We are once again in Hyderabad, on the 7th floor of a hotel with a view.  And we brought the heavy artillery, camera wise.

There is certainly something despicable about this situation, but after hours of pondering my guilt, I have decided that I can either ignore poverty and close the drapes, cry and send a check to an organization, or look at the view, analyze it, maybe learn something from it, and then send a check.  Like I said before, guilt is a constant when you live in India.

We just witnessed one of the sweetest father-son interactions of the year so far.  The people living below us have a well, made out of concrete, in which they gather rainwater and who knows what else.   There is also a hose in there.  It’s the shower room.  You bring your bucket, dump it in the well and wash yourself off.  But if you’re about seven years old, and Mom* sent you to fetch water for the dishes, and your arms are too short, and you don’t have a string attached to your bucket, you’re out of luck!  Until Daddy comes to the rescue (click to enlarge pictures).

Daddies are supermen all over the world!

*I saw Mom slap that kid about an hour prior to the bucket incident.

Posted on May 30, 2014 by Kitty Vindaloo | Leave a comment

Another trip to France, another funeral. My grandmother passed away while I was there.

I avoided some of the scorching heat of May by going back home for business. Summers here are hot as hell. There, I said it: hot and uncomfortable. Summer is April and May. In Bangalore, it’s a dry heat and I am used to humid Houston. I have been in hot countries before, but there is something about India that makes it unbearable for me. Whenever I go outside, I feel like I am carrying 40 pounds on my chest. I almost passed out in Goa. I can’t imagine what it’s like in Delhi but will probably be able to tell you soon since we’ll be there shortly. The fact that the four air conditioning units in our house take turns breaking down doesn’t help much. We have been playing musical beds since summer started: one week in one bedroom, then the AC dies. Move to guest bedroom for a few days. Then the AC dies. Move back to master bedroom, etc… If the AC unit hasn’t been fixed, stay downstairs on the couch and bemoan the lack of efficiency of Western luxuries in one of the poorest countries on the planet. The irony isn’t lost on anyone.

Since India is a never-ending adventure for those who seek it, here’s what happened to my best bud while I was in France.

First, he spent an awful lot of time sitting on the couch, working, watching the Spurs games in the middle of the night (Go Spurs Go, ta ta ta ta ta dam), y’a know, doing the American thing. I told him to get his butt off the couch, and, lo and behold, after a week, he listened to me! On a bright and sunny Saturday afternoon, he sent me a text message saying he was on the scooter on his way to Nandi Hills. That’s a big mountain about 70 kms from home. That’s quite a ride. What’s a girl to do when her husband decides to ride that far away? Nothing but hope for the best. He texted me several pictures along the way. Nice scenery. He was having a grand ol’ time, proud as a peacock, which, quite appropriately, happens to be this country’s national bird. But India being India, nothing goes as planned. On his way back, he got a flat tire. In the rain. In a village. Where no one speaks English. But where they have cell phone coverage. Thank all the Indian gods for the massive cell phone coverage in this country! Waiting for our awesome driver to come to his rescue, he took refuge in a temple and was soon surrounded by dozens of people also taking shelter from the elements. Sathya came with his brother (who probably wanted to meet this crazy American!), who rode the scooter back, while E., soaking wet in the back seat, was being driven back home. Verdict: two nails lodged in the tire (“tyre” in India).  And Sathya is absolutely the best “thing” in our Indian experience.

It looks like the road to Nandi Hills is inhabited by hundreds of monkeys and they don’t mind posing for pictures. Those are some of the cutest pics I have seen (click on any to see them in bigger size).

Stroller included
Monkey family
Loving my mommy
Monkey love
Now that’s a tail!
Searching for food, and eating the plastic bag too.

Now I am jealous, I want to see some monkeys!

Posted on May 25, 2014 by Kitty Vindaloo | 1 Comment

I started teaching remedial English in a school in Koramangala. The kids are about 12-15 years old.  It isn’t always fun but kids do say the darnest things.

