'Twas the week before Diwali

Amnon and I went to the Lajpat Nagar market the week before Diwali. We went to buy Indian tunics (kurtis) for me, as I gradually introduce Indian garb to my wardrobe....HARDLY urgent, though. So, think about shopping in a popular market, the week before the Indian-Christmas equivalent, with the population of India shopping too...

Diwali Mela, IBM Research

There was a Diwali Celebration on the weekend sponsored by IBM Research. A lovely and festive event. It was also a night of song and dance performances. The Basson brothers + dad performed - - in Hebrew, English, and Hindi. It was, I am sure, the first Hebrew song that anyone in this audience had heard. And, the first Hindi song that the Bassons had learned as well. Below are pictures from the mela, AND a link to the Hindi song that they performed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2LfqFHHBqE

Diwali, and mosquitos

Yesterday was Diwali, the major annual Hindu holiday in India. It is the “festival of lights,” and gift giving, and eating/sharing traditional sweets. Lights, gifts….semblances of Christmas, and Chanukah. Though the origins are….different. I am fascinated by the celebratory similarities…at some point we must have all plagiarized the same rituals…(Jesse wanted to “celebrate” yesterday by eating Chinese food and seeing a Bollywood movie, the “traditional” activities of many Jewish people, on Christmas day.)

From Wikipedia:

Diwali involves the lighting of small clay lamps (diyas) filled with oil to signify the triumph of good over evil….Diwali commemorates the return of Lord Rama along with Sita and Lakshman from his fourteen year long exile and vanquishing the demon-king Ravana. In joyous celebration of the return of their king, the people of Ayodhya, the Capital of Rama, illuminated the kingdom with earthen diyas (oil lamps) and burst firecrackers.

Firecrackers went off all day; fireworks (organized and unorganized) went off all night. Pretty spectacular displays. The city gets smoky from all the things burning. But I have been told, and also read, that there are good side effects for this. Mosquitoes in India are more than just nuisances; they transmit dengue, malaria, and chikungunya (yet another awful mosquito-borne illness here). And the smoke and the noise and the haze from Diwalli fireworks supposedly decimate the mosquito population.

Accessibility in India – mainstreaming issues

I had the privilege of going to a conference on accessibility in education. As some of you know, I have been involved in a project with universities for many years (Liberated Learning - -www.liberatedlearning.com) This is a consortium of some 20 universities worldwide, that are trying to make classrooms more accessible for deaf and hard of hearing students (and others), using speech recognition to caption lectures. I envisioned perhaps engaging an Indian university to join the consortium, and open up mainstream education for deaf and hard of hearing students.

Reality check. Someone involved in deaf sign language in India gave a presentation. He pointed out that deaf children in India don’t start learning sign until age 7, which leaves them pretty “non-lingual” until then. And seven years old is too late to start learning your first language. The kids end up reading on a 2^nd grade level, and generally don’t graduate high school. I imagine that there are virtually no deaf students in college, then. This dilutes a key “selling point” for Liberated Learning….there is no value in captioning lectures for deaf/hard of hearing students if:

1. they aren’t getting into college anyway
2. they have 2^nd grade reading skills

Discussions with another accessibility expert at the conference exposed more attitudes towards disabilities and treatment of people with disabilities in India. She said that the Hindu belief in reincarnation and karma reduces the urgency people feel to remediate and intervene for children with disabilities; it introduces a belief that the disability is the person’s “cross to bear” (to mix religious metaphors!). There is also a Hindu mandate to help needy people, but that (she said) translates more into “protecting them from outside forces” rather than introducing extensive interventions. So it looks like a long road to hoe if the goal is to mainstream children with disabilities. There is a need to change the attitudes; not only to introduce new methods and technologies.

Guests of honor – head of the NGO school

We were invited to the home of the head of the NGO school where Jesse and Jordan had briefly taught English. The neighborhood is a slum, though not as desperate a slum as the neighborhood of the slum school. We were treated as the honored guests. It coincided with an engagement party for the nephew of the school president, and we were included in all the festivities. We were also invited to the wedding itself on November 17^th.

