The Thrilling Trio-Treetops,Sweetwaters and Mount Kenya Safari Club

When my husband and I were based in Russia, my Dad was still serving in the Indian Army and needed the permission of the Indian Government to leave the country. This was not very easily forthcoming and so my parents were unable to visit us then. Fortunately my sister had paid us a visit and I had to be content to leave it at that!When we moved to Tanzania, my mother accompanied me when I took my two month old son and five year old daughter back there.So she managed a bit of sight seeing in Dar Es Salaam and a colleague of my husband's was kind enough to escort her to Zanzibar and back on a day trip. But she had not done any'animal safaris' because in Tanzania, unlike in Kenya, you have to travel overnight to see an animal! This was not an option for us then, as neither my mother nor my husband and I believed in toting a three month old baby around all over the countryside and upsetting his routine!
When my Dad visited us in Dar Es Salaam, it was with the primary purpose of escorting my father in law there as he was not well enough to travel by himself. Again it was impossible for us to go on safari with him, as my father in law had a stomach ailment and special dietary requirements.Couple that with a very active toddler- my son and a daughter who was in the third grade by then, in the Indian school there-which translated into tons of school work! So my Dad traversed across Tanzania's game parks alone and, needless to say, enjoyed himself in the bargain!
We had been in Kenya for more than a year by the time my mother finished her baby sitting duties for my sister's baby in Singapore. (This is something most Indian parents readily do!In fact,many parents pack their bags and wait for the call right from the day their children get married, in anticipation of the 'good news' as it is euphemistically termed in India..There is no logical explanation for this,it is deep rooted in the Indian psyche!) She had finally come back to India. By this time my father had also wound up his (post retirement) work commitments and they were both free to visit us!At long last!
We had timed their visit to coincide with the children's Christmas holidays and the first few days were spent visiting Nairobi's numerous tourist spots and many malls.A day trip to 'Elsamere' in Naivasha gave my mother a close glimpse into Joy and George Adamson's life and times as she has long been a fan of 'Born Free'  and Elsa, the most popular lioness in the world!We have all the books and the movies too! That particular day will surely shine extra brightly in her memories of Kenya!
We had left the 'piece de resistance' (actually three in our case!) almost till the end of the holidays and a warm,sunny January morning (remember the Southern Hemisphere has January summers!) found us driving to the world famous 'Treetops Hotel' in the Aberdare National Park. The check-in procedure for this particular hotel is in another hotel called 'Outspan' located in the little town of Nyeri. Hunter turned conservator Jim Corbett's cottage which was also earlier occupied by Baden Powell, founder of the Boy Scout movement, is located in the hotel grounds. In our case,we threw out the bath water in 1947 but were left holding the twin babies -the boy scouts and the girl guides. Hence generations of school children even after India got independence continued to be a part of these,my mother included. So she spent a nostalgic hour in the cottage which has now been turned into a Scout's museum.
