It's That Time Of The Year......

                          Christmas is in the air,
                           Bells are ringing everywhere,
                           There is warmth,there is cheer,
                            It's that time of the year!


Another year is drawing to a close.Christmas Day is almost over and the next celebration will be on new year's eve to welcome 2012.That will be followed by tons of resolutions being made on new year's day, the predominant one on most lists being 'efforts to lose weight'!The last week of the year is also a time when one looks back and remembers the year that has been,the highs,the lows,the pluses,the minuses...What we did,what we did not do and should have done,what we could have done but did not do,what we did and should not have done not and so on and so forth.It is time to take stock...
On a personal front it was a year of big changes for us as a family.We changed cities,shifted to another country and another continent too!We moved from the arid desert that Pune is rapidly(and unfortunately) becoming to the lush green environs of Nairobi.The children faced the biggest change of all.From the Indian school system they leapfrogged into the American system of education!My daughter was preparing to face the ICSE exam in a couple of years,now she has to take  the very American SAT!
The last couple of weeks saw us attending Christmas programs in the children's school before they closed for the holidays.I baked a lot of cookies for bake sales(something new for us Puneites) and the school donated all proceeds for charity.That felt good!We also had to supply snacks for the Christmas parties without which no school anywhere in the world ever closes!
The familiar parts of both the programs were all the hymns and Christmas carols beautifully sung by all the children who were part of the school choir.For all those of us who have studied in Catholic or  Protestant schools across India,carols were an integral part of our school life every year.I do not, even for a minute,think that when Lord Macaulay introduced his Minute on Education in 1835,did he imagine that ultimately it would be the English language,its's literature,it's poems and songs that would enable us to seamlessly integrate anywhere outside India and also make us a power to reckon with in the world today!And thus it was that when the school music teacher here in Nairobi, asked us parents to join them in singing 'Silent Night', I was able to joyfully chime in,awash with memories of my own school days and my own school friends......
My son's teacher had a very nice way of signing off all the notes and mails that we received from her throughout  the month of December.'In Him,the reason for the season!'And believe me in the middle of all that shopping,the hoardings announcing the sales in all those magically decorated malls choc full of toys and clothes,it is very easy to forget the true reason for the celebration.Whether it is Diwali or the Ganesh puja,Durga puja or Laxmi pujan or any other festival, as we chant shlokas or sing hymns,we must keep in mind the reason for the season!
                                 Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!