No volunteering allowed – more reflections

I spoke to another expat about the Indian law that forbids foreigners to volunteer, and how peculiar I found that to be. We discussed the origins of such an edict – was it some bureaucratic error in the law? Why would a country that clearly needs assistance reject, rather than embrace, that assistance? The man I spoke to had a different conjecture - - he believes that it stems from pride. We talked about the “value systems” of different cultures. By my US standard, for example, feeding, clothing, educating my family would be high on the spectrum. For India, he believes, pride ranks closer to the top. And while a volunteer might be able to assist (say) with sorely needed teaching assistance, that would collide with the “pride” value and so India would prefer to do without. He conjectured that the deep well of pride comes from Moghul roots. I have reflected that it might also come from a colonial history, and a fierce preference now to succeed or fail on their own. It gives me a different perspective on the Indian position regarding volunteers. I think of the saying “We’re from the US, and we’re here to help.” And the answer we get is “thanks, but no thanks.”

Returning to India after years in the US

We went to a party at the home of Ranvir and his wife, also an expat family in New Delhi (although he was in India for the first 20 years of his life, and his Indian-origin wife grew up in the US.) We chatted with others at the party; most of them expats, or Indians that have returned from abroad. There appears to be a growing number of Indians returning to India after years and years in the US. Opportunities here are on the rise; while my US friends and family can attest to the limited growth of jobs in the US. One of the guests at the party said that his parents had been petitioning him to come back for a long time. Years ago, he said he did not want to come back if he had to bring with him containers of stuff unattainable in India, like zip lock bags. Now, he concluded, everything is available in India, and so he was amenable to returning. (A number of things are still unattainable or dauntingly expensive….but I guess from his comment that much less was available, a decade ago…) As I scan the crowd at IBM Research, I am surmising that there is also a critical age factor for the children of returning Indians. If someone has stayed in the US until kids reach their teen years, I am guessing it gets harder and less likely that parents will return. Most of the returnees have small children that can more readily adjust to the transition.

One of the wonders of the world - - the Taj Mahal

We took a day trip to Agra (about 4 ½ hours from New Delhi) to see the famous Taj Mahal. It was also a Hindu festival day (Dussehra), where Hindus burn effigies of the Demon Ravana. We came across a number of Dussehra caravans; some pictures of this experience included.

The Taj Mahal is an amazing and beautiful structure. But it is also a symbol from one of the many Indian invaders - - this one from the Moghuls that invaded India in the 1500s. The Taj Mahal is a magnificent tomb created in the 1600s when one of the queens passed on, and the emperor built this as a monument to her (and as their tomb). It took 22 years and cost “32 crore rupees”  - a bit excessive, perhaps; but hey, it gave 20,000 people jobs. I mused about the fact that this major Indian landmark is in fact a symbol of one of the conquering invaders, and how Indians feel about “celebrating” that. Some colleagues have pointed out that India has been subject to multiple invasions. When the invading party (like the Moghuls) took up residence and made India their home, they were ultimately absorbed into the culture and are now viewed as just another part of Indian history.

Language learning - - Amnon, and everyone else….

Amnon’s language skills have always been phenomenal. He speaks native Hebrew and Arabic, native-like English (he can challenge any of us in Scrabble, Boggle, crossword puzzles). He is competent in French, and can also get by in Spanish and Italian. He picks languages up like contact paper. Spanish was picked up through communication with construction laborers in the US. Amnon’s grandfather was said to be multilingual in 7 languages, so maybe there is some inherited trait? Another gift that might facilitate language learning is how easily Amnon adopts to the culture, the mannerisms, the nuances, the idioms. I remember once upon a time studying that foreign accent adoption requires some “attitudinal permeability” - -  a willingness to relinquish the self that so strongly identifies with how we sound when we speak. Amnon has always been unselfconscious (about this or anything else!) and so probably approaches new languages with the right attitude.

In Hindi, he has learned a lot of the functional language that he needs to negotiate markets, including the rather complex number system. More notably, he has adopted mannerisms (like head tilting) that are uniquely Indian, along with standard filler and response phrases (accha, achha). When he says just a handful of words, with the appropriate associated Indian gestures, people are certain that he has a deeper well of Hindi than he currently has. And he will, soon.

