Well, I really enjoyed writing so I decided to buy my own domain. I can not promise it will be nearly exciting as my life in India, but I do promise to keep writing and try to keep you entertained.
You can find my new blog
Are You Ready Setty

Time to Put it Away

The other day something fell out of my purse. As I am a lady and a mom, really I can not be held responsible because "things" are always falling out of my purse. This time though, it was not too embarrassing. It was two doses of Imodium- anti-diarrhea meds for my non-American readers. After my May trip back to the States, I had shoved those little caplets EVERYWHERE just in case I ever needed them again. As I stooped down to pick the Imodium off the ground I thought, "time to put this away."

To the day, it has been a month since we have come home. I almost want to cry and rejoice at the same time. Despite my last blog posts, I really do feel like I am home now. I wished I could have written more about my slow adjustment but life was just too busy. It was either blog or find my safety deposit box keys. I should have blogged because I still can't find those darn keys. I am the kind of person that hides things in really good spots, but then I forget where I hid them. Last time I found the safety deposit box keys in my ugliest pair of exercise socks tucked in my drawer. The only reason I found them was because I decided to throw out my ugly socks and I heard something jingling. Really, I should have blogged.

I would have blogged about how reverse culture shock for me this time was like Sid the Science Kid on steroids. I was comparing and contrasting every minute of every day. It was exhausting.

I would have blogged about the drunk, homeless man that approached my family in the subway station in Atlanta and how despite me being incredibly uncomfortable I forced myself to smile and chat like I didn't know the conversation was going to end up with him asking me for money. Like we were equals. In India, I wouldn't have given that man the time of day. In India, he wouldn't have expected it and I wouldn't have been shamed for not doing so.

I would have blogged about my first American yoga class and how much I liked it. But how much I missed my friends, the lady with the GIANT crack in her feet and smelly armpits, my teacher's Shavasana chant,and even picking up my milk on the way home. How that whole morning at the YMCA it was hard to concentrate as my mind was wandering through a vivid memory of living and doing in Sankalp.

I would have blogged about my school where I teach and how overwhelmed and disgusted I was with all the toys and stuff we have there. Seriously- we have a full gallon bag of polar bears. Who has a whole gallon bag of polar bears? A bag of frogs I will give you. We can't sing "5 Green and Speckled Frogs" without frogs, but that is 5 not 15. 

I would have blogged about struggling to make a choice to send Shalini to Bala Vihar at the Chinmaya Mission instead of church, where she wants to go. And how I have to take Flip to church with a bunch of white people and not Chinmaya Mission because crowds of Indians make her anxious and crawling into my arms like a baby. We have had this wonderful 9 months of India- taking in India, how do I keep that alive in my girls?

I would have blogged about the morning I found Star drenched in tears, reading cards from her Sankalp friends, and how I turned into a wobbling mess instead of the strong, backbone Momma that I should have been.

I would have blogged about my grandmother and how I can call her everyday now. That makes me incredibly happy. Her voice is quiet and mostly she listens, but I can let her know how much I love her now that I am closer.

I would have blogged about sitting in my red den in my hideous plaid but comfy couch reading books with my kids knowing that no one was going to knock on my door. As much as I loved having Srinivas and Lakshmi, it was always hard work to have strangers in my home. How that was one of the moments I sighed and felt home.

I wish I could write about all this. I wish I had the time. But the truth is, I still haven't finished unpacking from India. I have one more suitcase sitting in my back room. I still haven't finished unpacking the items I packed up from Dec 2011 before we left our house. I haven't gotten my work paperwork turned in. I haven't synced my phone which seems small but I still have India numbers and duplicate American contacts, no Calliou videos to keep Flip busy during Star's violin lesson, and no music. And even the last two posts I managed to get out were not like I wanted them. They were short, condensed versions of the ones I had in my head.

So for now, just like the Imodium- it is time to put it away. So many folks have told me they have read along and enjoyed my writing. And honestly, I am flattered. Thank you so much. I hope to come back to writing someday, but I feel like to keep this blog going would wrong. It would not be what I want to present of myself to the world. So thanks for reading along. Until our next Setty Family adventure...

