happy Hanging of Saddam. Here's how wacked out this place is... in "protest" of the hanging of Saddam, and in protest to rotten stinky American Imperialists, there was a "bandh" declared from 3pm until 6pm on Saturday, which was the same day as cousin Agnel's wedding so we had to high tail it home before the stones and chants started. Bandhs (I prolly have spelled it bundt in another posting, that's cuz i'm STOOPID) are like an overall strike where everybody has to close down or run the risk of having communists throw rocks at them and burn their stuff up.

Good times. But it was all very minor, no big deal. We all got back home, played cards and watched BBC news.

There have been 2 other weddings, like 5 post or pre parties involving weddings, and some 5 costume changes involving all of the above... today is a blissful day of rest and then it's back to the Meenachil river Aunty's house for a picnic and then the morning of the 4th... sniff sniff, Saby heads back to Dayton via Dubai.

Shall write more later... we will be going to Cochin (obviously to drop him off, but I should be staying there for some girlie shopping fun with cousin Anu and Cynthia)

Uhhhh okay byeeeeeee.

IF my mother reads this, she should call me becuase she hasn't yet :-)

Love to all!

St Antony's College, Hotel Management

FASHION DESIGNING AND HOME SCIENCE... is what I see out the window, having been initited into a 3rd floor room of the net cafe (which I was never aware even existed... the floor, not the cafe). I am staring at 4 guys who are staring down from the 4th floor of aforementioned St Antony's College, which appears to be nothing terribly special perhaps to better prepare it's students for the drudgery of hotel management and home science (although I read today that fashion design is one of the industrys where people are most likely to become cocaine addicts in India - wonder if the boys and girls of Kanjirapally are ready for the big time in that way?)

The keys of this computer are very sticky adn I'm getting a workout stabbing each key... slam slam slam! Hell, I'm very sticky as it's either been really hot lately or I've totally lost my patience with the weather. Yesterday the "current" (as electricity is fondly called, like how our Canadian brethren call it Hydro) went out about 13 minutes into a nap for both Saby and I and we both lay muttering and sweating below the unmoving fan, willing it to come back on. Didn't... so I abandoned ship to come down here.

I'm here as my lov'in spoonful hubby and Chackochen Uncle have gone to the home for retired priests to visit Father Mathew, Daddy's brother. After swearing I knew where the net cafe was, and that they sort of knew me there, and that I was comfortable there and wouldn't wander away or anything, I was dropped off here for an hour or so of punchy typing for most wonderful, theraputic and mostly (I think) UNREAD blog.

(Thanks Liz, Radha, Tabby... your comments and kudos are very sweet and encouraging and nice and funny!!)


Aiiii-YO! (as everyone here says in astonishment, surprise, desperation, or any other sort of emotional feeling) I just heard the theme from Titanic (Heard Must Go On) which is the song that Chackochen Uncle's car plays when it's backing up. Everything here sings - the fridge if you leave the door open sings Jingle Bells, the water purifier plays the Mexican Hat Dance when it's finished, and you can always tell when Chackochen UNcle is in the neighborhood because he carries a little of Celine Dion with him wherever he goes :) Anyway, that means I have to go... Saby is recharging our cell phone.

If anybody wants to call us at home, please do... tomorrow we'll be out whole day visiting his G'ma in another town about 3 hours away, adn next 2 days we'll be off to Cochin to visit Vinod (HAaaaaaaaLoo) Tharakaran and family and do a little touristy stuff. We're going by TRAIN, as our Bangalore journey was cancelled due to no return tickets and I will not leave the sub continent without having traveled in a train.

Gotta run, here's the number: 91 04 828 222 711
You dial 011 from the US btw :)

Take care peoples, all is well and check this final discovery out: we get Monday night football at 7am on Tuesday Morning Live!!!

Lina

Sabotoge in the Mother Land...

SABY IS HERE!!!!
He reached safe and sound on the 17th at around 4:30 am... he is doing well, sleeping lots, and pissed off at the electrical company, cable company, and the communists who run this state. MOre later.

Saraswati!!

Balu (Babi's brother) is looking bored as hell so let me relate a few things before he goes postal and insists that we leave this sweaty shoe-smelling (although all the shoes are outside) internet cafe.

HINDI SERIAL: No, not cereal... although Mummy asked me if I wanted to get some Corn Flakes for breakfast (I declined, as authentic South Indian Breakfast is the very best thing in the world). I have started watching a Hindi soap opera that comes on Zee Network. It's called "Ghar ki Lakshmi Betiyanne" which can be loosely translated into something like "Our Daughters are the Good Fortune of the House." I understand more Hindi than Malayalam, but then that still isn't much... but fortunately this does not require anything but an open mind towards UTTER RUBBISH! It's the most deliciously melodramatic, over costumed, over acted, straight up JUNK, featuring Saraswati (side note: Goddess of Knowledge and other good stuff has same name) the new bride in a North Indian home filled with people who dress like they're coming off the set of Devdas (a very ornate period film) but have cell phones. She is constantly crying or begging her mother in law for something or another.. "Mummy-ji?" (the ji being a respectful suffix you use in Hindi) I've been able to gather that she didn't bring enough dowry in for her marriage, her husband (an over dressed mama's boy) beats her, her mother in law hates her, and she is probably going to be accused of making eyes at her new brother-in-law although I think her sister is going to end up marrying him. It is the best full hour of CRAP that you can ever see. The mother-in-law (Mummy-ji!) is a fierce beauty, always looking like a million bucks, and Saraswati has been disappointing lately in not changing clothes between episodes, but she is usually in more jewelery than I own, full bangles up to her elbows, sari pallu over her head like some Rajasthani from last century, and probably 5 kilos of sequins dispersed over her outfits. It's on at 5pm. I missed it today to come here. Very very disappointed... but it replays at 10pm so maybe I'll stay up to catch the late show :)

Off to the Meenachil...