Do you speak English?

We all think of India as a country that speaks English. We outsource so much customer service from the US to India (rather than, say, China) because of the strong English-speaking base. But the reality on the ground is a little more complicated. There are 29 distinct states in India, and these are NOT like the states in the US. We *think* we have diversity in the US, with southerners different from northerners, east vs. west. vs. middle of the country. I think the differences across the US are subtle and nuanced compared to the differences across India. When I spoke to my (IBM US colleague) Bhuv before coming to India, she advised me that the Indian states are more like the European Union than United States. For us, those differences are most perceptible with respect to language. We have been told that the southern states speak a lot of English; the northern states do not. We, in New Delhi, are in the North, and we can at least confirm that northern rule of thumb.  Basically, only the educated population seems to speak English. My colleagues at IBM certainly all speak English, and business is conducted in English. Hallway chatter, though, is in Hindi – that is clearly their preferred language, overall. The less educated labor force - - drivers, cleaning staff, shop owners - - are generally non-English speaking. Before our trip, I didn’t think there would be much need to learn Hindi, in a country that was (I thought) completely bilingual. Given the facts on the ground, we are all doing our part to learn more so that we can traverse the country more effectively. I have been taking a Berlitz class. Amnon is practicing through Rosetta Stone. Jordan and Jesse have taken some Hindi mini-classes and plan to do more. Jesse seems to have the most functional Hindi of the kids so far. Adam wanted to take Hindi as his language at the American Embassy School this year, instead of Spanish. What a perfect environment – study Hindi formally during the day, and exploit real-life opportunities to practice after school. But the school doesn’t offer Hindi; they offer the standard Spanish, French, and maybe a couple of other languages. This was very surprising to me (as well as disappointing!)  for a school located in New Delhi. I spoke to the guidance counselor, who explained that they have *tried* to offer Hindi, but they don’t get the enrollment. Most of the American Embassy School kids will be going to universities in the US and Europe; and the “standard” languages are deemed more ….important? relevant? Seems to me that a language spoken by a billion or so people should be “relevant” too, with its long and rich history and literature. Maybe this reflects the lingering western biases….which, I trust, will dissipate over time with the rapid growth of the developing world. We do already see increased interest in learning Mandarin. Perhaps another obstacle for learning Hindi is that it won’t be the linguistic bridge you need for all of India; given the wide array of languages and dialects. I have read that there are more than 350 languages in India. There is a saying in Hindi:  "kos kos bar badley pani chaar kos par vani,” which means that in India the taste of water changes every kilometer and the language changes every four kilometers.

In case of emergency…..

As I move about in my new routines, I get the sense that I have figured things out and that I am now at ease in getting around in my new environment. I have phone numbers of taxi companies to get to and fro. All of the boys have cell phones and we call and text each other as needed. Then these little things come up that make you realize you are not quite as “on top” of things as it seems, once you scratch the veneer. Back in the states, I have solutions, as well as backup solutions if the first tier fails. In India, we don’t yet have all of those “safety valves.” Case in point: I came hope from work rather late one evening, and it was raining. The taxi left, and I approached the gate of our apartment. It was latched, and I wasn’t able to open it. (The gate is shared by the 3 families in our building, and one of the tenants frequently latches the gate.) It is possible to open the latch from the outside, but on that particular night I had trouble with this. I called the cellphones of Amnon and the boys, but no one picked up. And I started reflecting….what exactly is Plan B if I can’t open this latch? I don’t know any of our neighbors. Where would I go? Who else would I call? A work colleague that lives 30 minutes away? The police? (What is the 911 equivalent here, anyway? Is it 100?) Stuff that we take for granted back home…I fiddled with the latch for a bit, and it opened…

