Tonight is the AES Board Farewell Dinner, where our school honors departing board members and staff. The “leavers” are invited to get up on the stage to say a few words about their time in Delhi. Some give heartfelt speeches; others perform a little skit, sing a song, or show a clever video. Historically, it’s been an evening fraught with emotion.
I recall a particularly poignant speech in 2012, in which a teacher asked people in the room to stand if they had ever taught his children. Many pushed back their chairs and stood. Then he asked people to stand if they had ever coached his children in sports or after-school activities. More rose. Then he asked people to stand if they had ever put a Band-aid on one of his kids, had a hallway conversation with them, talked to them at a birthday party, or otherwise interacted with them. By then, nearly everybody in the room was out of their seats, many of us in tears.
It was a powerful illustration of the interconnectedness of an international school community. We work together, play together, travel together, struggle together, celebrate together, teach and care for each other’s children, and grow reliant on one another. Then we wave good-bye as those important people move on to other places, year after year, until we are the ones leaving.
At previous AES Board Farewell Dinners, I’ve wondered, “What will we do when it’s our turn to go?” Well, now I know. Nothing. With less than two weeks before we leave India for good and kick off a new adventure in Santiago, Chile, we will attend this dinner, but we won’t get up to speak.
Trust me, I’m as surprised as you are. Everyone knows I love the spotlight, especially if it’s an opportunity to make people laugh. Over the last five years, I’ve toyed with many hilarious ideas that could have blossomed into shtick for tonight’s dinner.
I do want to honor Incredible India, where spectacular experiences are a daily occurrence. I want to express my deepest appreciation for a professional community that thrives on thinking and growing and learning from each other. I want to send a big shout-out to friends who supported us through the bumpy patches and laughed with us the rest of the time. This country, this city, this school, this community – all of it – has been unlike anything we’ve experienced in our 15 years overseas.
And that’s precisely why I can’t get up to speak tonight. I know I won’t be able to harden my heart against the tears when I look out at the crowd. And nobody wants to see this girl cry. It ain’t pretty.
So know that this is my way of telling you how much you mean to me, from the bottom of my tear-stained heart:
Please stand if you ever prepared food, booked travel, arranged a visa, handled money, set up a mobile phone, drove a car, mailed a postcard, or signed official paperwork for me. Please stand if you ever answered an urgent email from me. Please stand if you ever delivered, painted, fixed, cleaned, or moved something at my home or classroom.
Please stand if you ever exercised, ate out, shopped, danced, visited a historic site, took a walking tour, discussed books, played cards, got massages, lounged by a pool, ventured out to community events, walked in the park, or otherwise played with me. Please stand if you traveled with me.
Please stand if you taught me something or if I taught you something or if we learned something together. Please stand if you and I were part of the same department, task force, committee, focus group, or grade-level team.
Please stand if you ever gave me a hug or I gave you one. Please stand if you’ve heard my cat stories, student stories, mom stories, niece and nephew stories, and/or poop stories. Please stand if I ever cried in your presence.
If you’re standing, it’s because you made a difference in my world. Thank you.
I’m not quite ready to say good-bye. So, if I see you tonight, please don’t dwell on our departure. Let’s just share a few more laughs for the road.
Recently, global news has filled my heart with sadness and anxiety. As a teacher of little kids, I try to maintain a light-hearted demeanor and a smile on my face. With adults, I joke about suppressing my feelings as I sing a song from the musical, “Book of Mormon.”
When you start to get confused because of thoughts in your head, don’t feel those feelings! Hold them in instead. Turn it off like a lightbulb! Just go click. It’s a cool little Mormon trick.
Sometimes that helps.
However, I can’t stop thinking of fear in the eyes of Syrian refugees. I lie awake at night angry over the helplessness we all feel when innocent people die in pointless bombings in random cities. I worry about fear breeding intolerance leading to hate resulting in rash laws and unlawful actions that ultimately shred the fabric of humanity. I stress about American politics, which presently seems to offer no viable option for making the world a better place. I wallow in my own personal uncertainty: so many unanswered questions and conflicting emotions related to a new life on a new continent and saying good-bye to a place and people we have loved for five years. In addition, India has been throwing us curve balls with confusing messages related to visas and taxes, creating a tense vibe among our staff.
So, yeah, I’ve been a little stressed lately. So stressed that I almost skipped a speech at school Friday by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. As a support teacher, I didn’t have to accompany a class, so knowing the rest of the school would be at the speech, I almost stayed in my room to get some work done. Still, I knew I would regret missing this opportunity, so I headed to the gym.
