Six Ways to Kill a Mosquito

1. The Feel It and Slap It Method
This is the original way to kill the blood suckers. You feel that prick on your leg and you react with a giant slap to find your blood on the outside of your skin instead of the inside. As you wipe the bug carcass on the grass you feel vindicated.

2. The Spot It and Clap It Method
Behind the Feel It and Slap It Method, this is a traditional way to kill a mosquito. Most of the time it involves a bit of hand eye coordination and some willingness to observe and move quickly. Out of the corner of your eye, you will see the black bit fly by or you might here the bzzzzz in your ear. Your next step is to scan the area looking for the mossie. The mossies of course are very tricky and they can disappear into thin air so you must also have dedication and good eye sight. When you see the mosquito, move quickly, clap it between 2 hands and then inspect your hands to see if you were successful. If you were successful, most likely you will need clean your hands as the mosquito's previous victim's blood (hopefully not yours ) is now on your hands.

3. The One Handed Gotcha
This method is similar to the Spot It and Clap It method and differs due to the fact that you only use one hand. If you find yourself in the elevator with a package in hand and a mosquito bearing down on you, use this method. If you have a child you are trying to drag out of the sand box because no matter how many times you told her the "solle banthu" she doesn't care. The downside of this method is you must make sure the mosquito is dead before you open your hand or you have just done a catch and release which serves no purpose.

4. The Sit and Spray Method
This really isn't a method of killing the mosquito because it is not effective at all, but it can be used in a pinch as a deterrent. If you find yourself on the potty and unable to remove yourself from that location while at the same time you discover you are involuntarily sharing the space with a mossie you can use the hand sprayers (only available in some locations) to aim at the mosquito. As I said, it does not kill the mosquito so you must continue to keep on guard and ready to spray again until you are pants up and mobile again.

5. Use Yourself As Bait
This is the Marvel method. When you wake at 4 am with 2 bites already on your face, flip on the lights to wake your spouse and alert her to the danger and include her in your sleeplessness, cover up your entire body with the sheet except for your face. This will entice the mosquito closer and you can kill it. Although I am not sure how you are suppose to kill it as your hands are tucked under the sheet, but at 4 am and you are half asleep it is really the best plan you can come up with . And it makes your wife laugh hysterically the next morning when she remembers.

5. Hungry Hungry Mosquito
This method requires you and several other members in a closed area, such as your living room. It is played very similarly to Hungry Hungry Hippos. One person spots the mossie and begins the game by jumping up mid-sentence using his or her preferred method to try and get the blood sucker. If she succeeds, game over. If she misses, she returns to her seat and everyone continues the conversation as before. It is very important to not clue in the mosquito by mentioning that the game has started. There will be a catch up time at the end to discuss the play by play. The game continues as another member sees the mosquito and jumps up to have his turn. When the mosquito is finally caught and killed it is shown to all members. Everyone cheers and the especially tasty members show off their swelling bites. Now you may talk about how you killed the mosquito, but be careful as another little sucker might be squeezing in the screen door as you speak.

6. The Silent Kill
One must use this method when it is of upmost importance to be quiet, such as in yoga class or sitting in the back of a preschool classroom trying to make a successful and positive separation from your kid. It is very similar to number 2 but it must be performed in absolute silence. The danger is that with silence some people mix in slowness which greatly affects your success rate. The Silent Kill can also be somewhat of a let down because if you are successful you are unable to share the story of the dead mosquito with anyone around you as quiet is still of the upmost importance.

Here and Now

A long, long day ago (as Flip would say) we were trying to rent our place in Michigan.  We wanted to rent it fully furnished from January to August, a timeline that does not match up with the academic year. And considering our town is a college town it mainly runs on the academic calendar.  So we put it on Craigslist and had a couple folks show up. Mostly these people did not read the advertisement regarding the timeline and so wasted our time and theirs.  But then we found Ed and Cat, our current renters.  They were moving from England to the US.  They wanted to live on the Old West Side.  They have a 3 year old son.  They were looking to buy their own home and wanted a place to live, fully furnished, while they did that. Just when we thought it couldn't get better, it did. They agreed to care for our cat, Mary Jane. And they rented our car. Perfecto!