The Great Rift Valley

It happened again!Friends from our Dar days managed to coax and convince(not coerce!) us to come out of the cosy confines of our comfortable home.This time it was not to celebrate any festival but to visit a part of the Great Rift Valley which stretches from Syria in South West Asia to central Mozambique in South East Africa.The place we visited is called Naivasha,a market town which is around a two hour drive from Nairobi.It is bordered by Lake Naivasha,and being at an altitude of 6,222 feet above sea level, is the highest Rift Valley Lake.
Naivasha,being at a higher altitude than Nairobi,meant that we were gradually driving up a slope.But the inclines are so gentle that only the pressure on our ear drums and the stunning view of the valley unfolding before our eyes made us realize that we were on an ascent!Being mentally prepared to face something like the Western Ghats of Maharashtra,the hair pin bends of the Cherrapunji Hills in Meghalaya or the steep slopes of the Usambara mountains in Tanzania,the relief I felt was immeasurable!
The narrow gauge single train track often ran parallel to the road and I spared a thought for the many poor labourers,mainly Indian,who had stuggled hard to lay this line more than a hundred years ago under Kolonial rule,often risking or losing their lives in the process.For remember,this was a time when wild animals like lions,hippos,rhinos,wildebeeste,really ran wild and were not confined to the borders of the National Parks by electric fencing and intense patrolling!
After a six year stint in Tanzania and numerous wildlife safaris,I thought I was immune to the sight of zebras and giraffes.But seeing herds of these beautiful animals grazing by the side of the national highway along with cows,sheep and goats came as a pleasant shock!I was as thrilled as I had been when I caught my first glimpse of a giraffe and then zebras almost ten years ago.I suppose one can never become indifferent to beauty in nature!
We travelled on through a green landscape dotted by gigantic hand-fan shaped cacti and thousands of acacia trees silhouetted against a cloudy sky.The children enjoyed parathas,pulav and samosas enroute to Naivasha.We might have been in  the heart of rural Kenya but that did not stop us from tucking into our very Indian meal!Finally we reached our destination and saw that Naivasha is peppered with lodges,resorts and spas, all ideal for people looking for a quick week end getaway.
We spent the day relaxing in one such lodge with what else but water buck,giraffes and zebras for company.A sign warned us not to venture out for the nature walk towards the Lake unless we were accompanied by securitry personnel as there was danger of being attacked by wild animals!We chose to stick to the safety of the main lodge area.
The children frollicked in the azure blue kidney shaped pool while we unwound in the mild sun surrounded by flocks of the prettiest coloured birds I have ever seen and by wild flowers of varied hues.Gradually,slate gray rain clouds gathered in the sky and we knew it was time to head back.But not before the children had played in the park to their hearts content!We,too,swung on the swings,forgetting for a few minutes that we were adults and children no longer..But,that I guess,is the whole point of a break from the daily routine!
The drive back was to the tune of fat rain drops drumming on the car roof.The rain made the valley view even more enchanting.A fresh, cool breeze accompanied the rain and I opened the car window to breathe in the pristine air and felt truly refreshed and blessed.Broad bands of sunlight filtered out from behind the dense clouds which were pouring out their water load.It looked as if God had crafted pathways of light from heaven to Earth.With a little stretch of imagination,I could easily believe that with Christmas round the corner, God had made these massive slides for Santa to slide down on.....What a lovely end to a gorgeous day!

Sadly,I had to prise away my daughter's I pod nano and my son's PSP in order to draw their attention to this magical phenomena of nature.The new generation is hooked onto technology and it is time we weaned them onto nature!

Summer Is Here.......Or Is It?

                           Nairobi skies are always gray,
                           The clouds,it seems,are here to stay.
                           Sweaters and jackets rule the day,
                           Summery Pune feels far away.
                           We're near the Equator,so they say,
                           If the sun shines,do make hay!
 


A Pune summer, that time of the year when the sun scorches the earth,the throat is always parched,your clothes cling to you even as streams of sweat pour down your body,water cuts rule the day,the fan is never switched off and only the thought of the ever increasing electricity bill makes you switch off your air conditioners and coolers.
Summer in Pune also brings with it the sharp tang of mango blossoms which permeate the air everywhere,or at least it used to until about a decade ago, before most of the mango trees in and around Pune were chopped off in the name of development.Our housing colony was surrounded by mango groves and as school children not a day of the summer vacation went by without an early morning walk in the groves,following the silvery trails left by snails sometime during the night.We would rush home to a breakfast of what else,but mangoes,lovingly washed and peeled and chopped by our grandmother!The King of fruits made my sister and me feel like Queens throughout summer.Today,sadly, the space occupied by each mango tree has given way to apartment buildings and that is all my children can see....
When I got married and moved to Russia,I got a taste of a very different summer.After a long and bone chilling winter replete with ice and snow,the first thaw at just a few degrees above zero degree centigrade with a few weak sun rays,was greeted with much joy.People thronged beaches and river banks,stripping down to bare essentials, as they basked in the sun and their long deprived skin soaked up the warmth!All this while my husband and I still shivered under thick overcoats and fur caps to say nothing of fur lined leather boots and gloves.We must have seemed like fools to the local population but what could we do?For us the start of the Russian summer was very much like being in the thick of a severe Pune winter!
 Dar Es Salaam gave us our first taste of a summer in the Southern Hemisphere.What, till then, had just been a Geography lesson drilled into our heads by our school teacher,suddenly became a reality!A really hot December and a Christmas Day on which we drank chilled lime juice and not hot cocoa!Tanzania summers are hot and humid,very different from the ones we had experienced in Pune.The only respite from the heat and the long power cuts was an escape to the beach once in a while where at least we were fanned by cool breezes blowing across the Indian Ocean.The tang of mangoes had been replaced by a salty one!
Cut to Nairobi,we were once again below the Equator and once again a December summer awaited us,or so we thought!Now we are well into the month of December,the school summer break starts this week,but where on earth has summer disappeared?We are still huddling under thick blankets at night,the children still burrow into their jackets each morning as they wait for the school bus and we never leave the house without an umbrella as the heavens might open and pour down on us anytime!
Agreed,Nairobi is a no fan station,as Pune was till the late seventies.Thus we have no fans or air conditioners in our house here but will we even get a glimpse of the ever elusive sun?After all,what's summer without the sun, an icecream cone in your hand and a summer hat on your head?

