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:

Rice Plate Reddy

Um, I totally want to go see this movie, Quick Gun Murugun. I imagine it to be so ridiculous that it verges on the absurd.

On a side note, the ads for this film look surprisingly similar to the costumes servers wear at TGIF restaurants in Delhi.

Busy day and a hole in the ground

This little three year old is wearing me out.

We made the following today:

• paneer,
• yogurt,
• a beeswax painting,
• balloon soup,
• salt dough (basically homemade play dough),
• a cake for Tata's (my friend Usha's father) departure,

We also did the following:

• hand washed all the placemats and set them out to dry on the line,
• had an hour-long bath,
• created a nature table,
• learned to use scissors,
• used up two entire Glue Stick tubes,
• played dress-up with our friend Usha,
• had circle time,
• learned to take pictures on the camera,
• read about twenty books,
• created a gigantic airport out of every toy we own plus all packing material in vicinity,

• went for a nature walk with Daddie,
• watch the village kids play soccer,
• played soccer with Daddie on the back porch,
• learned how to wear a bindi,
• went to Kundli Village,
• saw a Navratri performance (where notably, our maid's husband was a very fun Ravenna)

• and fell into a random hole that was full of running groundwater.

It was a very full day. This isn't even including breakfast, lunch and dinner. Of course, no nap. What lovely full, full days.

And someone is not at all sleepy.

Meditation for the Day

Anyway

by Mother Teresa

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

(thanks Gnomes Home Radio Show)

Dawn in India

In order to join my evening classes in America, I wake up at 5am here in Sonipat.

Dawns in India are amazing. The fog on the mud flats sits a few inches above the grass. It seems for a few minutes that there is promise of a cool breeze. And sparrows, hundreds and thousands of sparrows sing a bright tune to greet the day. The sun comes, but still has much work to do. There are a few people bicycling down the street. The guards for the houses all get dressed behind the slim trees and clearly wear swimsuits under their trousers (where could they possibly swim to on these plains?). Oh, and all the sweet, sweet babies are still sleeping.

Though later in the day, the power will go out and I will be cranky and hot, and my little girl will get fussy and I will be fussy, I feel grateful for the morning and the breeze and the sparrows and the bicycles and the swimsuits.

To market to buy a fat Lauki?

Another harried trip to the local farmer's market. The way I stick to poor Usha during these visits you would think I was physically connected to her. It was a fabulous spectacle of open air market stalls and fresh produce. Our extremely protective driver, Anil, thwarted some nine year olds attempt to gouge us for an extra fifty cents for 30 eggs. He later got them for us for around $1.50. Now what are we going to do with 30 eggs? The highlight was a single bottle gourd. Now just to figure out what it is, how it is prepared, how to cook it and to see if I like it.

Sonipat, where we live

Oh man, power just went out. Power goes out about twice a day, sometime for just a few minutes and sometimes for a few hours...

Our house is really nice, granite floors and counters, pretty nice furniture, lots of light. There are a lot of different bugs and creatures, but luckily I grew up in Florida and lived in a dingy apartment in the East Village, so I am at peace. The houses are all in a row, about eight of them on our block and eight on another block. They are plopped right in the middle of mud flats and abandoned half-built apartment buildings. There isnt much around, just water buffalo, buffalo herders and our fancy little houses.

We saw a peacock the other day while walking!

There is a village nearby with about 6000 people. At first I was worried by how remote and isolated it was, but now I appreciate how nice it is. In a country of a billlion people, lush greenery and (somewhat invasive) nature is a blessing.

We aren't really in Delhi, it takes more than two hours to get there. There is a city, Sonipat, about twenty minutes away. It has most things. There is an even larger city, Panipat, nearby that has everything else.

The thing about India is the totally overwhelming humanity. Everything is done in crowds. For instance, if say, our hot
water heater isnt working, and we call someone. The plumber comes, and so does the mechanic and the caretaker and about three other people. It is incessant.

I had mentioend earlier that we had hired a cook and househelper, but we opted not to take the cook. I just can't get used to having someone in our hosue all the time. We also asked for the maid service for just an hour each evening. I love having the help, but not at the cost of my privacy. I think Indian families are so used to having people in their house night and day (really, people in their everywhere night and day) that it must seem weird to want privacy.

The best part is the little community. It is all academics and their families. It makes for a lively community. Almost everyone is our age (a few a little younger, a few a little older). We've been going over to each other's house for coffee or tea or snacks.

Zazie and my new firend Usha's baby are the only children right now. We are in temporary housing until the faculty housing on campus is built. I think more children will come at that time. I really need to find some kids for her to
play with. She is an amazon baby here. We met the buffalo herder's children the other day and there was one little third grader. Zazie was a full head taller than her. No one can believe she is just three.

I've been cooking lots of Indian food. I found the Web site of India's most celebrated chef, Sanjeev Kapoor. It has very tasty recipes. Because it is so hard to come by non-Indian groceries, cooking Indian food seems the way to go. Still it is a little hard because I dont recognize any of the vegetables. I have mastered paneer and yogurt though.