I am white.  Yep.  White and blonde with long hair down to my waist.  Since it’s so hot, and since I am not fond of lice, I wear my hair rolled up in a clip.  When I was redoing my hair, the girls asked me to turn around.  Then they gave me a nod of approval: my hair is the proper length. Good!  However, it’s the wrong color.  Why is your hair white?  It’s not white, it’s blonde? What is blonde? Blonde is yellow, white is white.  Oh.  Was your hair ever black?  No, this is my natural color.  How old are you? (insert number in the 40’s!).  So your hair was black but it became white when you got old?  No (and thanks!).

I let them touch me.  I strongly believe that racism will decrease when we stop fooling ourselves and face reality: humans come in different shades, and to most, it is strange, until you get to see that it’s only skin deep.  On the first day, the girls started playing with my nails, even twisting them (gently).  Did you paint your nails? Yes. (No, white women don’t naturally have gold speckled colored nails).  Many of the girls have nail polish on, often in shades of blue or purple.

Then they touch the veins on my hands.  Boys and girls.  I often have raised blue veins on my hands (nice when you need an IV, useless otherwise).  Most kids in the school are dark skinned, and their veins appear brown, not blue.  So they touch and try and push my veins back into the skin.  They were also interested in moles and freckles.  Most kids rubbed the skin on my hand as if to get rid of the white and get down to the true color.  It just got red!

Onto the eyes.  Mine are blue.  Do you wear contacts?  No, this is my natural eye color.  Ooohhh.  But blue eyes are so rare.  Not where I come from honey!

What is your talent?  Everybody has a talent. I loved that question. This is what they learn in this school: everybody has a talent.

Kids being kids no matter where in the world, 25 times per class I hear “Can I go to the bathroom?”.  This sometimes accompanied by a pinky up in the air, which is the symbol for “gotta go, gotta go”!

On day three, a young boy sitting next to me (we sit on the floor) tells me: “I am sorry your marriage has failed?”.  Huh?  He points at my toes.  I don’t wear toe rings, hence his assumption that my marriage has failed.  I assured him that I am happily married and that my failure to wear the appropriate bridal jewelry is because I can’t stand having those little rings squeezing my second toe. Yeek.

Where are you children?  How much is a ticket to America?  Do you know John Cena?  How much is a ticket to the WWF?  Do you prefer WWE or WWF (I had to Google those two when I got home). Is your house big? Do you have a shower in your home?

And my favorite, when I told them I was leaving for a couple of weeks to go to France: “Akka, take me with you”.

Posted on May 20, 2014 by Kitty Vindaloo | 1 Comment

Six months and a guest post

Posted on April 19, 2014 by Kitty Vindaloo

Six months ago today, we landed, not on the Moon, but in India, which is about the same for an American!  We were in completely unchartered territory, but with the help of some amazing people, first at the Taj Vivanta in Whitefield, then our Awesome driver Sathya, as well as a myriad of friends such as Marsha and Idhaya, we have made Bangalore our home.  We have made some new friends along the way with whom we have grown as people, exploring the city, learning new customs and learning about ourselves.

To celebrate, I am treating you to a guest post from the grand all mighty E., my hubby extraordinaire.  Here’s what he wrote on a napkin when I asked him to give me his top five, and his “low five” of being here:

Good

  1.  Exploring on the Vespa
  2.  Indian food
  3.  How nice people generally are
  4.  Travel-ability go lots of places I have never been but always wanted to see
  5.  Quality/intelligence/education of individual engineers

Bad

  1.  Work problems
  2.  Work problems (again, as this is a big one)
  3.  Being constantly confused, never understanding anything or anyone 100%
  4.  Dishonesty/lying by people
  5.  Nothing works, and it takes 15 people and 5 visits to get it fixed (and even then it still doesn’t work right)

Here’s what I wrote on the back of a restaurant bill:

