Time to say good bye...

It was time for Poojas again, a time of worship in india... this particular pooja is dedicated to all vehicles, or rather 'tools', everything had to be blessed... one could witness nicely decorated cars, trucks, buses and rickshaws all over Bangalore, for days on end.

Suddenly we were parents and the married kind, while packing up our life again, to leave India.

Seems we have just gotten used to our relaxed gated and suburban life outside of town when we learned that we will pack it all up again beginning of the year… which we generally did not mind, if not hoped for, just seemed to happen all that sudden.

One last trip to Goa, the place we enjoyed the most in India, our wonderful private little beach wedding at Agonda, 10 last days of enjoying and introducing Joshua to the very relaxed goan lifestyle.

Ajit and his family took the car up to Goa, so we had our car and a mountain of pampers for Josh with us, his little bathtub and other pretty useless things first time parents take along for comfort i guess. Ajit and his family had a nice holiday back at his native place which was very near by. His wife had never visited their family god and was exited to finally be able to go, Ajit always says it with a smile... she is so much more religous than him.

On return to Bangalore straight on to Chennai, on India's east coast, getting Joshua’s passports at the German and Swedish consulates sorted, so we could leave the country with him. We even had to apply for a residence permit during the last days in India, just so we could then take him out on an exit visa… dear… why would an Indian birth certificate and an international passport (and maybe two blond parents with a blond baby ;-) not be enough to leave the country.

The last days in Bangalore, our home for the past two years were pretty emotional. It’s never easy to leave a place, however hard it might have been at times … it still has been a home, a place were we met amazing people and made good friends, and now also the place where we had our first baby and got married.

Our friends' driver told us that Ajit was crying already about loosing his friends (the other drivers) and us a week before leaving. I pushed away the thoughts of the final goodbye myself, did not want to face it. It’s a different thing to part from friends we made… we can meet them easily in other places in this world. But with Ajit we knew it was a real good bye.
When we told him we were leaving he told me to keep one December morning free for a cooking lesson. I could not be leaving the country without knowing how to make my all time south indian favorits (especially tasty when pregnant!) he said. How many times he had to stop by a 'dosa stop' and get me a bunch of Idli's with an extra portion of coconut chutney and 2 fried Vada's to rescue me and my blood sugar on a long day downtown or when stuck in a traffic jam.

It was Christmas time, and all of us at home on a sunny december morning. Priscilla, Ajit and me in the kitchen, Joshua with Patrik on the computer, our guests Christopher and Wendy still sleeping away their jetlag. We made Idlis, a huge stack, with coconut chutney and Priscilla's tomato chutney... was a bit like preparing a christmas supper... real fun and i remember feeling sad in a weird way.

Knowing I would never wear any of it again, I left all my Kurtas behind, those belonged to India somehow, not to me really.

At 4am in the morning at the airport, Ajit and me crying our eyes out, a last hug, and the worst moment of all, the final good bye. We did find him and also Priscilla new jobs before leaving and have been in touch with them since. Both are well and happy, just nice to know. Now I have to keep my promise of sending pictures of Joshua in the snow.

Who knows, maybe we will be back and show Joshua his birth place one day.

Good bye India, good bye Bangalore...

In all of India...

On a chinese take-away menu in india...

yummy, strange flavoured chicken...

... from real india to wysteria lane

Sorry I haven't been in touch since back from our trip, but am finally online again, as we had to suddenly move house which kept us pretty occupied for some weeks.

We enjoyed our time in Europe so much, here a little photo summery of it. It was so good to touch base, to see everyone and to spend time in easy and familiar territories for a bit.

at the easton pub in london...

with madelyn...

in stockholm with our friends...

spending time with our parents in sweden...

with P's family up north...

a beautiful german wedding in Italy...

enjoying afternoons by the 'lago di maggiore' with close friends...

and my birthday celebration in italy...


