Son rise

My son said something quite funny today.

Just before lunch, he said he wanted me to make some chilli oil. He proceeded to teach me how to make chilli oil. I followed his instructions and made it. 

We decided to try it during lunch.The oil was a hit and my efforts were duly praised by junior Sk.

I had roti with some chilly oil rubbed on it. Because the oil was garlicky, the roti started to taste like a Naan. Samarth was pleased by this. 

So I said that we have invented a way to transform a humble roti into a Naan. 

Then Samarth piped in, “How is this any different from what scientist do at CERN, when they use two elements to make a new element? We have made a huge invention as it tastes better than whatever people make at CERN.”

When you are an aspirational geek hasbeen and your kid makes a joke about a particle accelerator and Naans, it is a #proudfather moment. 

Samarth is so grown up now. He has been quite independent for the past two years - waking up, managing school work, commuting to school. On days he has an early gym class, he leaves home by the time we wake up. 

Apart from studies, he spends time in music  and cricket. 

In music, he plays the guitar and piano. He puts a lot of time into picking up things on the Guitar himself using YouTube. He is part of a band and they put up a performance of 2 to 3 songs every term. They also put their students on the cover of their music books. Piano is also proceeding but at a slower pace. 

He plays cricket. He has a few matches from school or from his local cricket club every week or so. I hope he gets better at cricket because he really wants to, and puts hard work in it. I think we just need to get better in the way we practice.

When not doing something, he goofs around in the house and plays guitar and troubles his sister. They have a love-play-fight cycle.  He is constantly on the lookout for opportunities to get junk food from the corner store. 

In a good mood till he’s with his guitar or eating, even homework won't bother him. But if he is asked to study more than usual, clouds gather on his forehead and thunderous outbursts might follow. 

Reading habits could be better - but it’s more to do with the lack of time than anything else. He does read on holiday, but I think he can read a bit more given everything else. 

Another tiny wrinkle is being in front of a camera. He cannot bring himself to smile when in front of camera, which is why the photo below is really precious.

He has a large group of friends-some from his primary school, some from video game friends and current school, and some friends who are children of my friends. He also keeps in touch with his aunt and his cousins on WhatsApp. 

This time in Delhi, he was pleased to meet his buddy from nursery. We had lost touch with the parents as they had moved away from Gurgaon, but they are now back. 

I can’t think of a higher privilege that could be afforded to a parent than being around their kids as they grow older, and then growing old with the kids around. 

Egypt part 1

 

This was 11+ year for my youngest. She is at a good school and can stay there till A-levels. But she decided, with some encouragement from me, to appear for a grammar school. (Grammar school entrance exams are very competitive, even more so in London. The speed and accuracy required in these exams are of an extremely high standard. But more about the 11+ in a different blog post.) 

Planning for the trip 

We booked our tickets about 10 months ago. It gave us something to look forward to for the time we were studying. During the year, we also were able to convince my daughter's best friend and her family to also visit Egypt during the same time. While both families did not fly in and out of Egypt together or on the same dates, we were together for 8 out of the 10 days we were in Egypt. 

The wife and I hold a different approach to travel planning. She likes to research and plan out things, while I like to visit the highlights, and then walk the streets. As it happens, we end up following the wife's plans in every trip. 

A number of my friends have been to Egypt, so we had a good list of recommendations. 

We decided to:  

1) Not go on a cruise to save time in going from A to B

2) Visit Abu Simbel by flying to Aswan 

3) Pyramids and GEM

4) Go to the White desert* 

* decided by the wife 

Itinerary

Day	Night	Activity
Wed	Cairo	Reach Cairo
Thu	White desert	Desert safari
Fri	Cairo	Back to Cairo
Sat	Cairo	Pryamids of Giza (32 mins by Car), Khan Market (45 Mins)
Sun	Cairo	Gems Meusuem (13 Mins) + Cairo Tower + Feluca ride with dinner
Mon	Luxor	East Luxor - Luxor Temple , Karnak temple
Tue	Luxor	West Luxor - Valley of Kings and Balloon Ride in evening . Hatshetput, colosimemon
Wed	Hurgada	Morning Hot Air Ballon in Luxor + Head to Hurghada
Thu	Hurgada	Chill
Friday	Hurgada	Deep Chill
Sat	Cairo	Fly to Cairo / 5.30 pm Flight to London

Flying to Egypt 

We landed on a Wednesday at 9pm, flying Egypt Air. The airline had some frightening reviews online. I was not overly worried - I am from India, it is a 5 hour direct flight - how bad could it be. 