After a sumptuous and very Indian lunch of 'Paalak paneer' and rotis we were on our way to Treetops which is an hour's drive from there.Treetops, which had begun life in 1932 as a two room tree house constructed on a fig tree by an overindulgent husband for his beloved wife,skyrocketed to fame faster than fig trees usually grow when a young English girl went up a Princess and came down the next morning as Queen Elizabeth, the second!Her father, the King, had died while she was perched up there viewing game...
We, too, spent the night there,though we went up as commoners and came down the same way!Today, of course it is a huge hotel which just gives the semblance of being a tree house!The original structure burned down many years ago but the new one does have a Q.E II suite! The difference is that here we wait for animals to visit the salt lick instead of driving around to spot them as is usually done on a safari.We were fortunate to see a huge herd of elephants, a baby and mummy rhino out to slake their late night thirst, wild buffalo, wart hogs, deer and flocks of many birds.
After a continental breakfast the next day, we set off for the next location on our itinerary,Sweetwaters,which is a private game park.A regular game drive followed wherein we spotted  all the usual animals barring the lions! Our guide told us the mid day sun was too hot for them and so they had retreated into shadier areas!And who could blame the lions? The Equator runs right through this park....The rhinos here were enclosed in a particular area as poaching is very rampant in this park.In fact,some had even had their horns sliced as a preventive measure against being killed.How greedy can man get? An onsite animal museum was like an animal anatomy and physiology text book come to life and my daughter, whose life ambition, since the age of five, is to be a veterinary surgeon, was in raptures!Vertebrae and other bones of various animals including giraffes and lions, their teeth,skin,fur and the like were on display  and we were welcome to touch and feel everything.We also got a reality check of all the species that will soon be extinct if man continues riding rough shod over nature...She had to finally be dragged away from there as we were in danger of missing lunch at our final place of visit!
After the hectic schedule of the last couple of days. the Mount Kenya Safari Club was a place where we could just relax, walk from one hemisphere to the other (yes the Equator passes through!) and enjoy the food and the ambiance. Once a private home, it was popular among the rich and the famous from Hollywood and Winston Churchill was a visitor too!( Many years ago my husband and I had visited Mr.Churchill's residence in the United Kingdom,Blenheim Palace, and I could quite understand why he must have felt at home here!) A stone's throw from the town of Nanyuki and located at the base of the majestic Mount Kenya, the club is a true throwback to Kolonial times. Sprawling lush lawns, a quaintly shaped pool, catch and release fishing, even a Harry Potter kind of maze,an animal orphanage whose inhabitants included a baby Lama and had my Mom and kids in raptures,table tennis, a croquet lawn straight out of Agatha Christie and even a golf course!In short, if the Brits do it, you will find it here!Our twin cottages complete with fireplaces, were on the banks of a pond and we were visited by a variety of birds from dawn to dusk...
All too soon it was time to leave this enchanting place where we had stepped back into another era and we readied ourselves to face the modern world again! We were fortified by a very Indian breakfast of 'Upma'(made of spices and salted semolina)If the Kolonial shadow loomed over this particular hotel, could the Indian influence be too far behind?!!

