Despite all the wealth and intellect that reside in Bangalore, there are no impressive museums or performing arts centers where one can properly appreciate the immensity of art, music and dance that India produces.
There are pockets of good theatre and performing arts in Malleswaram and Jayanagar, and a few small auditoria here and there, but no grand performing arts center one would expect of a place that fancies itself as a metropolis. Chowdiah Hall, the premier venue for performances, is a concrete violin-shaped building tucked inside a tiny lane in a residential area, with unimpressive acoustics (and a casino-themed washroom with lurid red décor). Getting to these halls in evening traffic is a major expedition.
Museums such as the Vishveshvaraya science museum or the HAL air museum are rinky-dink little collections where half the exhibits are outdated and the rest are broken.
The city’s parks are vanishing. Biking is an activity to be recommended if suicide also figures high on your list of hobbies.
The city has a good sprinkling of book stores, but it is depressing to see so many young people draped along the aisle of self-help books reading Who Moved My Cheese?
The greatest preoccupation in Bangalore is making money. The second greatest preoccupation is spending it, usually shopping or eating out. Malls and restaurants are the cultural hotspots of Bangalore.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
The Mommy Dictionary
Preity Zinta stroked her smooth, hairless limbs in the television ad.
“I want to get my hair removed, too,” announced one of my children.
I had a stock answer along the lines of: And so you shall. Some day, when you’re older.
Actually, I was grateful the depilatory cream caught her attention. There are dozens of explicit ads, some completely unfit for viewing at family time, that routinely get broadcast on Indian television.
Condoms. Contraceptives. Abortion pills. (“I didn't take any precautions last night ..." Magic product appears. "Now I have no chinta, only honey! Let’s bang away, tension-free!”)
Liquor and cigarettes ads are not permitted on TV, and for good reason. But if there’s anything concerning reproduction, body fluids and skin rashes that involve violent itching, hey, bring it on.
Now I’m up to discussing any of these subjects openly with my children. It’s just that I’d rather not be ambushed with them while we’re in the middle of watching Psych together, with dinner plates in front of us. That is not a time I want my family to be assaulted by graphic information on the consequences of not being protected from accidents and leaks involving the human body.
But I guess parents can never be prepared for the questions their kids choose to ask them, or when.
“What’s intercourse?” my younger child asked me, out of the blue, last week.
“Where did you come across that word?” I asked, trying to sound indifferent.
“These two teachers were talking and I was walking by and I heard one of them say “They had intercourse.”
Hmm, teachers! And it’s not like they were discussing the intercourse of art and science. They were clearly talking about people. I suppose I should be grateful they didn’t use the f- word on campus within earshot of children. But now there was something more Victorian and priestly to explain.
Intercourse, I explained, was the exchange or intermingling of things. Sometimes, people use it to mean having sex, I added. “Yuck,” she said, twisting her lips in disgust. And she was ready to talk about something else.
She could have looked up “intercourse” in the dictionary, too, except that the dictionary wouldn’t have interlaced hands like I did during my rambling, but mostly adequate explanation.
The dictionary was the default source of information for me when I was young and curious. My mother was prudish, and my father left discussions of all matters related to human plumbing to my mother, so the subject never came up. When it did, occasionally, it got shushed away.
I remember once overhearing my mother and her friend talking about a movie character who became a “pros,” which I gathered was a bad person even though I had never heard the word before. It’s not as if I eavesdropped. They were having a conversation right in my presence, but assumed that I was invisible or heard nothing. Later, I asked my mother what a “pros” was. She looked at me as though I had just told her I wanted to become one. Her cold, disapproving voice informed me that such words were for “adults” to know, and that I should never mention such a bad word ever again.
I took her lesson to heart. I never asked her about such words again. I just looked them up quietly in the dictionary ... and found the meanings of lots of forbidden “adult” words that were thrilling and disgusting.
The day I looked up “pros,” I also learned the meanings of “proscenium,” prosthesis, and “prostitute.” And after the way my mother had ticked me off, I was so expecting to be shocked by the definition of “prostitute,” but it didn’t even make my eyes pop.
My dictionary was a good confidant and companion. It offered up anything I wanted to know, without judging me. I learned the meanings of words I was looking for, and those I ran into because they were just hanging around the neighborhood. I could even open it up in full view of my mother and look up filth with scholarly diligence.
I would have loved to have my mom talk to me about the words I secretly looked up, but she was too prim. In her world, kids were too pristine to know about certain things. They just figured them out when they became “adult.” She had been raised in a devout household where they didn’t even know such blasphemous words existed. I can understand her awkwardness now, though I certainly think that as a rational, free adult, she could have made a choice to at least resist such ignorance, even a little bit, instead of raising her kids behind the same veil of silence. I pieced together the facts of life from whatever I gleaned from secret whispers, dirty jokes and high school anatomy lessons.
We have lots of dictionaries in our home. But I’m glad my kids don’t feel inhibited about throwing any question at me. I’m surprised they know about things I hadn’t even heard about at their age, but I’m glad to give them a straight answer.
“I want to get my hair removed, too,” announced one of my children.
I had a stock answer along the lines of: And so you shall. Some day, when you’re older.
Actually, I was grateful the depilatory cream caught her attention. There are dozens of explicit ads, some completely unfit for viewing at family time, that routinely get broadcast on Indian television.
Condoms. Contraceptives. Abortion pills. (“I didn't take any precautions last night ..." Magic product appears. "Now I have no chinta, only honey! Let’s bang away, tension-free!”)
