Bijli ki Rani (Queen of Lightning)

So walking through the market some boys say something to me in Hindi. I ask Somvir, our driver, what they said.

He looked uncomfortable and then slowly and carefully said, They said you were "more pretty."

Eve-teasing in India is idiosyncratic and flirtatious street sexual harassment. Here is an entire site devoted to cataloging Indian terms for women (They have a whole section devoted to singing flirts, "If you have been sung to and felt threatened/ 'harassed' or even amused--email us at....) Most Western women who come to India (and I assume most Indian women as well at some level) have to deal with it incessantly.

In India, flirting is complicated. To unpack Indian courtship--street side or drawing room style--requires a lot of background. The unrelenting images of aspirational repressed sexuality in Bollywood films coupled with the nearly complete physical separation of men and women and further coupled with maternal idolatry and paternal parochialism is all further complicated by rigidly internalized gender roles and expectations. Seriously, complicated.

So, when these Indian boys say something to me in the market square that amounts to the idea that I am more pretty, I wonder what is going on here. In On Flirtation, Adam Phillips write, "Flirting allows us the fascination of what is unconvincing. By making a game of uncertainty, of the need to be convinced, it always plays with, or rather flirts with, the idea of surprise." Now, I suspect these boys would be extremely surprised if their flirting amounted to anything. In fact, I believe they would be positively freaked out it they garnered any response beyond reproach.

However, the surprise goes both ways. A bit later, after consulting the Hindi-English dictionary three times, Somvir clarified to say that they said that I was a "lightening bolt of pretty." Okay, putting aside how annoying and occasionally stressful this stuff is, I have to say, what a great comment. If flirting is trying to control uncertainty, then the metaphor of lightning reveals how haphazard and imprecise the game is. (Also they don't realize all the ways that flirting with me really is like flirting with disaster; the space between electrifying and electrocuting is small, but important.) Woods tells us that, like Tantalus, the flirt is a little bit of a sado-masochist: the tantalized and the tortured. Opening up the space of possibility means that impossibility gets a seat at the table too. You have to acknowledge their tenacity: in the face of so much rejection, these guys still try and try and try.

***

So after all this Zazie asks what is going on.

L: Did you hear that? Mommy is more pretty.

Z: More pretty than me?

L: No way, you are as pretty as a princess.

Okay, I am kind of baiting her here, though only a little I think.

She immediately starts crying. Big tears.

L: Whats wrong?

Z: I just don't like princesses Mommy, really.

L: Well, what do you think is the prettiest thing in the whole entire world?

She pauses for a really long time, thinking....slowly she says: A nice, washed car.

L: Zazie you are prettier than a nice washed car.

It may be that the best compliments stem from those very idiosyncratic terms that we come up with for ourselves, somewhere between compliments and harassment, between lightning bolts and Lightning McQueen.

Invitations

Maybe I am just trying to stir up trouble, but our driver clearly does not want to invite us over to his house.

See, Usha has been to her driver's house at least three times, not including two visits to the Babaji with his mom and one playdate with his sister's kids. On this last visit, while at his house, my driver's mom came over and invited her to her house.

Part of the reason might be because I asked if he knew where we could get cow milk in Sonipat for Zazie. His response was coy to say the least: "Actually ma'am, my mother and brother bought one cow yesterday and..." And then, he stopped short. He didn't want to give the milk up. I could tell. But I pressed. I mean, at least for the kid. So now, on most days he brings us one liter of cow's milk. Except sometimes he doesn't. "We drank it all ma'am. So good."

Taunting me with the relative tastiness and preciousness of your cow's milk is one thing. But this is India, where we are party to unrelenting and occasionally hostile hospitality. I may take some of your cow's milk, but I still should get a freaking invitation.

A note:

Somvir,

What gives? I saw you buy five kilos of giant red carrots to make halwa, so I know your family knows how to party. Just invite us over. I won't let Zazie eat your two year old niece and I will even wear a bindi for your mom.

Signed,

Lacey Madam.

The truth is I am cozying up to his family because I feel like they are our best shot at getting an invitation to a village wedding. Every other night we hear the dhol (drums) playing and imagine the dancing and the yummy food. One time, the bharat (the groom's procession to the bride's house; basically three hours of nonstop dancing in the streets) went right by our house. Forlorn, we just mimed a few dance moves from behind the curtains while trying not to make eye contact with anyone on the street.

I sort of thought that ingratiating ourselves into the villager's lives would be easier.

At my driver's suggestion, I took up classic Indian "morning walks" around Sushant City, our colony. This means you greet the dawn on the pavement, usually in sandals with socks and matching track suit. For three weeks, I have been getting up before the sun and heading out (though sadly, not in the requisite uniform).

I have written before about how magical the Indian dawn is. The area is bustling with activity. I jog passed multi-passenger motorcycles, Southpoint or Bright Scholars or Apollo International lemon yellow school buses, and Haryanan ladies carrying gigantic bowls of buffalo dung (chula) on their head (they use it for fires and for fertilizer). The pre-dawn cricket games are wrapping up and children are dragging buckets of water home.

I think I am making some headway.Two five year olds running in flip flops passed me twice this morning. Then the milkman circled around me on his bicycle saying, two rounds madam? Or one round? Finished when? How much milk? Then I saw Ashleigh and Jonathan's driver on his way to their house and the nighttime guard heading home. And one of the chula ladies smiled at me.Things are feeling cozy and increasingly friendly.

Though last week when I returned from my walk, the supervisor guard--a creepy guy that waves to me every single time I look up from the kitchen window--came up to me to say that I should be careful because some of the "villagers have dirty minds." His suggestion was that I take his phone number, or better yet, let him accompany me on my walks. At that moment the only thing that seemed worrisome was him. I mentioned this to Vik, who first said "who watches the watchmen, who guards the guards...' and further creeped me out. But then he told Usha, Usha told her driver, her driver told my driver and together they offered to "bash him." Usha said plainly, "no bashing." Instead they just told him not be so "pally" with me.

He stopped waving.

Now he salutes.

See no weevil

Upon our departure for India, I had one image in my mind: long, uninterrupted days of baking bread and playing with Zazie.