What I like the most:

  1. I love how nice people are in the streets.  They smile, wave, seem genuinely happy to make contact with you even for a few seconds
  2. Coconut water, but not the kind you buy in a bottle at the store.  It has to be sold fresh from a coconut man, occasionally a coconut woman, who decapitates them with a machete and sticks a straw in it.  We will have a video of that later I am sure. 
  3. All foods.  I have unfortunately bit into a few things I didn’t care for, but those are rare.
  4. The birds.  I haven’t talked about them yet, but we can hear very loud birds with different songs all day, and night long.  Yes, in India, birds are so happy they sing at night.
  5. Learning something new every day.

What I would like to see disappear from my life:

  1. The lies.  It’s unbelievable how often we are lied to.  From bad faith, to incompetence, to trying to extort money out of us, we hear a lot of lies.
  2. Being stuck at home for days at a time, waiting for some much needed maintenance person (6 days to fix the AC in the bedroom, the second time in 3 weeks) who shows up at a time based on an imaginary schedule that only they have access to.
  3. E.’s work problems.  They affect our daily lives more than when we are in the US. Not fun.
  4. Lousy workmanship.  Rarely is anything done correctly the first time, even if given precise, written instructions, in the language they write.
  5. Dust.  It’s getting to me, more precisely getting to my lungs.  I completely cover my face on the Vespa, and breathe into my scarf when walking.

We will never be the same.  India is making us better people, one day at a time.

Posted in Adapting | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

India, the largest democracy in the world

Posted on April 17, 2014 by Kitty Vindaloo

Today is Election Day in our state of Karnataka.  India will soon have a new Prime Minister.  The nationwide results will be known on May 16 but I do not know when the new person will take power.

I have followed the campaign with a keen outsider’s interest since we moved here in October.  I purposely decided not to take sides, since I don’t know the first thing about Indian politics and find it rather distasteful when people feign to know something they don’t, but honesty, it’s hard not to have an opinion.  It’s been rather entertaining!

Dr. Manmohan Singh, the current Prime Minister, is not seeking reelection. There are two candidates.

One is the current Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat since 2001, the equivalent of a U.S. Governor.  The other is the son of Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi, grandson of Indira Gandhi, great-grandson of Nehru, and no relation to Mahatma Gandhi.  One has been allegedly linked to the 2002 Gujarat riots (between Hindus and Muslims) that left between 900 to 2000 people dead, to the point that he was denied a U.S. visa as well as denied entry in several other Western countries.  The other has been linked to his mom, dad, grandmother and great-grandfather.  One wears funny hats.  The other doesn’t wear funny hats.  One grew up in poverty.  The other has seen poor people, drank bad water in 2008 and thus had diarrhea, and in 2009, was bitten by mosquitoes that may have carried malaria and dengue.  One is a great orator.  The other knows how to repeat a well-rehearsed text, to the point that after he bombed the only interview he gave a journalist, his party cancelled all others.

Enough about those two, let the Indian people decide.

Will they really decide?  India is the largest democracy in the world.  China has more people, but no democracy.  Yet India has a high illiteracy rate.  Many people vote according to caste or religion (don’t we do something similar?).

The process is different than in the US or France.  Indians don’t all vote on the same day, the vote extends over a period of two weeks, depending on the state.  Election day is a holiday (no yoga for me tonight).  No alcohol is served or sold the day prior and the day of the election (so they stock up in advance). They have to be registered in advance and show photo ID to vote (insert snarly remark about the US voting system here).  Then, to further decrease voting fraud, after casting their ballot, they are marked with indelible ink on a finger and nail.  A lot of young voters are taking selfies of their finger, now called “selfinks”, to show pride in their participation in the democratic process.  There is no absentee ballot, which means that all migrant workers (and there are millions) do not vote.  A person should not have to travel more than 5 kilometers to find a voting place so there are thousands over the area.  As I type this, E. is on a scooter ride filming election places (video available when the results come in).