Liquor and cigarettes ads are not permitted on TV, and for good reason. But if there’s anything concerning reproduction, body fluids and skin rashes that involve violent itching, hey, bring it on.
Now I’m up to discussing any of these subjects openly with my children. It’s just that I’d rather not be ambushed with them while we’re in the middle of watching Psych together, with dinner plates in front of us. That is not a time I want my family to be assaulted by graphic information on the consequences of not being protected from accidents and leaks involving the human body.
But I guess parents can never be prepared for the questions their kids choose to ask them, or when.
“What’s intercourse?” my younger child asked me, out of the blue, last week.
“Where did you come across that word?” I asked, trying to sound indifferent.
“These two teachers were talking and I was walking by and I heard one of them say “They had intercourse.”
Hmm, teachers! And it’s not like they were discussing the intercourse of art and science. They were clearly talking about people. I suppose I should be grateful they didn’t use the f- word on campus within earshot of children. But now there was something more Victorian and priestly to explain.
Intercourse, I explained, was the exchange or intermingling of things. Sometimes, people use it to mean having sex, I added. “Yuck,” she said, twisting her lips in disgust. And she was ready to talk about something else.
She could have looked up “intercourse” in the dictionary, too, except that the dictionary wouldn’t have interlaced hands like I did during my rambling, but mostly adequate explanation.
The dictionary was the default source of information for me when I was young and curious. My mother was prudish, and my father left discussions of all matters related to human plumbing to my mother, so the subject never came up. When it did, occasionally, it got shushed away.
I remember once overhearing my mother and her friend talking about a movie character who became a “pros,” which I gathered was a bad person even though I had never heard the word before. It’s not as if I eavesdropped. They were having a conversation right in my presence, but assumed that I was invisible or heard nothing. Later, I asked my mother what a “pros” was. She looked at me as though I had just told her I wanted to become one. Her cold, disapproving voice informed me that such words were for “adults” to know, and that I should never mention such a bad word ever again.
I took her lesson to heart. I never asked her about such words again. I just looked them up quietly in the dictionary ... and found the meanings of lots of forbidden “adult” words that were thrilling and disgusting.
The day I looked up “pros,” I also learned the meanings of “proscenium,” prosthesis, and “prostitute.” And after the way my mother had ticked me off, I was so expecting to be shocked by the definition of “prostitute,” but it didn’t even make my eyes pop.
My dictionary was a good confidant and companion. It offered up anything I wanted to know, without judging me. I learned the meanings of words I was looking for, and those I ran into because they were just hanging around the neighborhood. I could even open it up in full view of my mother and look up filth with scholarly diligence.
I would have loved to have my mom talk to me about the words I secretly looked up, but she was too prim. In her world, kids were too pristine to know about certain things. They just figured them out when they became “adult.” She had been raised in a devout household where they didn’t even know such blasphemous words existed. I can understand her awkwardness now, though I certainly think that as a rational, free adult, she could have made a choice to at least resist such ignorance, even a little bit, instead of raising her kids behind the same veil of silence. I pieced together the facts of life from whatever I gleaned from secret whispers, dirty jokes and high school anatomy lessons.
We have lots of dictionaries in our home. But I’m glad my kids don’t feel inhibited about throwing any question at me. I’m surprised they know about things I hadn’t even heard about at their age, but I’m glad to give them a straight answer.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Reason #5: The Nightlife is ... oh, there isn't any
Bangalore works as cybercoolie to most of the Western world. It is a city that doesn’t sleep because it is busy attending to the housekeeping problems of companies in London, New York and San Francisco.
When people do go out on their night off, there’s not much to party about. A Cinderella law ensures that no establishments serve alcohol after 11.30 p.m. – which is actually 30 minutes less than Cinderella had to party, but be grateful: it used to be 11 p.m. and was extended to 11.30.
Live music is not allowed because the government thinks that dancing to live music leads to prostitution. I’m opaque to this logic, but obviously, people with higher minds and the burden of public welfare on their shoulders have anticipated the dangerous possibility that women who oversee transactions worth thousands of dollars might have a change of heart about their professions as they dance to a live band, and instead consider the career option of hustling hair-oil reeking guys on the street, causing lakhs of rupees in tax losses to the state exchequer.
This regulation doesn’t just insult women. Men should feel insulted, too, because the government assumes they are too stupid or undersexed to be capable of such deviancy.
Bangalore is the city of pubs and of Kingfisher beer. Yes, you can go to any number of places and drink alcohol so you can forget that you're in a city being stubbed to death by its unexpected growth. If you’re a woman, even that simple trip to the pub can be downright dangerous because organizations like the Ram Sena will be sending thugs to beat you up, even if you’re having a beer and biryani with your girlfriends in the afternoon.
When people do go out on their night off, there’s not much to party about. A Cinderella law ensures that no establishments serve alcohol after 11.30 p.m. – which is actually 30 minutes less than Cinderella had to party, but be grateful: it used to be 11 p.m. and was extended to 11.30.
Live music is not allowed because the government thinks that dancing to live music leads to prostitution. I’m opaque to this logic, but obviously, people with higher minds and the burden of public welfare on their shoulders have anticipated the dangerous possibility that women who oversee transactions worth thousands of dollars might have a change of heart about their professions as they dance to a live band, and instead consider the career option of hustling hair-oil reeking guys on the street, causing lakhs of rupees in tax losses to the state exchequer.