 

The reality of excess

I really can't complain about the excess in America anymore because truth be told I have been eating like I was on holiday for the past month and now the excess is on me. On my bum to be exact.
While I was in India I thought I was losing weight because my pants fit more loosely, but then I came home and dried my pants in the dryer (instead of months of line drying) and guess what? They fit. Well, now they fit a little too well. Perhaps I should go back to line drying.

Excess

A friend asked me to write about all the foods I was enjoying now that I am back home. I love this topic. Often when a friend is traveling back to their home country I always ask, "What will you eat first?" But I told this friend, I couldn't write about food yet because I was still overwhelmed by the excess in the U.S. Going to the grocery store was a challenge for me. Just seeing all the choices made my brain hurt. I had expected the unnecessary amount of choices of cereal- a whole aisle just for a box of sugar, wheat and food color? But I had not expected the excess of choices for things like peanut butter.
Things get fuzzy when you are away. In the U.S., I function on auto-pilot a lot of the times. I buy the same brands I have bought for years- sometimes not because I have made that conscious choice myself, but perhaps because my mom bought that brand. So when I went to the store to buy peanut butter I thought it would be easy. Go in, pick a smooth variety and come out. The names JIF and Skippy were ringing in my ears, but I couldn't recall if I bought either of those brands. I thought I would see the label and the container, no problem.
In India, I was lucky to find peanut butter in the store. I had bought it at Easy Day and then the next time I went I couldn't find it. I looked in the places I thought it should be, but it was not there. I asked and tried to describe it to the staff, but they couldn't find it. In the end I gave up and only went to Loyal World if I needed peanut butter. And even at Loyal World, you couldn't count on a certain brand. I had to be flexible and get what ever brand of smooth they happened to have (if they happened to have it).
So back to Kroger. Back to me standing in the enormous aisle with bright lights and a huge shopping cart. Back to me, trying to block out all the conversations going on around me in American English, a language I know so deep in my heart I can ease drop and not even know I am doing it. That never happened in Kannada or even in Indian English. In India, I could turn people's chatter into background noise and get lost in my own thoughts. I stood in front of the peanut butter section waiting for the light bulb to go off in my head that let me know I had found my jar of peanut butter. I looked.
I saw reduced fat peanut butter.
I saw simply peanut butter.
I saw natural peanut butter.
I saw Omega-3 peanut butter.
I saw extra crunchy peanut butter.
I saw crunchy peanut butter.
I saw low salt peanut butter.
I saw no stir peanut butter.
I saw peanut butter with honey.

I spent at least 5 minutes with my eyes wandering the shelves until finally they began to hurt and I was brought back to reality by Star asking to buy some ridiculously overpriced, overcolorful, plastic item hanging on the end cap. I just grabbed a jar and went. In the end, it didn't really matter what jar I bought.We are more than half-way through it and I will soon have to repeat this process all over again.

Proud Momma

During the last night of the AKKA conference they named the winners of the AKKA Idol contest and offered the three girls a chance to sing their winning songs for the crowd. And man, could the girls sing! The youngest singer kept her hand raised next to her face, so if you weren't completely awe struck by how her voice could sail like a kite on the wind you could watch her hand raise and fall as she flitted up and down the scale. I didn't even know these girls and I was so proud of them I clapped so hard my hands hurt.

And then the MC came out and made the strangest comment. She said, "I am glad we have the chance to show them especially in Bangalore that our kids are as good as theirs."

First off, see ya later Mysore or any other place in Karnataka for that matter.  You don't count in the game of one-upmanship.Oh wait, you didn't know you were playing?
But secondly, when did we sign our kids up for this competition? Did they start at a deficit because they carry a US passport? Does each Indian cultural activity earn the child credit? Or do you have to do it well to earn credit?

Our kids aren't Indians. They never will be. But this doesn't mean they are as good as the kids in Bangalore. They are different. They are children of two nations and if we do our job whole-heartedly (as the parents of the fabulous singers have done) they will be an example of what is good from both nations.
The first night Star stood up, placed her hand over her heart and sang every word of the US national anthem. She followed it up by standing up straight with her hands by her side and sang every word of the Indian national anthem. I am one proud Momma.

Oh AKKA, how could you?