There are other elections taking place, which has brought other situations that leave an American observer baffled.  The number of archaic sexist remarks is astounding, especially after the country’s outrage following the infamous Delhi rape/murder in December 2012.  Comments inciting violence, or justifying violence against women are mind blowing.  One politician seriously advised chopping one of the candidates to pieces.  Another local candidate regularly gets pounded with eggs, tomatoes, has ink thrown at him, even gets slapped in the face.  It seems every time he gets hit, he gets thousands in donations.

Let freedom ring!!

Posted in Casual observations | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Our big cat is getting fat.  She wasn’t small to begin with and even had to go on a diet before boarding the plane since “(cat+carrier)<18 pounds”, or we couldn’t take her as carry on.  But she slowly packed those pounds back on.

Our cook asked if she was going to have kittens.  Nope, she’s just fat!  She’s a little pig, she manages to dump a whole bunch of her little food morsels onto the newspaper that serves as a mat under their feeding area.  I noticed big rings of oil under the morsels and figured out the problem: the diet cat food here is loaded with fat.   Ta da, now I know what happened.

So, on a hunt for better cat food we are.  And you feel so silly, in a country where child malnutrition is rampant, looking not only for cat food that isn’t table scraps, but diet food, because she’s overweight.

Back home, whether the US or France, you often hear the less than immigrant-friendly ask: “Why don’t they adapt, why don’t they act like us, why do they keep on eating “merguez*”, why do their houses always smell of curry, why can’t they blend in and become more American/French?”  I wonder if Indians think the same of us here.  Are they upset when they smell lasagna or roast beef?  Just like you have Chinatowns or Little Italy scattered around the country, you have Whitefield with its two expat compounds.

* a traditional North African spicy sausage

In order to survive here, you need to create what my friend calls “a bubble”, a space where you can be yourself, where you’re comfortable, where you’re safe, where you are not judged.  Most of the time, living in a foreign country, you are very vulnerable, insecure, confused.  Regaining confidence and a sense of self often starts with food.  I think all of the foreigners I know cook and eat foods from their home country.  Our cooks are always surprised that we want them to prepare exclusively local dishes.  Many of the conversations are about food.  “Where can you find this, where do you buy that?  Oh, I go to this particular store that sells great (insert favorite food).  If you’re going back to (home country) and have room in your suitcase, could you bring me a packet of Old El Paso Taco seasoning?”  On expat forums, people advertise how many kilos of empty space they have available for importing food.  I have heard so many conversations about Camembert that I refer to some expats as the “Madame Camembert” crowd!

We are no better than anyone else.  For us, it’s not the food.  We would rather not have cheese or meat or maple syrup than have to drive all over town in heavy traffic for some overpriced, maybe even beyond the expiration date item.  I gave up French cheeses when I moved to Canada in 1990.  But I understand why people do that.  In our Indian home, our coping mechanisms involve American TV and diet coke.  And our two cats.  Our sense of normalcy requires cat fur everywhere.  Since 2001, the year we adopted our first kitten “home is where the cats are”.  Hence the hunt for Science Diet Light Cat Food.

The cute demon stray cat who is in love with our kittens and who, along with his dozen or so buddies, terrorizes the neighborhood.

The cute demon stray cat who is in love with our kittens and who, along with his dozen or so buddies, terrorizes the neighborhood.

Posted on April 14, 2014 by Kitty Vindaloo | Leave a comment

Dubai is the opposite of India.

Dubai is clean. Dubai is rich. Oh, so rich.  A 800 Series BMW is a taxi, a poor man’s car.  A Lamborghini starts to show your true rank.  You drive a Porsche?  I am sorry you fell on hard times, it will get better soon.