                                          The grounds of Outspan...

                                           Part of the big herd at the salt lick in Treetops.

                                          The all new creeper covered Treetops!  

                                          Mount Kenya in the distance!

                                          The Harry Potter Maze!

Sheer Bliss!!

Airport Agony

Come April and it will have been eighteen years since I first embarked on international travel.Those were the days when a few Indian parents were just waking up to the fact that a Masters Degree from the United States Of America for their little (Parle G fed) geniuses was literally a passport to a green card which in turn was a great way to finally get rid of the blue passport which is anyway frowned upon at most immigration counters the world over! So barring a handful of students who had managed financial aid, some workers bound for the Middle East and a few business executives (information technologists en masse had yet to really take off and jobs hadn't been 'Bangalored' yet!), there really never used to be too many people at any of the international airports in India. New Delhi,of course,being our capital was a notch above other airports, where footfalls were concerned.
Terribly rich Indian families used to take a break in Europe or the States once their eldest child had appeared for the first hurdle in the Indian system of education-the tenth standard board exams! It was completely unlike today, where every vacation right after pre-nursery to the post twelfth standard entrance exams merits a visit abroad and there are even loans available to fund such trips! So one can imagine how deserted and desolate Mumbai Airport used to be....Friends of ours knew the Airport Manager and he was kind enough to let us wait in his personal cabin till it was absolutely imperative that I started the preboarding the formalities.Yes, those were the days before 9/11 and 26/11 and before the Kathmandu hijack. The world of international travel was comparatively a safe and secure one, open to the privileged few.
Hand baggage was not even weighed in those days, as long as you carried just one it was fine.No Indian can ever travel light and I often had as much stuffed into the strolley as I had checked in!Jackets were not X rayed separately and I ensured each jacket pocket was filled to overflowing...Oh those were the days of royal travel for sure!
Then my daughter was born, followed by my son and from being a lone traveller I got accustomed to travelling in threes! (My husband zips in and out of airports as his schedule permits and it is rare for him to be free exactly at the time school closes or reopens so most of the time we have to battle it out on our own!) We saw many airports across the world being given face lifts, we saw ever increasing queues for immigration and check in (this despite numerous counters being opened up, compared to the six that Mumbai had earlier!) and we stumbled upon huge (pun absolutely unintended!) joint families bonding over parathas and pickle, thalipeeth and theplas at international airports, as they embarked upon a Dilwale Dulhaniya Lejayenge  inspired Swiss holiday or a destination wedding...
As the years went by family and friends often compared our airports, especially the one in Mumbai, very unfavourably with others across the world.I used to be up in arms at once and protest vociferously in defense   of our own.After all,I argued,where else in the world is one passenger accompanied by at least five other people who have come to bid him good bye?Can we blame the airport authorities if there is a jam right outside or if the washrooms are unable to handle this extra load? We should be the change we want to see... And so on and so forth.
All this changed last Tuesday.After a quick visit home it was time to fly back and we were at the Mumbai international airport.Since I practice what I preach,the children and I had come from Pune (our hometown) alone and the driver dropped us right at our terminal gate, bang in the midst of a traffic jam accompanied by the cacophony of horns.
The trolley bay there was empty and so I asked the kids to wait with the luggage while I walked a kilometer across to the other end to get a trolley.After pushing and shoving the trolley through a stream of people yelling out bon voyage to their loved ones, I managed to get back to the kids,only to find that the bay behind them had finally been replenished and my daughter had managed to lay her hands on a trolley.Unfortunately they were standing right outside a reeking washroom and when we finally loaded our luggage and began entering the airport, my son whose nose and ears are way too sensitive, could not bear the olfactory overload anymore and threw up in the first washroom we came across inside! What a start to our long journey across the Indian Ocean!
After standing in the now mandatory queues, we finished all the formalities and finally settled down for what would be a long wait as flights from this airport are generally delayed due to long lines of aircraft waiting for take off on the tarmac.. I asked the children to settle down as best as they could and to try and catch forty winks. Little did I know then that the worst part of the nightmare had yet to be.Almost immediately we were attacked by swarms of mosquitoes! We changed places twice but all in vain.The children were bitten so badly in a short period of time that both of them were in tears! I could not believe this was happening to me, in my own country to boot!At this rate our government should give up the fight for the patent for Basmati rice and take out exclusive patents for dengue,chikungunya and malaria as we are surely exporting these diseases from our international airport. Complaints were of no use at all as I was categorically told no spray works on these giant mosquitoes! Really? Well,those mosquito repellent  adverts on television that we are constantly bombarded with, certainly had me fooled!
Using the washroom unleashed a further wave of these monsters as they were thriving in the dark, dank depths of the commodes and the children landed up being bitten on hitherto unbitten parts! I ,as a mother, have never felt so helpless and I was immensely relieved when our flight was called and we entered the aero tunnel to board.My relief was short lived!The mosquitoes had bypassed immigration and customs and were merrily entering the aircraft along with all of us! I spent half the night swatting mosquitoes around us!
India may or may not be incredible but the way these insects are ruling the roost at the airport certainly is!They have subjected us to two types of agony-the physical agony of being bitten from head to toe and the mental agony of now being in quarantine for so many dreaded diseases!The female anopheles mosquito certainly gets crowned for being a 'femme fatale'!

Kenyan Elections-A Poem For Peace

                                       

A country holds on with breath that is bated,
For five long years a community has waited.
In March '13 the Kenyan Polls have been slated.


To the polling station,
Will march an entire nation.
Democracy brings about a heady elation.


Though there are heart wrenching memories of 2008,
And of justice that had a lengthy wait.
But to give peace a chance it is never too late.


Church bells ring,temple bells chime,
Their message is supremely sublime.
Together we will firmly bond,
Of 2013 we will create memories fond.


A stronger Kenya will surely emerge,
Hatred it's head of course will submerge.
Here's to our very own piece of paradise,
Here's to a beautiful nation's imminent rise!