... returning from this amazing 3 week holiday in Europe was not easy, and certainly not made any easier by having been given notice on our flat right on our return.
The landlord of our flat claimed he will move in himself and that we will have to move out, right around the time when our baby is due. That and the oh-god-back-to-nothing-is-working-and-its-so-loud-and-smelly-here.
It started with a tired arrival at the tiny-and-not-so-glamorous Bangalore airport at 5.30am in the morning on a Sunday and the fact that we had to wait a good 1 1/2 hours for our luggage even though only one belt was running?!? Why?
Not a good start, not when tired and returning from a wonderful break with friends and family, could have easily walked straight back onto that BA airliner.
Ajit welcomed us as usual outside the airport building, looking honestly happy to see us, it helped and was nice to see his familiar smile so early in the morning.

Ones arrived home we comforted ourselves with cheese and crumpets from M&S, and other yummy imported things we brought back. In the evening we walked up to the shopping malls near us, to have a quick burger at Mc Donald's... and just walking into the mall felt so strange after our time back home in nature, beautiful cities, by the water.... and here we were... at SIGMA mall... a rather bored looking indian with a synthesiser in the corner playing cheesy elevator music, Mc Donald packed with 'Indian families in transition' [woman in traditional sarees, beautiful flowers in their hair and a pair of brand new white Nike trainers on, just biting into a big mac and drinking diet pepsi], the guards of the mall in funny outfits waving at us happily as they had been guards at our compound before, all very bizarre... and a bit much on our day of return... but we laughed and tried to take it with a bit of humour, left very quickly [with a take-away burger] realising we are not ready yet for all this. We need some more days to get back into it, Patrik hiding at work, me at home.

Loosing our home, not knowing where we will live in two months time, and not really knowing where we will live in 6 months either, as our work-contract will be up beginning of next year was all a bit much for us, especially for 'me and my nesting hormones'. We needed a solution, a bit of comfort, quickly...
Being faced again with the Indian way of 'making up wild stories and not really meaning any of it' our landlord told us all these reasons for moving into this flat, about his kids being closer to school, having been given notice on his place, and even when patrik said 'if money is the reason, as market prices are going up rapidly, he should talk to us first'. The answer was 'money is not an issue' ... but some days after that we got a call from some dutch guy claiming to be the new tenant [paying double!!!] ...
Going over our contract again with the company lawyers we realised that he legally could not throw us out really and not even raise the rent...it got all a bit ugly... but we decided to leave anyways in the end to get away from all of that.

Patrik's Boss has just moved back to London, so the only workable option was to take over his place, which solved our problem with not wanting to sign up for another 12 months lease here in Bangalore [signing a 12 month lease here means paying a deposit of 11 months upfront, always.].
We were able to roll over his lease, and have moved house already! It all went pretty quick in the end.
Ironically the last time I visited this place and house I said to Patrik afterwards that I would shoot myself if I would have to life there. We are exactly living 'there' now, exactly in that house. Shows how much control we have in life really...smile. And funnily enough we are really enjoying it now, it was time to get away from the madness of indian city life a bit.
It's a huge gated community out of town called 'Palm Meadows' (We call it Wysteria Lane...as it looks exactly like the suburban American street everyone lives on in desperate housewives [TV series], I swear, exactly like that, look:

It's a complex with about 600 villas, perfectly clean and palm tree lined streets, huge villas with garages, flower baskets and neatly cut grass. Entering the gates is almost like leaving India... no stray dogs, no honking allowed, no beggars, no pot holes, no smells, kids playing on the street... a community of people from all over India and other countries living their peaceful lives there, sitting on deck chairs in front of their garages. Very amusing. There is even a news paper guy throwing the news paper roll into your front garden in the early morning hours, exactly like in the movies!


And here we are, went from one extreme to the other, in this little perfect world in the middle of a really not that perfect world... hardly any noise, no pollution, supermarkets within the compound, the club house/pool/restaurants in walking distance... it's all so easy, and we enjoy it... that's what happens to you after 1 1/2 years of full-on-city-life in India.
Patrik shortened his travel time to work from often 1 1/2 hours each way to 10 minutes. We already found a BBQ at some market and are enjoying the suburban lifestyle to the full!