This regulation doesn’t just insult women. Men should feel insulted, too, because the government assumes they are too stupid or undersexed to be capable of such deviancy.
Bangalore is the city of pubs and of Kingfisher beer. Yes, you can go to any number of places and drink alcohol so you can forget that you're in a city being stubbed to death by its unexpected growth. If you’re a woman, even that simple trip to the pub can be downright dangerous because organizations like the Ram Sena will be sending thugs to beat you up, even if you’re having a beer and biryani with your girlfriends in the afternoon.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
My DIY Diwali
Diwali is such an easy holiday to celebrate these days. One rangoli (solid cut-out, ready to assemble), a few dozen diyas (store bought), cards (from a store), a stack of gift boxes ordered from confectionery shops, and I’m ready for the festival. Back in the retail-challenged past, Diwali was mostly a do-it-yourself affair that kept us busy for weeks.
Houses got cleaned. Special foods got cooked. Metres of silk had to be shopped and dropped off to be stitched by the tailor, followed by days of begging and threatening so that new outfits could be picked up just before the festival. Platters of goodies draped over with a festive cloth had to be hand-delivered to the homes of friends and neighbors. People dropped by with their platters of goodies and sat and chatted over cups of tea. My sister, brother and I made Diwali cards, laboriously drawing diyas and paisleys and writing a personalized greeting from our family -- none of those e-cards and smses sent off with the click of a digit. We did all this even though we just got one day off from school for Diwali.
The annual cleaning did not just mean uncluttering the house. Cupboards and drawers were turned out and stacked neatly. Cobwebs that had been tolerated with a frown for months were finally demolished. Every corner of the apartment: the walls, the floors, and every door and window, were washed with soapy water and scrubbed.
During this annual ritual, a brown river crowned with suds would trickle down the stairs of our building. That was one of the tests of good neighborliness. Some families had their runaway tributaries mopped up. The bad neighbors just pushed their dirty water out.
At the risk of sounding ancient, I will share that in those days aluminium ladders weren’t available. Paranoid about the makeshift stools most households used, my father had a carpenter build a tall, topple-free four-legged stool with a platform wide enough for a bucket and a pair of legs to stand on. It was a great stool. Neighbors asked to borrow it for their house cleanings, and sent it back with a platter of homemade sweets.
The ultra-clean floor had another use. My siblings and I loved walnuts but the betelnut cracker at home would not open wide enough for a walnut. We designated the corner of our living room door-jamb our nutcracker. We’d wipe out the corner, stick a whole walnut in and close the door till we heard a crunch. We’d take the broken fragments and separate out the kernels.
Once the house was cleaned, the Diwali goodies were prepared. Each day, one or two items would be made. My nose got a smell telegram as soon as I got off the rickshaw with my schoolbag and entered our building. Sev. Murkha. Gaja. Nimki. Fafda. Or if it was that cloying smell of simmering ghee and sugar, I knew it would be Ghughra, Mohanthal, Adadiya. Our little kitchen became a sanctuary for deep-frying as kilos of hydrogenated fat and tins of ghee and oil were emptied.
Sometimes my aunts were all clustered outside the kitchen, sitting under the fan even though it did nothing to prevent the sweat circles around their armpits from getting bigger. They rolled scores of rounds of dough, chatting and moving their elbows in brisk little jerks. We helped a little and tasted a lot. But when sweets were made, a smiling Brahmin cook called Devji Maharaj took over the kitchen for a few afternoons.
Devji Maharaj was brown and round as a gulab jamun. He had large tufts of white ear, thick as a shaving brush, and the hairiest, bulging forearms that would smack, twist and flatten kilos of dough. He brought his own industrial size pots and woks, and utensils with handles as long as fishing rods. He was no wimp who needed to be near a churning fan. He leaned over the kitchen fires, deep-frying and stirring and kneading for hours until the vapors rising from the pots made him look wavy like a genie in a mirage.
The tins of sweets and savories would be depleted over the next week. Most were sent off in platters to the homes of friends and relatives. The snacks we reached for over-eagerly lost their novelty in a few days. We groaned every time mother set them out on a plate or packed them for school snack. The festival started early and lingered in our blood streams. Years later, when I suffered my first hangover, I recognized a hint of that feeling of absolute overload.
My mother's DIY Diwalis have imprinted smells and memories that haven't faded. I won’t be scrubbing any walls, but I have cooked some snacks and sweets whose smells prompt little hands to go on clandestine missions to the kitchen. My family will do our own little Lakshmi puja and hand-deliver chocolate boxes to our friends' homes. We'll arrange diyas on our porch and light our modest stash of fireworks. Then we'll shut all the windows, cuddle up and watch the skies explode with the muffled pop of all the fireworks in our neighborhood.
Houses got cleaned. Special foods got cooked. Metres of silk had to be shopped and dropped off to be stitched by the tailor, followed by days of begging and threatening so that new outfits could be picked up just before the festival. Platters of goodies draped over with a festive cloth had to be hand-delivered to the homes of friends and neighbors. People dropped by with their platters of goodies and sat and chatted over cups of tea. My sister, brother and I made Diwali cards, laboriously drawing diyas and paisleys and writing a personalized greeting from our family -- none of those e-cards and smses sent off with the click of a digit. We did all this even though we just got one day off from school for Diwali.
