Hello friends! Megan has been doing ALL the rowing on this blog and now that she is in England for work, I thought it would be a good time for me to put in some work on the oars. So, it has been a month and a half into our little adventure and I’ve been asking myself the question that is the title of this post nearly every day that I have been here. The answer is “ish” – that’s the easy response. The trickier part is to figure out which elements of my core beliefs or general outlook, or just way of being in the world can be said to be the result of my early childhood growing up in India, and/or the result of my Indian parents raising me in the ways that they have. All very complicated. Certain things have been confirmed/reinforced in this trip about what I think makes me Indian:

-Comfort with Pluralism/Diversity: India is a cultural hodge-podge, both in the sense that there are thousands of distinct cultural communities that more than tolerate one another (except when they don’t), Every day, the air is filled with Muslim calls-to-prayer, Hindu prayer bells, the sounds of numerous languages that I can discern, farmers walking with their goatherds blocking a BMW from speeding on the roads, celebrations of regional holidays that are now celebrated around India, and of course the mind-boggling time-space warp that is India. That is, to walk around India is to witness every time period from the ancient past to the modern present, bumping up next to one another as though they were time-astronauts who had decided to join one another for a convention.

-People are more important than rules – In India, this is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing in that people seem to spontaneously problem-solve and help one another out (including clueless tourists such as ourselves) when they need help. It is expected that if you can help your fellow human in the moment, you should. I watched a merchant in a bazaar helping one one of my daughters haggle with him over the price! In India, people refer to each other, even when they are strangers, as “auntie”, “uncle”, “grandfather”, and other familial terms when they call for each other’s attention. The downside is that if rules are not the guideposts, then corruption is easier and in India, there is a great deal of it from the petty corruption of clerks to the much more consequential corruption of political parties and the public sector at large. Interestingly, I think we do have a kind of corruption on the grand scale in the U.S. (lobbying, political contributions, tax code loopholes, etc.) but very little in everyday life.

This warmth and friendliness in the culture is something I hope I have taken and believe I have for the most part. It has helped me be friendly toward strangers and be creative in solving problems in the classroom or between squabbling daughters.

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-Taking the long view. The land that is today called India has been settled and lived in by humans for at least 5000 years. This is a civilization, not merely a country. There is so much evidence of layers and layers of history around every corner. I think that knowing and connecting with this deep history has helped to ground me as I was making sense of America and of my place in it. The long, varied, and complex history of India offered a backstop to feelings of self-doubt and isolation that I remember feeling as an early teen. I was someone with value because I was the product of a culture that was rich in heritage and history.

The above photo shows a grave from the ancient Indus River Valley city of Harappa, 2600 BCE. Notice that this female skeleton is wearing a bangle on her left hand, not too dissimilar to ones on sale in any market in India today!

Days 2 & 3 of Delhi – plus our train ride to Agra

Wow – these were packed days as well!

To summarize first, Day 2 included special treats for the girls from our hostess and a priest because it was “Girl Day,” going on a fabulous walking tour, which included a Hindu and Sikh temple, spice market, rickshaw rides, and views of the city! We almost missed the tour due to a very odd set of coincidences…. Parag and Alex return to the Gandhi festival for more shopping and dance performances!

Day 3 included a trip to Qutb Minar, a 1000+ year old mosque, built of course on the site of a former Hindu temple. Then we went to Delhi Haat to get some handicrafts before catching our train. The sleeper car was a hit, and we made two new friends who are traveling the world for 18+ months!

Read on….

Day 2 – Delhi

Let’s start with Girl Day! We were in the midst of the 9-day Navrati Festival, which celebrateds the harvest and women goddesses. Today apparently is girl day, where the amazingness of girls is noted.

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For us, this meant our hostess wanted to do a little aarti with the girls (mini blessing, red and yellow powder on the forehead), wash their feet (which was really putting a little water on them), giving them a bracelet of thread to ward off evil spirits, and giving them a gift. They also got Cadi’s favorite Kaju Katre before breakfast! (This is like dessert first!)

Later, at one of the temples, a priest took particular interest in Alex and for girl day gave her 50 rupees! Our guide had her donate it back to a different part of the temple :-).

For other girls, they dress up and go around to different houses. At each, they get sweets and some money! Seems to be a kind of version of Halloween.

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Also here is a pic of our host – a retired Colonel. This was our lovely breakfast setting. And one more of their rooftop terrace, which was BEAUTIFUL! We had a nice dinner up there one night.

Then onto a Hindu temple. We learned about some of the gods and did some rituals. Our guide – Samerjeet – had been raised Sikh, but his mom was Hindu, so he knew both religions well.

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One pic is Alex just after she whispered into the ear of a bull, which was Shiva’s (one of the powerful Hindu god’s) modes of transportation. Each god gets his/her own animal. If you share your wish, it should come true! (Parag shared his, and as he leaned up, the horn caught the pocket of his new shirt and it ripped. He was told that was good luck… Hmmm…)

The Sikh temple was a really new experience for me, and was quite amazing. They had a little education center next door where we took off our shoes and put a covering over our heads. There were 3 areas in the temple. The first area was where music was accompanying verses of their holy book.