The day after my Kerala Show Business Debut at Dr. Thomas Mathai's house, I packed a backpack full of comfy clothes and headed off to visit an Aunty and Uncle about one hour away, in the town of Meenachil. Meenachil is named after the lovely river that flows through it... and thanks to the Kerala map now hanging in my bedroom, I know it's north of Kanjirapally and south of Palai. One hour away probably means it's like 35 miles or something... because of the condition of the roads here, traveling any distance takes a substantial amount of time. But our drive was pleasant... the trip was made with Chackochen Uncle, Ruby Aunty, and their daughter and grandaughter Sunitha and 3 year old Saira. Saira is an interesting child... she rules that household, deffffffff-initely - and we'll leave it at that. (read between THOSE lines, Mom!)

Saira and I had not hit it off in the previous week worth of visits... but over the drive we became fast friends communicating in some rediculious combination of english nursery rhymes and random Malayalam words - mostly I would make my hand like a snake, say "Pambh" (snake) and then pretend to bite her. She would then giggle madly and stealthily attack in return, chanting "Pambh! Pambh!" Luckily I know the word for "hair" too, so we had a little more to talk about (ha ha).

We reached the home of Lissama Aunty and Joy Uncle, and daughters Tintu, Taniya, and son Thomas Ooty. Tintu I had met previously... she's a rather serious elder sister type with a super giggle and a teaching degree. Taniya is a babe, like somebody from a Mallu movie that Mohanlal would fall in love with... and Thomas Ooty is the prettiest little boy the world has ever seen. But he's 11 - and I'm sure (and I hope for his sake) that his pretty days are numbered. Anyway, sweet kid - he kept both me and Saira entertained with porch swings, bicycles, rollerskates (over which he maneuvered the entire downstairs of their marble floored home with ease) and various other knicknacks. We went down to the river, which is about a city block from their home... a quick trek down through some coconut trees and bee hives, following along a creek, and we came out on the prettiest, greenest, most tropical setting one girl from Ohio can imagine. We waded into the river, right next to a family of about 4 girls, mother, and a little naked boy all bathing and doing their laundry. Three of the girls were having quite a time, giggling and then taking up a bit of staring at me as I waded in after Thomas Ooty... so I snatched out my camera and took their photo. I didn't really realize then that they were, very literally, in the process of taking a bath, and the resulting photo features the youngest one grinning from ear to ear while her sisters attempt to duck under the water for modesty. Very, very very very sweet. The mum then asked Sunitha and Thomas Ooty where I was from... the regular info was related, and we headed back to the house with a wave of goodbye and a couple giggles.

This trip was a fantastic example of simply going with the flow and getting fantastically rewarded with a kickass surprise journey: after the river, Tintu asks me "Do you need to get ready?" and I think she's talking about being ready for dinner. I put on some powder, wash my hands... and everbody's heading out to the car! Whoopsie... didn't realize that we were going all together to Ayyembara (sp?) - a place near Uncle's house, on a very high point, that is about 24 acres of exposed black rock. That description was very, very lousy. Try and imagine coming up a winding one lane road, up up up among pine trees and scrub grass, being surrounded by other higher hills and soft mountains, and finally at the top having the land open up to reveal a church (Little Flower of Ayyembara) and then the equivalent of an open, treeless field that slopes downward from the road, finally disappearing over the edge to reveal the entire vista of Kottayam district and it's hills and rivers and valleys. It was FANTASTIC! Take the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes, turn them into dark lovely granite, and make them 2x as high and it's something like that.

We wandered onto the black rock after parking at the church. Apparently there are normally some vacationing foreigners there... but that honor was held by me and me only on this occasion, and a gaggle of drunk Malayalee men noticed that straight away and began yelling random phrases in English. Tintu explained them away by saying "They only have the guts to speak in english when they're drinking..." and we made our way down towards a point where one might not be comfortable taking a 3 year old.... so after a few photos there at the edge, we wandered up and back towards another end of the mountaintop, where a small temple to Krishna was being built. It was my first temple in India! But it was getting darker by the minute, and while the sunset was lovely from our spot I could only think of watching the sun set on Pacific Coast Highway 1 - lovely, but then you have 30 more miles of hairpin curves head of you, in the DARK. Little did I understand my hosts' plan - we would picnic on the rock, stay until the stars came out, and make our way back to the car by torchlight (flashlight). As dusk turned to deep, black starry night, we all sat and lay on the warm earthy rock of Ayyembara, sometimes talking and laughing, and sometimes singing... everyone except me joined in on a Malayalam song that sounded so pretty and sweet, especially in such a blissed out place. Saira started crying and saying something (she speaks only mostly Mallu) - and it seems she wanted to know when HER turn to sing was. She then repeated the chorus of the last song in the sweetest, prettiest three year old voice... apparently forgetting the words in a few places but otherwise making a very good impression amongst 3 year old musicians of the world.

After awhile the Mallu drunk fellows moved from singing film songs to straight up spirituals... a Ayeppan pilgrim started blasting "Swamiiii!" tunes from his parking spot on the road, and we decided to make our way back to the cars.

All in all, it was a very good night.