As we exchanged emails back and forth, Ed told us he had a conference in India in July.  Guess where?  Mysore! So last Saturday, we met Ed for the first time in our home. He came for the COSPAR conference at Infosys and was able to stay with us.

My time in India seems to dragging right now. I feel like I am stuck in between. 4 more weeks until we return home. We can't start packing because we need to use all our things. We can't make any more plans here because, well, we don't have any more time to do anything. I sit.  I wait. I attempt to spend as much time with the people I love here, doing our every day stuff.  I count the days and mourn the time past.  I count the days and get excited about returning home. Stuck in between.

So when Ed came it was a welcome distraction. I ditched my regular cereal and cold milk breakfast for tatte idli. We made pani puri. We did the Mysore Palace, for the 5th time. We took him to an ancient temple in Srirangapatna. We did our best to make sure his 5 days in India felt like 5 days in India, not just 5 days at a conference. And I realized how comfortable I have gotten in this place and how things seem such commonplace now.
A family of pigs running across the road.  Seen it.
A truck overflowing with hay and 3 men balanced precariously on top. Seen it.
A man driving a scooter with bags and pipes and boxes on every available space so that he must stand to drive the scooter. Seen it.
A family of Indians 2 feet away unabashedly looking me up and down. Seen it. Felt it.
Monkeys climbing on the temple. Seen it. Ran from it.
Elephants relaxing after a hard days work at the palace. Seen it.
Crazy driving. Seen it. Done it.

So it was good to be with Ed and feel the newness and excitement of India again. For 5 days, I didn't feel stuck.  It helped me move back to the here and now. 

Confessions

I am reading Shades of Grey. There, I said it! Honestly I knew nothing about it until a friend posted a summer reading list on her FB page which included a title that read "What to read instead of Shades of Grey". And then as I was checking out a book at the library I glanced at the return shelf and saw Shades of Grey and immediately I felt a tug of homesick. This book is obviously so popular in America that it has become unpopular and I am clueless about it all. Nothing can make you feel further from your own culture. So I grabbed it without even looking at the back. Yes, that is right I had no idea what my sweet unadulterated mind was getting into.
And I was shocked. This is what America is reading? But if you know me you know I rarely ever put a book down once I start it.  Some part of me feels guilty for not letting the author finish the story. I feel like characters are just sitting there in purgatory until I crack the pages open once more. In the end, I liked it. It is a kinky Cinderella tale. Perhaps the sex scenes should have horrified me, but you know what actually horrified me?
The talk of feet. He removes her shoes and rubs his nose on her instep. He sucks her toes.  Multiple times she refers to his bare feet as sexy. I even find myself cringing as I type it. Perhaps if I was in the US it would not affect me so, but I am in India and here feet are dirty.  Not dirty like Fifty Shades is a dirty book, but down right gross.  Cracks like the Grand Canyon. Toe pads that look more like coral than actual skin. Yellow toenails. And the dirt.  I scrub my feet with a pumice stone every night just trying to break through the black layer that seems permanently attached.
Not that I can blame anyone, unless you count Mother India, who seems to want to drag us back into the earth by our feet. Many people here don't have shoes, so tough callused feet are a bonus on hot, hot pavement. Many people don't have access to water in their homes so taking time to scrub your feet with running water is a luxury.
So talk to me about spanking, cuffing, or sexual accessories, but please please do not talk to me about feet.  My sweet unadulterated mind can't take it.

Good Byes All Around

When we first moved in one of the apartments on the ground floor was having its cabinets put in. There were two carpenters working everyday, all day for about 3 weeks.  They spoke Hindi, so our conversations were severely limited but they learned the girls' names and said, "Hello!" every time we passed.  And they were seriously all smiles.  They made my day most days and I even though I knew they were not, I began to think of them as neighbors.