The annual cleaning did not just mean uncluttering the house. Cupboards and drawers were turned out and stacked neatly. Cobwebs that had been tolerated with a frown for months were finally demolished. Every corner of the apartment: the walls, the floors, and every door and window, were washed with soapy water and scrubbed.
During this annual ritual, a brown river crowned with suds would trickle down the stairs of our building. That was one of the tests of good neighborliness. Some families had their runaway tributaries mopped up. The bad neighbors just pushed their dirty water out.
At the risk of sounding ancient, I will share that in those days aluminium ladders weren’t available. Paranoid about the makeshift stools most households used, my father had a carpenter build a tall, topple-free four-legged stool with a platform wide enough for a bucket and a pair of legs to stand on. It was a great stool. Neighbors asked to borrow it for their house cleanings, and sent it back with a platter of homemade sweets.
The ultra-clean floor had another use. My siblings and I loved walnuts but the betelnut cracker at home would not open wide enough for a walnut. We designated the corner of our living room door-jamb our nutcracker. We’d wipe out the corner, stick a whole walnut in and close the door till we heard a crunch. We’d take the broken fragments and separate out the kernels.
Once the house was cleaned, the Diwali goodies were prepared. Each day, one or two items would be made. My nose got a smell telegram as soon as I got off the rickshaw with my schoolbag and entered our building. Sev. Murkha. Gaja. Nimki. Fafda. Or if it was that cloying smell of simmering ghee and sugar, I knew it would be Ghughra, Mohanthal, Adadiya. Our little kitchen became a sanctuary for deep-frying as kilos of hydrogenated fat and tins of ghee and oil were emptied.
Sometimes my aunts were all clustered outside the kitchen, sitting under the fan even though it did nothing to prevent the sweat circles around their armpits from getting bigger. They rolled scores of rounds of dough, chatting and moving their elbows in brisk little jerks. We helped a little and tasted a lot. But when sweets were made, a smiling Brahmin cook called Devji Maharaj took over the kitchen for a few afternoons.
Devji Maharaj was brown and round as a gulab jamun. He had large tufts of white ear, thick as a shaving brush, and the hairiest, bulging forearms that would smack, twist and flatten kilos of dough. He brought his own industrial size pots and woks, and utensils with handles as long as fishing rods. He was no wimp who needed to be near a churning fan. He leaned over the kitchen fires, deep-frying and stirring and kneading for hours until the vapors rising from the pots made him look wavy like a genie in a mirage.
The tins of sweets and savories would be depleted over the next week. Most were sent off in platters to the homes of friends and relatives. The snacks we reached for over-eagerly lost their novelty in a few days. We groaned every time mother set them out on a plate or packed them for school snack. The festival started early and lingered in our blood streams. Years later, when I suffered my first hangover, I recognized a hint of that feeling of absolute overload.
My mother's DIY Diwalis have imprinted smells and memories that haven't faded. I won’t be scrubbing any walls, but I have cooked some snacks and sweets whose smells prompt little hands to go on clandestine missions to the kitchen. My family will do our own little Lakshmi puja and hand-deliver chocolate boxes to our friends' homes. We'll arrange diyas on our porch and light our modest stash of fireworks. Then we'll shut all the windows, cuddle up and watch the skies explode with the muffled pop of all the fireworks in our neighborhood.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Reason #4: The Worst of Both Worlds
You think you’re going to get the best of both worlds for your family, but could end up with the worst of both.
You’re familiar with this math: If I’m earning in dollars and spending in rupees, I couldn’t get any closer to winning a lottery. With servants to do my work, and saving pots of money because everything is dirt cheap, I’m going to live royally.
Isn’t that the ultimate heaven for a middle class Indian, or for anyone on an expat pay package?
It’s a better life than one could imagine when immigrating to London, New York or Sydney. But remember, too, that getting through your average day will sap every ounce of energy and patience you have and cost you dearly. You can’t always count on the government for power supply or water, so be prepared to arrange for your own power back-up, and patronize a water tanker that can drain the city’s depleted borewells even drier.
Getting someone to cook and clean for you and drive you around is wonderful. You could also end up with higher levels of stress because you’ve suddenly become parent, psychiatrist, moneylender and health care provider for your household help. Altering your life to this degree to just get someone to cook meals and dust your house for you? Suddenly this doesn’t seem very attractive.
Also consider that you will spend a great part of your day working with people who don’t deliver on what they’ve promised to, and chasing people who routinely don’t show up when they’re supposed to.
If you’re at a point in your life where you’ve achieved independence, self-sufficiency and equanimity, do you really want to sacrifice these?
You’re familiar with this math: If I’m earning in dollars and spending in rupees, I couldn’t get any closer to winning a lottery. With servants to do my work, and saving pots of money because everything is dirt cheap, I’m going to live royally.
Isn’t that the ultimate heaven for a middle class Indian, or for anyone on an expat pay package?
It’s a better life than one could imagine when immigrating to London, New York or Sydney. But remember, too, that getting through your average day will sap every ounce of energy and patience you have and cost you dearly. You can’t always count on the government for power supply or water, so be prepared to arrange for your own power back-up, and patronize a water tanker that can drain the city’s depleted borewells even drier.
Getting someone to cook and clean for you and drive you around is wonderful. You could also end up with higher levels of stress because you’ve suddenly become parent, psychiatrist, moneylender and health care provider for your household help. Altering your life to this degree to just get someone to cook meals and dust your house for you? Suddenly this doesn’t seem very attractive.
