Puja Flowers

Every morning the puja flower lady delivers small flower garlands or "poomalas" to every Hindu home. Religion for Hindus is truly a DIY - do-it-yourself industry. There are no sermons at Hindu temples, which might appeal to many a Sunday Schooler. No sermons, just prayers and incantations to whatever facet of the Deity you are concerned with. The many gods and goddesses are similar to patron saints in the Catholic tradition - each one has an office. You can pray to St. Jude or to Shiva the Destroyer if you need a quick favor.

Shiva is reputed to be quick to like people, easy to please but very dangerous to piss off. My mother-in-law is convinced that Shiva is protecting my husband because when he was 2 years old a cobra could have gone for him but didn't - cobras belong to Shiva's dominion. And she says that our (my husband and me) horoscopes reveal that our union is similar to the Shiva-Parvathi union, which she says is the ideal relationship. Parvathi set herself on fire (committing suicide) when Shiva accused her of infidelity, and Shiva also beheaded the son she created on her own (since she is the mother goddess she don't need no man). We have yet to experience such bliss in our union as yet.

Back to the puja flowers. At the market one day I saw where all the puja garlands came from. There was a lady with a high table - like a judge's bench - with heaps and heaps of fresh flowers piled on top. Fresh jasmine and rose and honeysuckle. I was smitten by the site of so many pretty fresh flowers and I wanted to just thrust my nose into the piles and breathe deep of their perfumes. I made a move to do just that when i felt my maid pulling me back, and I saw the flower lady rushing to protect her flowers with her arms.

I had forgotten that mere mortals are not supposed to smell the flowers offered to God until God has had a chance to sniff them first. These people were protecting the flower lady's inventory because if I had succeeded, she would not be able to sell the flowers that I had sniffed. They would be deemed unusable for offering to God.

Are jellicle cats transgendered?

I adopted my cat in 1999 from a PetSmart in Germantown, Maryland. He was male then, but today at the CUPA Animal Care Clinic I was told he was female!

We have a very sweet "Man Friday" that has been with our family for 10 or 15 years. (Interesting side story - my father-in-law discovered this guy when he was 12 and peddling a bicycle delivering pickles. My father-in-law decided to pay for this guy's education provided he do odd jobs afterschool, but he also had to pay the guy's father just to let him go to school - Dickens would love this place. ) Man Friday now is officially a senior office boy and is very proud to possess a set of business cards, but he is also on call for domestic duties, such as driving me to unfamiliar places.

I asked Man Friday (heretofore to be called Joe) to drive me and my cat to the clinic, since I am spatially challenged, almost debilitatingly so. Unlike most drivers, Joe doesn't like to sit in the car, he likes to join me in my exploits since he is practically family. (My inner snob used to worry that when he accompanied me to places that people might think i was married to HIM - not that he is so undeserving of a girl with my fairness and US passport, but the working poor here are quite spindly and unattractive - not the stuff of gardener fantasies.)

The reason we were at this clinic was to get my cat's favorite Lion Cut - you guessed it, they shave all the fur except for around the neck (mane), the lower legs, and a bit on the tail. He suffers terribly from hairballs and, when his fur gets long, will pointedly puke up yummy globules in my normal haunts - desk chair, staircases, etc.

I warned Joe that he should leave the room, otherwise he will be covered with cat hair. He didn't seem to mind and went on to chat the whole time with the "barber" in Kannada. He was very interested in the whole place and the other patients - unabashedly peeking into the treatments rooms, and laughed when he saw that the animals were getting hot water baths (such an extravagance for a lower life form).

I noticed that while my cat's legs were being shaved, Joe and the barber seemed to be looking at my kitty's crotch and speculating. Joe asks me, "this is a boy cat, madam?" I said, 'yes, it's a boy cat!" "No, ma'am, this is a girl cat." I thought they might be confused because the cat was neutered and so no evidence of maleness was present.

These two were pretty interested in how much I paid for my cat. It was humbling to tell them that I spent between $50 - $75 (INR 3300 - half their monthly pay probably) to adopt the cat and try to convince them that it was CHEAP. They had trouble processing the concept of adopting an animal that someone had given up, and when they saw that my cat's front claws were no longer there I could feel the judgment. I kept telling them that the first family did that to him, it was done before I had him - but maybe they think I made up the first family.

I was worried that their misidentification of my cat as a female might lead to an ugly scene with the razor. I called for the doctor and tried to clarify things, but the doctor checked and agreed with the barber and Joe and showed me the part in question. It was definitely not a protruberance.