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The second area was a community kitchen. This was incredible. The temple serves 5000- 10000 (!) meals a day we are told – all from volunteers. We got to help prepare the roti. Cooking them was fascinating. It requires something like the skills you need to keep track of 24 bingo cards. You have to track many at once — flip them, move them onto the flame.

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They also take food donations. Any food left on plates is scraped and given to animals.

The third area was where the serving was done. Anyone can come. You sit in a row, and are served food, break, etc. As much as you want. Pretty remarkable.

We learned a lot about the Sikh religion. In the interest of getting this post up, I won’t go into it here!

These last pics are just of the city streets, spice markets, etc. It was remarkable how crowded it was – and of course a bit noisy. And people really just carve out a place to live just about anywhere. Running water is not a given. You can also see the city just layered up upon itself over time.

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The lower middle here was our guide’s favorite chai guy. Here his is putting sugar in our tea. Delicious!

And here are two final pics from that Delhi day – us enjoying our lunch, with our tour friends Megan and Janie, who are both on business in Bangalore and decided to visit Delhi for the weekend. And then a funny sign on a business. We were going to get mango lassis from this place, but it was closed!

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I didn’t tell the story of us almost missing our tour. That will be for another time. Let’s just say that it required a bunch of coincidences, including Parag’s phone not working!

Cadi and Parag went back to Gandhi’s birthday party that evening. (Alex and I stayed “home” and watched Parent Trap. New one is really good!!) Here’s Parag enjoying a favorite snack! (I won’t mention that that was just moments after he lost our bankcard, which wasn’t discovered until the next day…). If only he hadn’t paid cash for the snacks….

Day 3

We started the day with another lovely meal and then went to see a very old mosque called Qutb Minar. It rises 7 stories up. Some stone had been quarried, and some was taken off of earlier Hindu temples. The detail of the carvings is what constantly blows me away.

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After a quick trip and slightly frenzied shopping hour or so at Delhi Haat (handicrafts), we went to the train station to take a train to Agra (city of the Taj Mahal). The sleeper car was way too much fun. We were also crazy impressed by the food service. Before the train leaves, someone comes on the train. You put in an order (thali or biryani). It costs I think $2. And it’s delivered right too you – nice and warm!

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Alex had a blast playing in the bunks of the sleeper car. In Parag and my seating area we met Mel and Kate. They were from England and were traveling. They had saved for years, left their jobs (Mel teaching, and Kate photography), and just embarked on an 18-month trip (or longer—depending on when the money runs out!). They have 2 months in India, and then will continue on east. Amazing. They were great to hang out with. (You’ll see them in our Agra pics if we ever get those up!)

I thought I was going to have some bonus time with them at one point when we stopped at a station. Parag and the girls got off to get a quick snack. Mind you, these stops are only a couple minutes. Well, the girls got back on. We were sitting there, and Acadia yells, “the train’s moving!” The girls ran down to the car door to see where Parag was. Yup, he had had to run with the peda he purchased in hand and jump onto the train. The peda seller got a 50 rupee tip out of the change Parag didn’t wait for (!). Some things don’t get the benefit of pictures, but the mind’s eye can enjoy the details!

Day 1 of Delhi, Agra, Jaipur tour!

Today (Saturday, October 5) was Day 1 of our 6-day trip to the Golden Triangle. This is our first time being tourists :-). It was a long, but wonderful day! It started at 4am, as we had to get our 4:30 ride to the Pune airport. It’s now after 10:30pm and I’m starting to draft this, though I’m sure I’ll finish it in the morning.

A lot of this post is text at the beginning, so I’ll start with some fun pictures!

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The flight was fine. It was wild to see Pune without the roads jammed, horns honking, etc. The only people we saw up were the newspaper guys – several groups of them sorting and rolling the papers. There was a nearby chai man selling tea. The rest of the city was sleeping with dozens upon dozens of motor scooters, rickshaws, busses and cars parked alongside the roads. Despite the city being alive very late, and businesses being opened late, it is a city that does go to sleep.

The airport went smoothly. I’m still not used to there being a separate line and screening for men and women, so I often make that mistake -just getting in the first line I see. Oi.

One thing I love about India is how I find that my assumptions about the world are challenged. We’re at the airport, and I see people riding bicycles along a path that seems to cut right across the runway. And here I think that that would be absurd, but indeed that was the case! And then we saw two groups of people – I believe cadets, as the Air Force shares space with the airport as I understand – who are doing their morning exercises on the runways. They’re all in shorts, sneakers, orange shirts… I have no idea how they do this scheduling, but it apparently works….

We also had to walk a good 500 meters to get on to our plane. We thought our plane was late, as we didn’t see it pull up to our gate – gate 8. Well, who said a plane had to be at the gate that you are at?? Gate 8 was our building departure gate, and then we just walked on down somewhere past the building – and there was the plane. They had those wheeled-out stairs for us to climb up to get in. That worked.   