Whee, power is back on.

Homeschool

We had our first full "homeschooling" day today. It was a good success. Zazie was really engaged and kept saying, "I love this day." She also said she had the BEST teacher (though I think she was fed that line).

Homeschooling=free play, craft, circle time, snack (baked bread), and story. She had to wash her own dishes. She thought that was the best part. There were sweet transition songs. The whole day just floated by. It was perfect and dreamlike.

Having a good, organized, structured day was awesome. The last few weeks have been so chaotic. I think Zazie and I are both craving routine.

Morning

,We have had a dance party, picnic, road trip and then, of course, had to visit the mechanic shop. I think we have made about a hundred bowls of warning sign soup. It is barely 8am. I adore my lovely three year old girl.

Dragons!

We have two security guards that watch our house 24 hours a day. Each day around 4pm I give Sunil, the lanky and young man (who flirts with all the maids as they come and go to work) some chai. Two days ago, I looked out and he looked so sleepy and hot. I started to put the chai when there was a terrible commotion. The night before, the night guard had killed a mud snake in our driveway. It took no less than twelve men with bamboo sticks. And a lot of yelling.

This afternoon, however, it was different. At first all I heard was Sunil calling out to his friend. They both had their bamboo bats in hand and were yelling and hovering and making all kinds of noise. I thought it was another snake. Through the window he said a lot of stuff to me in Hindi. I took away the gist, "Do. Not. Open. The. Door."

After more than an hour of bats and hollering and crowds, they finally remove a full sized komodo dragon from our bootroom/foyer.

When we lived in New Orleans, there was an entire wing of Audubon Zoo devoted to the komodo dragon. Though they housed it in a wildlife habitat, not a bootroom.

I am sad to say that the little dragon did not survive the ordeal. Zazie slept through the whole event.

Raw Milk

So every morning two litres (a little more than half a gallon) of raw buffalo milk is delivered to our door. Our "milkman" (dudh-wallah?) arrives by bicycle and hands me a large stainless steel can full of milk. I have to go pour the milk into a pot and return the can.

By the way, our milkman is a total hunk.

However, he smells terrible--some rancid combination of sweat, alcohol and raw milk.

Then I have to boil the milk for about twenty minutes. From there, the sky is the limit.

I have mastered making paneer and yogurt so far. It is funny, I got the yogurt cultures from my friend, who got it from her friend, who got it from her friend. While it is definitley a little funky, we are probably making yogurt culled from the Vedas or at least Partition. It tastes incredible, pungent. Butter is coming, as soon as I have skimmed enough of the cream to make it.

What I really (REALLY) want to make is buffalo mozzarella. I can't figure out how find rennet. There must be some way to make mozzarella without rennet?

In the meantime, I am clabbering milk. From the clabber I can make sour cream, cream cheese, and buttermilk. For now, I am happy to have paneer.

Malls, Toys and Parental Guilt

In America, we never ever go to the mall. In fact, we try to avoid shopping as much as possible. Apparently, we have made a radical shift and are now mall-obsessed Americans. Indian malls are so nice and clean and air conditioned and have food courts and indoor playgrounds. It is a nice respite from bargaining and hassle and dust and dirt and teeming humanity.

Just beautiful, empty, artificial environments.

We went the other day to buy some groceries at the International grocery store (think peanut butter, enchilada sauce and espresso) called Le Marche Sugar and Spice.

While we were there, we paid 80 rupees to play in an indoor "Little Tikes" playground inside the mall. It had all the junky plastic toys we have picked up at garage sales. Zazie would play with them outside in South Carolina. Except here they are very fancy and very expensive. I was grateful for some place where she could just roll on the ground for a little while that was not 104 degrees. If she weren't all knees and legs in everything we might have even shelled out the $150 for a toy we bought at the thrift store last year for $3.

The last few weeks have been rough on Zazie, but somehow she remains afloat like the rest of us. however, one thing is she has learned to be a little manipulative. Like last night, when it was steaming hot in the house, the power was out, and we were all miserable. She said, "I am having a bad day. This is my bad day. Can I have some candy. Only candy can make this bad day better."

Good Lord.

Moving Day

Dispatch from September 7"

We are moving today. We've done a ton a ton of shopping to get everything for the house and plan to leave in an hour or so. Internet access has been very spotty and Indian phones are so complicated. I dont think we have made a single successful call since we have been here. But we have a cell phone now, so things should get easier.

There is a very cheap calling prepaid program called gTalk that is 2 cents a minute to India from the US, so there is no excuse not to call! Here is the link: https://www.gtalk.us/pinless/index.php

Time is 9 and 1/2 hours ahead. here is a link to the world time: http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/world.time.tzc (so you dont call us at three in the morning!). Wish us luck.

First dispatch

This is from about two weeks ago, about a week after we arrived:

We've been having very full days here. Zazie has been asleep by 5pm each day (poor thing, no dinners for her) and she wakes at around 430am each morning.