Traffic is orderly.  I guess when you have a half million-dollar car, you don’t want people swerving every which way.  They have highways, real highways, with multiple lanes.  When one Indian taxi driver heard us lament over not being to go over the speed limit in Bangalore, he pressed the pedal to 80, 90, 100 and 120 km/hour, and all of it downtown!

My kind of horse

My kind of horse

There is not one pedestrian on the streets or on the sidewalks.  This may have to do with their state of the art metrorail: on time, efficient, clean, air conditioned.

They have skyscrapers everywhere.  This isn’t surprising since the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world is in Dubai.  We saw it.  We wanted to go all the way to the top, at least to the “topest”, but it is such a popular attraction that you need to make a reservation the day before.  So we stayed at the bottom, at the mall.

Burj Khalifa

Burj Khalifa

They have extra luxurious malls, and in these malls they have shoes.  Oh, do they have shoes!  The top brands in the world, shoes I had never seen in real life before.  Shoes I will not, nor would ever wear.   Shoes that ain’t made for walking!  I think a quarter of their malls are shoe stores.  I walked into a Christian Louboutin boutique, just to look.  Those shoes are more expensive than our Toyota!  In the malls located in the middle of the desert, they have ski slopes and penguins.  Proof?  Here you go:

They have hookers.  Of all sorts.  I got to meet three of them in a bathroom, nice ladies, nice shoes!  Gender?  Unspecified.  At the hotel, we saw a scene between a young East European girl and her sugar daddy as the receptionist made the mistake of giving them a room with twin beds, since she assumed they were a father-daughter team.

They have beef.  Since we moved to India, we have become de facto vegetarians.  You absolutely can find beef in Bangalore, in meat shops for expats as well as cheaper places for locals.  People often believe that since the main religion is Hinduism, beef is nowhere to be found, but it’s not like Saudi Arabia and pork.  Muslims eat beef.  Christians eat beef.  Some Hindus eat beef.  People of all religions in Kerala eat beef.  So beef is available.  But my stance has always been that unless a food item is common in a country, I won’t eat it.  Why? Experience.  We have had beef here in fancy restaurants, but it’s never been anything to write home (or in a blog) about.  Not bad, just blah.  We have ordered chicken in “normal” restaurants and half the time, we have had to chew on things we Americans don’t like to chew on, such as little bitty bones and tendons.  When they cut up a chicken, it’s chop chop chop, no use of a pairing knife!  But back to beef.  Since Dubai caters to the very rich, and many of them, they import the finest ingredients.  They always state where the beef is from: Australia, Japan or for cheaper, the US. I admit, I had to go to Dubai to have the best steak of my life.  My Texan heart still isn’t over that.

If you’re anyone in India, you have to have a presence in Dubai.  Many Indian actors, starting with Amitabh Bachchan (the equivalent of our John Wayne if he were still alive and acting) who’s got his face plastered on a 15 story building.  I don’t even remember what he was advertising.  Shahrukh Khan is buying a place on the fake palm beaches.  Hrithik Roshan’s soon to be ex-wife is opening a store there.  If you’re rich and Indian, you spend time in Dubai.  I read that their underworld is also run from Dubai.

However, since 53% of the population in Dubai is Indian*, mostly from Kerala, I got to feel home in more ways than one.  We went to the Gold Market and all the sellers were Indian.  A lot of the staff at the hotel was Indian.  Since I often dress Indian style when it’s hot, wear Indian jewelry, and I do the Indian headshake quite well (if I may say so myself!!), I get smiles.  Usually a double-take and then a smile.  Indians are treated like crap in the UAE (as per many news reports).  You could feel that they were happy to be acknowledged, that someone for a few fleeting minutes was talking to them about home, about who they are, where they’re from, why they are here: money.  All the Indians we talked to go home only once a year.  So they work far away from home to send money to raise kids they hardly know.  I tipped our last driver in rupees, he thought that was hilarious!

I have said it and I will say it until the day we leave: I love India for its people’s warmth.  My impression is that people in Dubai are so busy being seen and spending money that they don’t see anyone.  Yet, I still wonder where “normal” people live in Dubai.