Que Sera Sera

A week before school closed for the Christmas break, my son forgot his newest and best jacket in school.Summer in Nairobi merits a jacket in the morning as it is quite cold. Usually things that are left behind in school find their way to the lost property, so I was not overly concerned and asked him to be sure to get it back with him the next day. But he was unable to find it despite a couple of trips to the school office to check.When I went to school to volunteer for one of the three parties that his class had before they closed, I, too, searched high and low for it. My husband had bought it on his last trip to South Africa and it really was a beautiful jacket and warm to boot.But I had no luck either and we were forced to conclude that someone had helped himself to it.
I did not scold my son but I exhorted him to be more careful with his things in future. I was a bit upset but I hoped that it had been taken by someone whose child really needed a warm jacket and did not own one, unlike my son who is fortunate enough to have five jackets and numerous sweaters, besides.And so the last day of school,Friday 14th December, dawned and I waited eagerly for my children to come home.It was a half day and my daughter called up to ask if she could get her friend home for lunch. I agreed, as long as the girl had her own mother's permission to be dropped off at our house instead of her own.
My daughter's classmate is Chinese but she liked all the Indian food that I served for lunch except the custard, which, anyway is a pudding the Kolonialists taught us to eat, so I did not mind in the least!Then the girls began to surf the net (under my watchful eye,of course!) and soon they were exclaiming over which glittery purse or high heeled shoes or designer hand bags each one would want to buy the minute they began earning! One teenager was Indian, the other Chinese, each representing countries both of which are slated to be the next super powers, studying in a school which comes under the system of the current super power, the United States Of America. I looked at them and thought what the future held for each child. Both looked so different from each other and yet were so similar as children are, all over the world... Their countries could become super powers on the sheer strength of their burgeoning populations and the popularity of their take away food alone! As I listened to them discuss their exam marks which had just been handed over that day I was amused. Both girls solemnly agreed that anything less than a ninety four percent was akin to failing the subject! For the record, neither had 'failed' according to their own set standards! Being an Indian mother I know how marks oriented we are and having bought and read the Battle Hymn Of the Tiger Mother I had an inkling of the Chinese system too!But even I thought this was carrying things too far, even as a joke! I did not say anything but idly speculated over their futures in my mind. Any mother will readily admit to trying, at times, to guess what the future holds for her children and their counterparts.Que sera sera...as the famous song goes-whatever will be will be,the future's not ours to see...
Come night and I tucked my son  into bed after a short argument as he wanted to read just 'one' chapter more from his story book but I felt it was time to turn off the lights! The day was over for me. I logged in to my face book account, replied to the comments people had put on my status which said 'the joys of Elementary school versus the reality of High school', which referred to exams for high school students and parties for elementary babies and then I signed off.Little did I know then how tragic 'joy' in Elementary school had become that very day... It was time to tune in to the Indian news channel on television as I like to keep pace with all that is happening in my country.And then time stood still for me.
All the news channels were focused only on one news item -the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.How such a thing could happen, why it should happen was something beyond anyone's comprehension. One sentence that I heard, as soon as I put on the news, stands out in my mind. One of the teachers who was in the school during the incident was quoted as telling the children while rushing them to safety,' just move out,leave everything behind, including your jackets.It does NOT matter.' How glad I was that I had not taken my son to task over a lost jacket. Sooner or later the jackets of those babies who lost their lives that day will be taken from their classrooms, tagged,bagged and returned to the grieving  parents...These parents will never have the pleasure of tucking that child snugly into bed, never try to imagine what the future will bring for that lost innocent soul because, thanks to free access to guns and a disturbed mind that escaped notice, there is no que sera sera for these children.In the song, the child asks his mother, ' Will I be handsome,will I be rich?' Now it seems, children, not just in the States but the world over need to ask 'Will I live? To see teenage and adulthood?'Whatever was to have been in the lives of those six and seven year olds now cannot be.And what has been,should never have been, but for the fact that guns were sold as freely as Christmas  cookies and gun licenses were handed out like Diwali sweets.
I have never been so glad that I come from a country where only law enforcement officials, the armed forces, politicians, the hyper rich, film stars and terrorists have access to guns. Common folks like me cannot even imagine owning a gun, let alone shooting one..If this gory incident does not ensure tight gun control then what else are they waiting for? Honestly, should there even be a debate?