So now I am wrestling with my cat's newfound sexuality - or newfound previous sexuality... how will I get him/her back to the US if the US paperwork states that he is male and the Indian paperwork states the she is female? Does this explain the nipples?

One interesting bit is that the vet suggested i pay him 500 rupees for each rabies vaccination my cat had missed since coming to India (which is really 1, but he keeps saying 2) and that he will write it in my cat's vaccination card that he gave those doses at the appropriate times, even though he did not. I don't know... maybe he needs the money for tuitions?

what i will miss about bangalore

• eggs with the chicken poop still on them... hey, you know it's fresh!
• stressing out every morning whether i woke up in time to catch the milk man - if i don't give him my tickets, my daughter doesn't get her milk!
• every few days in the hot hot summer, half of the milk order will have already soured by the time it gets to me.
• boiling the day's milk every morning, and waiting for the cream to solidify on top so i can remove it and not have clumps of it showing up in my coffee or cereal.
• the garbage man suddenly going MIA for weeks and trash accumulating in my backyard, providing a feast for rats miles around.
• the garbage man turning up again after his MIA and demanding extra pay to remove the backlog of trash, or better yet, could i give him a cup of coffee?
• maids i cannot communicate with who keep yakking like i am their long-lost sister, and how much they love Australians, oops, Americans.
  
• needing an interpreter to translate Indian English to American English and vice versa
• the puja flower lady - really, i will miss her... she's nice, even tho we can't communicate. sometimes she gives my daughter her own poomala (flower garland) to desecrate
• the maid deciding to boil the cream accumulated from the daily boiling of milk into ghee in the middle of the afternoon, stinking up the entire house and preventing me from assigning any real work
• turning on the motor every morning and afternoon so we have enough water for drinking, cooking, baths, etc.
• mosquitoes
• the nights when the all-out refill runs out and i wake up covered in mosquito bites
• the impromptu appearance of small marching bands outside our home on certain holidays
• the do-it-yourself approach every self-respecting Bangalorean takes to igniting many, many fireworks on diwali, new year's, christmas, etc.
• taking my daughter to see cows everyday in the neighborhood
• taking my daughter to see horses everyday in the neighborhood
• avoiding the stray dogs my daughter thinks are "nice doggies" in the neighborhood
• hearing my daughter say "VENDA" to street vendors and beggars along with me
• hearing my daughter say "hello, cow, shake hands! awww, come, sit lap!" when we pass a cow on the street
• the helpfulness of the grocery store clerks here, you can still shop while you are being rung up, heedless of the line of people behind you
• the adoration nearly every citizen here has for babies, toddlers, and children - no matter the class, caste, or creed, they live to make kids smile.
• the adoration nearly every citizen here has for foreigners like myself :)
• the lust for my greenbacks that nearly every small shop owner has
  
• the almost daily contest of wills with my hot water geyser
• the shoddy craftsmanship that is omnipresent in consumer durables
• the freedom to call oneself an "electrician," "plumber," or even doctor without evidence of any talent or training in that particular arena
• the freedom to keep a herd of cows even though you don't have any land to call your own
• the freedom to drive motorbikes, scooters, horse-and-buggies, and bullock carts the wrong way up a one way street
• the liberty which the government takes in declaring a street one-way in one direction and then abruptly, without notice, reversing that one-way direction of that same street.
• my weekly grocery bill coming in under $50 US, and still being more than i pay the maid, ironically.
• the fights with the sneaky, one-eyed HOPCOMS grocer to avoid purchasing more food than i need or want
• the slow and subtle destruction of my non-stick cookware and kitchen gadgets by my "help"
• the $3 or 250 INR fees to see a doctor, prescription drugs at almost 1/5 of the US cost in some cases
  
• manicures and pedicures at half the US cost with twice the US service
• 7-star hotel buffets at $20 per head, including 2 alcoholic beverages
• no-power sundays and saturdays every coupla months
  

interesting technique for ridding self of beggars

My mother-in-law, who lived in Delhi (gurgaon, actually) for some years, has an interesting way of dealing with kid beggars. We were in the market area once (Commercial Street) and had stopped to buy freshly roasted peanuts from a street vendor (just 5 rupees!) and two beggar kids, a little over 10 years old, came over to beg from Fat White American Me. I was feeling embarrassed because I didn't want to give money to these kids because they work for a sort of pimp who takes most of their money anyhow.

