Delhi is the symbol of old India and new … even the stones here whisper to our ears of the ages of long ago and the air we breathe is full of the dust and fragrances of the past, as also of the fresh and piercing winds of the present.
– Jawaharial Nehru, India’s first prime minister (1947-64)
I echo Nehru’s poetic take on this fascinating city, but unfortunately I have to admit the allure of ancient ruins, modern art galleries, teeming bazaars and cultural shows hasn’t been enough to break my weekly school-home-school-home cycle that leaves me too exhausted for weekend revelry. Then I found out about Restaurant Week and suddenly mustered the energy to venture beyond my usual route.
During Restaurant Week, 13 upscale eateries offered 3-course meals at a fixed price – 1,000 Rupees or about $20. I would have gone every night except the available dinner seatings were at 8:30 p.m. at the earliest! I’m usually in bed by then on school nights. So I booked two reservations: Friday dinner and Saturday lunch.
For Friday’s outing, I invited three other teachers – Nancy, Andi and Katrina – for a little Ladies’ Night at Chutney Restaurant, located in the Metropolitan Hotel. Rather than worry about transportation, we hired Kapoor, the taxi driver who takes Tony and me to school each day. Having no feel for the layout of this city or the time needed to get from any point A to any point B, I planned for an hour’s drive. In fact, it took 20 minutes. So we settled in at the hotel bar and enjoyed cocktails and some fun with the beaded curtain.
We finally got seated for dinner around 8:45 p.m., by which time we had nearly eaten the sofa cushions. Our waiter, Amit, graciously explained that two menus were on offer: vegetarian and non-vegetarian. Un-versed in Indian cuisine, we made him repeat and describe the courses several times and ultimately confused him in return by mixing and matching the options to create our own combo-veg-non-veg menu.
I opted for the veg appetizers, as pictured here.
Hmmm.. I wish I could tell you what I ate. All I can say is it was delish.
We all chose shorba tamatar, aka spicy tomato soup, for the second course and started pouring the wine in earnest to douse the fire in our mouths. For the third course, I went non-veg with two scrumptious curries – fish and chicken, served with rice, black-lentil dal and nan bread. Dessert featured a fried something (called tukda) and a dense Indian-style fruity ice-cream.
By the time we swallowed the last drop of wine, our cheeks ached from laughing. As much as I relish a fine meal, I know it’s much better paired with fun company. We were having such a great time that we forgot to watch the clock, so when we stumbled outside at 11:30, Kapoor was nowhere to be found. I pulled out my phone to ring him only to find the battery had died. One of my new friends called Tony to get Kapoor’s number, and our sleep-deprived driver eventually pulled up to the restaurant in an understandably cranky mood. My bad.
Still a bit full from the Friday night dinner, I climbed into a taxi Saturday with Tony and another new teaching couple – Dan and Sandra – for my second Restaurant Week outing. In the shadow of the historic Qutub Minar, the restaurant Circa 1193 served up a beautiful view and tasty Asian fusion dishes. The menu included a few choices for each course. My line-up: vegetarian miso soup, pork gyoza with a spicy tomato relish, crunchy and carmelized basa (an Indonesian fish), and yuzu and mint cheesecake (at which time I learned that yuzu is a small citrus fruit). I figured the optional cocktail pairings would help alleviate my hangover, so I also enjoyed a Garden Frost Martini (green apple and cucumber) with my dumplings, a glass of Opera Chardonnay with my fish, and a passion fruit spritzer with my dessert.
On the deck, overlooking the ruins.
The taxi driver took this shot. He was a good sport.
So, that wasn’t so hard. Breaking out of my routine actually felt good. I’m inspired to check out a little more of this city, bit by bit, dish by dish.
Tony and I recently took a tuktuk to the DLF Promenade mall just 10 minutes from our apartment.
It features many western shops such as Zara, Mango and Marks & Spencer and a few appealing restaurants, but more enticingly it also boasts store after store of colorful, glittery, girly, swirly Indian fashions, not to mention stunning wares for the house. And it turned out there wasn’t just ONE mall; it’s a mall complex. Nice to have options.