Baking works out sometimes. The truth is, things are going to turn out only so well because we have a toaster oven. Still, I keep trying. This morning, however, while sifting ingredients to make buttermilk biscuits, I found many weevils in the flour, microscopic wheat colored worms. At first I thought it was some leftover unprocessed flour or rice grains. Then they started to move. This must be the reason so many cereals and flours in India have warnings that read: transfer product to airtight container to avoid infestation. This was last of the five kilos of flour, not the first: two loaves of bread, yeast rolls, two batches of pizza dough, flour tortillas, three batches of fruit muffins, cream scones, maybe more. Cowboys used to chase their weevils with a shot of vodka. After this morning, I kind of feel like I need a drink.

In the same time that it took to bake up five kilos of flour, something likewise appeared in the belly of my child. She turned into liquid will, pure aggravated humanity. There is no issue too small to make her ignite into flames; no detail too insignificant to push the full force of her being into the pits of hell. Her eyes hollow out and she speaks in tongues. The lights flicker. This morning I thought, could it be the weevils? Were tiny grain grubs sifting through her blood, turning her into the devil-baby at Hull House?

Jane Addams suggested that the devil-baby myth appeared to tame “recalcitrant husbands and fathers.” As if inventing mythical domestic punishments was the only salve to “subdue the fiercenesses of the world” that surrounded powerless mothers and wives against prurient mates. But, Vik always brings his pay envelope home unopened and appears to be tempted only by golden age comic books and diet pepsi.

Because his mother dreamed of strawberries when she was pregnant, the hero of Henry Fielding’s 1742 novel Joseph Andrews, is born with a strawberry shaped birthmark. In the 17th and 18th centuries, maternal imagination, not paternal indiscretions, was believed to be so strong that, when pregnant, a woman’s mind, longings, dreams and imaginations “marked” the child in the womb.

Lately, I have been wondering what my maternity might have bore as I dreamt while pregnant. Maybe I dreamed of a world where shoelaces are always different lengths or where soap melts faster than it can be turned into plastic whale food or where my glass of water is always too big or too small. Perhaps it was a chimera of toys that are always missing the last crucial piece, the phantoms of blocks that just will not stack, or maybe, just maybe, a bogeyman that always picks exactly the wrong shirt. Did my dreams--my maternal hallucinations--mark my child? Is this my punishment for eating nothing but french fries and lemonade for nine months straight? Did I watch too much experimental film? What is going on? Why didn’t anyone warn me? When will it end?

Melaing

It took us four and a half hours to drive 88 miles today (or 142 kilometers if that is easier for you.) We went to Hisar, Haryana to visit three of Vik's paternal aunts, or buajis. The only Hisarian attraction we could identify was the National Research Centre on Equines. We spent the visit eating a massive lunch, talking about how it took four and a half hours to get there and having a nap. Then we drove home.

On the way we were stuck in the middle of a village mela. Mela is Sanskrit for "fair" or "gathering." Our driver translated it as "buffalo contest." I hope you don't have claustrophobia, because thousands of buffalo with glossy, black coats and colorful harnesses met our gaze in every possible direction, cramming the already narrow market lane. Historically, agricultural fairs were spectacles of masculine labor and production. In that spirit, the buffalo herds were led by thousands more buffalo herders, also clamoring for space on the tiny street.

Apparently, last year, our driver's uncle's prizewinning buffalo won the family one lakh of rupees (a bit more than $2000) and 32 kg of milk (about 8 and half gallons). I don't exactly know why it would be a prize to win buffalo milk at a buffalo mela, but I was very impressed with the amount.

On the way Vik photographed eicher red, ford blue, ox blue, and mahindra red tractors. Like tin toys, these slow moving tank-like three wheelers slowly circumnavigate Haryana villages day and night, slowing traffic and leaving a trail of tori flowers and betel leaf packets.

Later, like something out of Borges, there was a long line leading into an impossibly small building, entitled Clearinghouse for Accidental Jobs.

Always the warning sign juggernaut, Zazie was delighted to see the first real stoplight we have seen in all of India.She did not even seemed phased that the red light and two green arrows pointing in opposite directions were all blinking at the same time. At an Indian traffic light, everyone wins.

At our own Auntie Mela, no one could figure out why it took us so long. We were puzzled too, but because we couldn't figure out how we made such good time, considering.

The Funky

Yesterday, we went into Sonipat City to finally get an ATM card from our new Indian bank. After being told that it was not possible (because it was the wrong branch, because it was Saturday, because we just couldn't) and about thirteen phone calls passed between straight-faced administrators, we walked out with an envelope that contained not only our bank card, but also the pin! I think many people would be willing to endure a short 45 minute haggle in exchange for instant debit card and pin access.

Wait.

You mean the card won't be activated until when?

(For a full description of what this looks like, see the blog description of the same experience a few days prior by one of Vik's colleagues. )

Well, I didn't actually expect the process to be either easy or to turn out right, so no disappointment here.

However, taking these characteristically low expectations to another venue had more promising results a bit later in the day.

When we entered Jaweb Habib's Salon we had no idea that we were visiting India's leading hair and beauty franchise. I mean, it looked a little like Supercuts, but only because it was kind of cramped and it managed to be simultaneously under- and over-staffed. Since the day when I went to the fancy salon at the Taj Hotel in Mumbai and had a lady gnaw at my ponytail until it fell lifeless to the ground and then announce she was done, I tend to expect the worst at these places.

Vik's (V) encounter with the guy cutting his hair (GCHH) went something like this:

V: Hi, I need to get my hair cut, but...english, english, english, english, language, english, more english, yada, language, language, words, words, words, yada.

GCHH: Hindi, hindi, hindi, hindi, language, language, more hindi. Trim?

V: Yes.

GCHH proceeded to cut the upper back of V's hair and then continued by just brushing the front into an incredible 80's boufant. Luckily he left the bit in the lower back to give him a slight mullet. Oddly, V doesn't look the least bit worried. As he brings out some deadly pomade, GCHH thinks he must be doing well--even great, but in reality V took his glasses off and is completely blind to the mess.