Also consider that you will spend a great part of your day working with people who don’t deliver on what they’ve promised to, and chasing people who routinely don’t show up when they’re supposed to.
If you’re at a point in your life where you’ve achieved independence, self-sufficiency and equanimity, do you really want to sacrifice these?
Friday, October 9, 2009
Reason #3: The Schools Are Disappointing
Don’t make the mistake of assuming that because major international companies have their offices in Bangalore, because vast numbers of college-educated specialists live in Bangalore, then its schools must also be great.
With a handful of exceptions, Bangalore schools range in quality from average to abysmal.
And the general quality of school teachers is among the worst I’ve seen or heard of. Not surprising, actually. Anyone who can walk upright and speak English can get a very well-paying job answering a telephone. With tea-boys at BPOs making as much as teachers and a high cost of living that does not make idealism economically viable, teaching is not the career choice of most smart people.
So the boom in Bangalore has ironically created a situation where there are so many better paying career options that there is actually a shortage of talented teachers at a time when the number of students has gone up due to massive migration and repatriation to the city.
There are 3 main types of schools available in Bangalore: the traditional schools, the international schools, and the new schools.
The Traditional Schools: These are the branded schools whose name everyone recognizes.
Indians moving back to India think: “I went to a no-frills traditional school, and they drilled me and helped me get those exam results I needed to study medicine/engineering/management. I managed to go to the U.S. and kick butt in college. Now I want my U.S.-citizen kids to go through the drill I couldn’t escape because, hey, it wasn’t too bad for me after all.
So what if there are 50-60 kids in a classroom? It’ll teach them to toughen up and appreciate the odds I had to overcome in life. They’ve become pampered softies abroad, thinking they can get hugs from teachers and ask them all the questions they want. Why, it’s good, old-fashioned cramming, mindless bowing to authority and leaping from exam to exam that got me where I am, and no better place to deliver that than a good, old-fashioned reputable school with a good track record.”
It is allegedly impossible to get admission to these schools because they have gargantuan waiting lists that parents signed with their blood before they even conceived their kids. However, offer a generous “donation”, drop a few names, and seats will miraculously become available.
The International Schools: For parents who don’t want to subject themselves and their children to the humiliation of seeking admission to a traditional school, and who have deep pockets, the so-called international schools are a lifesaver.
An international school should offer an international student body, an international teaching staff, an international curriculum and international-quality facilities. The existing international schools sometimes meet maybe one or two, and most often, none of these criteria. They do charge their parents astronomical dollar-equivalent fees comparable to elite private schools overseas, while paying their mostly Indian teachers slightly more than the local schools.
In terms of value, these schools are the ultimate rip-off. My advice: Save the money for college.
Gullible streams of NRIs and expatriates looking for continuity, and a more easygoing and familiar school environment for their children fall for the rolling campuses and soft-sell from these schools. What these parents don’t know, but find out gradually, is that the teachers who staff these schools have had most of their education and training in the traditional Indian system. A few weeks of token “training” or a week abroad does not change a mindset trained to impart knowledge through rote learning, exams and an authoritarian teaching style that is suited to a classroom where children are expected to be seen and not heard. These teachers are affronted when kids ask them questions ("How can I finish the syllabus if kids keep putting up their hands and interrupting me?").
The New Schools: These offer elements of both the international and the traditional schools. In general, they are less finicky about admissions than the traditional schools and have smaller class sizes. They tend to be located on the fringes of the city. Their fees tend to be higher than those of traditional schools, but much lower than those of international schools. They offer a range of sports and extra-curricular activities. They usually offer the traditional ICSE/CBSE curriculum, but without the numbing rigor. Some of these schools offer the Cambridge IGCSE as an option in high school.
With a handful of exceptions, Bangalore schools range in quality from average to abysmal.
And the general quality of school teachers is among the worst I’ve seen or heard of. Not surprising, actually. Anyone who can walk upright and speak English can get a very well-paying job answering a telephone. With tea-boys at BPOs making as much as teachers and a high cost of living that does not make idealism economically viable, teaching is not the career choice of most smart people.
So the boom in Bangalore has ironically created a situation where there are so many better paying career options that there is actually a shortage of talented teachers at a time when the number of students has gone up due to massive migration and repatriation to the city.
There are 3 main types of schools available in Bangalore: the traditional schools, the international schools, and the new schools.
The Traditional Schools: These are the branded schools whose name everyone recognizes.
Indians moving back to India think: “I went to a no-frills traditional school, and they drilled me and helped me get those exam results I needed to study medicine/engineering/management. I managed to go to the U.S. and kick butt in college. Now I want my U.S.-citizen kids to go through the drill I couldn’t escape because, hey, it wasn’t too bad for me after all.
So what if there are 50-60 kids in a classroom? It’ll teach them to toughen up and appreciate the odds I had to overcome in life. They’ve become pampered softies abroad, thinking they can get hugs from teachers and ask them all the questions they want. Why, it’s good, old-fashioned cramming, mindless bowing to authority and leaping from exam to exam that got me where I am, and no better place to deliver that than a good, old-fashioned reputable school with a good track record.”
It is allegedly impossible to get admission to these schools because they have gargantuan waiting lists that parents signed with their blood before they even conceived their kids. However, offer a generous “donation”, drop a few names, and seats will miraculously become available.