Photo courtesy of Alan Rubin
Children in pre-kindergarten through second grade lined up outside to greet the Dalai Lama. Everyone agreed they wouldn’t benefit from sitting on the floor of the gym for his lengthy speech, but a receiving line was better than nothing. Many teachers had front-loaded his visit with wonderful lessons featuring his own quotes on kindness and compassion, so children were eager to see him. Inside the gym, we packed grades 3 through 12, teachers, and a few special guests from the top bleacher down to the floor, within a few feet of the small stage. Several teachers managed to secure invitations for their Tibetan maids, who stood at the front in traditional dress, nearly bursting with excitement. Each held a khata, a white scarf, which they would present to the Dalai Lama for blessing.
Photo courtesy of Tim Steadman
An overflow venue was set up for parents to watch the speech via live streaming video.
I traveled to Tibet in 2009, and in 2012 I visited Dharamsala in northern India, where the Dalai Lama lives in exile. I know his story. I empathize deeply with the Tibetan people. Although I’m not a Buddhist, I do embrace many Buddhist values. Yet I never could have anticipated the visceral impact of the Dalai Lama’s presence. I cried all day following his speech, but they were tears of gratefulness and hope. Even now, my eyes well up as I write this and my heart swells with happiness. I realize this sounds hokey and dramatic, and I don’t really understand it myself. One little octagenarian shifted my whole mindset and transformed my energy in less than two hours. How long will this last? Or maybe I should ask, how do I hold on to it? Or maybe even more importantly, how do I share it with others?
I’m still processing this myself, so I apologize in advance if my thoughts ramble.
Photo courtesy of Eric Johnson
I entered the gym and sat with Tony in the bleachers. The usual rumble of chatter echoed off the walls, which were draped with black and gold, our school colors. The stage remained quiet, Tibetan prayer flags stretched across the backdrop and a comfy chair awaiting the arrival of His Holiness. After awhile, the head of Indian Studies got on the mic and encouraged us to quiet down and get our minds in a more meditative space. A hush fell over the gym, and even our youngest students remained calm until we were dismissed, more than 90 minutes later.
Soon, AES Director Paul Chmelik announced the Dalai Lama had arrived and was greeting the children outside. Later I learned why it took so long from that moment until the Dalai Lama entered the gym. I thought he would walk past the receiving line outside with a wave and a smile to the children, but he apparently paused and chatted, laughing, touching foreheads in a traditional Tibetan greeting, clasping their little faces in his hands, asking questions and chortling at the answers. “How old do you think I am?” 99! 75! (In fact, he’ll turn 81 this summer.)
Photo courtesy of Eric Johnson
Greeting our friends, Scott White, ES assistant principal; Paul Johnson, HS principal; and Gary Coyle, director of technology. Photo courtesy of Alan Rubin
As the Dalai Lama passed through the doorway to the gym, the crowd stood. One of the Tibetan maids began to weep, her cries breaking the silence. He worked his way toward the stage, taking his time and engaging with those along the way, sharing a good laugh with a wheelchair-bound guest who had met him before, blessing the khatas and gently patting the bowed heads.
Photos courtesy of Mark Cowlin
When he stepped onto the stage, he put his hands together in namaste and faced the crowd. Then he greeted the children on the floor, waggling his fingers and wobbling his head with a big grin. After an introduction by Dr. Chmelik, a sweet song by our elementary school choir, and a welcome from two high school seniors, the Dalai Lama addressed the audience – without notes and standing for the first 30 minutes of his speech.
Photos by Tim Steadman
“Indeed, I am very very happy come here, mixing with young brothers and sisters,” he said, citing two reasons. First, the past cannot be undone, but the future awaits, and these young people have the power to create a vision and work toward a world of compassion. His second reason for enjoying school visits, he said, was “little bit silly.”
“I am old person, old monk,” he said. “When I met some old people, I feel, oh, hmmm, you go first or me go first? When I meet these young people, I also feel little bit younger! More fresh, more fresh, like that!” And he laughed, a good hearty guffaw, at his own silliness.
With a translator standing by, he peppered his speech with funny anecdotes, often cracking himself up and pausing for a deep chuckle. He told of being a lazy student when he was young and tutored, along with his older brother, by a teacher who had two whips: a regular whip and a “yellow whip, a holy whip for holy student, Dalai Lama. I think holy pain is same as regular pain,” he laughed.
In a poignant moment, the Dalai Lama answered a student’s question about pets at his temple. He recalled having cared for many injured animals over the years – birds, dogs and cats, noting that compassion pays off with animals, too. They appreciate our affection and repay us in kind, he said, acting out the kneading gesture of a cat while making a purring sound. I loved that.
Between stories and laughter, the Dalai Lama repeatedly emphasized the importance of compassion in the world. He stressed the need for “a sense of concern for the well-being of humanity, a oneness for 7 billion human beings.” Compassion is intrinsic to human nature, he said, noting how human bodies function best when our minds are calm. It’s biological. As the world’s population grows and climate change impacts our natural resources, there is no other option than banding together through compassion. He pointed out that a person killed by a tiger or elephant is big news, but we hardly notice anymore when a person dies at the hand of another person. “This we have to change,” he said.