I chime in and say, Maybe a little shorter in the back?

GCHH: Short? You want the short?

Me: Yes. Then, to Vik: I guess? Right?

V: I have no idea.

GCHH keeps brushing and brushing and trims the mullet off. The pomade comes out again and Vik looks a little like an extra puffy Remington Steele.

GCHH: Bas! (Hindi for Enough!)

V puts on his glasses and starts messing with the top of his hair, trying to get it to lay flat, or go forward or or less backward, or anything less horrible, undoing all GCHH's laborious (and glorious) brushing technique.

GCHH looks scornful and then, slowly opens his eyes. He clearly has had an epiphany. He says, You want the funky?

V looks worried.

I jump in and say, Yes! He wants the funky!

Then for 200 rupees Vik gets the best haircut he has had in five years.

It is called The Funky.

Thus, we are now empowered with a pin number and the tripartite division of men's haircuts, The Trim, The Short, and The Funky.

Oh wait, actually, the pin number looks vaguely like a digital clock that has no power and self-destructs after five attempts.

Drunkards and Chainsmokers

Just riding in a car in India is dangerous. Driving verges on the surreal. On Sunday, we had to swerve around a giant elephant crossing the national highway and then almost slammed into a horse-cart.

Luckily, it appears that the university will pay for us to have a driver.

Great.

A few weeks prior to getting our car, our smiley and adorable security guard, S****l, asked in broken english if he could be our driver. We thought we would give him a chance. So for a week (while we waited and waited for the car purchase to be sorted) he sat outside of our house, with a fresh driver haircut wearing his civilian clothes, waxing poetic to his junior entourage, and otherwise polishing his motorcycle for hours and hours. He would just sit on it in the driveway and fake-drive.

Fake-driving is something I am a bit of an expert in as Zazie has perfected the skill.

Vroom.

A few days after that our maid, G**ta, comes in and asks if her husband, K****n, can be our driver. She says that he is a very good person, not a "drunkard" or a "chainsmoker" and very trustworthy. I tell her that S****l asked first and that we are going to give him a chance.

Finally Vik goes into Delhi to pick up the car and S***l comes too. The car is delivered after much hassle. Vik gives S***l the keys. S***l looks like he is going to throw up. White knuckles grab the keys and cold sweat sits in the drivers seat. He grinds the gearshift around like a mortar in a pestle. He hits a curb and makes a point of never reversing, he leaves the radio on static, and doesn't adjust his seat or any mirrors, just straight ahead across six lanes of Indian traffic to a fuel station. He pulls into the most convenient petrol pump, and the attendants laugh and point him to a diesel pump, not quite as convenient. He pulls the car up about three feet from the diesel pump at an awkward angle facing the pump. Instead of backing out he turns the wheel as sharp as he can as he heads for the pump and then back into traffic. The steady din of horns become more unsteady and confused, and for the first time, Vik sees the other cars not as a chaotic swarm but a complex hive, with every car swerving in coordination with every other, mostly swerving around his own vehicle. Within a kilometer, Vik asks Sunil (or at least thinks of asking), Do you know how to drive?

At that very moment at home, K***l, Usha's driver is telling Usha and I that S***l has never driven before and just that he "fancies" driving, everyone in the village knows. The WHOLE village is worried for our lives.

When they arrive at our door step, I walk out to greet them and Vik looks green. I don't even see the new car. I grab Vik and say, K***l said S***l can't drive. Vik says, I can confirm that.

That night we make sure S***l can still work as a guard and then sack him (via translator). Firing someone via a translator is awesome. I just look sympathetic and sweet and they (poor Usha) take the heat. S***l is dejected. He is probably thinking that he should have let the dragon stay in the boot room.

While not a driver, we conclude that S***l is--like a peanut butter enthusiast or a calculator enthusiast--more like a "driving enthusiast."

Supervisor-ji the head security guard, agrees that S****l is a nice boy, but no he can't drive at all, he's just fond of cars. With that, he offers to find us another driver. We mention that G***ta had volunteered K***n. Supervisor-ji says, no, no, he will find the best driver, a straight-laced, over-30 non-smoker from the village, as good as his own son (who is Usha's driver K***l by the way; nice guy, but prone to smirking. Vik said he seemed a little too amused seeing S***l pull in).

The next day, Driver No. 2, S###r turns up, adorable, smiley library science graduate. He looks nice. He speaks a little English (which is 100% more than S***l) and claims to have been driving for eight years. So we give him a try. He shows up on time, tries to get a little leeway on his hours ("for the gym") and drives forwards and backwards (again, one direction more than S***l). It seems that things are settled. Great.

No.

This morning our maid, G**ta, comes in looking grave, sallow and very sad. She tells me something in complete confidence (you won't tell anyone will you?) that our driver is a "very third class character." She says that his character is no good and that he is a "defaulter." She implies that he is a womanizer. She says her husband knows this about him--that the whole village knows about him--and that because Lacey Madam is such a good person she had to tell me. She apparently stayed up the whole night worrying about us. Her husband said he didn't think we would believe her. She was very grave--like Aunt Sharon telling us about the night the Crazy Purple Lady died one rainy night in the country--big eyes, low voice, long pauses. Then she begs me not to tell anyone in the village. Because this boy will come to her house and try to fight vigilante style. The moment is portentous. I have goosebumps just thinking about this third class character in our Ford Fusion weaving in and out of traffic, eve-teasing and defaulting. Really, chills. Then she throws in that S***l was a ganja chainsmoker and drunkard and it is very good we gave him the boot.

So then I tell Vik about this and he tells me that he has been reading a lot about real vigilante justice and honor killings in the Jat communities of Haryana (which includes our local village). He says, we should take any threat seriously. Then I really get goosebumps.

So what to do? Who to trust? Who to believe What to do? One of the women in our village (um Ashleigh, another colleague-sort here) questions G**ta's impartiality. She thinks that we should ask her again while making clear that we will never hire her husband. She asks whether it could just be a matter of S###r not being part of K***n and G**ta's trusted inner-family.