I've made two sweet friends. One my age with a very cheeky 10 month old, named Usha. She is a painter. She wants to make a children's book about Baby Num. This, I think, we can really do. I think we are the only Moms that will be around the campus. There may be one other with a four year old, but we haven't met her yet.

The other friend is the vice chancellor's wife, named Reenuji, who is in her 60s. Very practical and sweet, of Indian origin, but lived in Papua New Guinea and Hong Kong for the last thirty years. So she is adjusting as much as we are. I imagine that she is having the experience that Vik's parents would have if they moved back to India. Really, everyone involved with the school is very nice and interesting. But these two are making things feel a little lighter and easier for me.

Today we made it to Big Bazaar, which is like the Indian Wal-Mart. Imagine the same amount of stuff with twice as many people, stuffed in a space a third of the size. Still, everything was very cheap. They have outfitted the house pretty well, providing everything from dishes to hand soap, but we still need a few things.

We finally visited our temporary housing. We will move to the campus around January 1. Until then, we will be in Sushant City. The house/villa is actually just one story, but we can go onto the roof. Everything is granite and ceramic tile, new and nice. They have rented furniture and have bought everything else that we need. It is two bedrooms. We'll move on Sunday (around September 7th) I think. We are just waiting for the gas connections and everything to be finalized.

While the house is extremely nice (outrageously nice by Indian standards), the area it is in is very remote. There is nothing near the little development and we (8-10 families) will be its sole occupants. Even the little town of Sonipat is a twenty minute drive. Delhi is about an hour and a half away (much longer with traffic) and not reasonable with Zazie too often. So we have to make good friends with each other because there is nothing else.

Vik is so sweet and optimistic. He is saying things like, well you are living in the country, and in a city of 17 million, so much grass and fresh air comes at a premium. Or that at least we wont be tempted to become ardent consumers beholden to the unrelenting materialism so rampant in the Delhi and so on. I have to admit, reframing helps. We'll see. I figure if it is too bad, we'll all mutiny and make the professors commute.

Up to now, we have been staying in one of the Jindal guesthouses. It is very nice. They have a common dining area where they serve all of our meals. Dinners have become lively affairs with lots of fun conversation. Everyone totally adores Zazie and where ever we go, people stare at her a lot. We keep being told that she has very exotic looks, with her little Indian doll face and her Parsi coloring.

She is in imagination overdrive. She has made up a new friend: Pinchu. She is worse than baby num, The funny thing about this friend is that the morning when she was making her up, she said, Pinchu bites. And she hits. And she pinches." and then she pointed to a book Vik had in his hand and said, "she grows up to be this guy when she is old." And it was a picture of Gandhi! So we've been getting a lot of mileage about this unknown origin myth of Gandhiji. In a room full of Indian International Law scholars, a joke like this can go pretty far. Anyhow, now everyone in the house is asking about Pinchu and spotting baby num all over. It is very sweet.

This afternoon, I went to see if the car had come to take us to the mall and Reenuji was watching Zazie for a moment. When I came back, Zazie was putting stickers all over Zazie's back. When she was done, she had placed no less than 40 stickers on her back. The conversationa bout ti went like this:

Zazie: "Reenu auntie is an aquarium!"

Reenu: "Oh good, can I be a dolphin?"

Zazie: "Can you spy hop?"

Reenu: "No."

Zazie: "No, you can't be."

Then after a pause, she scrunched up some of the sticker backing (basically the bit leftover after you have removed all the stickers) and handed it to Reenu.

Zazie: "Well, then, you can be the coral reef."

I hope the weather breaks soon so we can get outside a bit more soon. She is going a little stir crazy. If you imagine we have been plying her with sweets and presents to compensate for keeping her locked up in this cold little room.

We did take an auto-rickshaw the other day. She was scared to go on it, so I told her that if she didn't like we wouldn't take them again. Well, for the whole ride, she kept saying she didn't like it and that we should never go on one again. Of course when we got back, she immediately announced that she wanted to be a rickshaw driver when she grew up! Then, after a few minutes pause, she very seriously said, I think I could drive it now. Vik and I talked about it later and while we think that yes, she probably could drive one, we probably will wait until she at least four before she can drive the rickshaw.

At least three different people have said that they think Zazie might have been a formula one race car driver in a previous life.

We had to hire a cook and a househelper (um, the term they use is houseboy). So now we have Geeta and Jyoti on our "staff." Jindal pays for Jyoti and we pay for Geeta to come to our house twice a day for food. I dont know how that will work out (it may be more trouble than it is worth, we'll see).

Also, everyone has terrified me about abductions. Usha said, Do not leave Zazie even for five minutes with these girls. You never know. And today, in the Big Bazaar, the power went out while Zazie was sleeping in her stroller, Reenuji said, "Quick hold onto Zazie." Malaria and Delhi Belly I am prepared for. Kidnapping, less so.

Wow, it is suddenly raining very hard, like Florida rainstorms!