Thanks Steve from the other side of the Arabian Sea for a wonderful trip!

* as per Wikipedia, so it’s true!

Posted on April 8, 2014 by Kitty Vindaloo | Leave a comment

The vinaigrette experiment

Posted on April 2, 2014 by Kitty Vindaloo

For my birthday this year, I decided to treat myself to a rejuvenation session. The next decade is fast approaching and it’s time to, as Cher sings, turn back ti-i-i-me. Our driver had hinted several times at an ayurvedic spa in a village close by, that is so famous that people from all over the world come and spend time there. And since I have a few minor medical problems that are widely known to be successfully treated with this traditional Indian medicine, I gave it a shot.

I got there at 11 and was given a sheet of paper with a schedule: doctor consultation, pranayama (breathing yoga), treatment, lunch, meditation, yoga, tea, visit of the facility, then dinner.

The facility is beautiful. It’s either imported from Kerala* or duplicated from Kerala style. It’s very close to one of the villages where we often go for rides on the scooter. It’s very quiet. There is a large wall around the place that keeps the rif raf out (dust, weeds, trash, dogs and unwanted critters).

* Kerala is the state where Ayurvedic medicine originated. It is still very commonly practiced there.

I met the doctor. The consultation should have lasted 30 minutes. It didn’t. I sat there for an hour and 15 minutes, and was subjected to a lecture by a self-professed ex-atheist-born-again-Christian-communist on how to treat my problems. Yep! That, I didn’t expect. I went there for oils and herbs and marinated flowers. Not Jesus! I felt trapped. I wondered if I had entered a cult. He wasn’t talking about spirituality but trying to convert me. I almost walked out. Then I remembered there was a massage coming, that the whole day was pretty cheap, and that I should keep an open mind. If the doctor had had any notion of body language, he would have realized that I had retreated to the back to the chair, arms crossed and was answering with “huh huh”. But he was so engrossed in conversing with himself about Marx, Nietzsche and Sartre (I read them too, dude!) that he didn’t notice. But after asking a few health questions, he wrote me a prescription for little pills.

I should have had a session of breathing yoga, but that got cancelled due to “Kerala Marx” taking his jolly time sputtering his cheap philosophy. Darn!

So off to the treatment I go. A young lady walks me to a bathroom and hands me a white cloth that looks like 10 pieces of toilet paper hanging from a string. “Take all your clothes off and wrap the string around your waist”. That TP thingie barely covers my hoo-ha, but whatever. I walk to the massage room and another lady comes in and they start chatting in a language I don’t understand, while I am sitting on a chair, with my breasts hanging down on my knees. Don’t mind me! The younger one starts rubbing oil over my scalp and hair. And the old lady is still there, still chitchatting away. So much for privacy! Then onto the massage table. Here, I took a deep breath. The massage table was ancient, covered in fake leather that was all ripped. I don’t care about the esthetics of it, but from a hygiene point of view, that’s a no no. Nothing I can do, so let’s relax and enjoy it. And I did! The old lady was a masseuse, and I got a four hand expert massage. One masseuse on the right with soft hands, the other on the left with calloused hands, with swift repetitive symmetrical coordinated movements. Your entire body gets massaged, except for maybe 5 square inches! I got oiled and rubbed and kneaded and basted, with a mixture that smelled of mustard oil and vinegar; in other words, a vinaigrette! I think I am being prepped for cooking!

It was great, and at that point, I decided to forgive the preacher for making me feel so uncomfortable earlier on. The massage itself was worth the trip.

Then shower. I am dripping oil. They provided a mixture of green gram powder instead of soap. I didn’t have much faith in it, but it was wonderful in degreasing me. My hair however still has oil and little seeds in it. The two pieces of fabric they give you should not be called towels, and would not dry off a normal size American man. I left with wet hair.