S###r picked up Vik today and as the Ford Fusion pulled out Vik saw K***l in the rear-view mirror smiling mischievously again. On the drive home, he confirms that S###r can drive, that he is in fact a proud Jat, that he knows K***l well, and that at the casual mention of G**ta and K***n, he jumps in that their names don't ring a bell.

Usha asks her maid, D***a (who has a rivalry with G***a and is somehow related to K***n) about S###r , she says that if there were any rumors going around about him (or anyone in the village) she would be the first to know. Supervisor-ji guarantees he has watched him grow up from childhood, and he is first class (not third class). The guards outside say that they will keep their eye on him and drive us anywhere in an emergency. All we are able to confirm is that everyone in the village has prior dealings with everyone else, and no one is neutral about anyone. And in the never ending soap opera of the village, we're the newest characters.

Time and Milk

Khoya (or khoa or khova) is milk that has been reduced to one fifth of its original volume. It kind of resembles something between ricotta cheese and home made play dough. It is used to make Indian sweets (particularly burfi, gulab jammun, and halwa). It took me about two hours and a half to turn two litres of milk into khoya the other day. Like in a trance, I stirred and stirred until my forearms ached, then I stirred until I could feel the arthritis I am sure to get, then I stirred some more. A few days prior to this, I made desi (or usli) ghee. This involved skimming the cream from the milk for two weeks, turning the cream into yogurt, whipping the yogurt into butter, and then slowly heating the butter so that all the casein and liquid evaporates and the butter is clarified. Agitating something for hours is busy work.

We finally got our car today. We started the process on September 21. It is October 24. However, it was only in the last week that things started happening.

Monday:

We demand that the car be delivered.

We don't have the color you want.

Give us another color.

Okay, we will drive it out to you first thing in the morning.

Tuesday morning:

We don't have payment.

[Call accounts, where is the check?]

Okay, you need four signatures on this check? You have how many?

One.

Tuesday afternoon:

Can you take a check that is half signed.

Okay, okay, no problem. We will bring the car today.

Wednesday morning:

You didn't bring the car.

Car? What car? That car has been sold.

Wait. Didn't we just buy it from you?

Actually, we haven't received the car from Jaipur. It is on a truck. It will be delivered first thing tomorrow morning.

Wednesday night:

Still, no payment sir.

[Call accounts, where is the payment, oh great, you got a second signature.]

Thursday:

Do you have the car? Do you have the check?

Don't worry about the check. We will work out something, as for the car...it has been detained outside the city. There are no trucks allowed in the city during business hours. Tomorrow, tomorrow.

Friday:

Tell me is the car on its way?

No, no sir, no payment.

Are you planning to sell me a car?

Of course.

[Calling accounts] Are you actually going to send payment?

Right now.

Friday night:

Where is the car?

Car? What car?

Saturday morning, at the dealership, in Delhi, with Sunil, our security guard-cum-driver in tow:

Hi, I want my car.

No problem. Here are the keys.

[Within seconds of pulling out, the car stalls, and we drive over a curb.]

Excuse me, Sunil, do you actually know how to drive?

Koi baat nahin (it doesn't matter, don't worry).

Saturday evening (the present):

Sunil, I am sorry, but you cannot be our driver.

Koi baat nahin.

In our driveway, our new car is parked, like a ghost in time for Halloween. The power is out. The single lamp from the kitchen haunting it from above. I kind of drove it around the block. My rusty standard transmission skills seems good enough, but the left side of the road is disorienting.

Steeped in the long tradition of women with an excess of time and milk, I am no longer satisfied with merely making cheese and curd and buttermilk. I am not sure if I need increasingly complex recipes or maybe just those that take a very long time. Either way, I need more practice. The ghee was burnt and the khoya was runny. The car sits there. Even after hours and hours of agitation, after constantly moving, even while standing in place, I see that neither patience nor will are enough to turn circles into spirals, to turn milk into manna.

Coffee and Cigarettes

So it is 4:30 in the morning and I just fluffed my hair.

I just woke up. I woke up to sit in my dark house, alone, in front of the computer, listening to a miscellaneous professor at a miscellaneous university talk at length about some miscellaneous detail in my miscellaneous degree.

But none of that matters.

What matters is that as soon as I woke up, I walked to the kitchen to make coffee and looked out my curtainless window across the dark plains to see a lone orange cinder and a shadow, burning like a firefly just outside my window.

That was when I fluffed my hair.

I have written a few times about the fact that the university has provided each of the professors with 24 hour security service. Let me elaborate. We have a boy (hopefully, at least 18 years old) who sits outside of our house from 7am to 7 pm. Come 7pm his (only slightly) older brother (or perhaps, cousin?) shows up for the 7pm-7am shift. It is this slightly older boy who smokes. And it was his lit cigarette that greeted me so early this morning.

Oh, Man. Someone. Is. Out. There.

Okay, get it together. Fluff hair, scrub drool from cheek, pull pajama pant leg down. Shake it off.

...I am not fooling anyone.

I stumble in the middle of the night looking for the filter coffee and look like a first year acting student trying to pantomime "making coffee" for her class. Suddenly I am overwhelmed by self-consciousness.

Take the coffee out of the cabinet. Put it on the counter.

Take the milk from the fridge. Put it on the counter.

Find a spoon. Where is the spoon. What is a good, "I can't find a clean spoon face?" Better, make the "Aha, here is a clean spoon" face instead.

Oh no, spilled some coffee on the counter. "Look" around. Find a dish rag. Gently shovel the spilled coffee into the sink.

Honestly, the thought crosses my mind, Make it more believable. I try harder. Making coffee, making coffee, what is it the humans do? How would a human wait for it to brew? And for the first time in about fifteen years, I twirl a lock of hair. "Waiting."

The little orange cinder moves away.

I realize that he has gone behind the security shed to pee. All it takes to turn yourself into an object is to cast a shadow, to be visible.

Maybe he is "peeing" instead. His shadow is definitely up to something.

Maybe we are doing a self-conscious dance where we exchange quotation marks, lurking from behind them, longing for privacy, for security, for comfort in our own skin. So, instead of these things we get windows, but no curtains; shadows, instead of men (or women), and quotation marks instead of... well, instead of coffee.