Addressing human rights violations around the world, he said it was useless to merely condemn them. He called on people to think about the causes of human rights violations and then “try to tackle the causes.”
What are those causes? Discrimination and intolerance seem to fuel emotions that lead to violence, he said. “I always think of myself as another human being, and that makes a close feeling (with others),” he explained. “If I’m a Buddhist monk, particularly Dalai Lama, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, then I am myself a little bit isolated from the audience. Out off 7 billion people, only one Dalai Lama. If I have too much emphasis on Dalai Lama, then I feel lonely. When I feel I am another human being, then we are brothers and sisters. … Too much importance on status, race, faith, nationality, rich or poor, educated or uneducated, influential or not influential. All problems are caused by these things. The only solution to those problems is to believe we are all fundamentally the same.”
When people feel connected and care about one another’s well-being, everyone benefits, he said. As social animals, human beings cannot survive without community. “The very source of our successful life, happy life, depends on the rest of the society. So too much self-centered attitude, narrow mindedness, selfish thinking … is actually destroying your own happiness.”
Pondering the power of religion to hurt and heal, the Dalai Lama pointed out that all major religions teach love, tolerance and forgiveness. It’s only natural that different philosophies arose around the world in the quest for those things, but the goal is the same. “There’s no grounds to discriminate or fight; we can develop respect when we realize it’s the same purpose,” he said. However, the culture surrounding religion is where real challenges arise. Social habits and beliefs instilled by religious institutions may cause more harm than good in today’s society, even if they originally served a useful purpose. He specifically named India’s caste system and the Islamic Sharia law as systems in need of change. To prove it can be done, he shared his own decision to sever the political arm of the Dalai Lama Institution and turn over power to democratically elected leaders in Tibet. “Almost a four-century-old practice is ended,” he said. “The reality of a time leads to changes in religious practice.”
The Dali Lama wrapped up his speech with a plea to teachers. Nurture deep connections with students, model compassion, and explicitly teach the values of kindness, tolerance and open-mindedness, he said. (Even his teacher with the whips grew to show great affection.)
So many resonating ideas surfaced during the Dalai Lama’s speech. He talked about relations with China (it’s getting better); science and religion (no reason for conflict); courage (honesty leads to self-confidence); study and self-reflection (there’s still so much to learn); optimism (“Power of truth is much stronger than power of gun.”); and his favorite places in the world (depends on the weather). Bottom line: Any change has to start with one person. Show compassion, receive compassion, and pay it forward.
What a role model for teachers and children, alike. This man is powerful enough to change a Buddhist institution, yet humble enough to purr like a cat and giggle with children. The future of an entire culture rests on his shoulders, yet he bubbles with optimism and hope. He can talk about brain science or world religions with confidence, yet he has no problem admitting “I don’t know.”
After watching the video of his speech – re-playing until I plucked meaning from occasionally scrambled word order or his heavy Tibetan accent – I came away with even more to think about. One thing the video couldn’t capture, though, was the energy in the room. It was unlike anything I have ever experienced. At the risk of sounding like a Buddhist charlatan, I can attest that the Dalai Lama’s aura washed over me in a deep and profound way. I’m clinging to it, committed to at least striving to embody the compassion he believes can save the world.
Accepting his AES swag. Photo courtesy of Mark Cowlin
Still mingling on his way out.
Photos courtesy of Mark Cowlin
Here’s the video of His Holiness the Dalai Lama addressing the American Embassy School in New Delhi.
Imagine … a new TV show that merges The Amazing Race, So You Think You Can Dance, Survivor, Project Runway and Cash Cab.
That show became a reality Saturday for participants in the 3rd annual AES Rickshaw Rally. Dressed in ridiculous ensembles – often with a back story – almost 60 of us scuttled around Delhi in auto rickshaws, driven by somewhat perplexed men forced to occasionally take part in the silliness.
We assembled at the campus housing playground in the morning for a quick photo shoot, a lot of laughter, and the first set of clues. Organizers also gave us a baggie filled with unusual props: a printout of AES Director Paul Chmelik’s face taped to the end of a ruler, several stick-on mustaches (which, rats! – I didn’t discover till the race was over), a few rickshaw stickers, a map, some Hindi translations of common questions, a postcard, and a fluffy shiny ribbon (ostensibly to tie on our rickshaw).