Then lunch. YUCK. There were many Americans and Europeans who were fawning over how good the buffet was. Nope. Bland and yuck. Made for white people. Served with warm jeera (cumin) water. I asked for water but was again served warm jeera water.

Then nothing. If I had looked at the schedule closely, I would have seen a gap. I sat under a tree for two hours waiting for the meditation session, playing games on my phone. I now understand that the place is not meant for a day trip but for longer stays, a week to a month. If you live there for a while, you will have a room to retreat to during that break. I didn’t have that luxury. In 100-degree heat, it isn’t exactly a pleasant moment. But, I kept reminding myself, the massage was worth it, and I had more learning to do in the afternoon. Still no water.

Meditation. I have never done group meditation before. There was five of us, lead by a north Indian man (different body type, different accent). He was chanting commands I couldn’t understand, in a poorly ventilated room, with the ceiling fans turned off, while I was wearing street clothes (I had asked about clothes before coming and was expecting them to provide something more suiting upon arrival). They must have put goat milk in the massage mix (they do it a lot) because I was starting to smell like bad cheese! I am not much of the “let the positive thoughts come it through your nostrils while inhaling and release your negative energies while exhaling” crowd. I got so bored I stopped participating and laid down in the back.

Right after that, I had a yoga session with the same man, one on one, and I really liked it. He also showed me pranayama, the yoga breathing techniques. It’s a cross between Lamaze classes and a panting dog, but for the first time, I felt my head cleared of most thoughts and my legs fell asleep!

Then I went home. I didn’t want the herbal tea time, the historical tour of the place, I didn’t want their dinner. I got my extraordinarily expensive pills (capitalism isn’t so bad after all I guess) and jumped in the car.

It was a great experience, but I won’t do it again.  Right now, I am eating the delicious dinner prepared yesterday by our new cook.

Happy birthday to me!

Posted in Entertainment, Tourism | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

All fun and games, it’s not.  We sometimes feel like we were parachuted here with a basic survival kit (a roof over our head) but not much beyond that.  We are not here on vacation, E. has a job to do.  What HQ believes is in place is often non-existent.  Simple things such as a business phone, a pretty basic tool in today’s world, took weeks to get.  His work computer has been “in the shop” for over a month now.  We have thousands of dollars stuck somewhere in “reimbursement land”, and this since October.  Our reality is not what the expectations are.  Although we have adjusted to our reality, HQ still has false ideas of how things work (or not) here.  And now we are being told that the E.’s regular trips to the U.S. that we were expecting will be cut.  Although I understand the business rationale, to us, it’s a sanity saving trip.  It’s also a way to (re)connect with the colleagues he left behind and whom he will be working with again in a couple of years.  He’s more than a voice over a conference call.  He’s my best friend.

Hence, sometimes the morale is really low.

A few days ago, seeing my hubby slouching on the couch, mentally curling back into his shell after a call to the US, I literally tugged on his T-shirt and demanded a ride to the villages.  It took a few tugs but he relented, without much enthusiasm at first.

We went our regular route, pass the watermelon man, who wasn’t there, pass the bakery with the yummy masala and jeera cookies, then to the right onto a new road.  46 kilometers later, we were back home, and HQ’s problems were far behind.  Instant Prozac!

You’ll probably be happy to know that it I was wearing my shiny black new helmet.  After the foot incident, I realized I like my head quite a bit, that tractors are very big, therefore, it was time to buy a pink helmet.  Unfortunately, the only pink one we found was too big.  The seller told me to close the visor and it would fit better.  He slammed it shut, but nope, still too big!  Honestly, I don’t like it much, people can’t spot me as a goofy foreigner as easily, so the number of smiles has been drastically reduced.  But I am safer.

I wish I could draw, because I didn’t have a camera, just my eyes wide open and a constant smile glued to my face.  We saw a family of monkeys on the side of the road.  We do see monkeys once in a while in town (ok, I have seen one in Whitefield, on my way to the airport) but these were cooler.  There were at least 4 of them, rather large and really in the wild.  They were in a ditch looking for their dinner.