Bedtime Story Help: Mother Nature's Button Room and Rabelais

For a few weeks, I have been telling Zazie this story at night before she goes to bed. She loves it and repeatedly requests for me to tell her a little more about Mother Nature's Button Room. However, it has taken a surprising turn of events and I have no idea how to continue it.

Suggestions?

Each of these events is a story in itself. This is just the cosmological gist:

Mother Nature has a shed, a big one. In this shed there are thousands of buttons, lever, gears, toggles and switches. Every possible surface is covered with a dial, knob, tuner, or adjuster of some kind/

Each device controls one aspect of nature. Push a button and the autumn leaves change color, another and some baby elephants are born. Pull down a lever labelled "a/c" and the summer breeze begins.

However, like all mechanical devices, somethings things get mixed up.

Like the time that the pipes to the duck eggs and the alligator eggs got switched. Or the time that Mother Nature's naughty niece visited and covered the whole of northeastern Malta with stargazer lillies. It seemed like an improvement at first, but after a few days the stench was something terrible.

Well, it turns out that there is a little door, hidden in a dark corner near the agricultural section, near the maize and soybean buttons, that is locked. And if you lie on the floor and close one eye you can peek through the keyhole. This is the secret door where Mother Nature keeps the rainbows. All we see are the rainbows' shadows. No one know where Mother Nature keeps the key or knows why she locks them up.

This is where I stopped. Any promising suggestions...?

For Halloween, I think I am going to work on a toddler version of Rabelais' "Island of Tools."

I don't care if Barack Obama just won the Nobel Peace Prize, we are keeping the yoga mat.

Zazie is blogging today. Here is what she had to say:

Dear Ashleigh and Jonathan,

Thanks for dinner the other night. I don't know where you scored that little bag of green gold, but I will trade totally invite you over one night when my maid cooks dinner for the source of that basil. I didn't want to tell you at the time, but I was sneaking extra raw leaves under the table to munch in secret later. Also, my Mom's pockets are still full of pistachios looted from your house.

All of this is a long-winded way to say, sorry, I think we are going to have to keep the yoga mat. I didn't know it, but a yoga mat is the only thing that has been missing from my life. For some weeks now, I have needed a parking lot. And your yoga mat seems to really work for the purpose.

Do you see the cunning order and logic, the arrangement of color and form? Do you see the beauty of the light yellow yoga asphalt underneath? Notice the deft juxtaposition of the NYC taxi cabs and the Indian auto-rickshaw. There is even an small airport for emergency landings and take-offs. I like to think of myself as an artist. My medium is little cars and now realize that the only possible canvas for this work is your yoga mat.

Oh, and no, my Mom can't really reimburse you. Since you have made two trips to the international foods grocery store without even asking us if we needed enchilada sauce or cake sprinkles, she spent all of her money at the village grocery store.

She said we are going to have "pizza" tonight. I don't know why she said it with the little air quotes, but I know that instead of delicious, mouthwatering basil, she is going to make it with this stuff:

I hope it doesn't taste like the last cheese we bought there. I could barely finish my chiplet:

However, if you want to buy *me* a surprise, you can get one of these car-scented air fresheners:

I have already decided that I will name it Lorileia and you can get it at the car accessory shop in the village. As an artist interested in synesthesia, Lorileia would really heighten the experience of my work. I think I am ready to take my stuff to the next level.

Love,

Zazie

Making and Making Do

I just had to explain to Zazie why she could not really smear strawberry scented lip gloss ("itch cream for dolls") all over Cup-cup (a soft doll), no matter how urgent the surgical procedure. She nods solemnly and says, Because if we mess Cup-cup up, we can't get another one. Right, I think. (But luckily, we can always do more surgery.) But then I pause. Why can't she smear lip gloss all over her? I mean, poor Cup-cup spent the whole morning in Poison Ivy; she needs this stuff.

We've spent a lot of time try to escape commercialism, brazen consumerism, and all the trappings of letting marketing execs have all the fun, while we sit around and watch. It is almost working. She is just about convinced that we can make anything she needs and about once a day, she says coyly to herself while playing: Wow, did you buy that beautiful toy? No, I MADE it. Wow.

Then she promptly destroys/crashes/demolishes whatever it was and starts over (well not all over, there is always a little bit of starter she can re-use for the next operation). "Instruction" is her favorite game. That is her parapraxis for "construction." (Avital, I'm calling, but Vik thinks it is just a spoonerism...). Still, I do learn something each time she constructs her imaginary world. Am I naive to think that the more she "makes", the less she will "want"?

Anyway, for some time, I have thought we have been doing a pretty good job. But then we moved to India and frugality, recycling and deconstruction have each taken on heightened meaning.

In a different way, we have a garbage can half the size of the one in the US and it takes twice as long to fill it up. And if I weren't so afraid of the rats, we would be composting and then it would take even longer to fill up the can. Why should anyone care about the size of our garbage can? Because it is the space between our garbage--the space between the rotten food and the cereal boxes, literally, the compost and the paper lanterns--between the size of our garbage and our daily use, that our world is being made.

I am a (somewhat) reformed hoarder and squirreling things up for a rainy day project is second nature, but the scale of this is important. While we have less than ever before in our lives, we are using everything we have. E v e r y t h i n g is being used. And re-used. And operated on and repaired. So it isn't only the making, but the using that is so important.

I guess it isn't deconstruction that I mean, but rather phenomenology. The perception of the scale of our waste is what I want Zazie to understand. So when I say no, we can't replace Cup-cup, I mean that while we can't replace her, we can suture her wounds and remake her and reuse her and let her be. And even if she has other dolls--er, other patients-in-waiting--that she must take care of this one and care for it and to have a soulful relationship to her things that connects her to this wide, expansive world and hopefully, help her move towards wholeness, towards responsibility, and towards experience.

The super-super secret origin of Baby Num

This morning we were talking about what could possibly stop Zazie’s imaginary friend, Baby Num, from eating everything up (not only all the candy in Moppie and Poppie’s candy drawer, but also all the people and the buildings and the toys and the cars and tow trucks)? See, if Baby Num goes to jail, she eats up jail, if she goes to prison, she eats up prison and then if she eats too much prison and goes to the hospital, then she eats up the hospital.