My partner, Saguna, a second-grade teacher and Delhi native, dressed as a typical American, and I went over-the-top Indian. Our team name was “Culture Swap.” When we dashed through the campus gate to find a rickshaw, we lucked out and jumped in one driven by Sunil Kumar – the same driver I had last year! Saguna and I taped a garland of Indian and U.S. flags around his rickshaw, and off we went. We couldn’t go wrong with Sunil Kumar’s proactive driving skills, Saguna’s Hindi and knowledge of Delhi, and my … well, I didn’t really bring much to this party, except a willingness to act like a fool.
During the morning, we posed in front of the Salt March statue honoring Ghandi, found the Queen Alizabeth rose at the India-Africa rose garden, chatted with a priest at a temple devoted to the monkey god Hanuman, and lit a candle outside a Catholic church. Saguna and I split up at one point. She took on the metro challenge, while I dashed ahead in the rickshaw to complete two tasks at Khan Market: Find the “key wallah” and collect a key that would open a lock at a later stop, and get a sticker from the phone battery seller.
We had been told our school’s director, Paul Chmelik, would make surprise appearances throughout the day, so a bunch of us were happy to see him hanging out by the phone battery kiosk.
We all met up at Nehru Park, not far from school, for a picnic lunch and some Bollywood dancing, led by local Zumba instructor, Deepak. A crowd of school boys cheered and slowly infiltrated our picnic until they, too, were dancing up a storm.
After lunch, organizers handed out the afternoon clues. At India Gate, we found a big family sitting on the grass, enjoying lunch. As per our instructions, Saguna high-fived one of them after instructing them all to smile at the camera (we got extra points for smiles). We searched a bit for the ubiquitous snake charmers for the bonus challenge of snapping a photo with a cobra, but we failed. On to the Agar Sain ki Baoli, a stepwell located near the business district of Connaught Place. Ironically, we weren’t allow in because the REAL Amazing Race show was filming! Some competitors – included Sharda, who was dressed as an Indian Army officer – sneaked in or arrived before the Amazing Race film crew, but we were too late. The last two tasks were pretty tame, which was a relief because Saguna and I were flagging. We visited a book store and bought two books to donate to the Hope Foundation‘s mobile library project, and we popped in to the post office to mail our postcard to Paul Chmelik.
Team Culture Swap was feeling pretty smug by the end of the day. We had earned almost all of the bonus points, which required photo evidence of these challenges:
* Get your hair cut by a roadside barber.
* Pay to get your shirt ironed by a coal iron. Extra points if you do the ironing!
* Take a picture riding the propane guy’s bike.
* Find a laborer and do their job for them.
* Stop for chai with your driver and serve the tea seller.
* Ride the city bus for one stop.
* Find your doppelganger and take a picture with them.
* Play cricket with a local group.
* Photo with a team member and different modes of transportation. (Saguna hopped on a motorcycle, a bike, a stranger’s motorcyle rickshaw and a bicycle rickshaw, and I climbed aboard a Delhi police truck, causing much panic in Sunil Kumar.)
* Live cows, monkeys, camels, peacocks, elephants, goats, chickens, horses, pigs, rabbits and cobras. (We found cows, pigs and a goat. Where were all the animals today? It’s rare NOT to see a monkey or a horse, at least.)
Our final stop on the tour was Very Special Arts India, a nonprofit organization working with disabled and underprivileged young people. Its mission statement is, “No mental or physical challenge need ever limit the human potential to create and excel.” The kids and volunteers engaged us in dancing, singing and block printing.
The AQI was pretty awful this day, so Paul should have been wearing his mask.
A plethora of Pauls.
The AES Rickshaw Rally wrapped up with pizza, beer and celebrations at the Pint Room in my neighborhood. Despite our over-confidence, Saguna and I did not walk away with a prize. However, we had a hilarious time and got to know each other better, so that was a big win!
Clint, one of the Rickshaw Rally organizers, used storify to capture some of the day’s finest moments. Check it out.
Thanks to Clint, Allison, Kate and Maureen (and everyone else who made this happen!) for a spectacular day!
“Sorry I’m late, but traffic was insane this morning,” I moaned to Anil, my tennis coach. I left my water bottle and towel on a bench and walked across the clay court to greet him. He was staring through the chain link fence, past the bleachers, but he turned with a smile and replied, “I know, I got stuck, too. So many big trucks. That’s why air is so bad.” His eyes darted back beyond the fence, and then, distractedly, he pointed at the net where two baskets of tennis balls awaited. “Warm up,” he said.
We both stood on the same side, with Anil at the net and me at the baseline. He tossed balls to my forehand and backhand, and I attempted to hit them to the other side. Each hit elicited a comment:
“Beautiful, girl!”
“Nice try, girl!”
“Amazing form!”
“That’s your stroke!”
And so on. This is how my weekly lessons usually start. Very much still a beginner, I revel in Anil’s consistent praise and positive attitude. He has a bright genuine smile, and his cheerleading boosts my spirits. But on this day, he seemed fixated on something and his words fell flat.