I was pleasantly surprised - the flight was on time, the check-in was smooth, the crew were friendly and took care of us. The only dampener - no vegetarian options. EgyptAir will only carry vegetarian food if you ask for it, else its 'chicken or beef' with a huge smile. 

      Athens at night

The immigration lines were short, and the officer was quick - they did stamp a 'register within 7 days' stamp on our passport, but we did not notice it then. 

We reached the hotel (Novotel Al Borg) in an Uber. (Uber works well in Cairo to a large extent)

Overnight to the White Desert

Most of the desert tours pick up tourists from central hotels in downtown Cairo or from Giza necropolis. We were picked up from our hotel (as our hotel was close to Tahrir Square in central Cairo) in a 10 seater van. This van picked up people from a few other places then left Cairo. 

We headed to the Bahariya Oasis, which is about 400km from Cairo in the desert. The desert starts almost immediately after leaving Cairo. Egypt is essentially all desert except for the Nile. So, if you head away from the Nile in any direction, you reach the desert.  

I was not in a good mood when the journey began. It could be because of the early morning wake up, the not very comfortable seats in the van, the prospect of 4+ hours in it, etc, and I might have moaned a bit to the wife. 

But things picked up. 

The road was fantastic. 2 lanes each way separated by an extra wide central verge. Smooth surface, flat and straight. The van was soon doing 130-140 kmph. 

The kids were behaving much better than me. They were sleepy, but were not complaining and were busy reading and listening to music. 

 

At Bahariya, we had lunch and shifted into a 4x4 drive with Ala. Ala was going to be our guide, driver, cook and valet for the next 20 hours. 

(Ala and me)

We went for another 200km - similar roads continued into the desert towards the oasis at Farfara. Our destination was the White Desert National park, which gets its name from the white chalk rock formations, formed due to the erosion of by wind and sand. 

It reminded me of a sea bed - sand and On the way, we did off-road driving (120+kmph), some sand boarding (approx 15kmph), visited the black desert and a crystal mountain. We also found many fossilised marine creatures encrusted within the  limestone at a few places.  

Just before sunset, we arrived at our tent. Ala got busy - he made a small wind break next to the car, and then began preparing food for us. We huddled next to a small fire and watched the sun set. 

Soon after sunset, the stars came out. I had been looking forward to this. Long ago, the night time view was like this every night. The sky would be littered with stars. The view was well worth the effort. We spent the night in the tents.

In the morning, we work up to watch the sunrise and had breakfast at the same time. We wrapped up and left the tent at 7.30am. On the way back, we stopped at a hot water spring. After that, we bade farewell to Ala, and sat in the van to head back to Cairo.

The Pyramids 

There are many pyramids around Cairo. The largest one is the Great Pyramid at Giza, which has three pyramids and the Sphinx.  You can buy an entry ticket and walk around the entire area. However, you will be approached by many people offering to show you around - by a car, or a tanga (horse-cart), or horses. 

We took a Tanga-wallah masquerading as a guide for $70. We were happy to have bargained it down from $180. However, the joke was on us. The tanga-wallah knew less about the pyramids than we did. 

For the money, we got photos like the ones below. 

We were a group of 4 adults, out of which the men were not very enthusiastic about a claustrophobic walk inside a 5500 year old tomb.  So, we decided not to go inside the pyramid. 

GEM 

The next day, we went to the Grand Egyptian Museum. It is a modern museum with impressive architecture and has an impressive collection of Egyptian artefacts. 

I will not recommend the guide tour offered by the GEM - it is usually very large (our tour had 50 people), so it is hard to talk to the guide or even see what the guide is talking about. By the time you reach the artefact that the guide has been talking about, the guide has moved on to the next thing. 

Another tip, the tour tickets include entry tickets, so do not buy the entry ticket if you have bought the tour tickets. We bought tour tickets, and then entry tickets as the language is not very clear on the GEM website. They were sympathetic but they have no way of refunding a ticket, so we ended up with double entry tickets for 8 people :( 

If you have already bought entry tickets, you can get your tickets upgraded for the tour at the museum (but not online). 