Hotel living

You know how you feel when you are at a hotel? You are either out-and-about doing whatever you are doing in that city (sightseeing, working, attending a conference);  but when you are in the hotel itself, life is much less hectic than “real life.” No closets to clean, papers to sort, dishes to wash, none of those projects on the “to do list” of life. Life in our Delhi apartment is not dissimilar. We don’t have all the detritus of our “real lives” with us (as described in one of the earlier blog entries), and so you don’t have major sorting to do at all times. Once you unpack your belongings and put them in your new closets, you are done….Here I don’t have the kids’ artwork from 10 years back that I still need to scan or organize or archive in some more usable fashion. And there is our maid, Chanana, who does all of the household cleaning, cooking, washing, ironing…which makes this also akin to hotel living, where you don’t need to wash your own dishes or cook your own food. Plus you have no family here, and you don’t know many people; so you aren’t “catching up” with friends and family; inviting them to your house and going to theirs…It is one of the disorienting features of an overseas assignment.

Some photos

Chanana (our housekeeper) in the kitchen with Amnon

Jesse chillin' in his room

Amnon after preparing our first Iraqi-style brunch for guests

Jordan and me

Jesse at the animal kennel where we (prematurely) bought puppy toys and pet food

Jordan, at the kennel

With some "natives" at the Kingdom of Dreams site in Gurgaon

A local grocery in our neighborhood...note how densely packed!

Scammed, delayed, missing - - Why??

We seem to be targets for poor “customer service.” This might be typical, but we only have our own experiences to impart. We ordered “custom made furniture” from one of the markets. We were *supposed* to have a dining room table, chairs, and some other pieces within a couple of weeks. The carpenter came to our apartment 3 weeks later - - he had had dengue fever, his grandmother had died, his daughter had a baby, and he hadn’t prepared any of the furniture. Our driver of the first couple of months left for his hometown in Himachal Pradesh for a week, and then never returned. (He spoke to us after 2 weeks saying that his wife was ill. No word from him after that.) Any number of workers and craftsman make appointments to come to our apartment to fix something or other and then never show. Adam has arranged multiple meetings with breeders about getting a new puppy. They make promises and don’t return calls, or they return calls and say that the puppy they had planned to bring has some genetic disease and isn’t suitable.

We muse about what might be going on. With respect to the puppies, Adam was concerned that Amnon had done too good a job negotiating down the prices, and that the breeders were dis-incented to work with us. (But why agree to a price, and then become scarce?) Another theory, not unrelated: They have a puppy for us, but then get a higher offer from someone else, and so need a fast excuse to back out at the last moment. (2 puppies we were about to get “fell ill” and were therefore not delivered.) With respect to the missing driver (and our missing first housekeeper), Amnon opined that I was at fault for making them feel too important to us and too much like family; they then conclude that they can “go missing” for a month or so and we will be eagerly awaiting them whenever they return. We have heard that erratic appearances for drivers, housekeepers, workmen are not uncommon. But that also begs the question - - isn’t this a community eager for employment? Why treat these business opportunities so cavalierly?  

FRRO Registration

I have earlier described the onerous process of getting visas for India. Once you arrive in India with the visas that we have (work, and dependent visas), you have 2 weeks to register at the FRRO bureau. (Foreign Regional Registration Office). You need a number of documents for this registration process, such as your passports, and the lease to your apartment on special “stamp paper.” (Official documents in India need to be printed on this special paper with an image of an Indian 100 rupee note at the header.) We couldn’t find our lease on stamp paper, if we ever had one, and Jesse needs to register in the FRRO Bureau. I did have a lease on standard paper, signed by the landlady and me. No no no - - the FRRO bureau requires only a lease on stamp paper. So we requested that another copy of the lease be drawn up; I scanned it, sent it to our landlady in Europe, she signed it, scanned the signed versions, sent it back to me, etc….I also notified our overseas assignment liaison that I would prefer to wait for another 4 weeks before Jesse goes to the FFRO Bureau to register, since he and Jordan had signed up to volunteer to teach English to kids in slum schools. No no no, I was told by our overseas assignment liaison; they cannot volunteer unless they have a *work* visa. I said that they would be volunteering for only 3-4 weeks; but ok, we can convert the visas if that would be required. How should we proceed? They said that the boys would have to fly back to the US to apply for work visas. Clearly an absurd suggestion for 4 weeks of volunteering in a slum school.