But none of that is the highlight of the day!! The highlights were all in Delhi. Here’s the Delhi Airport.

We got to our Air B N B around 11:30 or so. We met the wife of our lovely host couple. They’re house is wonderful. They have 2 rooms they rent out, and we’re it. We had tea and biscuits, and then Nandera – a person who works for the hosts– showed us some of the shops on the street that is just around the corner from where the house is.

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There are delicious western treat shops, Indian sweet shops, plenty of snacks (pani puri!), and good restaurants – Punjabi, South Indian, etc. (And yes, even a Dominoes – they love their Dominoes here!) There’s also a temple and a flower shop, and some others.

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We went from there to the metro. It wasn’t far, and it’s super clean and convenient. As we exited the metro, Parag said to Cadi – Cadi, keep moving, keep moving, keep moving. I’ll tell you in a minute why. Ten steps later, Parag pointed up. Cadi had been carrying a bag that had some Indian sweets in it, and a monkey on a ledge was eying it!! They seem to even know the packaging…

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Our first stop was the National Railway Station. India is amazing in that it was a bunch of little kingdoms that the British played against each other to a degree to get control, and then eventually, made them all into one country. There’s a great quote at the museum – I don’t recall the exact words, but it was something about how India has great diversity of language, culture, etc., and the railways united them and allowed them to blend together into a nation. The railroads in India really are quite remarkable. (We’ll be doing our first train ride on Monday from here to Agra!) A highlight of the Rail Museum was the full floor model trains that showed some key features of trains in India, but mostly just a cool, eclectic gathering of train stuff.

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A low light of the museum was the hilarious mishap where we purchase tickets for the Toy Train ride rather than the Joy Train ride. The Toy train was not much of a train, and you actually sat ON the cars. The Joy train was a small scale replica. Ah, such is trying to work in another language and culture! (I should note that in Delhi, the people speak Hindi mostly. Parag knows Mahrati, but not Hindi. English works some times, but it’s definitely a disadvantage that none of us knows the local language!)

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From the Rail Museum, we took a rickshaw through the section of town with all the embassies – seeing Finland, Bhutan, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, the Vatican, and yes, the US Embassy. It was pretty cool. We also went by the Prime Minister’s house (their White House) and were impressed by that. The girls noted the gaurds standing about every 20 meters around the perimeter, with semi-automatic guns. Felt kind of crazy. We have that, but it’s not quite so blatant and visible in the US. That’s almost ironic, because we have way more in terms of guns in general – citizens and police here do not carry guns. Not allowed.

Our next stop was the National Museum. After a snack in their cafeteria of chole and other treats, we went in. A fun thing they do here is charge different prices for Indian citizens vs non-Indian citizens. Indian citizens were 20 rupees. You want to guess our admission charge? 650 rupees. Over 30 times the charge! We paid with a smile. Thank goodness the girls were free J. (Fear not – 650 rupees is still less than $10 – which is part of why they can and do have the different rates! 20 rupees is about 28 cents.)

Here’s the center garden, which Parag tells me is Moghul style. We saw pots, arrows, sculptures from over 2000 years ago. Such is the luck of a museum when it’s in a country that supported some of the first civilizations.

Our plan at that point was to walk to the metro and head home. We were unbelievably lucky to run across a huge festival to celebrate Gandhi’s 150^th birthday!!!

His birthday was actually on Wednesday Oct 2 (the girls had no school), and in Delhi, they were doing a 5 day festival. (The festival also overlaps with Navratri – another celebration.) We tripped across the part that was like the Big E on steroids, meets the best markets you can imagine. Every state (all 28!) had multiple stalls with handicrafts from their region. Then there was a huge tent with dances from all the different regions, and drums, and bands, etc. It was quite amazing.

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We saw a person making bangles by hand. That was amazing. Alex and Cadi both brought a bangle that they saw made. I still don’t know what material the artisan used. Parag took a full video for those interested.

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We chatted for a while with two people from Haryana who were incredible artisans with wood carvings.

It’s hard to see, but there’s an elephant INSDIE this intricate carving!

The dad, who it sounds like brought the craft to new heights, wasn’t there. If you’d like, check out this youtube video of his work.

Some of his pieces were amazing!

We were already exhausted, but as we tried to make ourselves go home, we tripped across a tent doing the dances of each region. We got to see Gujurat’s Garba and then one from Madya Pradesh. Beautiful and powerful. There were live drums and some other instruments accompanying them.  (Terrible pic, but it gives you a little flavor!)

Finally, we got back on the Metro and headed home.

Thanks for reading! More soon… I hope!!!

We went outside Pune on Saturday (actually last Saturday, but we’ll just pretend we’re not this late with this post(!)) with Nachiket and Shilipa, to the Hill Station of Lonawala. We had a fabulous day, with some predicted and unexpected sites and experiences.