Our Askaris,Entrepreneurs Too!

They are the people thanks to whom we sleep peacefully at night,as snug as bugs under our rugs.They are the people thanks to whom our children play without a care in the world in the housing complex compound.They are also the people thanks to whom no visitor can ever arrive unannounced to our house,giving us a crucial five minutes to clear our usually messy living room!They are our Askaris!
The Kamusi ya Kiswahili-Kiingereza(the Swahili-English Dictionary) defines the word 'Askari'as a guard.(Yes,the alphabet K does seem to be predominant here,a la eKta Kapoor,Karan johar and raKesh roshan!But,I assure you the K syndrome is not a Kolonial legacy!)Askaris are ominipresent across East Africa and it is impossible to imagine our lives here without them.
They are a must have in all bungalows,in housing and commercial complexes,at the entrances of embassies and of course,like in India,outside malls, multiplexes and schools.They are outsourced from private security agencies and have smart,up to date uniforms,bringing to mind the guards outside Buckingham Palace,minus of course,the change of guard ceremony!When their shift gets over, they just sign out and leave,a vast improvement over the Kolonial system of marching up and down till even the onlookers start feeling exhausted.
Here,the Askaris are well trained and courteous, always making it a point to greet us even as their eyes expertly scan the interior of our car.They are fearless too and quickly rifle through bags,purses,boxes even the boot of the car,before giving us the all clear to move on in any commercial complex that we might happen to visit.Askaris will always be the first ones to be exposed to the danger,if any,and as they report for work each day,I always wonder what goes through their minds.After all,we live in uncertain and dangerous times,where man is out to get man.
The Askaris of our building have shown great entrepreneurship too as they have started keeping pre paid phone recharge cards,prepaid net recharge cards and even the daily newspaper!So whenever we need to recharge the phone we just need to run down to our front gate!A blessing indeed.And they have the recharge cards of the entire gamut of cell phone and net operators in all the possible denominations!And we,being slaves to modern technology,are really grateful to them.
My husband and I take a brisk walk in our compound every morning.We have two security gates,with a distance of approximately a hundred meters between the two.One day,while walking sedately as usual,we decided on the spur of the moment,to make a quick dash from one gate to another.We started running and when we reached the outer gate,we were surprised to hear loud laughter ringing out from the Askaris at both ends!They found the sight of two huge Indians running so funny that even they could not control themselves!That is when I realized that the people who we place next only to God for protecting us,are human after all!
Who won the race?Well,we both reached the finish line at exactly the same time!

Mistletoe Market

Jingle bells,jingle bells,jingle all the way!
We are going for the Mistletoe Market today,heh!