You can uber to GEM and uber back. In case your uber driver asks for payment by cash (we were asked for $20 for a ride which cost $3), just cancel and rebook and you will eventually find a driver who won't. See a similar conversation with another uber driver. 

Khan-el- Khalili Market 

Close to central Cairo is this market which reminded me of Delhi's Sarojini Nagar and Karol Bagh market. We went there at 9pm and it was not very busy then. There are shops for clothes, souvenirs, stone, glass, jewellery, cutlery  - and there is a lot of bargaining. 

The Egyptian salesmen

I was mildly irritated by the repeated sales pitches but this irritation changed to admiration gradually. Every person who approached me did so with a smile. They wanted to talk to me and get me to walk into their store. If I refused, they would persist as long as I was smiling. If I lost my smile, they would immediately withdraw. 

They would usually start to talk by identifying me as an Indian, saying Namaste, and then start talking about Bollywood. They would make jokes about how they dislike the actors in Bollywood as their wives like them, and how they are happy that the Bollywood stars are far away from them. 

They would always smile while negotiating on price. 

We adopted a 80% discount to the starting price. It was an extreme step, but once more, the joke was on us. Soon, we were suprised to note that the shopkeepers were happy to part with their wares at this discount. 

Egypt is not the richest of places. Their currency has been hammered in the last few years and months and is now at about 50EGP to 1 USD (down from 20EGP to the USD from a few months ago). So, I would imagine how a lot of things are more expensive now. Tourism has also been hit - earlier by Covid, and then by the war in Palestine. So, it must not be easy to earn your living in Egypt for many who depend on tourism. So, beneath the smiles, there was the serious business of earning a living. But the mask did not slip. 

For this, I admired them.

In the second part to this blog, I will cover the remaining part of the trip - Abu Simbel, Luxor and Hurghada. 

Indians and Pakistan

I was reading comments below a story on what Humans in New York did in Pakistan and I ended up adding my comment. 

__________________________________

Hello. I am an Indian and have been a passionate Pakistan hater.

What I have realised gradually is this - both Indians and Pakistanis are poor victims of corruption and the arrogance of the State. Both our countries have failed by varying degrees in almost everything that a state is supposed to do for its citizens -  to provide a rule of law, of a just and fair society in which our children can grow safely.

As a victim of such a system, I now realise that I do not hate Pakistanis. They have never harmed me, And if I have hatred for the Pakistani State, then in that same moment, I do not really feel too much love for the Indian State.

The Indian State has a similar track record - misinformation about Indians, state sponsored killings and terrorism and a neglect for the minorities and for the tribals.

India might have a rock star PM. He reads our minds and has his fingers on the pulse of the nation.

Please realise that along with our history, our corruption riddled little lives are also very similar. It is in this stifling atmosphere that I realise that Pakistanis and Indians are closer to each other than what appears to be.

Our PM recently said that Indians used to feel ashamed of being born Indians. I would beg to differ - as an Indian, I feel ashamed because of the poverty and injustice that exists in India. I feel ashamed of the corruption and inequality. I feel ashamed that after 65+ years of independence, large parts of India are almost unliveable. I feel ashamed that my life within India is like within a bubble, with private security, water purification, power backup and transport. The only regular way in which the government touches my life is when I pay taxes. I feel ashamed of the country that I have brought my kids into.

_____________________

And a funny video from our friends across the border

Lakeside living in Essel Towers Gurgaon

Like many other apartment blocks in Gurgaon, we woke up to find that there has been around 20mm (or some such number which is not alarming at all) of rain overnight.

Essel Tower Central Pier

Essel Tower Central Canal

The sad thing is that this happens every year in Gurgaon and in many other cities of India. It is even worse that a lot of this happens in the newer parts of town - the so-called 'planned extensions' of a city, which are always parts of a masterplan.

Gurgaon Manesar 2031 plan

Take a look at this plan - there are no rivers or canals here. There is no thought given to natural drainage. The idea probably s to budget for manmade drainage and not build it and pocket the money. Or, there is no idea.  I work for myself. A lot of my capabilities are channeled towards creating maximum possible money for myself - whether I do a good job or not is debatable. I think that government officials (Especially the Urban development variety) are experts at this skill.