My mother-in-law, having completed the peanut transaction, finally notices these kids who are pitifully calling "Maaa" to me, almost like sheep bleating. My mother-in-law grabs her pocketbook, looking like she's going to check it and shouts, "PICKPOCKETS??!!, hai, PICKPOCKETS??!!"

The kids RAN away so fast.

I told my husband about this technique later. He was aghast at what she'd done and said that must be a trick she learned up North (in Delhi). There are some choice jerks up there, he elaborated.

Indian etiquette

I remember one of the first times a family dropped in on us for the
Sunday afternoon visit. We served them tea and some homemade
goodies. I offered the goodies to each one personally, but i did so
only ONCE.

My husband was so irritated with me that I stopped at one offer. He
pulled me aside and urged me to offer the goodies twice more. Two
more times, but they already declined once! He told me that offering
only once was like a half-hearted attempt, that you really could not
care less if they ate the item or didn't eat the item. A well-bred
hostess will offer the same item three times to each guest and if
they decline on the third attempt, then you can give up. You've done
your part and they feel good that you really cared that they eat
something but they just didn't feel like it. So I went back and sure
enough some did eat when prompted for the third time.

So the next time we had people over, I offered three times in a row.

Do you want this?
No.
are you so you don't want this?
No.
Not at all?
No.

My husband was livid - it seems you have to pepper it thru the
evening, otherwise you're just being pushy.

Sigh.

i guess my ancestors really were barbarians. :(

Both maids are gone...

We soon realized that asking the maids to stay until my FIL came back was dumb of us. Work quality decreased and their various pleas became more and more pitiful and nonsensical. The grandmother, though decreasing in age, was getting worse. The other one's mother was to celebrate her birthday on the 24th, etc.

The house is nice and quiet now - only my daughter's toddler noises are to be heard. I used to complain that I preferred my American dishwasher to my Malayalee dishwasher, because the former made much less noise than the latter.

My SIL and I did the jadoo-pucha (sweeping and swabbing) on this pirate ship we call home.

This morning I realized I am missing 400 rupees from my own wallet, one of my daughter's silver spoon, the leap frog fridge magnet that teaches the ABCs, and my sandwich-maker. I paid the maid $2400 per month and she took her own perks.

India... a million mutinies now

We came to India because life is "easier," since you have "domestics" to help you with all the work.  In the year and a half we have been here, we have been understaffed more than half of the time. Understaffed in this 4500 sq. ft house --without dishwasher or food processor, cleaning up after and feeding  4 adults and 1 toddler, and 1 huge terrace garden--means we have had only one servant.  In the "good" days we have had two.

To our irritation, most of these domestics first "loyalty" has been to my FIL.  It makes sense because a) he is the eldest in the house, and b) it is he who pays the bills (at least they get it directly from his hand on payday).  This isn't really loyalty, it's just that his work takes priority - his clothes, his cup of tea, his room getting cleaned, or any project he has assigned. Those tasks will always get done first and then they will move onto whatever I have assigned to them. 

My FIL has been gone not even 24 hours and one of them kinda gave notice.  Of course, this is India, and we have given her family an advance of 3000 rupees before she even started working --- so she didn't come right out and quit.  She gave lots of stories upon stories.  First, she told my SIL (who's a college senior - the "kid" of the house along with Anjali) that her grandmother is deathly ill and the doctor didn't think she'd make it much longer, that she wanted to go home and see granny before she died, but would come back in a few days - oh, and her granny is 100.  Now, I did the math and taking into account her reported age and she is from rural India (with its teenage brides and unaccessible health care), that this could not be her grandmother she was talking about.  The next day we heard the same sad news, but this time, her grandmother was only 85 and not 100.  

So we called our plantation supervisor (who counts amongst his duties finding domestics for us), and asked him to verify the story for us.  That is how we found out she was lying and that 3000 rupees had been advanced to her family for her to start working - turns out they said they were in a very tight spot and couldn't pay the school fees.  My SIL confronted her (my poor SIL has to take care of all this stuff because she speaks the languages here very well).  Over the next 12 hours she revised her "truth" in so many ways - grandmother still needs her, her younger brother's wife is due to give birth and they have to do some puja, we don't eat enough non-veg for her liking (she is Christian), she doesn't like our other "domestic," who talks as though she's her MIL, her mom is beating her kids because there is no money for their school fees, etc.) 