This was the refrain on our lips as we headed towards the children's school early last Saturday morning.The write up from the school had promised lots of funfilled Thanksgiving and pre Christmas shopping and had boasted that there would be around sixty five stalls!As this was the first time we would be experiencing something like this,I ensured that my purse was full and I was determined to keep an eye out for good bargains!
As we turned into the school lane,we were surprised to see a long queue stretching out as far as the eye could see.Now this, in itself, is an unusual sight in Kenya where we rarely encounter queues of any type, barring the times we are stuck in a jam on Nairobi roads.But,having finally managed to find parking for the car,we joined the tail end of the line of people waiting to get into the school compound.We felt absolutely at home standing there because,after all,we come from India,the country with a population problem.In fact,I was even in a queque outside the labour room in the very exclusive(and expensive) nursing home in Pune where my children were born!And I am not joking!
We flashed our free tickets,(guests had to pay),had our wrists stamped and we were in!The first thing we spotted was a stall selling books and my daughter and I made a beeline for it while my husband and son wandered on.I managed to lay my hands on quite a few books by a number of  famous(now out of print authors) at delightful prices and I was over the moon!
We moved on and came to the African handicrafts stall where my son was thrilled to find a beaded wrist band in the colours of the India national flag,with even a blue  beaded dot to represent the Ashoka Chakra.He patriotically snapped it on and then proceeded to show it to every single teacher of his that we subsequently met!Saare jahaan se accha......
I was astonished to see young teenage girls selling neatly packed Barbie dolls,stuffed toys and exquisite dolls house furniture all of which was obviously not new.Then it dawned on me that these young American girls had found a good way to do away with toys they no longer needed and earn some spending money at the same time!Most surprising of all was the lack of parental interference!A lesson for us Indian parents!The tiny furniture was so well made that despite my aversion for used things, I was tempted to buy it!Then I remembered that my own daughter had outgrown her dolls and  they were now neatly lined up on a shelf in her pretty pink room back home!Yes,we Indians do tend to hoard stuff!Another lesson?!
I participated in a silent auction where themed baskets were being auctioned.I bid for a basket chok full of Indian savouries like Chakli,farsaan,tiny,crisp samosas,banana chips and spicy chevda.It was aptly named 'Snack Attack'!I won that basket at  a price lower than its value and it was a steal!I lost out on the tea basket,the other one that I had bid for!I had thought 'chai and chakli', what more does one need,but it was not to be!The other baskets had chocolates,junk food,cofffee with coffee mugs and even an innovative Fourth of July(American Independance Day)picnic basket.
We took a walk around all the other stalls.They were selling clothes,more books,bone china crockery,someone was selling her old sarees and there were many food stalls.My daughter tried her hand at marble art and painted a pottery vase.I bought some gifts to take back home and some lovely knitted caps,one of which was for a four month old orphan baby that my son's teacher fosters on week ends(that is another story).She was so happy when I gave it to her.The others were for my mother's cause in India through which she and a friend of hers ensure that tribal babies in a certain part of Maharashtra have sufficient clothes the minute they are born!
My daughter bought a bright red T shirt to support the school's Christmas cause.It said 'I made a difference'!They are collecting money to gift cows to a school in a slum so that the children have milk to drink plus they can sell the surplus to support themselves.Some of the money will also go towards growing vegetable gardens with the same aim in mind-to make these less fortunate children self sufficient and simultaneously ensure that they have enough to eat.
We headed home,our pockets lighter,but our hearts happier!
After all,Christmas is the season of giving and not just shopping!Joy in giving!