Several friends of ours have to find new homes as well... the Bangalore property market is completely out of control, landlords suddenly requesting double and often triple the rent.
There is too much demand, and sadly they can get away with it, for now, surely making many HR people cry ;-)
Hotel prices in Bangalore are ranking in the top 5 worldwide right now... but we are still not in NY or London or some other nice international destination... no, small little polluted Bangalore with cluster bombed streets and open swage all over the place... just because they cant keep up with the growth [or rather the money that comes with all the international companies, etc. 'gets magically lost' and not used to build a suitable infrastructure].
[This is not a river...]

A monsoon without much rain after all it seems, so different from last year. Its sunny on most days, some more clouds than usual, a good bit more humid, still pretty warm, and a short tropical rain on some evenings... the 'bilderbuch' [picture book] monsoon season... certainly not like last year... so far at least.
Many parts of India are again in deep trouble though and the papers talk about it like it came as one big surprise again. As it hits the slums and rural areas the hardest not many people in this country are interested in improving much. In this culture everyone pretty much fights for themselves, even the government officials. India does not really have a reason to be in the state it is in, but there are too many people that just don't care, am pretty sure nothing will change anytime soon.

We did manage to get me a new one year visa [looks like i never have to go through that again!] at the Indian embassy in Stockholm, the woman was really lovely and happy to speak to people that live in her home town back in India.
On our return to India I had to make my way again to the much hated 'police commissioner office' in order to get my residence permit, which these days is much less painful as one of the companies' new facility managers 'Venkatesh' has great contacts there [meaning he keeps those man in uniforms sweet with little bribes...].

The police commissioner insisted of seeing our marriage certificate before signing my residence permit, and after some words going back and forth in the local language he seemed to be ok, having this 'good point!' smile on his face and finally signed my papers.
When leaving the commissioners office Venkatesh started laughing and told me that the police commissioner did not want to sign the papers without seeing our marriage certificate, but when pointing at my huge belly insisting that this is surely enough proof of being married the police commissioner agreed at ones and signed! Only in India... lucky for those of us living in sin.

We nearly had forgotten about those bizarre little things in our 3 weeks back home... Ajit stopped at the petrol station to fill up the car, with us in the back ....and suddenly the car is being shaken madly by Ajit and the petrol station boy. Oh not that again! They are convinced there are little air bubbles in the tank and that when shaking the car you can get a tiny bit more petrol into the tank... it's one of those 'but why?' better never asked.
The 'why?' word will drive you insane here, so you are better off dropping it from your vocabulary. But its always a laugh when sitting inside the car, being shaken up for a good 2 minutes by two totally serious looking adults, and that every week again.

A good while back I read about a woman marrying a dog, officially, with family and ceromony and all, she actually wanted to marry the dog... I believe she had a dream that needed to be put into reality.... and I just thought that it was her own wish, so i guess that's fine even if a bit scary that everyone plays along as if totally normal. But not that long ago we read about another woman being married off to a snake... i felt sorry for her as in this case it was an arranged marriage [yes, a newspaper article!]. I wouldn't be surprised if those relatives are waiting for grandchildren now! See how long she stays alive. I would call that religion gone wrong...

I am regularly attending pre-natal classes ... it's me, another Japanese girl, a French girl and lots of Indian girls from different parts of the country. Its fun, keeping-fit classes 3 times a week and some informational classes in the evenings... did not think it was necessary to talk for an hour about the menstrual cycle and how to get pregnant... considering that all of us were pretty big bellied at that point already but otherwise its all pretty interesting, but a bit different from back home which is fun.

Our 'nutrition' session was fun... Izumi and I were struggling on how to translate the 'balanced diet chart'... with examples of massala dosas, idlis, rice, sambar and the many variations of dahls (lentils) into 'raw vegetables, pizza, potatoes, meat, grilled fish, pastas, beef und salad' for me and into 'sushi, dried fish, soy products, noodles and seaweed' for Izumi.