When the baskets emptied, he picked one up, flipped the metal legs around to serve as handles and handed it to me to scoop up the balls scattered around the clay court. Usually, he would take the other basket to help, but instead he looked exasperated.
“What is that?” he asked. I followed his gaze but saw nothing unusual.
“What is what?” I asked.
“That sound!” he cried.
I set down my basket and paused to listen. Typical sounds in Delhi including drumming, honking, barking, mooing and shouting, the shrill sawing of rebar and clattering of bricks at construction sites, auto rickshaws revving, car alarms shrieking, random bells ringing, more honking, more barking and more, more, more, often all at the same time.
Yet, weirdly, all I heard was the chirp of a lone cricket.
“It’s just a cricket,” I laughed and resumed by ball collecting.
Anil stomped over the to the fence, a cloud of red dust in his wake. Suddenly, silence. He turned and smiled, “It stopped,” he said, relieved.
“It will start again,” I said, popping the basket onto a ball. “Haven’t you ever had a cricket in your house? They chirp and drive you crazy, but then they stop so you can’t ever find them.”
Anil shook his head in frustration. I handed him the basket of balls, and sure enough. Chirp, chirp, chirp. My kind, patient coach smacked the metal fence with his hand, quieting the cricket once again.
“Rally,” Anil said, his smile tighter than usual, his voice edgy. He walked to the other side of the net and hit a ball to me, counting aloud how many times I hit it back. At one point, he let my return zip by him. He grabbed a ball from the basket and whacked it at the fence. “It’s making me crazy!” he said with a forced laugh. I hadn’t even noticed the cricket’s encore.
Soon, a young man named Sandeep showed up. “This is new ball boy,” Anil said. Sandeep hung out behind the baseline on Anil’s side, sprinting back and forth, trying to catch the balls I hit across the net. I’m pretty new to tennis, but that didn’t seem like typical ball boy strategy. After awhile, Anil stopped, called to me, “One minute!” and then turned to Sandeep for a spirited conversation in Hindi. He pointed his racquet toward the fence, and Sandeep started to move in that direction, abandoning his ball boy duties.
Incredulous, I slowly and sarcastically asked the obvious question, “Did you just tell Sandeep to go find the cricket?”
“I can’t stand it!” Anil said. We both cracked up.
I tried to explain the irony to Anil. I tried to express how expats desperately seek out the sounds of nature in Delhi. I tried to make him see the silliness inherent in his obsession with an insect. But he just let that big smile spread across his face and squinted a bit, suggesting nonverbally that I wasn’t making any sense.
Driving home at the end of the day, I sat in traffic, enveloped in the discordant sounds of a developing city – street children rapping on my window with their relentless heartbreaking pleas for money, the bleating blaring blasting horns of vehicles pinned to the sides of my car, the rumbling cough of diesel bursting out of overloaded teetering trucks, the whiny tinny tunes erupting from open taxi windows, the reverberatating jackhammer of metro construction sending waves through my feet and up to my teeth. No way to escape it. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do, but take a deep breath and channel that cricket.
It was only after sipping cappuccinos and filling up on pork products at a breakfast buffet,
only after standing on the hotel lawn to sing India’s national anthem and release balloons in the colors of the flag,
only after snapping photos of men in impeccable period costumes posing next to a rangoli created with flower petals,
only after watching the groundskeepers and valet-parking staff try to fly kites in the still steamy air,
only on the way home,
did we realize the irony of celebrating India’s 69th Independence Day at a British Raj-era hotel.
On the very day our host country was rejoicing in its freedom from occupation, we were relishing the upscale jasmine-scented luxury of The Imperial, inaugurated by Lord Willingdon, British Governor-General of India, in 1936.
Just five years prior to that, Willingdon had ordered the arrest of Mahatma Gandhi.
So … that realization was a little sobering.
Still, irony aside, we had a lovely morning with wonderful company. Breakfast at The Imperial is always a treat, and the staff beamed with pride as they served traditional sweets, pressed their hands together in namaste and said, “Happy Independence Day!”
We listened to a speaker, who referenced India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his famous speech to the Indian Constituent Assembly on Aug. 15, 1947.
Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long supressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of Inida and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.
Some of my earliest memories place me in a small house at the end of the boardwalk in Ocean City, New Jersey, looking out the window at the beach while Great Uncle Herb offered me half a banana … listening as Great Aunt Iris reported on the newspaper’s tide and current tables … walking clumsily through deep sand full of prickers from the dune bushes … rinsing off sand and salt water in the cabana shower outside.