(Here is an image of the lease on "stamp paper" - -)

I shared my frustration with a few colleagues and other associates in India. They mused about how bureaucratic these visa-provisioning entities can be, in any country. They shared stories about how they had wanted to go to the US for a conference, and they were denied visas on some technicality. But I see a few glaring differences. First, many many people are eager to immigrate to the US, and so the visa provisioning authorities are cautious if they think that the person requesting entry is in fact interested in remaining in the US illegally. As a result, they might end up ”over-filtering” and not allowing people in with legitimate interests in doing something in the US. But does India suffer that same problem, with millions of outsiders trying to enter India illegally and remain here? Also, people coming to the US to attend a conference are generally doing this for their own betterment. In our case, we have kids that have put their own life plans on hold to come to India, and to do something good for the country. Seems to me there should be a streamlining process for people that opt to leave the “good life” in America to volunteer in the developing world….rather than additional bureaucratic obstacles.

Workers with narrow job descriptions

We are struck by how many people are employed to do narrow and limited tasks, tasks that could be aggregated and handled by fewer people. When you walk into a store, there can be a guard at the door, another person opening the door for you, and another person greeting you. It is a good thing to create more employment opportunities for more people. But there seems to be “real” work that could be done, leveraging the same number of people or even more. The same store with multiple people opening doors and greeting you might also have broken front steps and animal waste, right outside. It seems that some of the people employed unnecessarily inside the store can do more for the aesthetics outside the store. Someone at work commented that Indians place a high value on keeping the insides of their home scrupulously clean, but there is less concern about what is outside. I see that when I go on walks as well. Our relatively affluent neighborhood has debris strewn everywhere. Often it appears that people dump their household trash in neighborhood parks. And there is always a lot of the day-to-day debris too, such as bags from snack food. Jordan has commented that packaged goods (with all of their associated waste) arrived in India before the country had developed a well-planned sanitation system. I have asked people here why they don’t have trash bins in public places (which could at least eliminate the snack bag wrappers in the park). I was told that they have tried making trash bins available, but people end up stealing the trash bins.

(photos below of the park right outside our apartment; and a photo that shows some of the trash around the periphery)

Ecology in India

I have never been a stellar conservationist; I confess to not doing my part to preserve the planet’s resources. I use and probably waste lots of “stuff.” I note that in India I have become much better at preserving, re-suing, and not wasting. But a lot of this new-found sensitivity comes from my fear that once I use up item x,y, or z, I have no idea how to replace it; of if I do have an idea, I will need to travel to some distant place to do so. As I have mentioned, we don’t have Target, Staples, Costco – these big box stores where you can replenish everything. Jordan was toying with a small retractable tape measure that I brought with me….I requested that he not fool with it lest he break it, and I don’t have a clue where to buy such a thing. I still have a lot of supermarket plastic bags from NY here that I used for packing….I use them judiciously since many stores don’t provide plastic bags when you shop. My showers are brief and water-conserving; lest the hot water tank gets depleted. (There is a hot water tank associated with each of our four bathrooms; they guarantee short showers unless you don't mind cool water.)

India policy appears in general to be much more ecology-savvy than we are in the US. Public transportation runs on “compressed natural gas.” I see schools with signs outside saying that they are PVC-bag-free zones. I tried to get a bottle of water at Adam’s school; they said they don’t sell plastic bottles and that they are a plastic-bottle-free-zone. This was interesting during the really hot weeks in summer, when I wanted to grab some bottled water from the school to take on the road as I left the school on my way to work. It was over 100 degrees, and you cannot drink water here that isn’t filtered, and so if you don’t have a bottle with while you are commuting, you are sort of stuck. The ecological sensitivity is lovely, and I guess with the size of the population in India, failure to respect the environment can have awful consequences. But it also seems like it might be a bit early for some of these dramatic moves. Amnon said it was like declaring the top of an erupting volcano as a “no smoking zone.”  The pollution issue here is dire with unclean air and an unclean and undrinkable water supply. So it might still be premature to ban plastic bottles of filtered water. But I suppose you have to start somewhere...