The goa season will be starting in some weeks and it's a shame not to be able to go and open the season this year with a first relaxed beach weekend. Better to stay near the hospital for now, only about 7 more weeks to go... even though we would prefer Goa on our babies' passport as the place of birth to Bengaluru ;-) But after having visited some hospitals even here in Bangalore that left us pretty shocked [I really could have done with a straight whisky after seeing the delivery room] the only option for us is the hospital we chose, brand new and run by a US company. But I am sure even that hospital will be run down in about a years time, there is a lot of talent here to mess things up in the shortest of time! ;-)

More from wysteria lane soon...

On a dusty little side street outside of town ...

Beach restaurant in Goa...

The oldest pharmacy in Bangalore...

The rain has started!

It must sounds strange to all of you who are just starting the summer season... but imaging a dusty Indian city for weeks (months) on end without rain, 38-40 degrees C during the day, pollution and dirty roads.... and suddenly that sound outside....tropical rain, lots of it... finally, what a relieve, hopefully bringing down the temperatures for at least this evening, and cleaning up the air... it might even be the beginning of the monsoon season... it was said to start early this year. The sky is grey and its really windy, we had to run and close all the doors and windows, how exiting! I received several short messages from friends around Bangalore, in big excitement about the rain. It is very special to us after a long dry season. And people in little villages outside of Bangalore do need the water urgently; water shortage is a big problem. God, it sounds like the house is coming down, just amazing. I can hear massive branches of trees breaking off, it’s mad. And I don’t think it will stop anytime soon... people on the street will be literally floating away.

The king of fruits is back... the mango... its mango mania again everywhere... its not just a mango for them, it’s a season dedicated to the king of all fruits. There are so many (hundreds) different types, am still confused which ones to buy; they come in all kinds of sizes, colours, shapes and tastes. You can find mango ice cream, mango cakes and all kinds of mango deserts everywhere... but it wont be for long... its a pretty short season. I had a chat to Kasthuri, she just explained that the rain is for the mangos... as they only ripen when it rains... 'They' would actually not eat the mangos before the rain... (Not like us foreigners ;-) hmmm...

We had a rather interesting week here in Bangalore some weeks ago... a famous actor 'Raj Kumar' from this region (Karnataka) had died (he was pretty old, it wasn't anything dramatic)... and Bangalore went absolutely mad... war-like scenes, shocking madness and scary aggression bubbled up... all businesses...companies, shops, everything had to close down immediately and send their staff home.... and they had to be quick... as big crowds of people started to go around town throwing stones at all companies that were working (which these people decided was disrespectful to the dead actor)... within two days Bangalore was a ghost town, the streets were empty, buses and cars on fire (as also working bus drivers were punished for working, and their buses destroyed and put on fire).

Sadly about 8 people had to die, including a young police officer (24) who was just doing his job and beaten to death.
Raj Kumar's family (the only ones that actually had a reason to be very sad about their loss) was not left alone; they damaged his house (where the body was laying) and his gardens, trying to get in. We have seen this underlying aggression here before, which comes much unexpected. On the surface everything seems so friendly and calm, especially in south India... but there is another side to it.
Raj Kumar seemed to have been a nice personality from what we read in the papers, but these people certainly did not pay him any respect (as they were claiming to). His family was pleading to have some quiet moments, to mourn about their loss... but there was no chance... nobody listened. The government was helpless and quickly announced a public holiday and when things got out of hand the next day they ordered the use of weapons.
Driving around town a week later... you could see Microsoft’s and other company buildings heavily damaged, as well as tiny businesses destroyed.
We were heading to the airport that day... Ajit did not wear his uniform so he did not look like he was working... and we had newspaper pictures of the actor glued to our car window for our protection, so we looked like 'mourners'.... it was scary.. .alone in our street we counted about 80 police officers walking around armed, and hardly any vehicles on the road. People on the street stared into our car and it was a bit scary to drive around town, but we made it to the airport fine (and no traffic jams for ones!) and were glad to fly to Goa and to escape the madness. Here some pictures (taken from the newspaper) of 'whatever' was going on, I guess we will never fully understand:

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