Funny how it takes so little to remind us that we’re not in America anymore. Once we entered the mall, we couldn’t hear ourselves think amidst a promotional performance for this show:
Here’s a sample. Maybe we’ll go see the real thing.
Saturday was Rahki, an Indian festival that celebrates the relationship between brothers and sisters. Sisters tie a sacred thread (often embellished with fake jewels or sparkly flowers) on the wrists of their brothers or male cousins as a symbol of love and good wishes. In return, brothers offer money, gifts or sweets to their sisters with a vow to provide lifelong protection. To celebrate this popular festival, families headed out of New Delhi early Saturday morning to reunite sisters and brothers.
Unfortunately, we also headed out early Saturday morning to visit Agra, about 200 kilometers south. We were told the drive would take about three hours. It took seven.
The van picked us up at 6:45 so we could beat the traffic! Woo hoo!
The gang’s all here.
Off on our “happy journey.”
It seemed the whole city was trying to get somewhere else. These photos were all shot through the van window.
Trucks all encouraged other drivers to blow their horns, and boy did they ever! Most trucks also had the painted instruction, “Use dipper at night.” We learned that using your dipper means flicking your lights.
Our sweet driver Raju is not heeding the warning on the truck, eh?
I have lived and traveled in places with horrific traffic, but I have never seen anything like this! Bumper to bumper with nearly every imaginable vehicle. I expected to get on the highway here in New Delhi and then exit in Agra. No such luck. We spent much of our time crawling through village markets, weaving around back alleys, dodging cows, dogs and pedestrians, and rocking gently over potholes and speed bumps. Here’s a little video for a glimse into our day. Note the guy getting a shave in the midst of the chaos.
The sights and sounds outside our van were so compelling that I couldn’t be bothered to read or listen to music. At one point, we were stuck at an intersection where every driver pulled in to the middle so nobody could move until a sweaty young policeman stepped in and somehow restored a fleeting sense of order. Our hero for the day!
If someone had told me the ride to Agra would be seven hours, there is NO WAY I would have done it. But I’m so glad I did! I hope to go again some time, although I’ll be sure to avoid holiday weekends.
Today we wrapped up our first week at the American Embassy School in New Delhi, India. Although we’re inundated with information about our new school, students, apartment, neighborhood, city and country, we also feel an overwhelming sense of belonging.
On August 1, the new and returning teachers finally met each other for the first time. We were introduced at an all-faculty presentation in the gym, where administrators read a short biography for each new teacher, and we received a garland of fragrant flowers and a red smear of paint between the eyebrows to symbolize the third eye. That’s Tony with Jan (who we knew in China) and new friend Becky.
Our new teacher cohort – the “newbies” – received a warm welcome yesterday at a party thrown by the “two-bies,” teachers who were new to AES last year. They sympathized with our newness and offered reassurances that we would soon feel settled and confident. We have attended several other functions designed to merge AES old-timers with the new group of teachers, and it’s amazing how seamlessly it happens.
In addition to the outpouring of kindness, the administration has modeled a spirit of balance and caring that permeates the whole school. When Director Bob Hetzel met with new teachers to discuss the school’s mission statement, he shared anecdotes about the power of collaboration and shared values, saying, “We have a commitment to making the world a better place.”
We have yet to hear a negative word or bitter comment from anyone about the school’s leadership. In fact, teachers repeatedly note how the director and principals somehow motivate everyone to raise the bar and cultivate creativity without undue pressure or stress.
That doesn’t mean we don’t create our own stress. My department, English as a Second Language, is undergoing major changes, so I can’t count on returning teachers to show me the ropes. We’re all learning as we go, which can be unsettling. I hope next year at this time (when I will be a “two-bie”), I will tell the “newbies” how brilliantly we developed a new immersion program at AES with the insights and shared wisdom of all elementary teachers.
Our shipment arrived on Sunday, shortly after the painters showed up to continue their slothlike work in our three bedrooms. It wasn’t exactly the best arrangement. We told the movers to shove all 117 boxes in the living room, which had been painted earlier in the week. Then we waited … and waited … and waited for the painters to finish the bedrooms so we could start unpacking. Today is Friday, and the painters are STILL not finished.