So Vik said what is she afraid of?

Baths! Oh, but then she would just eat up the bath.

Maybe she could be held in an air prison, like a tornado. She can’t eat up air.

Yeah, but could swallow it. We could just put her on Moppie and Poppie’s front porch. The gate would hold her. She would never escape from there.

Prison can’t hold her, but Moppie and Poppie’s little white picket gate is foolproof. But then there would be all that access to the candy drawer.

Vik says, Zazie do you know what superheroes are?

Baby Num’s Daddy is a super hero and her Mommy is a Princess!

Of course, for Zazie, all princesses are arch-villains, so this is the perfect origin myth where the superhero and villain marry. Of course their spawn is Baby Num. Who else?

Well, then Baby Num’s Daddy’s name is Clark Kent.

You mean Clark Kent Clemson. Her Mommy’s name is Bef. But we did some paperwork and we had to change her name.

Yes, Clark Kent Clemson and Bef Clemson. Well Clark was born on a red star and was sent on a baby-sized rocket ship to earth.

And he had to bring all the Numbies with him, right? In his pocket?

And he was found in a corn field by a kindly couple called Ma and Pa Kent.

Can they be called Ma and Pa Ol’ Joe Clark? More paperwork.

They soon discovered Clark had superpowers. He could fly, stop trains, and run really fast.

Like a gnome? Gnomes have six times the strength of humans and can run really fast, especially if they ride express goose.

Um, yes, but Clark can also fly.

Ooh, they are flying gnomes. Clark is a fairy gnome!

Clark’s Mommy made him a costume out of his red and blue baby blanket and nothing could tear it.

Like my gnome, he wears red and blue. I think his clothes are made from trees.

Well, Clark’s earth Mommy said that he had to use his powers for good.

Like to be an animal doctor?

Or to help the police, like when they can’t stop a train from falling over. And Clark’s Mommy put an “s” on his costume, because they called him…

S Train! He is the S Train, and I am the A train! (Runs away looking for her NYC Subway t-shirts).

Yes, so Clark Kent Clemson, Baby Num's Daddy, is the gnome “S Train” (which is probably for the best, as we narrowly escape the introduction of another popular media character limiting Zazie’s irrepressible imagination). And we learn a little more about Baby Num.

Dust redux

Zazie is officially obsessed with our maid, Geeta. The University is paying for a cleaning service and that comes in the form of Geeta, a lovely, strong-willed, efficient and savvy woman who lives in the nearby village.

"Why is Geeta hanging our clothes out to dry in the wind?"

"Will she wash my subway shirt?"

"Why can't Geeta spend the night?"

"Why does she help us so much?"

"Will Baby Num eat Geeta?"

"I love Geeta so much I want to eat her up."

Granted, it is strange having someone in our house. But I don't think we could do it all by ourselves. We have shiny tiled floors and live in the middle of the dustiest place in the world. The landscape reveals a country full of shameless litterers, but we could eat off of the floors. (Though it only takes a few hours for the floors to be covered with a thin layer of dust and dirt. Not to mention crumbs, but that is the three year old who likes to see if we really can eat off the floors.)

Also, Geeta speaks a little English. So for about an hour each evening, we get closed captioning to the hidden-in-plain-view intimate world that surrounds us. She gives her perspectives on things like letting us know that the pots and pans the University gave us are cheap and will melt in the fire of the gas stoves, and that Usha's night time guard keeps falling asleep, and that the generic brand of window cleaner is basically useless, and that one time, when her Dad worked at a bank, they gave him a television for Diwali. She asks if she could take the jug that our cooking oil came in from the garbage and I give her all the green chilies that the guy at the farmer's market throws in to round up to a kilo. (She helped me make dal one night: the. spiciest. thing. I. have. ever. eaten.).

The other day, Zazie and I were reading a danish folktale, "The Wonderful Pot." In the tale, a very poor and starving man sells his last possession--a prized cow--for a talking three-legged pot. The pot runs to the stingy rich man's house and gets the wife the fill him up with pudding and then the pot returns to the poor man's house and they eat for the night. The second time, he is filled with enough wheat for the poor man's family to eat for years and the third time, the pot returns with all the rich man's gold and the poor couple become rich.

Part Robin Hood, part Sweet Porridge and part Jack in the Beanstalk (the pot ultimately abandons the rich man to the North Pole), I realized that this story--already a complicated tale about poverty, greed and benevolent thievery--is made virtually untenable by our fancy housing colony's proximity to this impoverished village in India. Our colony is only separated by a short concrete wall. On one side pavement and grass, on the other, dirt roads and garbage heaps. Geeta will sweep and mop and clean until all the dirt is gone, but she always leaves the back door open. The wall between her house and mine is small. And for all the efforts to make it feel like we are hermetically sealed in an aseptic world, the wind keeps us colliding into each other.

After reading the story, Zazie said, "Why is the pot going to steal our pudding?"

I blathered something like, don't worry as long as you are kind to people and generous, everyone will always have enough pudding.

This lie is as meaningful as that short concrete wall that separates their pot from our pudding, that sweeps their dust from our tiles. It is difficult to see my sweet baby grow into this complexity, to see my little girl who doesn't see those things yet, but yet still knows we are the ones with the pudding, that we are the one who could eat off the floors, but choose not to (most of the time).

Bonanza!

Recently, Usha and I--with kids in tow--bandied about town.

That isn't us.

Well, by town, I mean the little city that is near the little village that is a bit away from our little area. Driving anywhere in India is famously horrifying. However, I really encourage everyone to try it with two children neither of whom are in car seats.

No comments please. We are working the details out.

We were going to town for blood tests. Apparently, you have to give your blood type in order to get a student id in India. And also if your spouse or father works at a university, then you need to tell someone your blood type. The clinic was clean enough. Still, we just tossed our bloody cotton balls into an open garbage can full of miscellaneous hazard. We weren't too focused on that as promising Zazie palaces made of chocolate was paramount.