During my trip to the shore in July, I rode a bike along the boardwalk to that house. It’s still there – although no longer in the family, and it’s avoided the fate of many older homes that have been demolished and rebuilt as large multi-unit rentals. We actually rented one of those homes for our weeklong visit. I shared one floor of a house with my parents; my sister Kate, her husband, and three young boys; and my sister, Megan, and her two kids. My brother, Mike, and his wife and baby rented a nearby house to share with his in-laws.
In the grip of nostalgia, we tried to do it all: beach time, boogie boarding in the ocean, sand castle construction, early morning bike rides, breakfast at Uncle Bill’s Pancake House, arcade games and rides and miniature golf on the boardwalk, ice cream and cheesesteaks and sticky buns and pizza and crab legs, beach combing for shells, crabbing off the 34th Street dock, and cramming the whole family onto a rented surrey (for a short ride on the boardwalk, but mostly for the photos).
I can’t count how many times during this week I paused to tell myself, “Remember this moment,” especially when my little nephews expressed unrestrained joy at being in this place. My face ached with laughter while boogie boarding with 8-year-old Nico or splashing in the surf with dare-devil Will, who is not yet three. My heart swelled when little Max danced to the boardwalk band and 6-year-old Paul rode his first roller-coaster with his adored cousin, Jake.
My brother always makes the ridiculous just a little bit more so, as evidenced by our surrey ride. “Let’s pull up next to random strangers and sing ‘Surrey With the Fringe on Top,'” he begged. And so we did.
Mamas and babies on the boardwalk (photobombed by my mother).
Early morning walk on the beach with my dad.
The Ocean City, NJ, boardwalk.
Beach time!
Our highly unsuccessful crabbing attempt yielded one crab. We used traps baited with hot dogs. We learned a different technique from a fellow crabber, who hung a chicken neck from a string and then scooped up the crab with a net. Later, Mike and Summer’s family reported catching piles of crabs that way!
At Corson’s Inlet, we found many large clam shells, a live horseshoe crab, a couple jellyfish and hundreds of hyper-clawed fiddler crabs.
I have been wanting a picture of all five nephews and the one baby niece, but a normal family photo just wouldn’t cut it for this crew. I brought home costumes from India and staged a photo shoot one morning at the beach. Nico immediately morphed into a Mughal prince and chose regal poses rather than frolicking in the water like the other boys. The toddlers were surprisingly compliant, keeping their turbans on for the most part. Baby Annesley slept through the whole thing, unfortunately, and awoke just when the boys were too riled up for more group shots. All in all, pretty successful!
Bollywood at the beach!
A serious drawback of living abroad is that gatherings with extended family are rare. I have relatives scattered around the world, and there’s simply no time to see them all regularly. And so I felt deeply grateful for visits from my mother’s side of the family, who all live in the Philadelphia area.
Sisters: Aunt Iris and my mom.
Cousin Amy with her husband, Billy, and their three boys, Jake, Dylan and Alex.
Cousin Karen and her two boys, Robbie and Mario, spent the day at the beach with us. Here she is with my nephew Jack.
Uncle Bill and his friend, Judy, also hung out with us that day. Seriously, nobody took any photos of them? Geez.
Funny how nostalgia and family connections can make you love a place. I’ve been to nicer beaches, cleaner boardwalks, and classier coastal towns. But my heart belongs “at the shoo-wah” in Ocean City, NJ.
It took a couple weeks, but Tony and I are finally over jetlag and mostly decompressed from school stress. Time to get down to business. There’s so much to eat and drink before the end of July!
Here are some of my Michigan food-and-drink-related routines:
(1) I welcome myself home with a cake from Kroger’s. Usually I just pop in to the store and ask for a cake that says, “Welcome home, Sharon!” and then I eat it in secret. This time, I decided to be more inclusive and I had the hilarious plan of asking the baker to box in a corner and write, “… and Tony.” My sister Kate offered to pick up the cake for me, but when she saw the poor baker seemed to suffer from terrible arthritis, she said, “You can just write ‘Welcome home S & T’.” Lame.
(2) I eat avocado every day. This is my Second Annual Eat Avocado Every Day Summer Challenge. It started last summer when I was stuck in Washington, D.C., with a fun group of ladies from AES, waiting for our new Indian visas to be issued. We found ourselves at the same Mexican restaurant most days, eating guacamole. Avocados in Delhi are rare and expensive, so it seems like a good plan to get ’em while I can. My favorite lunch time treat? A loaded BLAT sandwich.
(3) I eat copious amounts of pie. My favorite? Strawberry rhubarb. Bring it. (And be sure to bring Breyer’s Natural Vanilla ice cream, too.)
(4) I drink a ridiculous amount of beer and wine. With import duties around 150%, booze is pricey in India. My go-to red wine in Delhi is Yellow Tail Shiraz, which retails at $30. Guess how much it costs in Michigan? $4.95! Less than five bucks! We have a beer pub in our Delhi neighborhood, where Tony and I go for dinner occasionally. A nice pizza and a couple glasses of beer costs us about $100. So, if most of my summer pictures show a drink in my hand, don’t judge.