This is the color in my study. It’s dramatically brighter and pinker than I had anticipated.
The movers conferring about how to haul all the junk out of two trucks up our narrow staircase.
Problem solved! They passed the big stuff up to the balcony.
The living room fills up.
The moving company, Santa Fe Relocation Services, did a great job. Some of our wooden items have a bit of mildew, and a small piece of wood broke off our Chinese daybed (which also happened when we moved it to Laos), but otherwise we haven’t found any major damage.
Our wonderful new housekeeper has already unpacked all the kitchen boxes and tried to find places for everything, despite the lack of drawers. That’s right: NO drawers in the kitchen. Tony and I have dragged most boxes back to the bedrooms to create some space in the living/dining area for some living and dining. Eventually I suppose we’ll unpack the rest. But not until the painters finish… See a pattern here?
A colleague asked me today how I liked India, and I suddenly realized I hadn’t actually noticed it.
Of course, the obvious (and usually disturbing) stuff slaps you in the face: toddlers tumbling and dancing at gridlocked intersections and then smacking on the taxi windows for a hand-out, men urinating on public walls and buildings without bothering to step out of public view, trash reeking on the roadside, rain-diluted puddles of holy cow poo splattered on sidewalks at the outdoor mall, flies landing on our sweaty foreheads as we wait outside our gate for the taxi to take us to school, washcloths draped over the taxi meters to ensure you get fleeced, and other familiar stereotypes of New Delhi. I’m amazed at how quickly those things stopped shocking me. Already, it’s all just part of living here. Normal.
Settling in to a new home and figuring out new jobs has consumed us for the last two and half weeks so that, honestly, we could be in any country right now. Well, any country that serves dahl and naan for lunch every day in the staff canteen.
With that in mind, I decided to take some time to reflect on New Delhi beyond our home and workplace. It’s not much – just one day of experiences – but here goes.
Soon after we arrived, the school organized a daylong tour around New Delhi for the new teachers, but it was a blur. My jetlagged brain was as hazy as the overcast sky. People snickered at my note-taking, but otherwise I wouldn’t have remembered what we did. Our tour leader Bandana (pronounced BAHN-duh-nuh), a former librarian at AES whose name means “worship” in Hindi, met us in the school’s board room before herding us on to the bus. She gave a crash course on India’s 3,500-year history, the country’s democratic political system (which works so well, she says, because “we don’t follow any rules”), a few of the many Hindu gods, and her morning routine, which includes wrapping herself in more than six yards of exquisite fabric and sticking on the ubiquitous bindi. “When you put it on, you should say ‘I can see the world through my two eyes; let my inner eye open,'” she explained.
The new teachers and their children crammed on a small bus, filing off for quick visits to a few interesting spots in the city:
By March 1930 the people of India are growing more restless under the yoke of British rule. Indian nationalists turn to Gandhi to lead a campaign for full independence. Having successfully employed nonviolent sanctions while fighting for suppressed Indians in South Africa, and then again in India in the 1920s, Gandhi moves to confront the colonial rulers in ways that average Indians can understand and be part of.
His first target is the British monopoly on the manufacture and sale of salt, and he leads a 250-mile march to the sea, where he and thousands of protestors violate the law by making their own salt. The British crack down, and many, including Gandhi, go to jail.
But civil disobedience spreads, and the campaign encompasses a boycott of British cloth and the resignations of local Indian officials who work for the British. All this puts great pressure on the government, and the British viceroy opens talks with Gandhi, who opts for compromise. Although the campaign does not dislodge the British from India, it shatters the legitimacy of British control and rallies the Indian people to the cause of independence, which eventually comes in 1947.
We also checked out the India Gate, the national monument of India, which was originally constructed as a dramatic entrance to the city for British colonial leaders. It now commemorates the 90,000 soldiers who died in World War I and the Third Anglo-Afghan War. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is marked with an eternal flame under the 42-meter arch.