However the treasure trove came in the form of a random sewing shop. It was the end of our day. Usha took her baby to sit in the car and I made mine sit--patiently, patiently--as I "went bonkers" (her words, not mine). It was an Indian trim, lace and ribbon shop.

A little bit later the shopkeeper called me pagal (hindi for bonkers) when I asked for "cut" pieces of fabric (scraps) and dumpster dived into a huge vat of fabric pieces while twelve amused tailors looked on. I am telling you it was a crafter's dream. I am thinking of selling it by the pound as my new export business. I would too. Except I am too greedy. Also, I would feel guilty because I paid only 30 rupees (about 60 cents) for a pretty big bag. Crazy? Nahi. Crazy like a fox. (That is for you, Mimi).

Finally, I thought I would send a few pictures of our drive home so you can see the competing traffic:

Just add water

When we first moved into our house here, Zazie was set up in her very own room. We moved all of her clothes, her special blankets, a few of her important toys and bought her brand new sheets (blue and red, of course, her choice). Up to this point, she has had elaborate play areas, but no real "room" of her own. She said it was the prettiest room in the world. At least for the first three days. Then it rained for two days straight. And little Zazie's room turned to dust. Literally. A half inch of paint fur appeared on two of her walls. So we called the caretaker,who called the painter, who called his three best friends and then they all rode one motorcycle to our house (with a ladder, no less).

In addition to the ladder, the painter brought a little bag of dust (identical to the fur growing on Zazie's walls), a paintbrush and a scraper. He scraped off the dust. He then added some water and some fresh paint dust and made a watery, whitish liquid which he then applied in about forty-eight coats onto the wall (this took him all day to apply, hours and hours and hours). When he was ready to leave, you could still see the water stain through the many, many coats of "paint," though the wall looked smooth enough.

This was one of those moments when Vik and I just looked at each other and decided to let India be India. We kind of couldn't believe that they just painted it again, but they did. Now what? Because we haven't found an Indian assertiveness training seminar yet, we just gave the guy some chai and cookies and sent him home.

Two days passed.

In this time we did what any self-respecting parent would do to take care of this problem: we moved all of Zazie's things into our room, put her mattresses on the floor next to our bed and just waited for the paint to get furry again.

It did.

So we called the caretaker, who called the painter, who called his three friends, who rode the motorcycle, which carried the ladder and reenacted the whole scenario. Except this time the caretaker had a brilliant idea. They would add glue to the paint-ish liquid and then it would not come off. Really? Glue? Okay. Why not? Zazie now thinks our room is the prettiest room in the world and never wants to go back to that old room anyway (after just two days, mind you).

Everything goes exactly the same: the thin, watery goo, the hours and hours of successive coats, the chai, the cookies and the water stain still apparent upon departure. This time we are told that it puffed up because the air conditioner was too cold. We should leave the door to the back patio open and leave the air off for about three days.

Which we do. Though it is four billion degrees. AND though we know that there is a leak in the wall. Still, we leave the door open.

Three more days pass. We are to the present. Guess what? We have furry walls again.

Tonight, the caretaker comes to fix the gas cylinder for our stove again (a story I will not be telling in order to prevent our parents from freeeeeeking out) and I show him the wall. He says he understands. That, no, of course the baby should not sleep in here like this, the dust is so toxic, this must be very hard to live with everyday, so much trouble, yada, yada, yada. Then he says, "I know just what we will do! We will buy real paint and paint it. ASIAN paint. We will buy paint and we will paint it and it will be good. It will be perfect."

I am beginning to wonder if there is even a wall under all that dust.

All the student's arrive to the campus tomorrow. 66 students and their parents. What is going to happen? The problem here is that the university isn't exactly, um, well, built. We are told that all the doors should be on by tomorrow and most of the furniture put together. They have asked all the professors to come early, fresh-faced and ready for anything.

This is too real. I wonder if underneath this whole venture--the move, the job, the little root we are planting--there is nothing but more and more dust, held together by many coats of pure will and lots of labor.

We'll let you know in a few days, after the dust settles.

Does the dust *ever* settle?

Going Pagal with Prashad, Porn and Plasma Cars

This morning hit a high note for craziness here.

Prashad for Dragons

Yesterday, they found another enormous lizard (though not a dragon this time) in our driveway/foyer. So this guy, the dragon and a mud snake they found the first day makes three wayward intruders into our space. Now all the villagers have requested that we buy prashad (blessed food) and distribute it to all of the families in our colony to ward off any further visitors. Though, for what it is worth, our guard, Sunil, is clearly getting a lot of leverage from taking down so many reptiles. The guard supervisor asks for 101 rupees to go and take care of this errand. He comes back with a huge bag of little tiny fried laddoo pieces (tasted a little like funnel cake) and told me to take enough for myself, Professor-ji (that is Vik) and the baby. Then he gives some to Sunil and proceeds to go door-to-door offering prashad to everyone in the complex. My question is, are we being protected from the animals or are the rest of the community getting protection from us? Scarlet letter anyone?

Porn and Grinders

Then we went into town to do a few things and I wanted to buy a blender (grinders as they are called here). Usha's driver, Sonu, stopped at a place and went upstairs. He came back and indicated that they sell grinders. It was the end of our outing, and Usha stayed in the car with her baby and Vik stayed in the car with ours. I followed Sonu and we went up the narrowest and tallest staircase to find a room full of nothing but CDs and DVD. On a folding table was a pile of about ten blender/grinder/juicers in boxes combos stacked up. I only recognized one brand and asked to look at it. It still had juice on it. I said, "This is used." The merchant said, "Used, nahin, no, no, first rate." I asked to see another one and was clearly out of my depth. I asked Sonu to go get Usha from the car (of course, leaving Vik with two babies to try on for size). While I waited I looked to see if there were any movies we needed. I didn't recognize any of the titles. Actually everything was written in hindi script, I couldn't even say if I recognized anything. Well, Usha came, made the guy open and assemble two juicers, we picked the best one. As I retreated back to pull out my cash, Usha tells me that I am standing in the middle of the pornographic film section. I looked around and none of the video covers indicated anything too steamy. I guess I am naive, but I never thought about there being an Indian pornographic industry. I paid the man and as we left, Usha tells me that the whole store was selling only porn and grinders. That was their exclusive business.