The first experience was getting to, and waiting at, the train station. We took a car to the train downtown. Not sure if this was light or typical traffic, but this is what the roads often look like!

We had to wait a little bit at the train station. Highlights included finding “wagon wheel” snacks – which said “masala” flavored, but I am sure are just BBQ flavor with a little chili pepper – and getting fresh sugar cane juice.

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They run the sugar cane through the press 5 or 6 times, adding lime and ginger, strain it, and delicious! Each cup was 70 rupees. That’s a lot here (as I can get probably 2 kg of carrots for 70 rupees), but only $1 in our terms. Here’s a brief video showing some of it.

It was about a 1.5 hr train ride to the west, up into the Western Ghats (a small mountain range). The British built all kinds of hill stations around India from which to govern. I believe it was more about getting out of the heat than being in strategic locations. Now it’s a busy getaway town for people from Pune and Mumbai.

The train ride introduced the girls to India proper. No doors on the cars. No room to stand other than where your two feet are. Parag took particular glee reliving some of his childhood at the edge of the car. I wasn’t finding that so gleeful, and wanted a rail made out of his arm in front of the girls. (PS Don’t tell grammy!) We were lucky enough to get a seat for part of the way. The country side was quite pretty – very green from all the rains. While on the train, before it left the train station, there were vendors that came on selling cha (tea), roasted nuts, and newspapers. This pic is when we’re waiting – before the train is full.

Once in Lonawale, we hired a car, and the driver took us up to a beautiful overlook. What great views. Here are some pictures.

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Some fun things up there included a camel – and Alex opted for a camel ride with Shilpa! –

Roasted corn – roasted right in front of you and served on its husk –

A vendor who was selling small bags of cotton candy, which the girls were excited to have. And some monkeys. Here’s a mom and her little one.

And apparently monkeys are as excited about cotton candy as the girls …We witnessed the vendor give a bag to one of the monkeys. It was opened and scarfed down in less than 15 seconds. And then we saw another monkey scurry over to a trio of girls who weren’t paying too much attention and snatch 2 bags of their cotton candy, take it back to the edge of the cliff and enjoy it.

Alex says : “The baby monkey was really cute!“

We then came down from the high overlook and were taken to Bhusi Falls. You had to walk in a little bit, through scattered stalls of shoes, corn, chips, eggs, and then you arrived at a dam. It was quite crowded, but very fun to walk on the steps and in the stream. Acadia particularly enjoyed getting in the water and climbing around.

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Notice in the pictures that some of the carts are literally in the streams.

It was very striking to me how this would be impossible in the US. First, no vendors in the stream. Second, no stalls right next to the water. Third, no people just allowed to walk on the slippery rocks! Everyone was having a great time.

We then raced the rain back to the car, and headed down for a late lunch in the main town. By then we needed creature comforts, so went to RK restaurant and sat in the air conditioned section. We had a delicious meal that included lime sodas, good bread, chole, pao baaji (all spellings are approximations), and filtered coffee. Notice Alex’s bhatura!

Last stop before getting back on the train was a chikki shop – Lonawala is known for this. Chikki is a sweet – kind of like peanut brittle – but softer, and can be made with cashews or sesame seeds, etc. We went to one of the more famous shops and selected from at least a dozen different kinds of chikki.

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And then we were back on the train. As we were the first stop, we were able to get seats and we had a pleasant, if not crowded, ride back to Pune.

Bonus selfie from on top of the hill.

Sept 23, 2019

Last week – though finishing Monday (today) – was the Literary Fest at Pawar School. It’s a week of all kinds of literary-related events. You might think we have something similar in the US, but not really. First of all, it’s done in THREE languages. Second, it involves many performances (rather than, say, reading books aloud or the like). Acadia’s standard (=grade) had a within-grade competition in Choral Recitation. Choral Recitation is when the whole class recites a poem, and there are specific actions and intonation. They had judges from other schools, including a principals, who determined a score for each group. Alex was a reporter, and she and several of her classmates would attend and write up events, which then the teachers and Editors would edit and pull into stories. They also had to interview some of the performers.

Thankfully (and thanks to Parag), we got Acadia’s uniform in time for the performance! Here she is in it.

And I don’t think this was the reason, but maybe there was a little bump from the uniform, as her class got 2^nd place! They did a great job. It was a Maya Angelou piece. I’m including a picture here, with a link if you’re interested in the full performance . You can find Acadia on the far right, 3rd row. Note that this is her class – ONE CLASS. Little bit larger than the US :-)..

Did you find her?

Here’s even more of a challenge — find Acadia in the sea of braids and uniforms (sitting at the assembly after her class’s Choral Recitation) and Alex (doing her reporter job in the back).

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After the Choral Recitation event, there were Declamations. A Declamation is when you take a speech from someone famous, or someone who made a bit impact, and you deliver it. You’re trying to offer the same emotion, and the performer dresses the part as well. These were really well done – and I think the students were 7^th or 8^th standard (grade). Among others, there were political figures, Steve Jobs, activists, and even Will Smith. Here’s “Will Smith” on stage. Note also these were done in three languages! The students could select a speech that was delivered in Hindi, Marathi, or English. Amazing.