(5) Bacon. Bacon. And more bacon. The Hindus in India don’t eat beef, and the Muslims in India don’t eat pork. So the only ubiquitous meat is chicken. Dang it, I am so sick of chicken. Bacon cheeseburger with guacamole? Yes, please!
By the end of the summer, I may be jonesing for a samosa, but for now, you’ll find me on my deck, beer in hand and gearing up for my next American snack.
Tony and I have poured a lot of time, energy and money into establishing a home for ourselves in Michigan. After bopping around the country every summer, crashing with my parents or friends, we finally have a place of our own. When we head back to India every year, we winterize the house and leave it in the hands of a trusted neighbor. Still, we can’t help but worry.
When we returned to the States June 1, we opened up our house with a big sense of relief. Everything looked fine … for a few minutes. After throwing a load of laundry in the dryer, I smelled something funny. I turned off the dryer and checked the lint trap. It was clean. I had read about the danger of letting lint build up in the exterior vent, so I went outside to check it. The vent was bursting with dry, fluffy lint!
Years of watching Monk, Psych and The Mentalist prepared me for this moment. Somebody must have broken in to our house to do laundry! And they must have done it in the last day or so or the lint would have been wet from the rain, I deduced. As I was rubbing my chin reflectively, Tony came upstairs from our basement.
“Did you put the yellow kayak somewhere?” he asked.
“No, where would I put it?”
“Well, it’s not there,” he said.
“Someone broke into our house to do laundry and stole our kayak!” I exclaimed.
Paranoia gripped up both. We searched every inch of the house to find any more evidence of a prowler in freshly laundered clothes. In the guest bedroom, I stared at the dresser. “Where’s that green box and the fake fern that usually goes here?” I asked. I use the box for jewelry during the summer, but I didn’t leave any jewelry in it. I guess it did have some loose change in one of the drawers. We panicked.
“Why would anyone steal that box but not take our TV?” Tony asked.
“Well, it is a crappy old TV,” I said. “Who would want it?”
We asked the neighbors if they had seen anyone in our house in the days before our arrival. They hadn’t. We asked my sister, who lives about half an hour away, if she had sneaked in to do a few loads of laundry. Nope.
I called my dad to see if he had any ideas. He reminded me that the family who gave us the yellow kayak borrowed it back for a camping trip or something. As soon as he said that, I recalled the email correspondence. Then I got on the phone with my mom, who said the dryer probably just sucked all the lint in the hose out to the exterior vent when I turned it on for the first time in 10 months. OK, that explains the kayak and the dryer lint … but what about my fake fern and the green box?
Stumped, Tony and I quietly explored the house again. This time, I noticed a beach towel draped over the clothes hamper. When I pulled away the towel, I discovered the missing fern and box. I had obviously covered them to keep off the dust. Mystery solved.
After a couple days, our paranoia abated and we settled in to Michigan life again. God only knows what’s going on at our house in Delhi …
I own two saris – a turquoise bedazzled number that caught my eye early on in India and which I now realize is cheap and gaudy, and a quality bright-orange hand-spun cotton one I purchased after a special afternoon at Sari School last year. Both sit in a closet, never used. I’ve only worn a sari once, and it was borrowed. Still, I remain entranced by the “unstitched garment.” That’s why I jumped at the chance to poke through Old Delhi’s sari market April 18 with one of my favorite tour guides, Himanshu Verma of Red Earth India, on his “Saari, Kinaari, Bazaari!” tour.
The ad for Himanshu’s walking tour said,
Chandni Chowk, the commercial centre of the city, presents a shimmering spectacle. On this Saree Walk, we will wander into Kinari Bazaar, the wholesale market for fabric trimmings and soak in this most colorful part of the city, where any saree can be accessorized with a relevant trim. A popular destination for bridal shopping, Chandni Chowk also offers us access to an array of Saree shops – from the hand-woven to bling and cheap synthetic sarees.
Himanshu took us into sari shops, including this tiny space.
At larger stores, he helped us distinguish between hand-woven and machine-made, traditional and trendy, silk and synthetic sarees. It was all so interesting, but also overwhelming. Rather than shop for my own saree, I far prefer watching Indian women do so. Often, the whole family sits together on low stools while the shopkeeper unfurls the sarees. A baby sits on his father’s lap. A woman holds up the end of a saree to her chest and looks to her sister for approval. A grandmother reaches out to pull a saree closer for inspection while the shopkeeper shakes the next one out of its plastic package. The sarees drape across everyone’s laps and pile up on the table. Soon, the group is swimming in a sea of silk. Mesmerizing.