Gurgaon is new - there are parts of Gurgaon which were farms less than 5 years ago. New or old does not matter really when it comes to incompetence of town planners or the indifference of town dwellers. No matter which part of such cities does one live in, we all go through this every year in the monsoons and do not really do anything about it.

For a country and a media which does not tire of aggrandizing itself ("India's PM has a 56" chest, Indian origin kid wins spelling bee, Granada now supports India's bid for UNSC permanence and so on), we should all hang our heads in shame.

T2

She turned one this week. And it was a very happy occasion. It was made special by so many people and so many big and small things. I want to record as many of them as I have already started forgetting...

All except T2 part 1

All except S2 part 2

So many who  care about T2 the most were present (the only exception was her Mama who wasn't here so that everyone else from Ranchi could be) - both sets of Grandparents, her Aunts and her Bhaiyas. So many of our friends - school, college, neighbours, childhood Uncles and Aunties turned up on a Tuesday evening to grace the occasion.

All my life party

There were quite a few who have known me all my life and I am 35 years old now.

I was thinking back of a time 5 years ago when S and I had started off on our life together when a similar gathering had taken place. And yes, also when S2 turned 1. S2 and T2 are the latest additions to this family. Further growth will come through husabnds and kids M and K. Eagerly awaited.

T2 - she is quite something.

There is a healthy, happy and well-developed head on those small shoulders - no question

She does not speak yet. But no one misses that. She puts forth her needs, wants, demands and expresses joy, satisfaction, disapproval and anger with murmurs and smiles and pointed fingers and short cries. An entire range of emotion  expressed with ease and confidence that speech seems overrated and at times, inadequate.

She is growing up so fast. S and I have talk about how much we will miss this time when she grows up. I want this time to pass slowly. Even though some times I cry out in frustration, I want time to slow down. I will not remember all the small things that they do – the first words, the baby talk, the walking and falling and the smiling.

[Ah the smiles. I think that adults, even when they are delirious with happiness, can not smile the way children do. I think that is because a child has not ever held back an emotion. Adults have their emotional pathways polluted  - holding back, distracted are just some of the things an adult does.]. If as a parent, I had to do anything differently, I would create a few hundred hours of video for S2 and the same for T2

T2 also enjoyed this birthday - S2 was not moving as confidently on his feet on his first. Not T2, she walked, moved, fell, crawled, played, was picked up, asked to be picked up, asked to be left alone and so on. She also pulled out gift wrappers, punched balloons, grabbed at gifts and food and had a few bites of the birthday cake. She happily held the knife for cutting the cake. The one time when T2 was a bit shaken and out of it was when everyone started singing 'Happy Birthday'. It was loud and unexpected and T2 was surprised for a bit. It did not lead to any crying - that's not her style.

Both of them are growing so fast - pictured below with my mother, who misses them the most!

T2's world

As a parent, I want to fill her life with hope and happiness. I want to her to also respect her environment and be conscious of the implications of her actions and inaction. I want her to read well and get through an Ivy League MBA as well, so that she can settle in Canada (given today’s world and weather) or the Sahara (who knows what will happen with the world and weather in 20 years).With the kids and the kind of random crime that we read about in the papers every day, I wish that I had not come back from the UK. Definitely a better life.

T2’s world is a world which is very strange. There are all kinds of bad things happening – global warming and climate change; wars for religion
and wars for water. There is a case to be made that some of the conflict the world has today is because of climate change. I feel sad that the world T2 and S2 will grow up will be a worse place than what it was when I was growing up. It will be hotter , with more extreme weather, richer but very unequal, healthier but with an accelerating species extinction rate and lesser forests .

We have no one else to blame as we hurtle down this path but remain deliriously happy in our little lives.

Time flies. Too fast.

Dear S2,

This is my first blog post for you. In the time that I have managed to complete writing this, you already have a sister and are now 32 months old. As you can probably immediately realise (and even correlate), I am a somewhat laidback and lazy person.

It is going to be tough for me to organise my thoughts while writing this. The reasons for it are many

1) This post is long overdue. I should have written a few to you by now, but have not been able to do so. There are so many things I want to tell you.

2) There are so many things I just want to write down to remind me of your antics many years later.Apart from being a letter to you, this post is also a diary entry for me. Your mother, as usual, has been more organised and has already written a few dozen pages about you.