These students had competed within their classes first, and the students performing that day had won their classes. (For context, you are in a standard (e.g. IV) and a class (e.g. D). A standard is a grade, and then the classes are just labeled A, B, C…. From what I can tell, this school generally has through F, so 6 classes per grade. You’re with that group of students all day for the year, and the teachers rotate into your classroom.)

After the Declamations, the judges need time to finish comparing scores, etc. So, as you’d expect, there’s a little filler. Well, I guess they needed a little more filler, so the person at the podium said, “And now we will hear remarks from Parag Sir.” I looked at Parag. Parag looked for another Parag. Nope, they meant him. Hilarious. So, he went up front and gave remarks. Here’s him addressing the crowd.

Next were awards. And they decided to have me (Megan) give out some of the certificates. Seriously. “Megan Ma’am, will you please follow me to the stage to present awards?” So that was all fine. I didn’t have to announce anything. Literally just handed the award and posed for a picture with each kid – who didn’t know me at all! I assumed I would give out the English ones, but nope, they had me handing out the Marathi ones. So here I was congratulating the winners, telling them each they did a great job, and I hadn’t understood a single word any of them had said! My new motto for India is, “Come visit. You never know what is going to happen.”

As a final couple pics, I thought I’d share a Rangoli that was painted on the floor for the event, and a picture of a ton of kids trying to interview Parag. The key question was, which performance did he like best. They were not happy about his evasive answering. They were all good!

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Last but not least, on Tuesday morning, we were interviewed for the live radio show that was part of Literary Fest week. The first two days were in English, the next two days were in Marathi, and the final two days of Hindi. There is a youtube video of the show. Interested? It will cost you a pretty penny to have us release that URL to you :-). We received these lovely bouquets for our participation. These flowers all came from the school grounds. Not sure about the “plates” they were on, but they likely were made by the art classes.

Over and out from the literary fest!

As the Ganapati Festival was 10 days, there’s more to report! In this post, I highlight our trip out to our landlord’s farmhouse and the last day of the Ganapati Festival, which was also a school holiday.

On day 4 of the Ganapati Festival (Friday), we were invited out to our landlord’s farmhouse. Ajinkya and his parents are also our neighbors in Sargam Building A. They have recently moved in from their farmhouse. The farm house is very nearby, but it took a bit to get there, as the road is very bumpy and muddy.

His family is one of the farming families that sold their land to the Nanded City developers some years back. They think this will be their last year celebrating the Ganapati Festival at that house. We were so grateful for their generosity to include us in this event!

We met lots (!) of their family at the farmhouse. Ajinkya’s father is one of eight – with 3 brothers and 4 sisters. All the brothers and their families were there, as was their (the brothers’) mother, who is 97 years old.

This day of the festival is for Ganapati’s two sisters, Ma Saraswati and Ma Lakshmi. Some families on this day have the two idols of the sisters included in their celebration, and they take great care to dress the sisters and offer them food and flowers, as they did with Ganapati on the first day. Ajinkya told us that they like to go into the older part of the city to get the saree material for their idols, as that’s where you can find the best quality.

This picture is their Ganapati with his sisters. One room of the house had been set aside for this. It was really beautiful.

Here are the sweets and decorations before them!

We were showed around the house and fields. Parag noted that the house – which was built in the 1960s – was a lot like the India he remembered. The walls were incredibly thick and the rafters had strong wooden beams. The floor was tile. Out back, there was a small hutch where hired help would stay. There was an area for livestock too. They still had a cow belonging to a relative. They had 2 dogs, and one had just had puppies. We got to catch a glimpse of the 3 puppies that were only 15 days old!

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Ajinkya showed us around the farm. The fields were terraced, which he explained they had done at some point to help with flooding and water distribution. Under each level he said was rock, which they had to build up. Pretty amazing feat of strength. There was still some sugar cane growing and we saw trees for mangoes, custard apples, etc. Custard apples were new for us! They let the girls pick one. (Cadi’s holding one in this pic to the right.)

Here’s Ajinkya next to his favorite tree. He said he would read there for hours on end.

As we looked at the land, it started to rain fairly hard, but not before we saw a herd of water buffalo.

Inside we got an incredible meal. This was the first place I’d been where I couldn’t ask for a spoon or fork! So, one of the uncles coached me on how to eat with my hand – not something I’m used to doing! I suspect they were very tolerant of my clumsiness and perhaps faux pas, as I’m fairly certain their fingers never went into their mouths, but I think mine did a few times! Everything was delicious. I think a favorite was the onion baaji, which tasted a lot like onion rings. You can see in the picture we ate while seated on the floor off of banana leaves – something pretty traditional.

And here is the amazing set of chefs and cooks! The woman in the pink saree is Ajinkya’s mother. The girls just call her Kaku, which means auntie.

After talking with the cousins and uncles some, we headed back to Nanded City.

