Jetlag

Although i am setting out to write abt jetlag, if i end up with something else then u know what to blame.

After numerous attempts(read three) at battling jetlag, i have arrived at my own pet theory. And this is after being ardently advised by two sets of people - one for sleeping throught the flight, the other opposed to even a short nap. My theory is dependent on the landing time of the flight. If it is really early to mid morning (and if u know u r not going to get a chance to rest thru the day), better to sleep thru the flight and arrive at the destination as much rested as possible. Then remain awake thru the day and go to sleep early to bed in keeping with the night time at the destination. But if u r arriving late afternoon, early evening or night, u can tire urself out during the flight(the in flight entertainment system is the best aid, followed by regular interruption for airline meals). Reach the destination, eat well and go straight to bed. Wake up refreshed the next day morning and resist the urge to sleep during the daytime next day. u'll be fine.

And, if u have kids travelling with you, esp toddlers/babies, throw all theories out of the window, try to get some rest whenever ur child sleeps(which will be impossible coz u know ur child, but ur body-clock doesn't) and pray that things return to normal in a week and u don't fall ill in the meantime.

yeah, i religiously stayed awake thru the day and then was kept awake thru the night by darling Aditi. For one week. On the onward journey. And now after the return journey, fifteen days apart.

i am surprised i only have fever. Had expected to go insane with all the lack of sleep. i guess the little voice calling out insistently 'mma, mma' is responsible - for both the fever as well as not going mad. amen.

Doubt No. 23847536290930379

Context : Our first halloween is approaching and many of the houses/malls have spooky things put up. One had a propped up skeleton with snickers all arnd it. All of us looked at it, including Nidhi. But, it was next morning until she voiced her doubt. apparently she had been pondering over it in her mind before asking us.

"Did they bring, like you know, a real dead person and put his skeleton there and fill it with chocolates?"

:-))

The things no one tells u abt America before u land here.

a) U will receive mail. Mail as in actual mail... snail-mail if u will. Most of it will be bills (to be paid) and advertisement pamphlets/booklets. But it is an excitement to open the post-box and retrieve the mail. (In the days when we were house-hunting, we found a lot of houses(all of them) having cute little post-boxes and wondered who on earth still uses them. Now we know - everyone does.)

b) The courier-wallah drives arnd in a truck. Contrast to Chennai - courier-wallah drives a bike, and Muscat - never seen a courier-wallah - All important mails appear in the office post-box by magic.

c) The dryer(of the washer-dryer fame - what we call a washing-machine) actually dries the clothes. so much so that u can just fold them up/hang them in ur cubboards directly from the machine. No 'onathal-business'(putting out clothes to dry in the clothes-line). no wonder the leasing agents looked at us curiously when we asked each of them if it was ok to dry clothes in the balcony. And, what's more, in most cases, the clothes look ironed. Hurray...

d) America is a forest.(Just like Oman is a desert and India is like.. well a country.) You can step out of a town and walk into wilderness in minutes. Looking at the place u can see people have just cut down forests and built houses in between. In many cases, trees r preserved and houses/roads built arnd them. No wonder there are so many birds and animals everywhere. We even found an apartment with a long line of trees, each housing a flock(?) of vultures. i found a couple of apt-reviews mentioning raccoons.

e) Strangers will smile at you or nod their head politely, on the road. but u can be sure ur fellow-indians will ignore u. Or stare rudely if u happen to wear indian clothes.

f) Buses ply. In a 45 min - one hour interval. But a 20 min drive by car can take 2 hrs by bus. Too many stops and too many red-lights. But what is most impressive is the arrangement for differently-abled. The bus-driver will stop, tilt the bus and place a ramp-walk connecting the bus and the platform. When the person the wheel chair maneouvres inside(using a self-operated wheel-chair, more like a wheel-car), a couple of seats will be folded up by the driver. he will then secure the wheel-chair using 4 or more belts. all this while the bus is stopped and others are waiting patiently outside to board. similar procedure in reverse when the person in the wheel-chair wants to get off the bus. hats off...

g) U don't need to put on an American accent for them to understand u. Speaking clearly and not very fast is enuf. But, some words can be confusing. If u've worked in an MNC u will find it easier to adapt. One of the first things we were taught when we joined work as wide-eyed campus-recruits is Xerox is photocopy and bathroom is a restroom. Some more words that i found in the past one month that we r here - lift - elevator, drawinghall - living room, balcony - patio. Most importantly, the first floor is on the ground and the second floor is what we is first for us(in India and elsewhere).

h) Most houses are carpetted. If not, they will have beautiful wooden flooring. If ur house has is completely carpetted and u have a, let's say active, baby at home, u could do what we did. Mind you, it shd be the very first thing u do after u enter the house. Just sing a 'mangalam' for the carpet. And for good measure, collect ur family arnd u and together in a loud voice say 'Govinda.... gooovinda'. Especially since in our case the leasing-agent pointed out that the carpetting was brand-new. And, within two days Aditi left kajal-marks all over the drawing-hall. This will also be an opportune moment to do what Santosh did. quietly keep aside the money they r gong to charge for a new carpet when u leave the house. i have since then hidden the kajal-dabba so well that even i can't find it anymore.

Anyway, the above list is not exhaustive and i may add more here as and when i find time...

Disclaimer : The word America in the above post must be subsituted with South California, coz that's the only part i have seen in this past one month. Which brings me to yet another point to add to the above list - America is soooooooooooooooooooooooooo huge.