It is hard to describe how a father feels towards a son. It is an ever-changing cocktail ofjoy, responsibility, fear and pride in varying proportions mixed with love and sometimes even irritation. This description is bad literature and also pointless. Pointless because there are so many things that you will understand only when you become a father. I can write and try to explain this roller-coaster of feelings in a few pages. But, you will begin to understand this only when your child is born. That is what happened to me.

You fill me with love and take away all my worries.

You have taught so many things to me.

You have made me value my parents so much more. It is only now that I realise some of their sacrifices - not because I am doing anything of that sort for you, but because I am now placed in the right frame of mind. It is not that I have been a thankless child. Quite the opposite, actually.

You are growing too soon. I see your photos from the past two years and miss the younger you. I also rue the fact that the 2.5 year old will be replaced by a bumbling teenager and then by a young man. Such is life. No one can possibly miss the childhood of kids more than their parents - another something which I understand about my parents because of you.

A child is a big responsibility. I hope to live up to the responsibility and am so thankful for sharing yours with your mother. At the same time,  I worry for not being able to do as much as is required. It is probably the first time that I look at better-to-do friends and acquaintances with a tinge of jealousy as I want to give only the best to you. I regret leaving the UK and coming back because the UK would have been a better place for you.

A child is the catalyst which converts an adult into a mature adult. It is not a sudden process and it is far from over in my case, but I hope it will be by the time you are old enough to know the difference.

The Rapes in Delhi

Or anywhere else in India in this matter. Over and over, what I see common to each stream is this -

The perpetrators think that they can get away with it.

It can be based on a long list of reasons:

1. They have seen others who have gotten away with it. 
2. They have been bought up on a diet of male supremacy and lack of respect for women. They think that there is even some kind of social acceptance for such acts and that they will get tacit support from their family and friends. Say hello to the Rape capital of the cow belt, where the sex ratio is alarmingly low (albeit increasing).
3. They have seen women accept bad treatment meted out to them by their in-laws, cousins, fathers, mothers and anyone else. They have seen a broad social acceptance and encouragement of such treatment. Also, as men, they have seen first hand that  young boys and men are given preferential treatment and encouragement for behaving badly with women.They are just taking this bad behaviour to another level. It is almost no coincidence that the entire gang of the December 16th rape were upper caste, where the caste system, while ensuring high status for the men has ensured worse status for women. 
4. Police action or the lack of it - action only if there is political pressure, which happens only if there is a media outcry. The numbers are in their favour.

Probability of court case
P (victim deciding to report the action) x P (victim securing family support)  x P (Police registering complaint) x P ( Police finding accused and booking him)

If at each stage, 50% is the probability, then only 6% of accused will have a case filed against them.

The probability of a conviction is even lower.  This low rate of action is probably what is causing point number 1 above.

There is no easy fix for 2 and 3. However, political will can fix 4 (I might be naive in assuming so, but I am an optimist). What remains to be seen is whether there is political will. Ever since the case on 16th December and the public outcry over it, the government made the right noises. But noises they remained. The police will not change overnight. But government will can, which it has not and that is the cause of the complete lack of change and public apathy in the police services. Sure, they are overstretched, but then in real life, every one is.
 
(to be continued)

Samarth is here.

After a smooth 9 months or so, Samarth arrived on 9th August at Hill View Hospital in Ranchi. There was quite a crowd outside the operating room - His Nana, Nani, Mama, Mami, Mausi and Dadi were all there waiting to catch a glimpse of him. I was on the phone - talking with someone at work when the nurse came out of the door with a pink bundle in her arms asking for 'Sugandh ke saath kaun hai'. I hung up and was in front of the nurse. In an instant, we were all introduced to master Samarth, who was awake and looking at all of us.

There are so many things that I do not want to forget from that day that I will make a quick list  -
1) Seeing him for the first time
2) Seeing him again and again and noticing small things about him
3) Talking to the Mrs. in the OT and conceding defeat in a side bet which we had
4) Getting to hold him for the first time
5) Seeing him terrorise his mother and his Dadi during the first night
6) Seeing his Dadi sleep with him in one arm on the sofa
7) Seeing 6) the very next day with him and his Nani
8) Talking to Papa and telling him the good news
9) Joking with him on day 3 telling him that no one could fool him now as he wasn't born the day before


 It is good that I am making this list now, because I think I have already forgotten some of the things I wouldn't have liked to forget.