In an interesting bit of context (at least to me, and I get to pick because I’m writing this… :-)) the whole family is moving from the farm to the apartments. There are at least 4 units of the Dugane’s in our Sargam building, and then some of the cousins live in another complex, also in Nanded City. One of the families has a 6^th grader who Alex and Cadi play with. They just moved in last month. We were told there are about 25-40 family members that used to live in the houses (there were 3 total I believe) and they are now all moving. In talking with a couple of the cousins at the house,. one of them was more positive about the transition. The other really missed the feel of the farm house life. I can only imagine what a huge transition that is.

As for the rest of the festival, we got to see more dance the next week! Every night, there were lots of performances at the amphitheater. This is a dancing, performing culture!

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(Above are a picture of the city’s Ganapati, which is also in the amphitheater (left) and one of the many performances (right).)

On the Thursday (day 10), this is the day that everyone – if they haven’t already – has to immerse their Ganapati in water. Many do that in the river that runs behind our apartment. There was a steady stream of groups all day bringing their Ganapatis to the river; wading in; dunking it a few times; and then letting it go.

Some groups were accompanied by drums. Those that don’t bring the Ganapati to the river submerge them in large tanks of water stationed at various points around the city. Here’s the view from our window of both the river, and various groups, as well as the City’s procession to a tank. Notice all the drums! (Look for those in orange!)

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On this last day, Parag, Cadi, Alex, Shilpa and Nachiket went into Pune proper to see some of the processions. These are the largest and most elaborate Ganapatis. They had a great time looking at everything and enjoying the delicious street snacks!

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Thanks for reading this! We hope everyone is well! Enjoy the fall for us. That is a season we will not get this year!

This post is about the girls’ school, Nanded City Pawar Public School! It’s quite a bit of text – as we don’t have many pictures – but thought we’d share.

For this post, I brainstormed with Cadi and Alex some of the things they thought people would be interested in hearing about their school. Here’s what they shared, along with some of my additions. This first pic is of a welcome sign that greeted us when we had orientation.

The school has pre-kindergarten (cutest kids on earth) up through 10^th grade (standard). There are important exams at that point, so it’s no uncommon for schools to stop at grade 10. There are grades 11 and 12, but I also understand some go right to university after grade 10.

Despite the title, families pay tuition to attend the school.

The school day starts early – at 7:40. There are busses that bring students, but a lot of student walk. The day ends at 2:40. Here’s a picture of Alex’s schedule (left) and Acadia’s schedule (right). We’re still not sure what all of them mean!

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Cadi does have classes some Saturdays. They do a half day. This Saturday, they’re preparing for a literary festival next week.

For the different subjects, the teachers move, not the kids. The exceptions are subjects like art and dance. The classes (which stay together all day) are named by the year/grade – called standard – and then “division” which is your particular class. Acadia is VI C and Alex is IV D. You do have a “home room” teacher, but you have many teachers throughout the day. Note that there’s no “leveling” of students. It is heterogenous up through at least grade 10. In grade 10, I understand there can be 2 different levels of math. Otherwise though, students are taught in the same classes the same curriculum. (In one conversation I had with the principal, she was very interested in this choice idea – asking if we had choice for students in high school.)

Every morning they do roll call. The teacher calls the numbers, and students say present – well, they say “Present Ma’am”. If a student is absent, it will either be silent, or another student will say “Absent Ma’am.” Acadia’s roll number if 36; Alex’s is #4. Acadia has 36 kids in her class and Alex has 35.

As there are so many classes, not surprisingly there are a lot of books. Acadia has 15, and Alex has 10! They also have 2 notebooks. There are very few (no?) handouts. Everything is copied into their notebooks. There is a chalkboard in each room (yes!) and a smart board. Every announcements are shared by having students copy the announcements from the board. No RemindApp, not flyers, no emails – at least none that they’ve allowed us to see!

The girls report there are no clocks in the rooms. Acadia’s group can’t hear any bells. Alex’s group hears loud bells.

The day starts with the National Anthem and morning announcements. What surprised me most is that when this National Anthem comes on – or the National Song at the end of the day- EVERYONE stops and stands. We were in a meeting with the principal earlier this week and when the song came on, she paused, stood up, and we did the same. I have yet to figure out if you’re supposed to face a certain way, or look at a certain place. Even parents outside – nearly all – stop talking at the end of the day when the song comes on. I took a brief video so you could hear what it’s like – imagine a school of 2300 bustling along with the activities for dismissal, and then the song comes on, and all that bustle goes silent. I can’t upload a video apparently – I’ll work on getting in a link.

The classrooms have tables, not desks. The assembly hall is just a huge open room. There are some chairs on the sides (for teachers), but the kids sit on the floor. Everything in school – and in India in general – is mutliuse, so you need to have flexibility in the space. In Acadia’s class, there are 3 columns of tables, with 2 students at each table. Each day, you move up a row, until you’re in the front, and then you and your partner go to the back of the row.