The Move

Couple of weeks ago, Nidhi, Aditi and i took a nap in the afternoon. what was unusual abt the nap was that it lasted 4 hours. 4 hours is the longest i have slept without interuption(by Aditi) in the past year. And that's during night. During the day, if i get an hour's worth of nap-time then i beam the whole day as if i have been to Disneyland. So 4hours during the day was like  absolufantasticamazinglygreat. i was the first to wake up and loooked out of the window in amazement...

Hills, greenery,  palm trees, swimming pools.... i was in a hotel room. i realised with a start we had done it - Moved to the United States. In what can be termed as the quickest decision we have ever taken and the fastest move we have ever done - in two weeks time we had disposed off our things, packed the rest into cargo, got our visa, booked our tickets and flown!

One of the most difficult aspects of the decision was the journey - an 8hour and 11hour flight with a 11-month baby, with transit in between - altogether 25hrs. one word - nightmare.

Just a month ago we had come back from India and that was Aditi's first flight journey ever. We travelled together not knowing what to expect from Aditi. It was a midnight flight and Aditi did full 'kottam' in the airport. The bright lights and new sights added to her excitement. It didn't help that Nidhikka started playing in the play-area. Soon Aditi, Appa and Nidhikka were rolling arnd having fun. (Me? i was clicking pics and resting my back) Once we boarded the flight, i gave her the milk-bottle when the flight started to take-off. Aditi dozed off....and woke up after the flight landed! The 3hr 45min journey i didn't move a muscle coz she was sleeping in my lap (Thank you Indian Airlines - no basinette). The return journey was the same except she slept half the time in her Appa's lap.

And now, the 25 hour journey loomed in front of us. We opted for transit coz i couldn't imagine a 19-hour continous flight - what if i didn't get to move a muscle yet again. So, transit it was. A couple of hrs to/at Abu Dhabi and then onto Heathrow, London. 8 hours. She slept, i didn't move.

It was the London i had read abt in books - grey skies, rain. The crowd at the Heathrow Airport reminded me of Central Station. Nidhi, Aditi and i found a big bathroom(a family bathroom) and emerged an hour later cleaned and 'make-up'ped to find Appa shaking his head mumbling 'Ladies!'. He was then graciously given 10 mins to freshen up and join us in exploring the duty-free.

Nidhi had a major concern. The last couple of years (on and off) she has come across explanation of the Indian freedom struggle thru me, books and her teachers. She was deeply affected and had declared that she would never set foot in England. (if ever we took a holiday in europe, it would be switz, france, germany, never uk). Now here we were, in the middle of all these white-looking people, Nidhi looking arnd scowling at whom she felt was a Britisher. On top of that she had spent the major portion of the flight journey curled up in her seat. she was so tired that even the in-flight personal entertainment system couldn't keep her awake. sleeping in a curled up fashion can only make u more tired and here she was - totally irritated. To distract her, i pointed to all the shops and said 'Choice is urs. Which one u want to go to?' And guess what? She picked the book store! Overjoyed. That's me.

The 11hour journey from Heathrow to Los Angeles was completed with walking, playing, eating and a little bit of sleeping (in the basinette this time). Upon arrival, Santosh drove us to the hotel in a Hertz car(which had a GPS and a paper with directions written by me from the internet on how to reach the hotel, but we shall not disclose which one was followed.) Anyway, the most important thing was we reached the hotel in one piece. Had dinner and slept for sometime and woke up arnd midnite unable to sleep further.

Jetlag. The one thing that eluded explanation no matter how much i read/asked others abt it. Now, we understood. In simple words it means having ur lunch, going to sleep for a short nap (thinking u'll get up and explore the place in the evening) and waking up at midnite feeling so hungry (it's lunchtime) u cannot go back to sleep no matter what u eat. Three days of this went on. For the kids, it went on for a week. there is only so much you can do to adjust the food and sleeping times of children. Santosh and i would plan our day arnd the times the sleep and wake-up times for Nidhi and Aditi. Searching for a house, school-admission, everything else could wait. In a week's time they were ok. And, after that, in a week's time we found an apartment. The next day we finished Nidhi's school admission. She started her classes from the first day the school began.

Two weeks has passed by since we moved into this apt. Even now, when i am engrossed in a book or household work and suddenly i look outside i am surprised to find myself in America. I pick up the phone i am surprised to hear an American accent answer. i am amazed at how easy it is to walk across busy roads at signals with Aditi's stroller. So many parks, such beautiful grass on the curb-side. And, so many beautiful birds. we spotted a couple of hares in the hedges at Nidhi's school. Such smiling people at the super-market counters(does it matter if they r genuine or just doing their job). Wishing good-morning to strangers on morning walks.

But, all said and done, i couldn't help but ponder the basic question that kept me occupied ever since i heard abt this move of ours. How on earth can an entire nation to this? And, a developed nation at that. What abt the countless Indians who have set foot upon this land before me? All educated, intelligent people. How could they do this! i went against all my beliefs and my whole system (of education) was shaken. i had decided to check for myself when Santosh got down for a re-fill - what was it that flowed from the nozzles.. "How on earth can anyone, let alone an entire nation, call a liguid 'gas'?" And then i came across the word Gasoline. Ah, peace.

The Move is not yet complete. There r a lot many formalities remaining including the most important one of me getting a DL. There were lot of hurdles we faced(and overcame) when we had to wind up everything in Oman. How did we do it 2 weeks? The day before i made my decision i spoke to a friend in America. She asked me to take one day at a time. That's what we did. And, that's how we landed here. i dunno how long we'll be here. India (and parents) are always on our mind. But, i am going to take my friend's advice again. And, live one day at a time...