Thank you, gorgeous friends for asking for more recent posts. I am touched that my Bangalore adventures are of interest to anyone. It’s not that I haven’t been wanting to write, it’s just that I vacillate between feeling like an explorer to Mars with copious interesting (to me?) anecdotes and a boring pampered housewife with a nanny, driver and housekeeper and nothing of interest to write about (although the drama that comes with all this ‘help’ could fill a novella). Whatever strong emotion drove the writing of previous posts has dried up with the summer heat. The Bangalore air, which has a sedating effect all year-round (it’s crossed my mind that Dan put something in the A/C filters to keep me sleepy and calm so that I don’t really comprehend the reality of moving our whole family across the world away from our known universe) is even more draining with the current summer temps of 95 each day. I feel too sleepy and too overwhelmed with getting by to write. Often I just want to crawl under the covers rather than try to understand the experience or share it. Today I took 2 naps. I should have just done a photo blog.

 

As Cyrus Apple Juice Kisses continuously tries to mount the two female cats even though he has had parts of his manhood stripped (why oh why did I adopt 4 cats???), I will try to capture the essence of yesterday’s shopping experience:

9 months into our B’lore tour of duty and we have now almost fully transitioned to Indian plugs for our American-made important appliances, which can handle India’s 240v operating voltage. We are pretty much finished killing our devices brought from home, although Dan did accidently fry Mia’s US-made nebulizer yesterday morning (poor thing can’t shake this terrible cough; it maybe an allergy or asthma from the not-so-regulated air pollution), but that was because he hadn’t yet had his coffee (The housekeeper hadn’t yet arrived. Yes, we are those people at least for 1 or 2 more years, which is still strange coming from the do-it-yourself middle class American value system, but completely culturally appropriate and encouraged here. And I am definitely used to it. How will I survive when I return home?). Thus, yesterday I needed to buy my first Indian power strip so that I no longer have to prioritize between having my computer, TV, air purifier or phone plugged in.

Kiran and I hit up the closest mega store/mall called More. This was the first supermarket I ever visited upon coming to Bangalore. Think Walmart, but an Indian version. With rows of dried beans and grains, which I had no idea how to cook, no familiar food or brands stacked ceiling high in all of those dusty aisles, and I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to feed my family—this is when I swore I would never need or want a cook. Oh the naivete! Those early days are fortunately behind me, and now I am bestowed with the wisdom 9 months of surviving Bangalore has given me: I know the expat-friendly stores to shop in, and more importantly, how a good cook can turn those grains and beans into healthy and delicious Indian food.

Anyway, back to yesterday’s More experience. Upon entering the store we were privy to a neck tattoo in process on a stool in the open hallway directly across from the KFC. I was fascinated, and leaned in for a closer look and to ask some asinine questions, but the artist was focused and not interested in talking to me about his work, at least in English, which 9 months later is still all I know except for ‘naanu’ (‘me’), ‘namaskara’ (a greeting), and ‘sari’ and ‘theek hai’ (‘okay’ in Kannada and Hindi respectively). The nanny Vasanthi who treats me like a daughter, even though I am older than she is, is teaching me, “I want to go back to my country” although I haven’t gotten it down yet. It’s not true all the time, and most of the time it’s not, but I want to know how to say it when I reach my expat limit.

After refocusing, we make our way up the ramp to the first floor where the groceries are sold. A pile of floor sweepings greet us along with a woman dressed in a sari squatting on the ground filling huge, rectangular glue traps with scraps of cake, which I can only assume are rat traps, which she deftly slides under the bread shelves. The smell of the grocery store is nauseating to me on this hot day, and I hurry up to the next level, the home goods store. We find the power strip we need with the help of a very knowledgable woman in a sari and a Home Depotesque apron. We also look for tea lights for the backyard to light our year-round cook-outs, but alas, like the 5 other stores we have tried for tea lights, they only come in flashing multi-colors, no plain white.

Upon leaving the mega mall a small boy asks me to buy some of the stickers he is selling. He holds his hands up to his mouth to mime ‘hungry’ since he correctly pegs me for someone who doesn’t know his native language. I give him the rupees I have, and an older girl approaches us miming the same thing. She is holding a flattened, round wicker basket. I mime that I have already given all of my rupees to the boy. She doesn’t believe me, and while I am trying to convince her using sign language, Kiran tells me that she has a cobra in the basket under her arm that she will show me for money. Woah, what? I mime ‘snake’ and she shakes her head ‘no.’ She tells me through Kiran’s translation that it’s a new snake and that it is still at home, but that she will have it with her tomorrow. I ask Kiran to ask her if she is scared that it will bite her and she laughs and shakes her head ‘no.’ Kiran tells me that the fangs will be yanked out before the snake makes its rounds in the basket. Although I hate poisonous snakes I can’t help feeling a bit sorry for the fellow. Oh, this reminds me of another story I want to share soon about the neighborhood cobra…