Eleven days after I gave birth to Star I had to take Mary Jane to the vet for her yearly check up. Heaven knows why I scheduled this appointment or why I kept it, but I did. It was the first time I had ventured out of the house without Star in tow. I remember putting my cat carrier under the seat and waiting for my turn with the doctor. I remember looking around at the other cat owners and thinking, "Not a single one of these people knows that I am a new mom. No one knows that I can still tell my daughter's birth story word for word, pain for pain, and joy for joy." There I sat feeling like my body was a miracle and that my world was turned inside out, but for those looking at me all they saw was a badly dressed lady with a jiggly belly and sagging breasts.
This past weekend my family went to Atlanta and attended the AKKA conference. AKKA is a conference for Kannada speakers all over North America. Every other year on Labor Day Weekend, Kannadigas flock into a major city to be hosted by that city's Kannada Kootu (chapter). Heaven only knows why we thought it would be a good idea to pack up again after just 2 weeks of being home and lug it all down to Atlanta the weekend before school starts, but we did.
The weirdness started the moment we entered the hotel lobby. We all bucked the system and showed up in western clothes. We had spent the night with my sister and family so we weren't quite in the Indian mindset yet. I stood with our bags and the girls while Marvel went to give his folks a call. I look over and this Indian guy, probably 25years old or so, with a long ponytail is unabashedly staring at me. I look at him and smile. He smiles and keeps staring. Oh! My brain clicks in- he is the real deal straight from India. Might be an artist, might be someone newly arrived and trying to keep the ties to Karnataka alive, or might just be an Indian-American who didn't get the message that we don't stare here in this country. Marvel returns, man stares, in-laws join us, man stares, we walk away, I turn around and the man is still staring!
At the conference center there are more stares, although these are the American variety done on the sly or quickly ended when I tear them out of their trance with a friendly "hello". There are also the completely uncomfortable, pretend we don't see you, passes with the other white people at the conference. I know we don't know each other but the least we can do is smile and say hello or even offer up the meaningless compliment on each others' clothing as we watch our children run around the lobby. And then there are the unassuming Aunties who corner me and complain about their "white daughter-in-law" who doesn't attempt to incorporate any Indian culture into her granddaughters' lives at all, followed by a torrent of compliments based on what she assumes of me from our 20 minute one-way conversation.
But do you know what had me rolling my eyes and acting like a petulant teenager? The folks that innocently asked, "What do you think about all this? Do you like Indian culture? Is it overwhelming?" Just like I was sitting back in that vet's office, my world was turned inside out and no one could tell. I was overcome with emotion and no one knew. It took me 2 days to stop scanning the crowds for one of my friends' faces. It took me 2 days to remember that this was not India. I was not home.  I was in some strange middle place where people looked like incredibly over-dressed Indians, but acted like Americans and still treated me like an outsider. I wanted to plant a tattoo on my forehead that read, "I lived in Mysore for 9 months, not took a trip there for 2 weeks. This one weekend doesn't count as Indian culture. I saw a man clean his bottom in a pothole on the street with rain water. You can't overwhelm me. And I can't sum up what I think about all this in one, nice, neat package without crying for a place that I didn't want to leave."

Bobble me this, Bobble me that

The Indian head bobble is famous. It has confused foreigners for centuries. Instead of a nod, an Indian will bobble his or her head from side to side in agreement with varying degrees of enthusiasm depending on their personality, social status, and always the situation. Probably the amount of head bobbling their mothers did in the home plays an important role as well because this head bobble is rather contagious.
When Star was 4 she picked it up rather quickly and then lost it again when we return back to the US. Flip followed her big sister and was a faithful head bobbler, although I can see it fading already. But if I bobble at her, she quickly bobbles back. I, on the other hand, chose to employ the head bobble. It just made life easier when talking with auto drivers, cooks, cleaners, assistant teachers in the girls' school, etc. Also secretly, I enjoyed practicing while friends were talking to see just how little movement I could do and still produce a quality head bobble. I thought I was in control of the head bobble, but apparently not.
Yesterday, while setting up our classroom with my new co-teacher she suggested an arrangement of furniture. I agreed it looked nice and she gave me the most peculiar look and responded, "What? You don't like that?" For a moment I was confused. I had said yes.  I had agreed. And then I realized I had head bobbled her.