We are accustomed at home to separating our waste products – paper, plastic, glass, and general waste. There is no such separation of household waste in India, at least not in our community. At work, there are separate trash bins for “wet waste” and “dry waste.” I don’t quite know how to interpret that…if a napkin has some moisture around the edge, is it “wet waste” or “dry waste”? Is “wet waste” supposed to be liquids that you are discarding?  One of my colleagues has advised me not to fret too much. He used to be concerned as well, but then noticed that the maintenance people that remove the garbage ultimately throw it all into a single bin. On the other hand, I see people on the roads cycling with big bales of paper, or plastic waste. So it looks like poor people are sorting through disposed trash, and identifying components that they can re-sell. It appears that India does have disposal separation, ultimately. In the US, we do it on the front end, as we sort our disposable products. In India, the sorting occurs on the back end, as people filter out the disposables that have already been discarded and extract items that have resale value.

Employing people with disabilities

I have worked for years and years in the area of accessibility; it has remained an area of focus and passion for me even when I have been formally assigned to different areas at IBM.  I am familiar with all of the arguments about why accessibility makes good business sense. We have moved beyond humanitarian arguments that suggest “it’s the right thing to do,” and we have pointed out that it is in fact important for businesses to be accessible and therefore attract talented employees that happen to have a disability. We point out that there is a talent war, and that we don’t know where the next “big ideas” will come from; we don’t want to block out large portions of potential talent and genius. We point out that we have an aging workforce, and that we need to have an accessible environment so that aging workers that have incipient “disabilities” (reduced hearing, vision, mobility) can still work productively. We point out the expense for the rest of society, if large sectors of the population are on public welfare.

A country like India turns all of these arguments upside down. It is a young country - -this from Wikipedia:

In India, more than 50% of its population is below the age of 25 and more than 65% hovers below the age of 35….It is expected that, in 2020, the average age of an Indian will be 29 years, compared to 37 for China and 48 for Japan

So discussions about accommodating an aging workforce here clearly don’t resonate. Also, arguments about “it’s a talent war for people” don’t resonate as well as they do in the US; the population is huge, as is the population of unemployed individuals. I don’t know if the “public welfare” issues resonate either; I don’t know how much (or whether)  the government (and therefore the taxpayers) are supporting individuals that don’t work because of disability. Since we do pay social security/welfare to individuals in the US, the argument can be brought back to taxpayers….it is in their self interest to keep as many people employed and employable as possible.

So maybe, in India, the argument needs to come back to humane concerns, and “it’s the right thing to do.” But then “accessibility” needs to stand in line with a long list of social ills in India - - illiteracy, poverty, homelessness….

Perspective on population density

The press of people in India can be intense. You see it on the roads, and on the streets. Some of this might be an artifact of Delhi….people leave their villages (where poverty is even more extreme) to become laborers of some sort in Delhi, perceived as an area with more opportunity.

Some perspective on population density here…India has roughly 4 times the population of the US, and 1/3 of the land size.

India: 3,287,263 sq km           Population India: 1,139,964,932

US: 9,826,675 sq km              Population US:  310,445,000

People with disabilities

Jesse commented that he hasn’t seen anyone here with Down’s Syndrome. This launched a deeper discussion, about the fact that kids with Down’s Syndrome weren’t generally in the community when I was growing up, either. Society needs more sophistication, and money, in order to empower kids with disabilities and create an infrastructure that mainstreams them whenever possible. What happens to kids with disabilities in the many many slums, where everyone in the family is scraping to make a living? Who is there to provide special services to kids that require them? And so what happens to these kids, after all? Where are they?

Visit to village in Haryana

Click here to view these pictures larger

Household Help - reprise

We hired a new maid a few weeks ago (Chanana) – and she has been terrific. She is a wonderful and diverse cook, preparing multiple types of cuisine (Indian, Chinese, Italian). Her husband will be our driver, as soon as we get a car. (Amnon is looking at used Toyata Innovas; one of the very few vans that are sold here.) (In the interim, we are still getting around with taxis.)

