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...