For lunch, there is a cafeteria you can go to and buy lunch, but it seems very few children do that, other than a few 9^th and 10^th graders. You’d also then eat in the cafeteria. Everyone else eats lunch in their classrooms. Most kids eat baaji and poori (that’s vegetables – imagine a typical Indian dish with spices and lots of chopped veggies, and the flat Indian bread). Apparently some parents (moms really) are still old-school and will bring the lunch box by just before lunch so the food is warm. Everyone else just has room temperature – which is also typical of meals and food in India. It’s not a thing to have it served hot like the US. (And I’ve learned this is 100% necessary as we have only 2 stove top burners!)

Alex is still bringing peanut butter and honey (note: peanut allergies aren’t a thing here), but Acadia really wanted to bring baaji and poori, which prompted her to learn how to make poori! Between having seen her Aaji (gramma) do make it and watching YouTube, she figured it out. She is now our poori maker! (Alex and I can step in after the dough is made and help roll it out. Mine have yet to be round. I get shapes like elephant ears, India, my coffee spills… still yummy though :-). ) Here is Cadi making her first poori!

The students address their teachers just as Teacher, or their name followed by Ma’am, Miss, or Sir. I don’t know if this is just because it’s private, or if they would do the same in a public school. I think Teacher is general. (Shilpa, Parag’s cousin, tutors, and her students call her Teacher, or sometimes Shilpa Teacher.) Alex, for example, calls her home room teacher “Anu Miss” and Acadia calls her teacher “Jyoti Ma’am”.

The girls have 2 different uniforms. Acadia’s has yet to arrive (!). They were out of her size. But they promised it soon. Here is a picture of Alex in the typical, daily uniform. Then they wear their sports uniform – Cadi is pictured here in her house’s uniform. Cadi is in Sapphire House (blue). Alex is in Topaz (yellow).

Here’s the girls looking at the houses, their mottos, and who is ahead in points on the day we toured.

Each standard (grade) has one day per week where they wear their house uniform. Presumably this is on the day they have MPE (which is Mass Physical Education), but neither girl has had that class actually yet! The schedule is very fluid – classes are often replaced by other classes.

I should add we received a very, very warm welcome from the school. They have been just wonderful. The principal, who lived in Canada for several years and happens to have a daughter who just moved to Manchester, Connecticut (!!), has made sure our transition has gone well. Also, Diya, who works the front office, is fabulous. She’s just who you want in that job! Here’s a selfie she took with us when we toured the school. The others in the picture are Anu Miss (far left) – Alex’s home teacher, and Hindi and Marathi; Diya – office person extraordinaire (front and center); and to the right of Anu Miss is Arti Ma’am, Alex’s English teacher.

Well, I think that’s enough for now. The girls are adjusting to the new experience. The kids have been great overall too, though both girls report MANY questions and lots of attention. For Acadia, they have to switch who sits with her every day as all the girls want to! It’s definitely a challenge at times to make sense of a new system and work with a new style of learning – much more direct, copy notes, etc. Acadia is more familiar with this; for Alex, it’s a little bit more of an adjustment.

We’ll finish with a couple pics of the school, which perhaps I should have led with!

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Top pic is from the courtyard in the middle of the school. Here they are preparing for the Ganapati Festival. The bottom left is a picture of one of the entrances at dismissal time. Parents are gathering to get their children. The bottom right is the gate into the school grounds (the yellow). You can see a couple of the high rises in the background. We don’t live in those, but those are very similar to what we are in.

We haven’t quite gotten to the school post yet, but we will! In the meantime, we thought we’d share a bit about the apartment. We had our first home cooked meal in our apartment tonight! Yay! We’re finally set up for living! The only thing missing is my desk now, but that should come Monday.

Our apartment is on the 30th floor (of 31!) of Sargam complex, building A. All of Nanded City is high rises — with each complex being named after something music related. Ours is one of the newer complexes, but everything is new — all within the last 10 years.

Here’s a panoramic view from our balcony.

The other buildings are part of the Sargam complex. Together, they have several play grounds, parking areas, tennis courts and basketball courts, and a walkway along the river. There’s also a pool – for everyone in Nanded City – next door to us. No one is in it this time of year. It’s only 80. They wait for hotter weather!

The river you see in the above picture is the Muhta, which flows east into Pune. It’s a bit warped because it’s a panoramic. What you see is to the north of Nanded City. Old Pune is north and east of us.

The view at night is particularly beautiful. Here’s a shot of that, looking east, down the Muhta toward Pune.

So it all looks beautiful, and it is. But there’s also the reality that systems and infrastructure don’t work the same in India generally – which is why Nanded City was developed and is so popular. They have very well maintained systems (even if it took us a week to get our hot water squared away! That was partially due to a card mix up, and not the system). If you look at this shot off our balcony, much of the white you see is garbage.

You also might notice that many trees are mostly underwater. There’s a dam a bit up the river, and they open and close it in response to water levels I assume. The level has varied quite a bit since we got here. Some days there are cows grazing on that green pasture. Some days, the green is an island and nothing can get to it!