The next few months have been quite a ride - it is month 4 almost gone by and so many things have happened. He has outgrown two sizes of clothes and has turned on his own twice so far.

After ruling in Ranchi for 2.5 months, Samarth relocated to Delhi. He slept through his first journey by plane so much so that we have promptly booked him on a holiday to Goa in February. He is somewhat partial to old hindi film songs (which I approve), to 'Arziyan' from Delhi 6 (which I do not approve) and didn't like Gangnam style. He likes to suck on his hands and anything else found within darting distance of his tongue. He gurgles when his mother runs her hair on his face or when we are massaging him with oil (which happens about 4 times a day now). He looks more like his mother than anyone else and while he does not have dimples, he has received one marriage proposal already.

The Mrs. and I are playing the parts of paranoid mother and slightly befuddled father to perfection. 

Oh yes and there are about 1500 photographs and counting. And yes, we are almost broke with all the things we keep buying for him and he has more clothes than his father for sure now.
What are the other things which are going on - Envigo will turn 5 in a few months and we should have been bigger and better than what we are. We will no longer be able to hide ourselves in the story that we are young and still have a lot of grow into. I am trying to work harder, pushed more by the success of others than anything else.

That's that for now.

Different worlds.

All of this week I have been in Chapra. My father and I came here on Sunday, 22nd April. That gave us one week to my grandfather's first death anniversary. We will spend this week in the house built by him. During this time, we will spruce up the house a bit.  My grandparents were living in it till 2003 after which this house has been locked most of the time.

When we go on holiday today, we try to go to different countries and regions to gain new experiences. We want to see and feel and become a part of different experiences - historical, cultural or just to escape what is mundane. This current week was the holiday to beat all holidays.

I get to see faded glimpses of my grandparents life. I have found letters and bills and track the various bureaucratic battles my grandfather fought with a flourish. There are letters complaining about fluctuations in the electricity bills, multiple letters to the pension department for release of funds, a careful record of all electricity and phone bills paid over a period of time. There is a savings account passbook which shows a regular deposits over several years and a few withdrawals that can be matched to weddings in the family. I also get to see a picture of my grand father as a young man - so young that even my father or his brothers do not remember him like that. The photo is part of an ID card, which designates him as a Wireless Inspector. About 45 years before I moved into London and got to pay for the TV license, my Baba was collecting Wireless license fees.

I have been clearing a lot of old household junk - books and calendars, ropes, wood, old sacks, bedsheets and so on. The workers keep an eye on all the junk I am taking out. They often ask me  to allow them to keep some of the things. Old books are a hot favourite. All of them have their children in school and think that these books might be of help to them. Similarly, any old furniture is in high demand and so are fans. With every such demand, I am also told a small story about how this will be useful to them. I learn a little bit about some of these people. They also remind me of Baba in some way. He was very careful with his belongings. He was well organised and methodical. He never wasted anything. He recycled paper. He used to write his letters in such a way that there was no empty space in the blue inland letters that he used to fire off with alarming regularity. If he was around, I would not have been able to remove 10% of what I am able to do now.

My father and I had a routine. We used to get ready and have breakfast by 9. The workers would start the work at 9 and finish at 5. We would take a bath and get ready to go out by 6. We would walk around Chapra town, with my father telling me stories about different places and people. We would reach a restaurant (Restaurant Zaika) and then have dinner (Slightly oily, but clean vegetarian food). We would walk back home and be ready to go to bed by 9. We would be asleep by 9.30, only to be woken a few times when we needed to changover to a generator (during power cuts).

We were in Chapra in the middle of the wedding season.  We were awakened by some very loud live music almost every night. As far as live gigs are concerned, Chapra would come quite close to a city like London or New York. I am not exagerrating. Agreed that the quality and training and equipment of the gigs here in Chapra are rather rudimentary, they make it up by the sheer amount of sound they generate. In the warm summer nights, with little or no power, we would often live music till 2am.
There were such concerts every night - with very bad vocals, repetitive film songs and worse sound. These performances were part of the the entertainment being organised for the numerous weddings which were happening. Baraats always have live music and song and dance. But this was definitely a step further. By the sound of it, these baraats were not going anywhere. I think we got used to it by night number 3 and it never bothered us after that.

