Post-script

So it has been more than 9 months gestation for us in India :) Time to take stock. Why wait for a year? 

How has the move been? A rollicking success, I'd say. There were teething troubles yes, in the first couple of months, when nothing was getting done. Vodafone screwed up, as did Airtel. We couldn't install cable. We followed up for several weeks just to get a couple of mattresses that we had ordered, delivered. The stuff we shipped from the US was delayed by 2 months. It was burning hot. Tempers ran very high! It was inevitable that I ended up comparing at that point the silky smoothness of our transition to the US, where utilities were up and running in a day, and it took one trip to Target to get our home up and running. 

But after the initial and I have to admit, expected startup issues, it has been a breeze. Probably since we weren't away from India all that long, we didn't come back with a lot of excess baggage in terms of unrealistic expectations.Probably since we really really wanted to come back, the road seemed smoother. Probably since S thinks India is the market to be in, he has been stoic about some really lousy working conditions. Probably all of the above. Net net, we are loving Delhi, kids have adjusted well and didn't fall ill (a big concern of mine) and we are reaping the substantial benefits of grandparents and family being a short flight away. We get to attend weddings, get groceries, veggies, medicines and diapers home-delivered, order library books and toys over the phone, celebrate festivals India-style, shop in Delhi's fantastic markets and gorge on street food whenever we feel like it.

It hasn't been all hunky-dory, of course, especially my domestic help situation - but that's India. You take the chillies with the jaggery :)

More friends are moving back in the next couple of years and that feels good!

r2i so far

It's been a while since I wrote. So much has been happening in the last two months that time has been at a premium. Updating my blog has been the last thing on my mind. We left the USA on 26th February. The last week was a whirlwind of packing, unpacking and re-packing, cleaning (the apartment), saying goodbyes, attending farewell dinners and ticking off the million other things on our to-do list. I was extremely stressed. We finally ended up with 6 pieces of luggage, a car seat, a stroller, a backpack and a laptop bag - all to be transported with us on Cathay Pacific. S rented a large SUV which took us to the airport. Carting ourselves to the airport and returning the rental car to Hertz was probably the last DIY activity that we performed in that land of the independent individual.

I hadn't had the time to stress about how the kids would behave on the looong flight to India, but they surpassed my wildest expectations. Truly, they were good as gold. They slept a lot on the flight and the whining and grumbling and crying was at the absolute minimum. So when we landed at Chennai airport, we were tired (who wouldn't be?), but in a decent mood. The body clock adjusted to IST in just one day and two days later, we had embarked on the mandatory temple visits to Tiruverkaadu and Tirupathi.

Tirupathi, where we went to get Y's head shaved, was a torment, as it always is. Every time I go there, the only praying I do is to wish that this is the last time I visit, and perhaps my prayer will come true this time. 

A week after we landed, S's parents organized a large get-together of the extended family, so that everyone could meet the kids. It was held on the ground floor of the apartments where they live, and it was a blast. 

Three days later, we were off to Delhi to hunt for schools and apartments. Ads will go to K.G in Kothari International School (Noida) and after a lot of hunting, we found a lovely 3-bedroom apartment in a large community in Noida. Everything is great except that the school is a 20 minute drive (one-way) from home, a slightly longer commute than we would have liked. The mistake was mine, I did not extensively research a couple of schools that would have been closer to this apartment. We shoould have interviewed with them too. Oh well.

S joined work a week ago and we flew back to Chennai, only to leave for Bangalore a few days later where I had hired packers and movers to empty our apartment and ship the furniture and kitchen stuff to Noida.

Back in Chennai now and we leave for Delhi in a week. My mom will accompany us to help us settle down, 

Whew.

The physical exhaustion is a given. The mental exhaustion, caused mainly by the horrifying realization that we have accumulated SO MUCH STUFF in the last ten years, is greater. The thought of shopping, or adding more stuff, is annoying, even disgusting. I've always enjoyed packing. The process of deciding what to keep and what to throw has always been mildly therapeutic. Unpacking, however, is a lot like opening Pandora's box! And I am not looking forward to doing this once we reach Delhi.
To sum up,  the relocation so far has been incredibly smooth. For this I am very thankful. Hopefully Ads will adjust well in the new school and S will also enjoy his new job. It will take time but we will get there.

Farewell to our minivan

So our beloved Mazda5 gets sold tomorrow and I am feeling uncharacteristically low about it. I really don't care much about cars, and know even less about their mysterious workings, but our lovely minivan has been a favourite. Is it any wonder considering that I have spent so much time driving around in it? We had a nice sedan earlier - a Hyundai Sonata. It got totalled in a crash and we upgraded to a minivan. We didn't want anything as large as a SUV (ugly and harder to maneuvre) but the Mazda struck the perfect balance between looks and comfort, convenience and aesthetics. Before anybody thinks I am moonlighting in a Mazda dealership, let me tell you what a cousin of S's told me a month ago when he peeked into my car. This is what he saw:

1. A stroller

2. A child's scooter and helmet

3. A bag of sand-toys

4. A rug for spreading on the sand/grass

5. A case of mineral water

6. Several bottles of Gatorade

7. A jar of hand and face disinfecting wipes

8. A box of tissues

9. A clear plastic case containing complete change of clothes for each kid, including spare shoes, jackets and caps.

10. 2 umbrellas

So clearly we are always well-prepared to sit out an earthquake or thunderstorm in the car. The only things missing are snacks and diapers, of which I always have a stock in my baby bag (which I always carry with me:))

Is it then surprising that I love the car -- I spend so much time in it that it's practically my second home!