Paradise Lost

Last week we got a notice from my son's class teacher informing us that the second grade would be going on a field trip to have a closer look at nature since that was the topic they were pursuing in social studies.She also asked parents to volunteer as chaperones to help with the kids during the picnic.This,in itself,was astonishing as we come from a culture where the parents interact with the teacher only during the bi-annual parent teacher meeting!And who can blame the schools for enforcing this policy when I personally know parents who,on the first day of the new academic year,shout across the gate to the teacher as they pick up their kids,'How is my child doing?'
I was first off the block to volunteer and last Friday saw us hurtling towards our destination with two buses full of second graders.The picnic spot,called'Paradise Lost' was on the outskirts of Nairobi,just a twenty minute bus ride away from the school.It is a fifty four acre private property with a lovely river flowing through it.It is ,indeed,a veritable 'Garden Of  Eden' with just the apple tree missing!As we entered the main gate,we saw that the road,on both sides,was lined with coffee bushes which were laden with coffee berries.The teacher pointed this out to the children and they were thrilled to see coffee actually growing on bushes,as upto now, they had only seen it in a bottle at home and,of course,in the Nescafe advertisement on television!
As we jumped off the bus,I was struck by how peaceful the place was.No kiosks selling 'Biseleri' and 'Cadbury'(yes,sadly,in India,the brand name has become synonymous with the noun!),no hawkers chasing us,as is common back home these days in so called picnic spots and no 'Lays' packets littering the ground....
I was reminded of the many picnics we have had in different parts of India when we were kids.Those were the days when picnics were really picnics,not just an excuse for eating out!I remembered 'Chandubi' near Guwahati in Assam,a mustard field near Amritsar in Punjab,a spot near Jodhpur in Rajasthan whose name I cannot recall as I was in kindergarten,another near Mhow in Madhya Pradesh.Our mothers woke up at the crack of dawn,actually cooked and packed food in steel tiffin carriers and filled 'campers' with water(as bottled water was unheard of in the India of those days) ready for a whole day of picniking!Just as I had done for my son and myself that morning!
The children had a boat ride on the serene river and then we went off to explore the caves which are said to be 2.5 million years old.The entrance to the caves was behind an enchanting waterfall bringing to mind an Enid Blyton book which describes exactly this scenario.We had to bend double to go through the passage until we reached the main cave.Our guide told us this was where the Mau Mau revolutionaries hid when they were fighting the enemy.The kids immidiately wanted to know who the enemy was.Now,since most of the children were white,the guide had no way of knowing their nationality and so was hesitant to say the word.As he was fumbling for a suitable word,a tiny tot helped him out by saying'England'!He was palpably relieved and said yes the nationalists used these caves till Kenya finally became independant in 1963.
Then we had our lunch in rustic,wooden picnic sheds on the banks of the river,followed by horse and camel rides for our enthusiastic second graders.Feeding an ostrich was also on the agenda,but the poor ostrich was indisposed that day!It had probably been overfed by the previous day's merry makers!On the bus ride back home,I mulled over our day and felt this was 'Paradise Gained' while our poor polluted Pune was 'Paradise Lost'.Where have we gone wrong?

All About An Accent

Before we relocated to Nairobi,I had discussed the issue of accents with the children.I had helpfully explained to them how most of their new friends would have an 'American Accent',since the school is an American international school.I was reasonably confident that while my son's style of speaking might change soon,my daughter being older, would continue to speak the way she had always done.
Imagine my surprise when one day, after the first few days of school, the minute my son came home,he blurted out that his friends said that he had a British accent!My daughter chimed in to repeat that her friends had been saying the very same thing!
Excuse me?We had an accent?That too a British one?As far as I knew the only people who had an accent in India were usually people who had studied in vernacular schools!And who should know that better than me as I earn my livelihood in India coaching just such people and polishing up their accents!In fact I have set up my own academy for mainly this purpose!
I agree we have studied in the best schools across India which,of course,were set up by the British during the Kolonial raj to educate us poor natives so that we could become efficient clerks for them.We were taught by excellent Anglo Indian teachers who could barely pronounce our very Indian names!My children come from the best school in Pune which,till 1977,was run by Irish nuns.But does all this boil down to a propah British accent?No way!
The minute one lands at Heathrow airport in London one sees 'Indians' everywhere,right from the person mopping the floor to the person suspiciously scrutinizing your visa at the immigration desk.But as soon as they open their mouths,you know they are not Indian at all,but British,as the way they speak is not even remotely the way we Indians,born and brought up in India,do!So why was the children's accent(yes,by this time I had accepted that we had an accent)being mistaken for a British one?
Finally I came to the conclusion that try as we might,we cannot distance ourselves from our Kolonial past!It is inextricably woven in our speech,our system of education,our desserts(bread pudding,caramel custard!)and being an army brat,I have to mention,into the customs and traditions of the Indian army!It took little American kids who had not met too many Indians to date,to point this out.Somewhere,in the way we spoke,lay the ghost of the legacy of the Raj!
Then,when our debate about who has what kind of accent had gone on long enough,I reminded the children about an old Chinese proverb.It says you can crush a person with the weight of your tongue.So I told them that what matters in the final analysis is what you say and how you say it,not which accent you use!I hope they got the message!