And suddenly they were gone. Their work was finished so they moved to a new place.  I still miss them.  No more smiling faces looking back at me through the windows.

I think about this as our return to America comes closer.  There are so many people in our lives here. We of course have family. We have Sankalp friends.  We have teachers and school friends.  We have dance teachers and dance friends. I know we will have good bye get togethers and lunch dates, but there is also a myriad of folks who have become part of our lives purely by doing what they do and us doing what we do.  There is the banana man who insists I say all numbers in Kannada.  There is the ironing man who never charges me for my daughters' clothes. There is the chicken foot/mango man with the little kitty. There is the man in the next vegetable stall who keeps telling me that soon my Kannda is going to be good.  There are the ladies who sell the herbs and peas who call to me to buy from their stall.  I have my own special rotation in my head trying to be fair and purchase from each one of them. I do not want to just disappear on them.  I want to say good bye in a meaningful way.

When the Grandparents Came

This post is long overdue.  I can hardly believe it has been a month since we said Good bye to Avva.  We had a lovely month of grandparents- Taata, Avva and Hop.  And unfortunately since Avva was the last to leave she got the full brunt of the emotion.  I wasn't sure how we were going to pry Star off of Avva, she was crying so hard.  The girls loved having all their adoring grandparents here and the homesickness when they left was difficult to manage.  At one point I found Star completely wrapped up in one of Avva's sarees she had left here.  We compromised by letting her snip a corner and letting her make a hankie.

Even though it was hard to say good-bye we would not have traded those visits for anything.  One of my favorite memories was the 70th Birthday pooja we had for Marvel's father before I left for the States. So many family members came to wish him well and only one person put me on the spot by asking, "Do you know who I am?" This question used to throw me and I would get embarrassed but this time I simply replied, "No, please tell me who you are." Ha! Take that! Hope you feel embarrassed now! But also the truth is, I know so many more people now, so that even if I can not recall their name I at least know how they are related and I can ask a pertinent question or two.

I am mostly familiar with Avva's side of the family as we spend most of our time in Mysore and Bangalore.  So this day was special because many of the guests were from Taata's side.  And as we held it in Bangalore many of my in laws' old friends came.  Old friends who lived with them in the US in the early years and have moved back to India.  It was simply lovely to see the smiles on Taata and Avva's faces.

The girls really got into the celebration as well, both in their own way.  I wish our internet connection was fast enough to show you all the videos Star took on my phone. And Flip just did what she does best, got right in there.

The pooja began before 7 am and went past noon with one break for breakfast.  It was a long morning, but it was a great pooja.  These particular priests were incredibly enthusiastic, actually taking time to enunciate. Not typical in my limited experience.  Most priests mumble only stopping to speak clearly when they need to direct their pooja participants to do some physical act such as throw something or hold something.  And Marvel's mom said she was at first pleased with the head priest's answers when she asked a question.  He was more than happy to explain all she wanted to know and MORE. That was when she realized he might be too enthusiastic and if she wanted to feed folks on time she had to keep her curiosity to a minimum.

Again I wish I could post a video of the pooja because if you have never seen one it is fascinating. It is such a physical worship which I love.  Sometimes it gets crazy such as one point when Marvel and I were holding a strainer like item over his parents' heads.  Inside the strainer was a couple of necessary objects, one of which had to be silver.  The attendees made a line and took turns to dip leaves into holy water and shake the water through the strainer onto their heads, like a blessing.  Yes, I would love to know the backstory of that particular act, so if anyone devout Hindu blog reader out there is willing... As crazy as it looked and as tired as my hand became from holding that strainer over their hands, it filled my heart with joy to see each family or friend come up and wish their blessings on my in laws.