S's cousin commented that I am well on my way to becoming the quintessential suburban soccer mom, which is exactly the thought that had been crossing my mind as well!

Horror of horrors!! Definitely time to leave this country :)

Why are you going back?

The immediate comeback question when I inform other desis (and unfortunately, many friends and family living in India) that we are r2i is "Why?". WHY? WHY? This has to be the second most irritating question after "What do you do all day?" (which also I encounter more frequently than I care for).

No, I am not a jingoistic flag-waving type who thinks all Indians should stay in India. In fact, I think that nationalism, and religion are both outdated concepts. (Hmm...I should do a post about this). But it amuses me that when we told people that we are moving to the USA, not one single person asked me "Why?". It's assumed that the westward movement must be for the good, but the eastward movement is somehow more suspect. Why would someone want to come back to the dust and grime and potholes of India, leaving behind the oasis of America, right?

I find we have created a certain amount of dissonance in some Indians who are straddling the fence, emotionally attached to India and longing to go back but not mustering the initiative to take the plunge. In many cases, it's too hard, and justifiably so. As one of our friends put it, he is "terrified of sinking back into a middle-class lifestyle in India". In many cases, one spouse is desperate to move back, but the other isn't -- so of course they never do. I completely get that everyone has their reasons for staying, even if that reason is intertia! But the constant questioning of our decision to go back is not something I enjoy.
So, whether in India or USA, we are resigned to smilingly (not) answer the "Why" question with; "We never intended to stay here long-term"!

Ads and r2i

There is a sense of relief now the the r2i decision has been made and we are moving to Delhi in a month or so. The uncertainity of the last few months has come to an end and I am even looking forward to experiencing a new city. As we make humungous to-do lists, sort and dispose of our stuff, call up Delhi brokers and schools, and explore shipping options, there is at the back of my mind an unease and anxiety which I know is only going to intensify over the next couple of months. You know that uncomfortable and nasty feeling that wells up from the pit of your stomach before an important exam or interview that you haven't prepared for, a feeling that makes you almost nauseous? There is only one person who can make me feel that way nowadays, and that is Ads. I am deeply anxious about how he will adjust in India, to a new school, friends and lifestyle. He knows we are moving but I'm not sure it has sunk in yet.

Maybe I'm over-protective about him because he is my first-born. Maybe I got so used to being anxious about him and his well-being, right from the time I saw those two dark-blue lines on the home pregnancy test, all through those not-so-pleasant months of my pregnancy where I prayed incessantly that my baby should be full-term and healthy. Maybe because he hates change, and disruption to routine. Maybe because he is so gentle and I fear he can't handle a big school and a strange environment.

So even though I am a logical reasonable person and I know that children are far more resilient that we give them credit for, I worry about him. I worry about this conscious decision of ours to uproot him from the loved and the familiar. I hate the thought of his first day in the new school, when he will cling to me and cry and beg me not to leave.

As a mother, I know that is a burden you have to carry all your life. A few years ago, I would scold my mother for worrying about me and my brother; but now all I feel is empathy.

As we move to yet another stage in our lives, I have my fingers crossed that it will be an easy journey for Ads.

R2I Part I - Schools

So the R2I (Return to India, for the uninitiated) decision has been taken. The hunt for schools and, incidentally, a job, has begun. Predictably, the state of affairs in Bangalore (and I am sure, in most other Indian metros) with respect to school admissions is so bad that the problem of LKG admissions assumes a strange sort of fake importance which overshadows the wee fact that the father of the LKG applicant doesn’t yet have a job which will take us back to India.

The not-so-exhaustive hunt for suitable schools led us to short listing the 2 schools that we will be applying to. The National Public School (NPS) and the Delhi Public School (DPS). The international schools are too pricey, some of the well-known ones are too distant, and (to my mind) elitist. The well-known Bangalore schools (like Bishop Cotton, FAPS etc) are too hard to get into, oversubscribed as they are by alumni’s kids and grandkids. There seem to be a lot of new schools which don’t fall into either of these categories and about which I read mixed reviews. Not being in a position to tour the schools and make up our own minds, we have fallen back on friend’s recommendations. Which have the drawback of being biased because absolutely everyone has jumped onto the NPS/DPS bandwagon. The one school that I was really interested in, a Montessori one called Sishugriha in Indiranagar, has closed admissions.

In any case, we had asked a friend to pick up the forms for NPS and they only managed to pick up one form, that of the Koramangala branch. Apparently the queues for picking up the forms were a km long! The whole experience seems to have been an unpleasant one, and what I don't understand is why all this hype and exclusivity just to apply. Stanford and Wharton are highly exclusive too, but even they don't make it so hard for a candidate to apply to them! Why not just put the forms online and make it easy for everybody? More people will be able to download and apply and the school will make more money out of this unholy racket!

So, we'll apply and hope Ads gets in, simply because the school is so close to our apartment in Bangalore. It will be a breeze of a commute for the little fella.