Uganda-The Pearl Of Africa!

Mississippi Masala- My first exposure to a film of cross cultural genre,more than a decade and a half ago. This lovely Mira Nair film starts in Uganda and then moves across the ocean to the West. I had had my first glimpse of Uganda then and I had found it really beautiful. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that one day I would get a chance to actually visit this place, for we were in East Europe then and Africa seemed very distant to us.
Well, get a chance to visit I did, and I grabbed this opportunity with both hands, even though it entailed asking the school for permission to let the children leave early for a day, something I am usually completely against doing. Nairobi to Entebbe is just an hour's flight and we got our first glimpse of Lake Victoria long before we landed!My son was especially excited as his class had just finished studying the major land forms of East Africa and he had no trouble identifying this vast water body which can be easily likened to a sea! Applying book knowledge to real life brings with it a thrill like no other...
A torrential rain greeted us as we drove from the airport to Kampala, the capital, where the resort was located. The hilly landscape and the bright red mud brought to mind Assam in India, where I have spent three of my preteen years!Streams of water, the colour of strong Brooke Bond Red Label tea, flowed from the upper levels to join the main road and the already overflowing rain water drains spilled over onto the roads! As the car splashed and sploshed it's way down the extremely narrow roads,visibility was reduced to almost zero but we managed to make it to the resort.
The artistically landscaped five star resort lies right on the banks of Lake Victoria and we were lucky enough to get a room overlooking the lake! We had been invited to attend a function to celebrate twenty years of a particular company in Uganda and so we rushed to freshen up and then presented ourselves at the venue,to the tune of African drums and bongos! It was also time to witness a World Record being created, another first for us! A representative from India's very own Limca Book Of Records was present to declare that the carpet of more than three lakh fifty thousand soaps, was indeed, a new world record! And the best part was that all the soap bars would be donated to school children across Uganda, to promote hygiene amongst them. Philanthropy at it's cleanest!!
A balmy breeze sprung up as we settled down to enjoy the rest of the evening on the shores of the lake.Scrumptious, strictly vegetarian snacks - paneer tikka, aloo samosas, bhajias, veg spring roll along with soft drinks were served. I cannot describe the sheer relief of not having to break open a samosa to check the contents! I have had nasty experiences in the past in restaurants where the veg and non veg samosas or spring rolls 'somehow' got mixed up in the freezer! May more such organizations promote vegetarianism!A sumptuous dinner, followed by fire works which lit up the lake horizon, wound up the day for us.
An absolutely delicious and very Indian breakfast of  dosas, idli and chutney followed by mango lassi brought a sparkle to our day, even before it had barely begun! I thought with satisfaction that the Kolonialists who 'opened  up'  Africa, must be turning over in their graves to see that the descendants of Indians who had been brought as slaves to lay the East African railway line, had completely 'Kolonized' the food scene not just here, but the world over!
The time that we had at our disposal was very short. So going to see the chimpanzees and gorillas that Uganda is known for was, sadly, not an option for us. But we did have time to go to the source of the River Nile at Jinja which is just a couple of hours drive from Kampala.The Nile arises out of Lake Victoria which also happens to be Africa's largest lake and the world's second largest fresh water lake.Though it was difficult to pin point any one spot as the origin, it was clear that a number of underground springs which bubble up to the surface of the lake continue to supply it with fresh water and the Nile arises from there.Unfortunately, the original water falls at this spot were submerged when a dam was built in the middle of the last century. Man has an unparalled record of destroying God's creation for his own selfish purposes!
 My son was curious to know why everything was named 'Victoria' in this part of the world. I had to explain to him that when the first Kolonial explorer came here, it was Queen Victoria who was ruling the Empire.Hence all the African names were swept aside and all the newly 'discovered' locations were rechristened in honour of the queen.It is a sad reality of our Kolonial past that we face these reminders in most places across the world that we visit! No wonder they said the sun never set on the British Empire!
Our guide coaxed us into taking a boat ride on the river and the lake. We saw a plethora of the most beautiful birds we have ever had a chance to see in a natural environment. (Singapore's  Jurong bird park cannot be counted as there the birds have been captured and displayed by man!!). They came in all shapes, colours and sizes and were a sheer delight as they dived into the water for fish or just had a swim!We also caught a quick glimpse of an animal in the water which the guide told us was closely related to the notorious crocodiles of the Nile...We were glad that we were safely perched on the bench in the boat!
This is also the spot where a portion of Mahatma Gandhi's ashes were immersed, according to his wishes, soon after his assassination, in 1948.A bronze bust of Gandhiji marks the peaceful place.It reminded me of my hometown Pune's very own Aga Khan palace where the Father of our Nation was imprisoned for long periods under Kolonial rule.