The International Schools: For parents who don’t want to subject themselves and their children to the humiliation of seeking admission to a traditional school, and who have deep pockets, the so-called international schools are a lifesaver.
An international school should offer an international student body, an international teaching staff, an international curriculum and international-quality facilities. The existing international schools sometimes meet maybe one or two, and most often, none of these criteria. They do charge their parents astronomical dollar-equivalent fees comparable to elite private schools overseas, while paying their mostly Indian teachers slightly more than the local schools.
In terms of value, these schools are the ultimate rip-off. My advice: Save the money for college.
Gullible streams of NRIs and expatriates looking for continuity, and a more easygoing and familiar school environment for their children fall for the rolling campuses and soft-sell from these schools. What these parents don’t know, but find out gradually, is that the teachers who staff these schools have had most of their education and training in the traditional Indian system. A few weeks of token “training” or a week abroad does not change a mindset trained to impart knowledge through rote learning, exams and an authoritarian teaching style that is suited to a classroom where children are expected to be seen and not heard. These teachers are affronted when kids ask them questions ("How can I finish the syllabus if kids keep putting up their hands and interrupting me?").
The New Schools: These offer elements of both the international and the traditional schools. In general, they are less finicky about admissions than the traditional schools and have smaller class sizes. They tend to be located on the fringes of the city. Their fees tend to be higher than those of traditional schools, but much lower than those of international schools. They offer a range of sports and extra-curricular activities. They usually offer the traditional ICSE/CBSE curriculum, but without the numbing rigor. Some of these schools offer the Cambridge IGCSE as an option in high school.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
I Want My Rahul Refund!
After having accomplished not much in life except overdose on drugs, have a failed marriage and show up on reality TV with equally untalented attention-seekers, Rahul Mahajan thinks he can hit the marriage jackpot and get wooed by a line-up of brides.
Rakhi Sawant, whose pseudo-swayamvar Rahul is trying to replicate, can at least dance. She has a spunky coarseness that’s real underneath all her network nakhras. She would make a lousy wife and mother, but she’s at least a wannabe with some talent, even though it’s had some help from a plastic surgeon.
What has Rahul got? He’s no arm candy. And even women with extremely poor judgement – the kind that would have them line up for someone like Rahul M -- would admit that in a moment of crisis, an airline vomit bag would be a more dependable source of comfort than him.
He’s out of shape and dissipated. With that soft chin, the shifty eyes and hands that haven’t done much work other than leave bruises on his former wife, he’s a sorry specimen to parade in the marriage market. Would anyone buy a used car from him, let alone marry him?
And yet there he is, the next candidate for an on-air pseudo-shaadi. Couldn’t he at least work on his abs or get a tummy tuck before bothering to be photographed in his groom’s sherwani looking like schlub who’s just ended a first trimester of boozing?
I can understand Rahul’s desperation. He may not get luckier than this in his search for a mate. What I can’t understand is that there might actually be a queue of women so lacking in self-esteem that they are willing to concede to the public shame of actually declaring they want to marry this loser.
Surely they would rather be at home plucking their nose hair, sorting their socks or getting an honestly detoxing enema, than kissing Rahul’s ass for all the world to see?
Here I am, a happily married woman, getting bent out of shape on behalf of all these debased single women whose 15 minutes of fame are likely to prove longer than the length of time the unluckiest of them is likely to be married (or engaged) to this schmuck. (Aah, have been wanting to use this word in print forever and finally got the chance. A schmuck is Yiddish slang for the discarded foreskin of a circumcised penis. Another first for me: using 2 Yiddish words in the same piece of writing.)
The women on that show should demand a Rahul refund. “We want Rahul Gandhi,” they should shout to the network. Okay, that Rahul’s hard to get, but he’s got the looks and the substance that would easily make him part of any smart woman’s fantasies. If not him, how about a Rahul Gandhi look-alike? Or just any achha-sa, reasonably intelligent guy who might be trolling through the trenches of shaadi.com, without the luck to be as well-connected as Rahul M?
There’s no justice on TV. Network new programs, those purveyors of truth and balance, routinely feature ugly, old male anchors with powder-caked receding hairlines paired with bright, chirpy young women. Because according to their wisdom, women always have to look pretty, while bald, ugly men exude a natural air of irresistible competence.
This is an ass-umption made by bald, ugly, male network executives … the same sort who also fancy Rahul Mahajan would be God’s gift to women. And not inappropriately, this network’s name happens to be NDTV Imagine.
Rakhi Sawant, whose pseudo-swayamvar Rahul is trying to replicate, can at least dance. She has a spunky coarseness that’s real underneath all her network nakhras. She would make a lousy wife and mother, but she’s at least a wannabe with some talent, even though it’s had some help from a plastic surgeon.
What has Rahul got? He’s no arm candy. And even women with extremely poor judgement – the kind that would have them line up for someone like Rahul M -- would admit that in a moment of crisis, an airline vomit bag would be a more dependable source of comfort than him.
He’s out of shape and dissipated. With that soft chin, the shifty eyes and hands that haven’t done much work other than leave bruises on his former wife, he’s a sorry specimen to parade in the marriage market. Would anyone buy a used car from him, let alone marry him?
And yet there he is, the next candidate for an on-air pseudo-shaadi. Couldn’t he at least work on his abs or get a tummy tuck before bothering to be photographed in his groom’s sherwani looking like schlub who’s just ended a first trimester of boozing?