We had arranged for a contractor to meet us on Sunday, the day we reached. There was a function we had organised on the following Sunday. The rest of the family would begin to arrive by Friday evening. We had 5 days to get this house into shape.

Before the work started.

What all we finished in this period -
- Painting of all the external walls
- Generator connection and changeover
- Electrical overhaul of all switchboards inside the house
- Mosquito net on all windows
- Filling up of all the cracks in the walls with cement
- Minor plumbing work
- Installation of a new door
- Repair of the kitchen roof
- Repair of all broken window panes

By the end of it all, the house was looking much better.

After the painting...

The house looks quite ready

By Friday, the family began to arrive. My uncle reached on Thursday, mother and sister and aunt on Friday and wife plus nephews and wife's parents on Saturday. We had a whale of a time - some pics to follow soon.

Papa and chote papa on the puja

Where is home?

 Most of my friends had standard answers for this question. In Delhi, mot of the people were from somewhere else. But only one place which was someplace else.
'My parents are from X, but we're settled in Delhi' or 'I am from Y'. There were some who were more on the lines of 'I am from X, but we have never lived there'.
Today, with love marriages and the HSMP (or the H1B for that matter), the possibilities are immense. Some of my friends' children will have such interesting answers... 'My mother is half Punju, half Gujju, my dad is a Tam - both being far flung parts of India. They met their business school in western India, got married when they were living in London which is were I was born. I have grown up in California where my parents now own farms.' Another one - 'My dad is Indian, mum is half French, half Belgique and we all live in London.'
For such people, where is home? For that matter, where do I belong to? On my paternal side, there is my great-great grandfather's house in a village, my grandfather's house in a nearest town close to it, my father's house in Sarita vihar. I have never lived at the first one, visited the second one for holidays while growing up and have lived only briefly in the third one. The longest I have lived anywhere is Delhi and Gurgaon put together. For the NCR, I am both an outsider and I belong. I belong here in the sense that this is the story of the majority of people here. It is a city of economic migrants. All cities are. And by that logic, I belong as much to Delhi as to any other city in India. As an individual, I am rootless. As a family, there is still some identity left. My family talks and eats in a certain way. We do our own thing in the smallest of ways. My father's family definitely belongs to that village in Bihar even though the last time we were together there opmore than 20 years ago.
It becomes more tricky when I need to find a place to settle down. If I was a banker, like quite a few of my friends, I could make a list based on the market caps of stock indices - New York, London, and if in India, Bombay.
My opportunity costs are low. I can settle in any city with lots of corporate offices as potential places to earn a living- any of the metros would do just fine. The question is - which one?

Hurtle.

Hurtle on Google 

Would there be any other way to describe the growth and resulting damage to the environment. 

Here are some things which I wonder if I should be doing more - 

1. Flying less, using a train more, especially for personal travel.

2. Driving less, using the metro more

3. Walking 

4. Eating less meat, wasting less food. (Apparently, 18% of CO2 comes from cows belching. That's a lot of CO2. It is a good thing that Indian's don't eat cows. Another billion of hungry mouths to fee would mean a lot more cows)

5. Eating local (not low cal, but maybe that as well) 

6. Going out less, eating in more

7. Using greener computers and ACs

8. Planting a tree (you can do that here for India and here for the Brazilian rain forests) 

9. Reduce the heating on your water heaters and room heaters by just a notch (don't tell your wife or mum - they will immediately think the water is too cold). During summer, insist on sleeping at 25 degrees with a cotton bedsheet and not at 21 degrees with a quilt. 

10. Shift work times to a slightly earlier time (in India) to get into the office when the traffic is less and the office is cooler. (Why don't more organisations do this is beyond me?)

11. Change your car and your TV less often. 

12. Buy smaller or more fuel efficient cars. Use CFLs.

 

All of these things will save you money. That's something to think about! 

A logical extension of point 1 is that one should not travel abroad for holidays. 

The fantastic arc of instablity (Pakistan, Afghanistan etc) and India's terrain ensure that foreign travel means hopping onto to flight (unless you want to check out the origins of Balti cooking in Dacca). Does that mean all travel should be avoided? I think that travelling inside India is also something we need to do more. Also, when travelling abroad, try to use trains more after maybe the initial flight.

So that's that.