                                                                 A Ride On the Nile!

                                                              The Source Of The Nile!

                                                                Lake  Victoria!

Birds of Different Feathers Flock Together!

                                                                     
                     
                                                  I could sit here all day!-At the Resort.

The next day it was time to head back to Nairobi, but not before my son had a ride on the horse of his choice at the resort stables and my daughter spoiled all the horses to her heart's content. In Mississippi Masala, the family of Indian origin is forced to leave Uganda on the orders of the then ruler Idi Amin.The diktat said that anyone not of African origin had to leave the country, way back  in the early seventies. They had to abandon everything and flee with just a suitcase each. As they prepare to board the aircraft, they turn back for a last look at what they, till then, had thought was their motherland.                                                                                                          Coincidentally, there was no aero tunnel on the day we left Uganda and we had to actually walk on the tarmac, hand baggage in hand, prior to boarding our plane.I, too, turned back for a last look, and wondered what the scores of people who, during the course of history, have had to flee from their homeland must have felt like. The Jews under Hitler, the people of  Indian origin under Idi Amin, the Hindus after the partition of India...the list goes on and on.Man,it seems, refuses to learn from History. Is it any wonder then, that history repeats itself?!

English Vinglish

I am not a movie buff at all. Give me a good book, a packet of Haldiram's Masala Chips, formerly known as Traditional Indian Chips (sadly available for export only, so you have to leave India if you want to try them!) and a cup of coffee and I am all set.I am more than happy if no one speaks to me for the rest of the day!
But before the kids were born,we used to travel a lot and I firmly believed that to savour the flavour of a new city it was essential to visit the single screen movie theatre. So whichever city in the world we visited, my husband and I made it a point to hunt up the movie hall and catch a movie there.Sometimes the popcorn was stale,the coffee tepid, the fountain Coke very watery..In Indian cities the samosas were bland,or stone cold or had been fried in oil fit for the kitchen drain...But all in all it added to experiencing a new city from a non tourist point of view.
And then it all changed. The multiplexes came in and the multinationals kicked in and the cheese popcorn tasted just the same whether you had it in Pune or Pattaya, the tomato ketchup with the nachos had exactly the same plastic taste,Mars bars became available in Indian theatres too and you could watch a just released Bollywood movie on the same Friday anywhere in the world, as your counterparts in India.
Today, I absolutely refuse to watch a new Bollywood movie till I have read a hundred reviews, till people I know well happen to watch it and give me sound feedback, till I know for sure there is no violence and no foul language and the U/A tag is not a euphemism for what should actually have read as an A! For of course, the children accompany us on the rare occasions that we do go for a movie!
But I flung this cautious behaviour out of the window the minute I saw the previews of the movie English Vinglish when we were in India during the summer vacation. I knew this was one movie I just had to watch on the very day of its release.I am a qualified archaeologist by profession but I ditched that field (pun absolutely unintended!) when I realized that there was no way I could leave my new born daughter and go off on digs for days at a time.So I cleared the exam for lecturers and began teaching History in Pune's top colleges and the University.I could tailor my schedule to suit my toddler's school hours.Then my son was born and there was no way I could juggle a job and two kids without resorting to maids or grandparents for baby sitting or creches or day cares, none of which I believed in. After all my motto is 'they did not ask to be born!'
So when my son started school, and we moved back to India from Tanzania, I did the next best thing. I became my own master, thanks to my husband investing in some real estate for me just two minutes walking distance from the house, so I could set up my classroom.And a whole new world opened up for me as I turned to something I have loved (and been good at!) since my school days-the English language!