Bandana pointed out other important landmarks near the India Gate, but we all struggled to find a historical context. Tony and I kept saying, “Oooh, we need to come back to this some day.” And we will.
Our final sightseeing stop of the day was Rajghat, Gandhi’s cremation site. At the time, I actually didn’t realize that’s where we were. I just learned that by googling it. Pathetic. According to Delhi City Guide, we were supposed to walk around the memorial three times, which we also didn’t know at the time. Don’t despair, potential visitors! I’ll do some research before I take you out in the city.
This quote greeted us at the entrance:
Gandhi’s humble tomb sits in the center of a grassy park.
That was about all our culture-overloaded minds and weary bodies could take in one day, so Bandana directed the bus driver to a gorgeous restaurant, Indian Accent, for an indulgent lunch. Again, being new to India, I am useless at describing the delicacies we enjoyed at this little oasis. All I know is I ate so many appetizers (the waiters kept waving plates of lovely morsels in front of my face; how could I resist?) and drank so much sangria that my belly was full before the buffet line opened. I forced myself to pile up the plate with a little of everything. I wish I could tell you what everything was, but I can only tell you that I promise to conduct further culinary research in the coming months.
Since the day of our tour with Bandana, we have been tethered to school and our apartment with a few social gatherings … at school or other people’s houses. I’m itching to explore New Delhi and the rest of India, but I also look forward to the day when I can find the cafeteria without getting lost and I can relax on my living room sofa without first clearing a path through the moving boxes. For now, I have to focus on finding some balance, staying in the moment, allowing my new life unfold in its own time and letting my inner eye open. Breathe.
It’s been one week since Tony and I joined the teeming masses of the Dilliwala – the almost 17 million residents of Delhi. We can now be counted among the 1.1 billion (with a B!) people who make India home.
When we accepted our jobs at the American Embassy School here back in February, the headmaster told us, “Whatever is true about India, the opposite is also true.” We have seen this first-hand every day since we stepped off the plane. For example: Our first-floor apartment (which is actually on the second floor if you speak American English) is located in a posh Southwest New Delhi neighborhood with tree-lined streets, lovely parks and spacious gated homes manned by around-the-clock security guards. However, our building backs up to a sprawling slum, which is hidden from view by a large fence. During the day, a steady parade of slum-dwellers streams past in the adjoining alley, but they seem to disappear when they reach the main road. We hardly sense their presence except for the sound of chatter, laughter or crying babies. Our up-market neighborhood also serves as home to several cows that roam freely during the day. In a country where cows are sacred, these cows have it especially good. Although the houses and apartments appear huge and clean, often with lovely courtyards or gardens, the streets are in disrepair and feature occasional piles of sand or bricks dumped for someone’s construction project. The juxtapositions are never-ending and surreal.
We arrived in New Delhi last Sunday night after meeting many of the other new teachers at the Chicago airport (they were easy to spot as we had been told to wear our navy AES polo shirts). School administrators picked us up and took us to our apartment, where workers carried all eight of our boxes and bags upstairs for us.
What a nice surprise to see a traditional brass nameplate on the door!
In the foyer, we encountered a little welcome mat, which turned out to be an artform called “rangoli” created in colored rice! Unfortunately, we only figured this out by stepping on it and messing up the design.
Here’s Tony in front of our building.
As we wait for our shipment to arrive, we make regular trips to a nearby shopping area to buy household necessities. It’s a nice place with two western-style grocery stores and many high-end shops … and the requisite cows.
So here’s a little video tour of our apartment. Hmmm … I filmed this with my iPad, which I’ve never done before, and I just realized I created a very skinny video. Well, too bad. I’m jetlagged and exhausted, so I’m just going to post the silly thing rather than try to figure it out.
‘Tis the season for deck-the-halls, family reunions, holiday-making and recruitment fairs for international teachers.
Unlike other professions, in which you find a new job before resigning from your present one, international teachers often have to announce their plans for the following school year before they head off for Christmas vacation. In our case, the deadline was Dec. 15. At that point, we either had to sign a contract to stay another year at Vientiane International School in Laos … or not sign it. An unsigned contract meant the school director could start advertising to fill our teaching positions, which meant we would be unemployed for the 2011-12 school year with no real prospects.