Let’s head inside now! Here is our living room (part) and dining room (sans table). You can see the tile floor, which is throughout the apartment, and typical of homes here.

You can also see the tall windows, which have mosquito screens, even though I’m told mosquitos come up to the 30th floor! Air and air flow is incredibly important here. There is also a ceiling fan in every room.

The use of space is of course a bit different as well. Part of this is just city living. Here is our bed, showing off its storage space – in the bed!

The other double bed in the apartment has drawers underneath. This was particularly fortuitous for Acadia during a recent game of hide and seek with other kids in the building as it proved to be large enough to fit her, and rather difficult to ferret her out!

I don’t have a good picture of the kitchen, but it is essentially a sink with two long counters. We rented a fridge and Parag’s cousin’s borrowed an older stove top from their friends. Stoves run on gas, and the tank lives under the counter. Stove tops are typical in India. People have fridges, but some people don’t. OVens aren’t a thing — which sadly means a country without scones and chocolate chip cookies! (Don’t worry. We found Oreos in the store.)

Well, that’s enough for now. I’ll leave you with this nice pic of the girls on the balcony off our bedroom.

Today’s the girls first day of school! We will post later about that, but had to get up something about the amazing Ganapati Festival from yesterday. Ganapati (Ganesha) is the remover of obstacles as well as a god of wisdom/ knowledge. He’s around at the beginning of things (e.g., marriages) to help out. He’s also the only god that ever comes into people’s houses I learned. He’s likely familiar to you– it’s the got that has an elephant head.

For this day, people have a family Ganapati that they install in their houses. Many villages or other types of communities will have one as well. People spend time shopping for the perfect Ganapati for their homes.

Parag’s cousins have one in their home each year. This requires building a mandap where the Ganapati will be installed. He stays for 1 – 10 days.

Here are Acadia and Alex helping Shilpa make Ganapati’s mandap at Shilpa and Nachiket’s. This was done Sunday. In addition to creating the mandap, the girls got to go pick many of the leaves and flowers that were used. Parag was sent out on a mission too with Nachiket.

Here’s the finished mandap. So beautiful and eco friendly!! (Others have a lot of lights and glitz.)

We picked up Ganapati later Sunday night. He has to be blindfolded on the way home. He’s then welcomed at the home, unblindfolded, and placed facing east to face the rising sun, before being installed on Monday.

Monday everything was even more decorated. Here’s a bit of the ceremony.

And here’s Ganapati installed.

Here’s a couple pictures of the procession in town. There was lots of dancing and drumming. You could hear it at quite a distance!

Hello Friends and Family!

We’ve been in Pune 2 days. It feels like 2 weeks!

We arrived 7am on Wednesday morning, after a 3 hr ride from the Mumbai airport. Nanded City – the part of Pune where we’re staying – is a big residential “city” on the outskirts of Pune. It has 60,000 people packed into high rises on 700 acres, and has a community center, Eco Park, some schools, shopping, etc. Everything seems conveniently located.

Navigating everything however is not easy. We are incredibly grateful to Nachiket and Shilpa, Parag’s cousins, who have helped us ENORMOUSLY. Not only are we staying with them, and enjoying amazing meals (Acadia rates Shilpa’s chole as top in the world!) and good company, but they’ve helped us with logistics that seem more complex than you’d expect. Renting furniture, for example, we couldn’t just do ourselves. It required not only a copy of our lease (which by the way itself required our pictures, our thumbprints, and signatures, along with seal), but his cousin’s ID card and some other documents.

For highlights, the girls had a blast yesterday playing and making friends with the small gaggle of tutees that Shilpa has every day after school. Here’s a picture of them playing “Sharks and Minnows.”

The girls have also become a favorite “cousin” to Nachiket and Shilpa’s neighbor, Swayam, who is a very sweet 5 year-old boy who knows a little English.

Two more fun pics — Here’s some jetlagged people :-).

And here are Cadi and Alex at Eco Park on our first day here.

Warning: This paragraph may not be of interest to a general audience, but is fascinating to me!

Systems here are totally different. It’s fascinating to learn them, and to see how the systems definitely promote a smaller footprint than our American style! First, there is wet garbage and dry garbage. The wet garbage is essentially compost. It’s collected here in the city and used for fertilizer and soil in the parks. I don’t know what yet happens to the dry garbage, but there isn’t much of it. There’s one small bag under a sink, and I’d say they create less than a gallon of trash each day. Second, there’s a card for water. Electricity is the same. You have to “charge” or load the card, and then the card goes in a little wall unit in your apartment (electricity), or you just swipe the card near the meter (water). There are separate cards for cold and hot (where you’re charged more for hot). As you use the water, it keeps track. When you get low, it warns you, and you have to fill it back up. You can buy as much as you want, but it makes you super aware of your use! Water is even more regulated than electricity in that there’s only hot water from 5:30 am to 10am. So if you want a shower, or to do laundry, that’s your time! Or else, a nice refreshing one is available later in the day .