We made it home

I'm sooo relieved. My brain is all a fog because of jet lag. I'm sure that as I "wake up" more, things will start to hit me and I will miss certain aspects of India, but as for right now I'm just very glad to be home. The trip was pretty uneventful. Nitara got terrible, awful cracked lips, and we all nearly froze to death in the Malaysia airport during our layover. There is no reason to keep the airport at 5 degrees inside when most of the people are travelling to/from warm tropical places and are wearing minimal clothing. By the time we made it to LA we were in a daze and could hardly keep our eyes open. We hit the hotel bed and crashed for a good 6 hours. Woke up and had IHOP and drove home. One special momement was witnessing the sun rise as a family just as we passed the "Welcome to Arizona" sign on the highway. It's now around midnight and I just woke up after sleeping most of the afternoon. Nitara is still sleeping, attached to her new pump and getting her first decent feeding in over a week (what a relief). Abi is playing on the other computer and V is trying to sleep since he has to work tomorrow, poor man.

Two points of humor were some mis-translations in the airports.
In Chennai: For your any inconvenience, please contact airport manager.
In Taipei: Relax with a veins and arteries massage.

What I wanted to write about besides the little family scandal, was my impressions of Indian TV commercials and billboard ads, and what it tells about Indian thinking. The ads on TV were a lot different than the US as far as the products being advertised. They were either aimed at the very wealthy (life insurance, luxury cars, investment companies), or at the average person. Lots of ads for cheap snacks, candy, and sauce mixes-- stuff like that. There were a few cosmetic ads. All but one of them were for skin lighteners. The other one was for acne. There were two main brands of hand soap being advertised, too, and one brand of dish soap. What I did not find were the massive volume of ads aimed at cleaning products: disposable toilet wands, air fresheners, shower cleaners, disinfectant wipes, dusting wands, Swiffers, etc. I hate to make a generalized statement but based on my personal observations there is just a very different standard of cleanliness in Indian homes. And those that have a higher standard of cleanliness, who would be able to afford all these cleaning products, can just as easily afford to hire a cleaning maid. Most middle class and above do have at least one cleaning maid. I can't comment much on what people do in homes where you can't afford to hire someone to clean because I didn't visit many this time. However I can say that just visiting public places and restaurants and walking the streets, the standard of what would bother people in this country just isn't there in India. The shopping mall floors are very dirty, the restaurant windows are hopelessly smudged, there are a few flies in the display cases of sweet shops. It's just so hard for a shopkeeper to keep things clean with the massive amounts of people entering and exiting, the street dust, the pests. I think a lot of people have just given up and chosen to look the other way.

As promised, the family scandal. I have seen this theme several times on previous visits and was a part of a scandal myself as a young married person. India is changing. The young people are more materialistic and independent. Their parents gave everything so that their kids would able to land good jobs (many of them) and then they get dismayed when their child makes their own decisions when it comes to life and love. When we got married and then told V's family I knew it would create a big scandal and make his parents look bag, but from my perspective, it wasn't that big of a deal. I didn't do it intentionally-- you don't always choose who you fall in love with and start a life with. I was very sorry that we hurt them but I felt it would all work out and time would heal. I got lucky. When I arrived the first time in India I was welcomed with open arms and smiles, treated as any other daughter in law, given a wedding ceremony and other generous acts of kindness. I think once they saw I was a good person, they were happy and that was that. We paved the way for my sister in law to choose her own husband from outside the Hindu community as well. We watched one cousin, whose parents held her tightly under their thumb, have secret crushes but eventually she married whom her parents chose for her to marry. She seems happy now so I guess all is well.

This trip we heard about a cousin of Vignesh's who ran away with a girl from another caste and got married to her secretly because neither of their parents approved of the marriage. The girls' family was angry but soon accepted things. The boy's parents were furious. They disowned him completely and forbade anyone to even mention his name again. The son came home begging forgiveness and they refused to see him, even his own sister, and he left. I heard talk of this thing the whole visit and felt sorry for the boy, who struck me as a very sweet person the last time I saw him five years ago. On our last day in India we had some unexpected visitors--- the parents of the boy. They came calling on my in laws and delivered new clothes and invitations for a wedding reception for their son and the new bride. I guess they finally came around, and decided that not only are they going to accept the marriage now, but they are going to officically recognize it with a formal reception. I was so happy to see this. It's very very hard for the old generation to accept what is happening with their children. It is hard to let go of tradition in the face of progress. My own mother in law was married at the age of 15 or 16 and she had no real say in the matter. Such was the case for the parents of this boy. So it must be a hard pill to swallow when, while they obeyed their parents and got married to who was chosen for them, their own children have such a mind of their own. So much has changed in just one generation.

I see this family scandal as something that is happening to all of India. It's being shaken out and redefined and right now things look messy. The streets are dirty and unorganized, and badly maintained. You see these huge shiny new buildings right next to colonial buildings that are crumbling down brick by brick. The thing is, the new buildings are not always maintained well, either. So much effort is put into building newer and bigger things that very little effort is given to maintaining what already exists. So you get buildings that are only a couple of years old that look run down and dirty and desperate for a new coat of paint because of the way the polluted air paints everything brown within a year or so. The shopping mall I went to-- they are expanding part of it out to make room for more shops, but inside the floors and fixings are in need of repair-- just basic maintenance is all it would take. You find people driving around with cell phones all over the place and yet they don't even have a seatbelt law yet, much less a cell phone law. They have free schools for all children and yet they cannot enforce the existing child labor laws adequately to make any kind of difference for millions of children. I was reading in the paper the day we left, how they have a new free lunch program in Tamil Nadu, and yet the workers are complainging of unsafe conditions because they have a small budget for firewood to cook the lunches, so the wood is cheap and makes a lot of smoke and the workers are suffering poor health. So on one hand you have the progress of free lunches for poor children, on the other hand you are having school kitchens that still use wood-burning cooking methods. And most likely, a lot of the people who are supporting that free lunch kitchen-- from the people cutting the wood to the people washing the dishes-- are children who should be in school but are working instead. You have beautiful monuments and historic buildings going to ruin because there's just not enough money to maintain them, or the fate of the building is stuck in the courts for years until there is nothing left to fight over. India just can't win. Having visiting this country and teased the good from the bad, I really hope that India is able to come up with some solutions (ones that are actually acted upon, not just ones that are legislated) so that future generations have something to be proud of.

I have a couple more thoughts about my trip but right now I need to go and take care of Abi, who is still up at nearly 1 AM and very bored. I am so happy to be home. I'm happy to have my own bed, my familiar things around me, clean air, and my own space. Mostly I'm happy to have my freedom back-- the ability to go where I want when I want to, and the medical safety net back that has protected Nitara's health her whole life. My visits to India always open my eyes to the small things I hold most dear. I am so blessed to be able to see the beautiful things I have seen on this trip, to have a wonderful family there to visit who are so generous with us. But oh, I am so glad to be home.

Thanks again for coming on this journey with me! I have enjoyed having people to share it with and the comments have been very supportive. At times those comments helped me to get through some challenging times and to know I wasn't alone. Thanks for reaching out to me!

P.S. As soon as I get my act together I will take a photo of my quilt and post it here.