This new domestic has been with us for one week, the old domestic for 10 weeks. The older domestic treats all of us like we are her daughters-in-law, only she doesn't give us work.  She just keeps yapping yapping and gives us backtalk occasionally, and almost always butts in on our conversation to ask stupid questions. Also, she has always told little lies.  She told me she doesn't like ghee, but when I asked for a dosa she was making herself, it was so soaked in ghee, it practically slid down my throat.  She's been giving us all sorts of information and misinformation about this new girl - which we think is ironic because the two say they don't speak each other's language and so do not understand each other.  The "senior" domestic knows we have given 3000 rupees in advance and is now saying that she deserves a similar advance. 

Yes, life is much "easier" here. 

What do you call someone who can speak only one language?

American.  A few months ago, I took an Introductory Tamil course... and I speak very imperfectly but quite entertainingly. 

I have told the maids:

- to eat the baby, rather than feed the baby. "Baby shapadah."

- that my father-in-law has an "evil" heart, instead of not so healthy (bad)

- that they should take a shower after they finish playing, instead of working (i learned work and play at the same time and used the wrong word at the wrong time)

One of the maids, who used to work in the Gulf (is it Persian or Arabian?) thinks she speaks English well.  She told me she used to work for "my people" at Arby's.  I was impressed.  "Really, Arby's - the Arby's?," I asked, incredulous.  Note:  this woman is of the Nair caste - so for her to be slinging roast beef sandwiches for a living adds to the delicious incredulity.  I try to imagine her sans sari with the polycotton Arby's uniform, hat, and drive-thru headgear. 

She repeated it again, but this time it sounded like "army." 

"Oh, Army! You worked for the US Army?", I tried to clarify - maybe she'd worked on some Halliburton contractor. 

"ARABI! ARABI!," she started saying louder and more forcefully.

My sister-in-law clarified - "Arabs; she used to work for Arab families."

This same maid keeps making me some green "juice," something between lime juice and a mint julep - more mint than julep.  Rather tasty, but when I drink it, I feel like I'm drinking some secret concoction meant only for Arabs (which is what she insists, only They drink it, like it's some kind of Priory of Scion secret.) 

Happy Sankranti! Happy Pongal!

Today is a paid holiday in Bangalore - it is the festival of Sankranti or Pongal - whichever you like.  Tamilians celebrate Pongal and Kannadigas celebrate Sankranti.  I think they're the same thing, in both cases, you deck out your cow today and feed the cow some "pongal" - a rice dish.

Cows do so much for us, with their five products (milk, butter, cheese, cream, yogurt) and even their poop is used as cooking and heating fuel.  Today is like Mother's Day for cows.  You give her a nice mani/pedi, paint her horns, put bells on her horns and a necklace of bells, and you can even paint her hide with different colors of powder!  Beautiful!  Howda! ChandAM!  

And you must treat her to a nice breakfast of "chakra pongal" - a sort of rice pudding.

My mother-in-law treated my daughter and i to a truly desi treat today.  She brought us each a stick of sugar cane.  She then ripped the very thin bark off with her teeth, broke a section off, and divided it between us two.  My daughter LOVED it... 

It's a little like an apple, but with more of a "twiggy" feel when you chew it.  You're supposed to just chew it, suck the juice from it and only swallow the juice, you spit out the fibers.  This was right up my daughter's alley.  Her 2-year molars are troubling her, so she kept putting the stick of cane in just the right spot!  She also loves spitting - yes, we are so proud...  so for someone to encourage her to spit something out, she thought it was the best thing ever!

Usually she greets her "amooma" with a series of smacks (A-DEE! A-DEE! she will victoriously declare - A-dee means "beat'), rather than hugs and kisses.  I think today Amooma finally won the war for her heart and mind.  "Amooma!  .... LUCKY DAY!", she declared. 

I rather enjoyed eating the sugar cane, too...  I kinda felt like a monkey eating it... maybe that's why it's fun!

Religion in the workplace

I am sitting at the family's office in Indiranagar. It's getting to be closing time.

Every night at this time, an evening puja (prayer ceremony) is performed. One of the office boys (really a man) chops coconut into small pieces, breaks up a bunch of small bananas, cleans the puja area and lights the lamp. He walks about the office with the "sacred flame" - burning camphor placed on a metal plate. He stops at each employee and they hold their hands over the flame and bring it to their heads.

After the puja is performed, he distributes the prasad (the chopped coconut and small bananas) that was offered to God to the employees.

The employees are a mix of Christian, Hindu, and Muslim, but all participate in this puja.