The school children came,of course.They came in droves for the creative writing and functional grammar course that I offered.Given the pathetic standard of English in most of India's so called English medium schools,it was fulfilling to see them flourish and acquire a good command over the language and it was gratifying to inculcate a deep love of reading in them.
But the major challenges lay in the classes I began for the adults.Yes, the mothers who had children studying in the best schools in town were desperate to speak the language.The children thumbed their noses at them just because of their inability to converse in the language,conveniently forgetting that they were in those schools as the mothers did not want a repeat of their own sad situation . Other mothers who wanted their kids to get into those very schools wanted to learn the language just to clear the interview, as parents who do not know English are more liable to be refused admission.There were mothers who,during parent teacher meetings, had not understood a word of what the teacher had been saying.When asked if the information could be repeated in Hindi,India's national language,all they got was a rude 'Couldn't you tell me earlier that you don't know English?'I would surely have asked 'Is it a crime not to know the language of the Kolonialists,a language which for all intents and purposes, remains a foreign language in India,a language which the Kolonial masters introduced to create clerks during the Raj?'But then, what do I know of their plight because I know English. So at that point I could only sympathize,not empathize.There were wives who had been categorically told by their husbands that they had refused deputations abroad because the wife was not conversant in English. Don't women from non English speaking countries manage when they leave their homeland and move to England or her former Kolonies, where ironically English still remains the language of the 'classes' with the masses desperate to come to grips with it? So why were Indian women being made to feel humiliated for something that wasn't even their fault to begin with!
Such women, with a handful of men thrown in for good measure,queued up outside my class along with young college students who had been educated in the vernacular medium but who realized English was a crucial qualification to grab a share of the rapidly shrinking job market.And nothing made me happier than having them walk out thirty classes later with a bounce in their step, a glint in their eye,head held high, ready to take on their spouses,their children,insensitive teachers and snobbish colleagues in what else but English?!Yes,it is possible,it is not a con,as a character in the movie English Vinglish feels it might be,only to have the protagonist prove her wrong!
I watched the movie in Nairobi a day after its release.It was everything I had hoped it would be, it captured the emotions of my students and their struggles to master the language perfectly.And by this point I could empathize with the non English speaking people too, not just offer hollow sympathy.For the first time I had found myself clueless about a particular topic.It happened when my son began studying the nitty gritties of American currency as the American school naturally teaches their own currency. The only bills a person who hasn't lived in the United States would be familiar with would be the fifty and hundred dollar ones.What about the pennies,the dimes,the nickles,the quarters? How many cents is each one? Which president is on the head and what's on the tail of that coin?It was mind boggling!I had to resort to the internet to study this, just in order to see if my son was doing his homework correctly.I can only imagine what the mothers go through when their children study Shakespeare, as is the norm in most top schools in India!
English-Vinglish or Dollar-Vollar, our children keep us on our toes! Will Wordsworth said ' Child is father of the man' (and I add, mother of the woman) and how right he was!If the Brits hadn't kolonized us,the French would have! Imagine going through all this agony in French! Good thing I teach French too!
Go out and watch the movie-if you haven't already.It is in Hindi, though the sub titles are in, what else, but English!It will be well worth the effort, assembly line popcorn notwithstanding!