After NOT signing the contracts on Dec. 15, Tony and I promptly had a mental breakdown that segued into weeks of unpredictable fireworks of stress, second-guessing and desperation. With two mortgages and a 20-foot container worth of household goods to move from Laos, we needed to land not just any old job, but jobs with a substantial compensation package. The pressure was on.
We registered with two recruitment organizations: International Schools Services and Search Associates, which provide online databases to match schools and teachers. Many schools contact teachers via email or Skype, conduct interviews and hire for the following school year before Christmas. Most schools also attend job fairs, which take place all over the world starting in January and give teachers and recruiters the opportunity to meet face-to-face.
I checked the job postings every day, emailed schools with openings in ESL and English, cried every time I got no response (which was most of the time), and rejoiced with every automated “Thanks for your application. We’ll be in touch.” email that came back. My complete confidence that we would get hired before the job fairs slowly waned, and I reluctantly registered for both the ISS and Search fairs, scheduled to take place in Bangkok Jan. 4-12.
As we were packing for Bangkok on Jan. 3, Tony and I felt glum. Our goal was to find positions at a big, high-caliber international school with an excellent reputation. According to the databases, there were exactly TWO with jobs in our teaching fields: one in Saudi Arabia and one in Shanghai. Knowing competition for those positions would be fierce, and knowing that schools often look for hard-to-fill subject area teachers first (chemistry, math, middle school specialists, and for some reason this year – P.E.), we feared some other couple would sashay into the fair with their Chemistry-ESL or Math-English credentials and steal our jobs.
Tuesday morning, we checked in to the ISS job fair at the Shangri-La Hotel in Bangkok. On Wednesday, teachers lined up nervously in the hall outside the ballroom, where recruiters from around 175 schools sat in alphabetical order by country at tables lining the perimeter of the room. At 8 a.m. sharp, the doors opened, and we all filed in like cattle, quickly dashing to find the schools that had advertised jobs in our subject areas. Right off the bat, we discovered the Saudi school had already filled its ESL position. We sprinted to the Shanghai school, which signed us up for an interview later that day.
As we stood in line for a school in Indonesia, I wistfully glanced at the table for the American Embassy School in New Delhi, India, one of my dream schools. They had positions posted for ESL and English weeks ago but filled their English job early. The day they pulled the English job off the database was a day of many tears and hopeless resignation on my part. Imagine my surprise when I saw their job list at the sign-up session included a position for high school English! I quickly hopped out of the Indonesia line and knocked a few people out of the way to cut to the front of the AES line. Shrieking with excitement, I greeted Elementary School Principal Susan Young. She and her husband, High School Principal Tim Boyer, have stellar reputations in the international community as mindful, fair, progressive administrators. Susan took a quick peek at our CV and then summoned Tim to schedule an interview with us.
Finally, we sauntered over to chat with the folks from Shanghai American School, where we had worked for four fantastic years. “We’re here to grovel for our old jobs back,” I said to Jeff Rosen, a friend and now middle school principal. He laughed and said he didn’t have positions for us at the Pudong campus but referred us to the administrators from the Puxi campus. Alan Knoblach, the assistant superintendent for Puxi, sighed, showed us his schedule (which was packed with back-to-back interviews from 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.) and said he could meet with us right after the sign-up session.
By the end of the interview sign-up session, we had registered to meet with recruiters from five schools: Shanghai AS, AES in New Delhi, Shanghai Community International School, Xiamen International School (a small school in southern China), and Saudi Aramco Schools (a huge school district created for children of the Aramco oil company in Saudi Arabia). Things were looking up, but we were certainly not ready to celebrate.
Interviews take place in the recruiters’ hotel rooms, which feels a little weird at first. Fortunately, Shangri-La rooms have a nice little lounge space with a sofa and a couple chairs.