We saw dozens of kids getting out of school in their white uniforms.  Even in the villages kids have uniforms, girls looking like catholic schoolgirls with pleated skirts, white socks, and braids with big bows.  They wear black bows during the week and white bows on Saturdays.  Some aspects of colonisation still survive.

We got lost and ended in an area around a temple where for several hundred meters, we only saw women.

We went through a Muslim village.  It was a very tiny village, with a “mini-mosque” and all the men wearing a skullcap.

I saw a Catholic high school that is the size of my Texas two car garage, down in the middle of the fields.  I will have to go back and see if it’s abandoned or still open.  School just let out for the summer so I will have to wait a couple of months.

All of this to introduce you to KittiesVindaloo’s baby: VespaVindaloo.  With the (new, bought last week at the Dubai airport) GoPro camera securely attached to the front of the scooter, we hope to show you what “our” India looks like.  Here’s the first installment.

If the video doesn’t start, click here: A ride through Bengaluru

Move over Rakesh Roshan, Meow Meow Pictures is coming!

Posted on March 24, 2014 by Kitty Vindaloo | 2 Comments

Where on earth are the 10-rupee bills?  And the 20-rupee bills?  Why is it that nobody ever has change in this country?  How come at the end of a day, the shopkeepers are not flooded with small change? The coconut man around the corner who sells them for 20 rupees apiece never has change, even for a 50.  The big Hypercity store, which is roughly the equivalent of Walmart never has change.  The photographer I like makes you pay with a credit card unless you have exact change.  I just don’t get it.

Originally, I had assumed it was because we are white and get rooked.  It’s our station in life as foreigners to get overcharged in India.  My first “No change Madam” was last year, when I paid 50 rupees to a kid for a coconut that should have been no more than 30 (it was a touristy place, so it’s more expensive than Bangalore, and yet cheaper than the 35 in Mumbai, where I won’t buy coconuts again, that’ll teach them to cheat me!!) But then I saw the store owners argue with Indians.  So it’s not just me!

At the ATM, we don’t withdraw 1000 rupees.  We get one time 400, then another 400.  This way, we have a grand total of 8 100-rupee bills, yippee!  After that, we scramble for smaller notes.  You want to avoid 500 and 1000, which is what ATMs spit out.  And we have started stealing money from each other’s wallets!  The person going shopping takes cash from the other spouse, that’s how bad it is!  There are some things you need cash for: haircuts, coconut water and watermelon, my favorite tailor who doesn’t speak a word of English, puja flowers (the flowers you put in a bowl in front of your house to make it all nice and inviting, though it has a religious significance that I know nothing about, they’re just super pretty), so basically anything you buy from street vendors who obviously won’t take a card.  Everything you’d buy is under 100 rupees, yet, they never have change.  Ever.  And the funny thing is that they get mad!

On many, many occasions, I have left “tips” where you shouldn’t be tipping people.  Last night, I wasn’t about to leave the banana man a 35% tip: I get 4 bananas, which is usually 8-10 rupees.  He weighs them and says 13.  Ok, prices fluctuate and with the Festival of Holi a few days ago, it’s possible (banana prices go up around religious holidays since they are used as offerings, or so we were told).  I give him the 10 and run a few feet to E. and get a 20.  I come back, my 10 has mysteriously disappeared.  So did his English skills!  After the nice lady next to me translates that I would like my 10 back in exchange of a 20, he relents.  But still has no change. Right!!!  You don’t have change Buddy, but you still have bananas, so I would like 20 rupees worth of bananas. He was not overly pleased.

You know what I had for breakfast? Three delicious mini bananas!

The ever elusive rupee notes

The ever elusive rupee notes

Posted on March 20, 2014 by Kitty Vindaloo | 1 Comment