0 Degree Latitude-The Equator!

I can safely say that the Equator forms part and parcel of my earliest memories.In fact,I do not remember a time when I did not know of the Equator!All thanks to my mother who ensured that a huge map of the world covered one wall of the bedroom which I shared with my sister.No matter where the Indian army posted my father and how often,no matter that we were often in temporary housing,given the chronic shortage of houses for officers in those times,that map always adorned a wall.Hence I grew up with countries,their capitals and their locations,latitudes and longitudes,the poles,the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn,the Greenwich Meridian,the International Date Line and of course the Equator firmly embedded in my mind.
That map had a different spin off as well.All the countries were coloured in bright colours,different ones being used to show the various countries.So I still think of India as bright bubblegum pink,the former Soviet Union was a rich cream(yes,I grew up at a time when it was a unified whole!),the United States Of America were a Weikfield vegetarian custard yellow and Mongolia a deep green,to name a few.I wonder how many people of my generation remember such maps and those vivid colours!
Despite having spent six years in Tanzania and flying over the Equator numerous times(friendly airline pilots often announce this fact!),we had never visited it as it does not pass through that country.But when we moved to Kenya I knew it was too good a chance to miss and so when we had family and friends visiting from India last May I was ready with some well laid plans!
The designated day saw us setting off early,as the town called Nanyuki,where the Equator passes through,is a four hour drive from Nairobi.A packed lunch of Aalu(potato) Parathas traveled with us as I thought expecting vegetarian food at the Equator was pushing our luck too far!It was a glorious drive.Gently rolling green hills ran along the smooth highway and cattle grazed in the mild sunshine in the dales.We drove through many small villages as yet untouched by the ravages of modernization,barring the ubiquitous cell phone towers which were as common as zebras are in Africa.It was hard to believe that we were in the Equatorial belt,as the coniferous vegetation was akin to that of the Temperate Zone,all thanks to the high altitude that we were at!There were fields of 'Christmas' trees as far as the eye could see...If William Wordsworth saw daffodils,we saw pines,cedars,bamboos and the like stretched in a never ending line...
The four hours had long passed,Mount Kenya loomed majestically over us,but where was the Equator?Alright,we knew it was an imaginary line,we knew it was not as if it would be marked in white chalk,but could we really have been silly enough to have overshot it?A mild drizzle added to our anxiety and whenever we stopped to ask anyone where the Equator was,we got the standard Kenyan answer 'not far'.But the Indian concept of 'far' differs vastly from the rural Kenyan concept of the same word!What's far for us is near for them,given the long distances they walk to get from one point to another!
Finally,to our unmitigated relief,we reached Nanyuki,a town set up in 1907,by who else but the early Kolonialists.We were actually standing on the Equator,at an equal distance from both the Poles!We had thought that it would be unspeakably hot,the direct rays of the sun would beat down mercilessly on us(remember the Earth bulges at the Equator so we were closer to the Sun than we had ever been) but to our delight,thick white clouds scudded across the sky,it was cold and very windy!A few quick photographs later,it was time to see another phenomenon.
A self designated "professor",after settling on a price that was cheap by Nairobi standards,proceeded to show us something very unique.He put a jug of water down directly on the Equator and then put an ordinary match stick in it.Right before our very eyes the match aligned itself to the Equator,which means it remained in a straight line in an East -West direction.Then we all moved a few paces North(so now we were in the Northern Hemisphere!) where he repeated the same experiment.This time,the matchstick began moving in a clockwise direction!Then we crossed the Equator again and came a few feet into the Southern Hemisphere.Wow!Now when our 'prof''dropped the match in, it began swirling anticlockwise!
The same thing happened when he poured water from one jug into another in both the hemispheres!He helpfully told us that when you flush a toilet bowl in the Northern Hemisphere,the water swirls clockwise and vice-versa in the Southern Hemisphere!And to think we never noticed despite having lived for long in both the hemispheres!We determined then and there never to use a washroom located bang on the Equator!Remember what happened to the matchstick in that position?!
Then it was time for another exciting part of our trip.Shopping!There is a whole cluster of shops located right along the highway at the Equator.I have shopped at many places world wide but surely shopping at this particular location has a charm of it's own.We bought souvenirs for ourselves and gifts for friends and relatives.My son bought a lovely Masai shield for himself,my daughter stuck to buying her usual jewellery  and our guests shopped till they dropped too!And the icing on the cake was that compared to Nairobi,we got bargain prices and the shop owners were thrilled at the amount of business they got that day!I guess the direct rays of the sun have the effect of loosening purse strings!

The other day I overheard my son  learning the definition of the 'Equator' for a Social Studies test."It is an imaginary line that divides the Earth into two equal parts....."I smiled to myself and thought that it was not all that imaginary either!