We met with Alan from Shanghai AS first, and he asked some good questions. At the end, it was clear he really wanted a middle school ESL teacher. I know I could do it, but the fact is I really prefer to teach the little guys in elementary. We appreciated that he threw us a bone and sacrificed his short break to meet with us, and it was good practice for the rest of the day.
All of our interviews went well, and we were genuinely impressed with all the recruiters and their schools. There was nothing to rival the weird experience we had two years ago when we interviewed with a recruiter from Kuwait while his wife slept in the bed! Halfway through our interview, he woke her up so she could sleepily show us her gold jewelry (which he must have thought was a selling point for his host country).
The AES (New Delhi) recruiters interviewed Tony and me separately, and I had probably the best interview of my life with Susan Young. She started by spelling out the school’s philosophy on classroom management and conflict resolution, based on the work of William Glasser. She described a learning environment where children are encouraged to make good choices and take responsibility for their actions, and all teachers are trained how to promote this behavior. She shared anecdotes that demonstrated the school’s commitment to collaboration and caring (including an initiative by a group of fourth-graders, who researched the health benefits of having recess before lunch and succeeded in getting the school’s schedule changed to do just that!). We discussed current research on language acquisition, homework and the value of play. She described professional learning communities, in which teachers explore issues they care about and make recommendations to administration. It became clear that this was a school that didn’t just talk the talk.
Later we received a note from AES Superintendent Bob Hetzel, who said he wanted to schedule a follow-up interview. We tried to call him, but got no answer. As I stood in the Shangri-La lobby with the house phone in my hand, he stepped out of the elevator.
“I was just calling you to set up a meeting!” I said and then joked, “How about now?”
“OK, now is good,” he said. We sat at a table in the lobby and had a nice chat about AES and our professional experiences. He asked what we loved best about teaching and seemed pleased with our answers. Before parting ways, he mentioned that he was checking our references, and we set up another meeting for the next morning. Fingers crossed!
By the end of the day, we were exhausted. We barely had time to come back to our hotel, shower, rest a bit and return to Shangri-La for the cocktail party. Despite the anxiety imposed by unemployment and uncertainty, we had a great time catching up with friends and colleagues from our years in Turkey and China, and we enjoyed getting to know other teachers and hearing about their lives in various parts of the world. It’s a great opportunity to meet administrators who may not have jobs for us this year but could be good connections in the future. As we left the party, the Shanghai Community International School recruiter said, “Check your mailbox downstairs. I left something for you.”
A contract! We were so thrilled and relieved to know we had jobs at a great school for next year. However, my heart was set on AES, and we decided to wait until after our follow-up meeting with them in the morning before committing to anything.
So, this morning we put on our dress-up clothes and trekked back to Shangri-La, where we ran into the AES administrators in the hallway an hour before our scheduled meeting.
“We’ll just wait for you in the lobby,” I said.
“Or we could just meet now,” said Superintendent Bob Hetzel. So once again, we had an impromptu meeting at some nearby sofas.
“We want you to come to AES,” said Bob, handing us a letter of intent and some other paperwork.
Tony and I both clapped and said, “Yay!” which led Bob, Susan and Tim to respond with claps and cheers of their own. Such an affirming moment! Asked if we had any questions, Tony and I were both a little too giddy to think straight. We said we would read over the paperwork and come back to attend their promotional presentation in the afternoon. We took the elevator to the rooms of the Shanghai AS and Shanghai ICS recruiters to thank them and tell them we had accepted the AES offer. We had already said thanks-but-no-thanks to XIS and received a thanks-but-no-thanks note from Saudi Aramco.
And now Tony’s at the pool and I’m writing and reliving this crazy experience.
Here we are with our new employers. From left, High School Principal Tim Boyer, Elementary School Principal Susan Young, me, Director Robert Hetzel, Tony, Middle School Principal Barbara Sirotin.
The only bad news they gave us was the starting date for new teachers: July 26. Ugh, it’s going to be a short summer.
Of course, I’m ecstatic about the travel opportunities in India, too, and can hardly wait to get started. I can’t stop watching the Incredible India commercials, such as this one:
Time to go join Tony at the pool and relax for the first time in months!