At the end of the pooja the priests passed out rice and flowers to all the attendees.  Even the folks who had wondered outside were beckoned in and the handfuls are shared amongst kids and late comers. We all stood holding the rice and flowers in our hands listening to the last prayers being said, ready to throw the rice and flowers onto the idols. Everyone was crowded together, shoulder to shoulder, listening and waiting.  So it was hot. Add a kid on the hip and it was super hot.  Like I said, it was long morning and I was having trouble keeping my impatience at bay. At this point Marvel leaned over to me and whispered, "I can't count the number of times I remember being a kid holding rice and flowers in my sweaty hand and praying for it all to end so I could throw my flowers, end the pooja and go eat. I am so glad our kids are having this experience."

Flip's Morning Out

It is not often we get the chance to spend time with Flip alone.  So on Saturday when Star had a creative writing workshop at school Marvel and I took Flip to a new park in the city.  Flip is quite the biker now, reminds me of her big sis, so we packed her bike in the back of our little Zen and took it along. She had a great time cruising along on the dirt path around the park.

When she became tired of biking we began exploring the old fountains which don't contain much water anymore- mostly weeds and trash, but their edges made great balance beams.  And honestly the tile on the old fountains looks better than the tile on our own Sankalp Pool.

We also came across a gazebo up on a hill.  It was perfect- in the shade and high enough to catch the breeze.  Flip immediately decided it was perfect for dancing so Marvel pulled out his phone and put on some music.  The three of us had a great time just dancing and laughing.  And then... I looked up at the houses surrounding the park.  There were folks out on most balconies looking down at us. So I did the only thing a cultural ambassador could, I waved and continued dancing.  Soon two cute kids came to join us. Vinod dresses in a polyester brown suit and Puja was still in her white school uniform happily looked almost like a little bride and groom heading towards us.  Well, western style bride and groom.  They joined in and we danced until we were tired.  We all gave a bow and a wave to our audience and kept moving around the park.

In the middle of the park is this great statue of Gandhi-ji and Salt March. Later that night at bedtime, the girls and I had a great conversation about Gandhi-ji. I loved listening to Star describe to Flip about the Salt March.

We spent a long time just standing and admiring.

And then we found more fun.  A cement slide on the way out.

This is what living is all about.  Just being together and having fun.  We are so so lucky to have this chance to live in Mysore.  Sometimes I could just pinch myself.  

Chicken Foot

There is this great alley with veggie and fruit vendors that my friend Bhanu showed us. If you can make it past the ladies shucking peas and beans and pleading for you to buy them, you are in. The produce is fresh with a ton of variety. And because you are dealing one on one and I happen to be a white lady with 2 daughters of varying skin tones they remember me. I have built somewhat of a working relationship with the vendors. But I think today I put that relationship to the test.
Flip and I visited the mango stall today. Mangoes are almost out of season so we are buying and eating like mad. We eat 3kg in 2 days. Yes, it is a little sick. As we walked up to the stall I heard a sweet little kitten mewing. I had see this kitten the time before and I was glad it was still hanging out. As I got closer though I realized what the kitten was mewing about. The mango vendor had a chicken foot in his hand. A real life, cut off chicken foot. Now people, I can barely walk past the meat section in the grocery store. I close my eyes or look away until all that flesh is out of view. I could not contain my ewwws and yucks. I tried to look the other way but movement in the air caught my attention. The man had thrown a nice arc and there was the chicken foot moving through the air and the kitten sitting on its back legs was eagerly awaiting its prize. They had done this before.
The man laughed at my wrinkle up faced and asked,"ennu beku?" and proceeded to rinse his hands with some water. I still wanted my mangoes but I definitely did not want his chicken foot hand all over my fruit. So I did the only thing I could think of. I pulled out hand sanitizer and asked, "hakuthira?" and before he could respond I squirted an extra large squeeze right into his palm and gestured for him to rub vigorously. He spent most of his time smelling it.
But the good news is he still sold me my 3kgs. Hoping he doesn't cut me and my weirdness off.