I can understand Rahul’s desperation. He may not get luckier than this in his search for a mate. What I can’t understand is that there might actually be a queue of women so lacking in self-esteem that they are willing to concede to the public shame of actually declaring they want to marry this loser.
Surely they would rather be at home plucking their nose hair, sorting their socks or getting an honestly detoxing enema, than kissing Rahul’s ass for all the world to see?
Here I am, a happily married woman, getting bent out of shape on behalf of all these debased single women whose 15 minutes of fame are likely to prove longer than the length of time the unluckiest of them is likely to be married (or engaged) to this schmuck. (Aah, have been wanting to use this word in print forever and finally got the chance. A schmuck is Yiddish slang for the discarded foreskin of a circumcised penis. Another first for me: using 2 Yiddish words in the same piece of writing.)
The women on that show should demand a Rahul refund. “We want Rahul Gandhi,” they should shout to the network. Okay, that Rahul’s hard to get, but he’s got the looks and the substance that would easily make him part of any smart woman’s fantasies. If not him, how about a Rahul Gandhi look-alike? Or just any achha-sa, reasonably intelligent guy who might be trolling through the trenches of shaadi.com, without the luck to be as well-connected as Rahul M?
There’s no justice on TV. Network new programs, those purveyors of truth and balance, routinely feature ugly, old male anchors with powder-caked receding hairlines paired with bright, chirpy young women. Because according to their wisdom, women always have to look pretty, while bald, ugly men exude a natural air of irresistible competence.
This is an ass-umption made by bald, ugly, male network executives … the same sort who also fancy Rahul Mahajan would be God’s gift to women. And not inappropriately, this network’s name happens to be NDTV Imagine.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
A Shakedown on Gandhi's Birthday
On the Mahatma's birthday, the children had an important lesson on how our system of law and order functions. They saw Mom and Dad give in to a bully.
We were headed to Koshy's for lunch and took a left turn at a light just two blocks away from Gandhiji’s statue on Mahatma Gandhi Road. Our car was flagged down by a couple of policemen.
There were the usual hapless motorcyclists begging and bargaining for release. We pulled over and rolled down our windows. One of the cops sauntered to our car.
“You took a free left turn on the junction,” he said. “There is no free turn.”
We were certain the light had been green. In any case, there had been cars in front of us that had turned left on to the empty road, and so had we. We had done nothing as wrongful as blowing through a red light, which Bangaloreans routinely do whether the streets are empty or not.
All the cars in front of us and behind us were gone on the empty road. We were the only foolish ones to stop for a person in uniform.
We insisted we had not turned left on a red light. The cop demanded to see my husband’s licence. He looked disappointed that it was all legitimate. He looked at us: a family out for Saturday lunch. He looked at our kids, who had stopped reading their books and looked worried.
“You turned on red light,” the cop said. “If you go back, you will see.”
The shakedown was so pathetic and obvious. I would have laughed were I not seething. “But the lights have changed already, have they not …?” my husband said, incredulous and polite.
The cop looked deliberately at the licence again. He was reluctant to return it. “You have to pay something,” he insisted. Now he was getting to business. “Hundred rupees,” he said sticking his hand out. "For violation."
There was no question who was being violated, but we paid up. It was his word against ours so there was no winning this fight. And like any skilled extortionist, he gauged the amount was small enough for us to write off as an irritant not worth disrupting our day for.
He took the money and waved us on generously. There was no receipt for the “fine.”
"But we did nothing wrong ...!" the children protested. We told them this was an abuse of power that we could challenge successfully in a place where the government functions in a fair and transparent manner. Not in India.
On the Mahatma's birthday, my children witnessed for the first time something that happens every day millions of times across India. Currency notes embossed with Gandhi’s face and proclaiming "The truth always wins" are wrongfully extracted from the pockets of citizens by a breed of common bully called a government servant.
We were headed to Koshy's for lunch and took a left turn at a light just two blocks away from Gandhiji’s statue on Mahatma Gandhi Road. Our car was flagged down by a couple of policemen.
There were the usual hapless motorcyclists begging and bargaining for release. We pulled over and rolled down our windows. One of the cops sauntered to our car.
“You took a free left turn on the junction,” he said. “There is no free turn.”
We were certain the light had been green. In any case, there had been cars in front of us that had turned left on to the empty road, and so had we. We had done nothing as wrongful as blowing through a red light, which Bangaloreans routinely do whether the streets are empty or not.
All the cars in front of us and behind us were gone on the empty road. We were the only foolish ones to stop for a person in uniform.
We insisted we had not turned left on a red light. The cop demanded to see my husband’s licence. He looked disappointed that it was all legitimate. He looked at us: a family out for Saturday lunch. He looked at our kids, who had stopped reading their books and looked worried.
“You turned on red light,” the cop said. “If you go back, you will see.”
The shakedown was so pathetic and obvious. I would have laughed were I not seething. “But the lights have changed already, have they not …?” my husband said, incredulous and polite.
The cop looked deliberately at the licence again. He was reluctant to return it. “You have to pay something,” he insisted. Now he was getting to business. “Hundred rupees,” he said sticking his hand out. "For violation."
There was no question who was being violated, but we paid up. It was his word against ours so there was no winning this fight. And like any skilled extortionist, he gauged the amount was small enough for us to write off as an irritant not worth disrupting our day for.
He took the money and waved us on generously. There was no receipt for the “fine.”
"But we did nothing wrong ...!" the children protested. We told them this was an abuse of power that we could challenge successfully in a place where the government functions in a fair and transparent manner. Not in India.