Chanana works 6 days of week, which is the norm. We had some friends over for brunch last week, and we asked Chanana if she could come over for a few hours on Sunday, as overtime. She readily agreed. When I mentioned this to colleagues on Monday, they commented in return that their household help works on Sundays, too. It’s pretty amazing to me; the “bottom of the pyramid” workers not only earn a pittance; they have what most of us would consider unacceptable working conditions.

So many hours of household work are now completely removed from us. I feel like I should be swimming in free time, but somehow I am not. It occurs to me that India relieves us of daily household labor on the one hand, but adds all of this extra time to other activities. Shopping, for example, is a much more time-consuming activity; I have not seen any 24 hour supermarkets where you can swoop in and do your shopping on the way home from work. All of this is exacerbated by not having a couple of cars available to us.  And so the chores and errands that do remain for us seem to take a lot longer.

A new multinationaal Basson puppy on the horizon

We have been talking about whether we are ready to get a new puppy….acknowledging that our beloved Bibi is irreplaceable…Adam has been discussing the value of getting a puppy within the next couple of years, so that he can do the early puppy training before going off to college. We discussed getting a puppy when we get back to the US. Then we discussed getting a puppy this year, in India, which would give the boys more time with it. Then the discussions turned to what kind of puppy. Adam did deep research as to what “fits” our family style….and what emerged as the “best fit” was a white shepherd. (Is this what fits us? Is it that Bibi molded us, so that white shepherds have the most appeal? In any case…we have promised one another that we will not expect puppy #2 to be a “clone.”)  Next challenge….white shepherds aren’t bred in India. So Adam has researched breeders that import them to India. So far, we have had a couple of these “breeder reps” make promises, and then disappoint us - - not returning calls, etc. As of last promise, we are supposed to get the puppy this week. This one is a “quasi rescue” – someone in Bangalore who needs to return to Canada and can’t take his 14 week old white shepherd. So this feels a little less decadent…we are getting the breed that we want, but also giving a home to a doggie that needs one…

Tikun Olam – volunteering

Tomorrow Jesse and Jordan will begin one of their volunteer initiatives, teaching English to underprivileged children. It looks like a promising program, and it starts with a spate of tours around New Delhi. Should be interesting. One of my Indian colleagues commented that the Indian population doesn’t seem to be as immersed in volunteer initiatives as the foreigners are, and this set me wondering. It could be that the Indian middle class population is so inured to the poverty that they see around them that it seems “normal” rather than jarring; it’s just the way things are and have always been. Or perhaps life is more of a struggle even for the Indian middle class, and so they don’t have enough “spare cycles” of cash, or time, to get more involved. (I doubt this latter option even as I write it….time seems to be a gift that you get more of here, with all of the low cost options available to every middle class Indian to hire household staff and handle many of the mundane and time-consuming aspects of living.)

Wallet stolen

Alas, foreigners are supposed to be prepared for wallet snatchings in many countries, and India is pretty high on the list. I have never developed street-savvy pocketbook-holding strategies, even though I’m a NYC kid…and I have been fortunate never to have suffered penalties for my lax and trusting ways… But last weekend, Jordan had stomach cramps, and we took another trip to Fortis hospital. (Jordan is feeling much better now. He commented that if we make another trip to Fortis in the near term, they will have to put us on the payroll….) We went to a few departments (reception, radiology, etc.) I had my bag with me except for a few seconds when I got Jordan some water and left my bag on a chair outside. Really, just a few seconds. But when I went to the front desk to “check out” and make payments, my wallet wasn’t in my bag. I don’t have a clue who or how it happened. And I definitely had my wallet when I entered the hospital, as I had just paid the taxi driver. And as we all know, the issue with lost wallets is not usually the money, but the “stuff” - - my driver’s license, social security card (why on earth was I carrying THAT around, anyway?) credit cards, credit cards, credit cards…

Amnon wanted to call the police and file a police report, and New Delhi police were, once again, wonderful. They came to the hospital within minutes after we called, spoke to security, and then brought us to the police station to file a formal report.  They were professional and conscientious and once again a pleasure to deal with. The constable pre-paid the auto rickshaw that then drove us home. Really going above and beyond in their customer service. They just happen to offer a “service” that you hope you won’t need again anytime soon…