Plasma in Mandarin

Finally we got home and had lunch. We have a state of the art kitchen and we had maggi noodles (Indian, top ramen). I did add a handful of frozen peas for color. The highlight for the day for Zazie was that we finally bought her a little car she can zoom around in the house. She has asked about a hundred times why we left hers in America. Each time we said we will buy her one here. Today we did. We got her a plasma car, a self-scooting ride-on toy. She is just too big for the little ride-on toys and she didn't want a pedal car. We described what we wanted. They didn't have it, but their "other store" did. A few minutes later a guy shows up with the thing and it seems fine, though very cheaply made and it has had this atrocious little cat toys on the front and seemed to light up and play music. For our family, this normally would have been a dealbreaker. Zazie has managed to reach three years old without owning anything battery-operated and most of her stuff is made of wood with colored with plant dyes. This toys looks like lead paint on wheels.

However, we have moved to India and sometimes it seems the whole country is made of plastic and is battery-operated and she is so heartbroken that we left her things in America and it is so hard to get out, to the right store, and then to find the thing you want, to bargain down for the price and then to actually pay for an item, and the heat and the kids and the drivers... that we decided to just get it. We finally got home and she sat down and the thing started playing all these songs in Mandarin-Chinese! A few minutes into playing with it, the music abruptly stops and the batteries roll on the floor. I guess, in their haste to put the batteries in, they neglected to put the battery cover back on and there is no way for them to stay in. Win-win, I say.

And that was just the morning.

Rhythms of our day

I am working hard to get into a good, predictable routine. I noticed that more than half of my blog entries either talk about Zazie being asleep, going to sleep or not sleeping. Clearly, I am preoccupied.

When we have days that ended like yesterday--with tantrums and tears and so much woe--I am reminded how exhausting and stressful an unpredictable, irregular day can be for me. I can only imagine how tough it is on a three year old.

Ever since Zazie was born I have tried to create stable rhythms for our day. Sometimes it works and sometimes it just isn't reasonable. At first it was just trying to get on some kind of regular eating and sleeping schedule. Later it became more complicated as I tried to introduce different activities or outings. Now I think I was originally on the right track working on eating and sleeping rituals. I have to remember that she really loves to be at home, being at home provides a deep sense of security she doesn't get from shifting hither and dither.

Today, we called up a daily routine that we have been on (and off) for most of the two years (mostly off, for the last couple of months). And you could just see in her whole body a sign of relief, as if she just could not wait to just go on auto-pilot. After lunch she had a routine nap. Then we had a routine walk (some pictures from the walk around our little colony are below). And the day ended with a routine dinner, routine bath and routine bedtime.

Going to bed was so relaxing. We snuggled. I read a newish story that seems to be a Danish riff on Grimm's "Sweet Porridge" that made her laugh so hard she almost fell off the bed. Apparently, talking pots are hilarious. Then I told her the story of the three Hindu goddesses that are being celebrated right now for Navratri: Sarasvati, Durga and Lakshmi. She was excited to hear that Durga was so brave that she wasn't even scared of the dark. Then I sang her goodnight song, the same goodnight song that I have sung at every bedtime for more than two years called "All the Pretty Horses." Then I turned the lights out. There was not a single request for more candy/books/milk/toys or anything. Well, sort of. We are working on getting back to our early bedtime. So the lights were turned out at 7:15 p.m., but the mouth didn't really close until nearly nine, but it wasn't working hard to find excuses to get out of bed.

Her body was so cozy and relaxed, she did not even seem to mind resting. Throughout the day, she knew with her whole being what would come next. All of her habits and self-discipline seemed to be at ease and the constant struggle just disappeared. It sounds magical, because it was magical. All the tension in the day was removed, even what are normally the challenging parts. By calling up these old routines and doing things exactly as we have been doing them helped her find calm and to feel peaceful.

I have been thinking so much about how to bring calm into her life. She is so active and busy and excited all the time. I want to her to be able to just enjoy silence and feel okay in the quiet times. Of course, I am so active and busy and excited all the time that this does not come easy for me, so teaching her to do these things means I have to learn it too. I hope that by bringing these rhythms into her body, from the outside, that she will create her own internal rhythms (like becoming hungry at the normal dinner time and--wish me luck on this one--that she will become sleepy at the normal bedtime.) This requires so much less energy and fewer struggles in our day.

Routines and Do-overs

So this morning, I decided to shake up our usual Saturday morning pancake routine and to try to make a similarly shaped, but decidedly different breakfast of aloo parantha and fresh yogurt.

By the time I was done, it was tasty enough, but I missed the detail in the recipe where you just roll the dough back into a ball after adding the potatoes and then roll it out for frying. I thought you made a chapati, added potatoes, and them smooshed another chapati on top. Regardless, we ended up with little delicious chapati sandwiches.

Zazie was clear on the fact that she preferred them without the potatoes. She didn't even really need the bread. Really, what I am saying is that she would like a little bowl of melted butter for breakfast. Maybe with a big dollop of jam on top. And some whipped cream. And chocolate. Topped with candy. And if we could find sprinkles. And then extra butter. Still, she ate them and only asked for candy 18 times.

Further, instead of staying in pajamas all day playing around the house, I furthered disturbed our pattern by going to the market. I made the whole gang come with me because I didn't know if I could do it alone. I now see that Vik and Zazie are best left home. (Um, Vik can come, but sweet girl really does not thrive in grocery stores or in unbearable traffic jams). And again, no nap.

My punishment for all of this was three ear-busting, heart wrenching tantrums, perhaps the biggest on record. (Those who have been around for some of the more earth-shattering tantrums will appreciate how big these must have been). My poor baby just needs to be home and not in a car or an overcrowded, overstimulating store. Still, it was a very hard night. Before she went to bed she said, through tears, "Maybe we can try again tomorrow." I thought that was a very good idea. I hope it starts like this morning: