Excuse me, sir...

A lot of the conversations we have with strangers here in India begin with those words. Most of the strangers who approach us are men, and all of them, men and women both, address Robert.

Today we were walking along the road on campus when out of the corner of my eye I saw Zion push his sister. I stopped to demand answers, which quickly turned into Robert and I telling both kids to knock it off and be nice to each other, for the love of G-d.

As wer were standing there scolding our offspring a guy on a motorcycle passed us, slowed down, started to turn around and then apparently thought better of it and kept going.

"That was weird", Robert said, as we all set off again.

Just then the guy did turn around. He puttered slowly back to us, then cut the engine on his bike, hopped off, and addressed Robert.

"Excuse me, sir?"

"Hi", Robert said.

"You have very nice tattoos. Could I take some pictures of them?"

This was a new one. No one's ever asked for pictures before!

"Sure", said Robert, and pushed up his sleeves so the guy could see his...sleeves. The man practically yelped with delight.

"Ah! They go all the way up!"

He took at least half a dozen pictures of Robert's arms from different angles, being careful to get as much of the design as possible. He chatted while he took pictures, asking us where we were from, if we liked Bangalore...the usual kind of casual chatter.

"Thank you, sir", he said when he was done. Then he looked at me somewhat uncertainly. He girded his courage and said, "Could I take some of your tattoos as well?"

"Of course", I said, secretly pleased that my tattoos weren't being left out. He took fewer pictures of mine, and didn't get as close to me as he had to Robert.

He straightened up when he was done and said, "There are people who do tattoos here, but...nothing like this. Nothing like this level of detail and quality."

"The same guy did almost all of both of our tattoos", said Robert. "We're lucky; we just happen to live really close to him, and he's great."

Then our tattoo admirer smiled, jumped on his bike, said goodbye, and gave us a thumbs up as he drove away. I swear, every day here brings new and surprising things! I love it.

Here are a couple of pictures of my mini photo shoot. Note that the guy is wearing a shirt with an American flag, and part of the NYC cityscape  that says, "My heart beats for Brooklyn".

Leaving makes you popular

Not that we weren't popular before, mind ;)

But we're down to 4 full days left in Bangalore, and suddenly our social (read: meal) time is filling up fast! We want to be able to see everyone and say thank you, and good bye. And yes, just typing that made me feel a bit sad. We've got friends here I'll miss a great deal. Hell, I feel sad thinking of saying good bye to the people who work at Nesara and Prakruthi! Especially Zion and Liel's admirers. The granny who always comes over to pat Liel's back and tuck her hair behind her ears, the auntie who beams when we thank her for clearing the table and pinches Zion's cheeks, the usually surly girl who works at the register who smiles when the kids come up to order more food, the guys behind the counter who crack up watching Zion methodically consume vast quantities of food, and the coffee guy who often pours the kids a little treat when we go to buy tea or coffee. We can barely even communicate to them, and yet they've taken us under their collective wing, and showered us with kindness. We will miss them, too.

And, despite the summer heat (and the traffic, and the waste disposal woes...) I'll miss Bangalore itself. I could be wrong, but I have this feeling that when we go back to NY we'll adjust really quickly, and our life here in Bangalore will seem like something out of a dream. 

We've come a long way (but are still piglets)

We haven't had dosa in upwards of 2 days and the kids were not happy about it. So tonight we headed out early (by Indian dinner standards) to have dosa.

But when we got to Prakruthi it was mobbed! At least 2 dozen people in line, and not a single available table. Robert sighed in a very sad yet resigned way and headed for the back of the line, but I suggested that we go to Nesara instead. Sometimes I have my moments.

So we walked over to Nesara. It was a bit crowded for the time of night, but we got the last booth (the kids favorite) and settled in.

We didn't need to discuss our order, because we always order the same thing when we have dosa dinner at Prakruthi. At Prakruthi. That'll be important in a moment.

The waiter came over, smiled and held his pen and notebook ready.

"Three plain dosa", said Robert. The waiter nodded and scribbled in his book.

"Two masala dosa", Robert continued. The waiter looked up, surprised, and did a quick mental count of the number of people at the table. Four. He raised is eyebrows, but wrote down the masala dosa too.

"One onion dosa", Robert went on. The waiter's eyes bugged out and he stared at Robert in disbelief. "And one set dosa."

At this point the waiter actually laughed at the apparently absurd amount of food we were ordering. Robert and I laughed too, partly out of embarrassment, but mostly in amusement at the shock our huge American appetites were eliciting. The kids were oblivious.

While we waited for our food I noticed a white couple across the room taking a long time with their menus...a sure sign that they hadn't been to Nesara often. And I'd never seen them around campus before. So I was not surprised that when a waiter came to take their order confusion promptly ensued. My guess is that they tried to order Indian food, not knowing that at the IISc restaurants it's not available between about 4-7pm. Robert and I tried to decide if they spoke English and needed help, as things didn't look like they were clearing up, but then one of the managers came over, and after a lot of head shaking, pointing, and finally some head bobbling everything seemed worked out.

And then our dosa came.

Now, the dosa at Nesara are more expensive than those at Prakruthi. But so is everything at Nesara, so we hadn't thought much of it. However, in the case of the dosa, at least, there is a reason for the price difference. And the reason is that you get more food. Probably about 50% more food. Suddenly the waiter's shock made more sense (though in fairness, the people who take our dosa orders at Prakruthi still sometimes laugh about them, and we've been making them about 3 times a week for months).

But we plunged bravely in, and managed to eat nearly everything we'd ordered. The fact that we didn't actually eat it all is just another indicator of how very much food there was, because I think this is the first time since we've been in India that we haven't eaten every last scrap of food at our table. We're like locusts that way. Or piglets.

Piglets are much cuter than locusts. Let's go with piglets.

Summer, with various bugs

It's summer here in south India. And yes, it is hot! Temps are hovering around 100 most days, and lows are only in the high 70s at night.

A few nights ago we had a huge thunderstorm. That was pretty cool (except that the thunder kept me from sleeping. In part it was just the noise, and in part I was worried that the kids would wake up scared, even though they've never done so in a storm before. But this one was really loud! Eventually I got up to check on on them. They were both sound asleep, sprawled across their beds. In the morning they expressed surprise upon learning there had been a storm at all), but we've had bit of rain each of the next two days, and now there is standing water all over campus. In addition to my general hatred of mosquitoes, I now have the additional concern of diseases they carry. So I'm really, really hoping that things dry out again soon.

And then tonight Robert came home from some interviews he'd been doing in the city and announced that the termites were swarming outside. Which was, in fact, somewhat obvious at that point as the 10 seconds the front door was open allowed about a dozen flying termites into the apartment. This is my first encounter with flying termites; I'm hoping they don't swarm for long!

Finally, there are the ants, who for some unknown reason are swarming the kitchen with extra vigor, and paying particular attention to the faucet on the sink. I gotta admit, that's a new one for me. Luckily the resident geckos are also paying extra attention to the kitchen, or at least hanging out there more, so I hope to see a decrease in the ant population soon. We see one tiny gecko pretty often. He had an accident to his tail, making him easy to identify, and leading the kids to name him "Stumpy". The adult gecko they spotted in the hall tonight (no doubt gorging on termites) has been christened "Fatty". 

Sundays

On Sundays, Prakruthi is relatively quiet and uncrowded. It's pleasant to sit in the shade, sipping coffee, eating piles of delicious food and people watching.

Or dog watching. We've named that stray dog we saw being fed cookies a while back "Prakruthi". We've spotted him hanging around the patio pretty often, and there seem to be a few people that he's especially fond of, and will run up to, tail wagging, as soon as he sees them. Naturally, these people all feed him cookies. Most of them do it surreptitiously, under the table, but the kids and I usually spot them because we're constantly on the look out for that dog.

Anyway, we decided a while back that we'd go to Prakruthi for lunch every Sunday. This may not sound particularly thrilling, given that we eat there 5-6 times a week, but trust me. We all love our Sundays there (the kids, it must be admitted, are particularly attached to them because we buy them a sweet on Sunday), and I know I'm going to miss them like crazy when we're back in New York.

Today as we were leaving we saw something new: monkeys at Prakruthi. The kids were particularly charmed by the baby one eating off a plate someone had left. Naturally I took pictures.

Then a much bigger monkey, with either cuts or sores on it face started walking in our direction, so we got out of there sharpish. Early on in our stay here we were warned that monkeys with sores on their faces care a disease that has a 100% fatality rate in humans, so we take that pretty seriously.

We had a lovely walk home through Jubilee Gardens. Eventually the kids walked off ahead of us to talk about Archon (a video game they're currently obsessed with). They looked so cute I could hardly stand it.

And when we got home, Liel drew me a picture of a Yellow Wattled Lapwing mama and baby. The mama is holding a jewel in her claws. These birds live on campus, and she's been reading about them in our zoology of the IISc campus book. We haven't seen any yet, but hopefully we will. Anyway if you follow the link above you can see what these birds look like. I think her ability to re-create what she sees is improving!

Re-create and improve. Liel's birds are delightfully plump and stubby-legged!

Pictures from our week

Here are some pictures of the things we've been up to this week :)

I took an artistic picture of my fruit bowl, sitting on the otherwise useless induction cooker.

Zion noticed this cool black and white butterfly on campus.

We saw some "cows in outfits" (as the kids called them).

We went to a really exclusive park ;)

We had several lunches at our favorite (and always crowded) restaurant (spot Robert in the background!).

Liel finished Fluffy's new dress, and made her a necklace and a circlet besides.

And I finished this shawl, and took a blurry picture of it with my iPhone.

I hope your week was colorful and fantastic as well!

Wild campus in the big city

Before we moved to Bangalore, people who had been here said, upon learning that we'd be living on the IISc campus, "Oh, it's a lovely campus! Very green and wild". That sounded pretty nice to me, but I wasn't really sure how wild a college campus in a city of nearly 7 million could be.

The answer, it turns out, is surprisingly so! First of all, the IISc campus actually has woods on it- green space accessible only by foot. These areas are truly lovely, and often remote enough from the world outside the walls that even the constant honking of car horns can't be heard, which makes them very peaceful as well.

The campus is also home to a huge number of different plants and animals. Since nearly all of them are unfamiliar to us, we bought two gorgeous books at the campus bookstore so that we could learn about the organisms that share this space with us.

The first book, Secret Lives, is about the animals on campus. If you've ever met my children or read my blog you'll know why we bought that one first! It was written by a woman who did her PhD here at IISc, and she took all the pictures (which are spectacular) as well. We learned that the birds we'd been seeing everywhere were black-tailed kites, that the monkeys on our road were bonneted macaques, that there were mongooses living at the air field, and many other things besides. We've been using Secret Lives as a kind of field guide to the campus as we tromp around looking for different animals.

The second book we just bought yesterday. We'd have bought it sooner, but as these books are so huge and full of amazing photographs they're a bit pricey, and we kept forgetting to bring enough cash when we were over by the bookstore. It's called Indian Institute of Science Campus: A Botanist's Delight, and I can tell it's going to be great for helping us learn to identify plants around here! We've already figured out what some of the ones we were most curious about are, and the kids love flipping through it and telling me where different plants are found, what family they belong to, when they flower, and if we'll be here when they do. They are going to be the backbone of our homeschooling science curriculum for the rest of the time we're here in India!

In addition to being fantastic science resources for us, the books have sparked the kids' imaginations as well.

For instance, there are some really beautiful flowers in the botany book called blood flowers. They're pretty cool looking-- like big pink puffballs-- and Zion was quite taken with them. The information section on them said that they grow at the Director's Bungalow.

We pass by the Director's Bungalow nearly every day. It is the only building we see regularly that is totally gated and has a guard to determine who is allowed entry. It also has has a "No horns" sign right outside it, which the kids approve of. In short, the Director's Bungalow is rather mysterious and interesting to them, and now they know it to be the one place on campus where blood flowers grow, which upped its cool factor even further. They wondered how the photographer got access to this gated fortress. Did he have permission to come on any time and take pictures? Or did he see the blood flowers, and ask to come in for that one event?

A little while after reading about the blood flowers Zion told me a story about a second, largely unseen, IISc that co-exists in the same space as the one that we live in. This other IISc is for animals. He tells me that the director of the animal IISc is barred forest owl, and lives in a bungalow in the best tree in the forst at Jubliee Park. All of the animals have jobs, and the animals with the most education, who are also  kind and hardworking, have the highest positions, such as director and registrar. There was a brief sibling squabble about bats, because Zion assigned them to be night path finders, which Liel felt was not a very important job. But she cheered up when the director invited a short nosed fruit bat and a yellow wattled lap wing to tea at his bungalow, which goes to show how much good will you can buy with some chai and a snack.