We also popped into several emporiums stocked from floor to ceiling with rolls of ribbon, lace and trim of every imaginable color and design for adding a kinari – or border – to a saree or other garment. Himanshu encouraged us to buy something fun to jazz up our clothes, and I eyed the collections with plans to add trim to a pair of jeans. In the end, I simply couldn’t commit to anything; I loved it all! However, now that I know where to find this stuff, don’t be surprised if all my western clothes get a touch of Indian flair.
Our group paused for snacks a couple times at places we never would have tried without Himanshu’s trusted recommendation. This sweets shop offered up delicious milk-based desserts.
This man, whose little stand was unfortunately located directly across the narrow alley from an open urinal, whipped up golgappas, which are hollow crunchy balls filled with a watery mixture of tamarind chutney, chili, masala spices, potato, onion and chickpeas. He also served one of my favorite Indian street snacks – bhelpuri, a mixture of puffed rice, tamarind chutney and chopped veggies. Despite a momentary hesitation (no doubt triggered by the combination of the urinal smell and the sight of our snack-maker’s bare hands scooping the golgappa balls through the pot of water), we all gobbled up the treats and found them a bit spicy but tasty.
Eventually, Himanshu led us up a flight of dark narrow stairs to a busy eatery, where people lined up to get fresh bread straight from the tandoor. The breadmaker sat on an elevated structure and reached into the oven with long mental tongs to pull out the hot naan. We ordered paratha, a pan-friend flatbread stuffed with potatoes and spinach. Diners sat on cracked plastic chairs at long rickety tables; this was clearly not a place that catered to the hoity-toity expat crowd. In fact, I doubt any of us could find this place again. I always relish experiences like this, when I get a glimpse into the lives of locals in a way that doesn’t make me feel like a voyeur. It was pretty special, and the food was great!
The labyrinth of Old Delhi can be daunting with its twisting alleys packed with pedestrians, motorcycles and bicycle rickshaws. Himanshu shared his expertise about the district and the iconic sarees, but he also brought a sense of curiosity and calm to a chaotic place, reminding us of its rich history and current relevance. I can’t wait to join him for another eye-opening tour.
Everybody seems to be lipdubbing or dubsmashing all over the place these days. That’s why it’s a little tricky to explain why the Second Annual AES Lip Sync Party on May 16 was so special.
Was it seeing our friends and colleagues step outside their comfort zone? Was it the knowledge that a performance was the ticket for admission, so nobody was there to judge or heckle? Was it the face-cramping laughter? Was it the tables full of liquor donated by departing teachers cleaning out their cupboards? Was it the wigs, the costumes, the general silliness? Was it the video appearance of two stars from last year’s party or the surprise live appearance of friends who had left India?
Most likely, it was all that plus the genuine affection we felt for our school community. We’ve had some ups and downs in the last few years, and some of the downs have been doozies, but we stuck together. When a teacher breaks out a freestyle poem about #this place, and the crowd goes wild, well, you know you have something unique.
Much to my surprise, Tony agreed to perform with me. We sang the first minute or so of “True Love” by Pink, a song about sticking with someone despite their flaws. We dedicated the song to our cat, Khushi. If you’re one of the five people on the planet who don’t know how Khushi destroyed our lives this year, then read the backstory after the video.
Disclaimer: This party took place at AES with a bunch of AES teachers, but it was NOT sanctioned by the school, nor were any children present!
I would love to post the video of the whole evening because you can’t help but smile when see all the love in that room. However, I’ll respect the privacy of my peers and only share our own performance. Here ya go:
Back story: After summering in the States last year, we returned to Delhi to find our cat Khushi had gone bonkers. Our other cat, Ella, was totally fine, but Khushi screamed her head off day and night and peed on everything in sight. We took her to several different vets and tried a variety of interventions, including powerful anti-anxiety drugs in people form (no kitty prozac available in India). Nothing worked. At night, she would repeatedly run across our bed, howling maniacally. We took turns sleeping, with the other person sitting in another room to keep Khushi distracted. Tony was ready to euthanize her after a couple weeks, but I just couldn’t bear to do it. Instead, we suffered through almost eight months of sleep deprivation and zero quality of life. We couldn’t entertain because it stressed out the cat, but we couldn’t go out to dinner or visit friends because we worried she was peeing all over the house. Finally, a new vet speculated that her spaying had been botched. If any reproductive tissue remains in a cat, she will continue to go into heat until she gets pregnant. Awesome. The vet gave her a hormone shot, and – just like that – Khushi returned to relative normal. Needless to say, this experience consumed us for most of the school year. Everyone who asked, “How’s it going?” got an earful. Some days, that question triggered tears. That’s why we decided to sing our song in honor of Khushi.