On the Mahatma's birthday, my children witnessed for the first time something that happens every day millions of times across India. Currency notes embossed with Gandhi’s face and proclaiming "The truth always wins" are wrongfully extracted from the pockets of citizens by a breed of common bully called a government servant.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Lalbagh
Lalbagh is the Central Park of Bangalore. It is an island of more than 200 acres of trees and parks, surrounded by some of the city’s most congested neighborhoods.
Many people go to Lalbagh to see its absolutely unspectacular flower clock, or the glass house that hosts a kitschy flower show a few times a year. During the flower shows, tens of thousands of people line up to look at potted plants and carved vegetables, and leave kilograms of litter in their wake.
The flower show is something to do once, just to experience the flutter a city can go into over a bunch of flower pots, even as glorious, storied trees with pachyderm trunks tower quietly just yards away.
Lalbagh is best enjoyed when you think of it as a remnant of Bangalore’s vanishing past. The few benches in the park are taken by lovebirds turning their stiff, guilty backs to people strolling by and vendors selling roasted peanuts, puffed rice and sliced cucumbers. Climb the rock hill, said to be 3-billion years old, and catch a view of Bangalore’s skyline. Then take the path that does the outermost circuit of the park.
We passed a lake carpeted with lotus pads but boasting more plastic bottles than blossoms. We saw only three lotus flowers, and even these were a beautiful consolation. A delicate pink flower standing shyly on a greenish-blue stiletto of a stalk, still water and moving clouds in the sky. My husband points out the pearly sheen of the rain clouds gathering in the distance. Walking about amidst nature has us prospecting for beautiful things and spouting poetry unrehearsed.
The best part of Lalbagh is a chance to get close to its trees. Frowning guards materialize when you get close to the roses (which give the garden its name, "red garden") or look like you might be enjoying the grass. I don’t care for the pampered grass. The flowers have enough adorers to flirt with. I scout for the garden’s step-children: its marvellous, brooding trees.
My favorite are the Bombax trees, whose massive, rippling girths rise up into infinity. Like so many of India’s historical monuments, some of these old trees are carved with the initials of vandals. The names have grown bigger along with the diameters of these limbs. You can read these ugly tattoos meters away.
There is something menacing yet gentle about these Bombax trees. My children swore they were enchanted like the Whomping Willow encountered by Harry Potter. They patted the tentacled roots with wary delight, as though petting an animal.
It is easy to believe there is something mysterious about these powerful trees. Maybe they are petrified rakshasas clawing out into the air in a futile effort to escape. I tried to play a fast-motion movie in my head where a seed churns out a stalk that dances up to the sky for more than a hundred years, getting thicker as it flings its branches out in magnificent mudras up towards God.
Or maybe it’s like witnessing Sita’s fire ordeal. “Have I not endured enough?” the trees beseech the skies. “Take me away from this wretched city that rapes me and lusts for metal and concrete.”
Many people go to Lalbagh to see its absolutely unspectacular flower clock, or the glass house that hosts a kitschy flower show a few times a year. During the flower shows, tens of thousands of people line up to look at potted plants and carved vegetables, and leave kilograms of litter in their wake.
The flower show is something to do once, just to experience the flutter a city can go into over a bunch of flower pots, even as glorious, storied trees with pachyderm trunks tower quietly just yards away.
Lalbagh is best enjoyed when you think of it as a remnant of Bangalore’s vanishing past. The few benches in the park are taken by lovebirds turning their stiff, guilty backs to people strolling by and vendors selling roasted peanuts, puffed rice and sliced cucumbers. Climb the rock hill, said to be 3-billion years old, and catch a view of Bangalore’s skyline. Then take the path that does the outermost circuit of the park.
We passed a lake carpeted with lotus pads but boasting more plastic bottles than blossoms. We saw only three lotus flowers, and even these were a beautiful consolation. A delicate pink flower standing shyly on a greenish-blue stiletto of a stalk, still water and moving clouds in the sky. My husband points out the pearly sheen of the rain clouds gathering in the distance. Walking about amidst nature has us prospecting for beautiful things and spouting poetry unrehearsed.
The best part of Lalbagh is a chance to get close to its trees. Frowning guards materialize when you get close to the roses (which give the garden its name, "red garden") or look like you might be enjoying the grass. I don’t care for the pampered grass. The flowers have enough adorers to flirt with. I scout for the garden’s step-children: its marvellous, brooding trees.
My favorite are the Bombax trees, whose massive, rippling girths rise up into infinity. Like so many of India’s historical monuments, some of these old trees are carved with the initials of vandals. The names have grown bigger along with the diameters of these limbs. You can read these ugly tattoos meters away.
There is something menacing yet gentle about these Bombax trees. My children swore they were enchanted like the Whomping Willow encountered by Harry Potter. They patted the tentacled roots with wary delight, as though petting an animal.
It is easy to believe there is something mysterious about these powerful trees. Maybe they are petrified rakshasas clawing out into the air in a futile effort to escape. I tried to play a fast-motion movie in my head where a seed churns out a stalk that dances up to the sky for more than a hundred years, getting thicker as it flings its branches out in magnificent mudras up towards God.
Or maybe it’s like witnessing Sita’s fire ordeal. “Have I not endured enough?” the trees beseech the skies. “Take me away from this wretched city that rapes me and lusts for metal and concrete.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
