A chaotic and joyful Skype call with Brooklyn friends, and I am left feeling sad. These are the friends the gals and I spent the most time with back home. From weekly playdates, to breakfast meet-ups at a local diner, to yoga and exercise classes, to joint kids’ birthday parties and moms’ drunk nights out, these people, along with some other fantastic friends, were our Brooklyn family – our community. Everyone on the call looked wonderful…and the same as they did 9 months ago when we left, even though their lives have not stood still and they have changed as a result of living. But they seemed the same as they were when we left, and I feel so changed. I wonder if I came across as I feel on the inside, which is turned utterly upside-down and inside-out by this India expat experience. It just occurred to me that when we see each other again we will not be the same with each other as we had been. Will we be able to pick up where we left off or will we be distant and reserved? There are some friends that time and distance don’t matter with—when we speak after absences, it’s as if we have been seeing each other everyday. This includes my best friend from when I was 5 years old who I haven’t spoken with since I had Mia. I can call her right now and there won’t be any formality or hesitation. This is also what it’s like with my best friend from high school. And many other old friends. It’s a great feeling. I haven’t known my Brooklyn friends long enough to have been separated by distance to know if the relationship is strong enough to last, but the fact that 3 families have moved out of Brooklyn to the burbs and they are all still getting together occasionally is a great sign. As long as we respect that none of us have to fit into the old molds of who we were when we last were together we should be good.

A quirky psychology professor at Virginia Tech junior year hammered home that behavior is the result of personality times environment. Thus, Brooklyn Sharon is going to be and act differently than Bangalore Sharon. Trying to translate this new Sharon to the people so incredibly important to old Sharon was tricky during this hectic Skype call. These friends were maybe expecting me, as I was of them, to act the same as I had before I left home, or fit into the 218 Smith Street, Brooklyn, NY mold, which is no longer possible for me to squeeze into. Speaking to them was harder than I thought without the common language of expat-in-a-developing-nation-experience. Fortunately, what we did have was the common language of past experiences, mutual love of each other and our kids, and the same cultural background, which gave me a cozy and comfortable feeling in the midst of the twinge of sadness, despite being so far removed from each other’s daily experiences.

Small digression, speaking of cultural background, in Bangalore Masan’s best friends are a girl from Africa, one from the UK and one from Sri Lanka. Back in Brooklyn I didn’t think much about cultural diversity, and focused instead on race because almost everyone I knew was American. Now I am one of three Americans in my neighborhood, and one is leaving in June. In both Masan and Evie’s classes there are 0 fellow Americans. Our commonality these days lies mainly with Indians who have lived in America, not the European expats of the same white race.

One of my Brooklyn buddies asked me if I drive here yet. Good question, but hilarious proposition. I tried to explain the insanity of that idea, but I doubt it made sense without the context of this place. How do I even consider driving here when I can’t drive stick shift, there aren’t any traffic laws or lane lines, a ton of roads aren’t paved, speed bumps take the place of traffic lights in most parts of town, and if I get into an accident, I do not speak the local language, and many in Bangalore don’t speak English, and I may get dragged from my car and beat up if I cause the accident ala Shantaram.

On the call I mentioned that Bangalore is dirtier than Brooklyn, but how do I explain the heaps of trash that line pretty much every single roadway in this town? It’s like as if there were unmonitored landfills up and down Court and Smith Streets, going all the way into Manhattan, and only stops right outside of the boundaries of the Upper East Side where wealth keeps the trash at bay, before starting again in East Harlem? The level of filth is unimaginable, and plastic bags, including trash bags, have been outlawed. Kids and animals play in this mess, and many people pick through the smoldering muck to try to find things to sell. If we’re lucky, someone will burn the trash in an open fire, which will at least eliminate a tiny bit of the waste. There are services that pick up some of the trash, but oftentimes, the government isn’t monitoring the collection or the money allocated is being pocketed by local politicians without the job getting done. Some days the air is so thick with heat and pollution that the kids and I have trouble breathing. We now have air purifiers in all of the bedrooms. So yes, I would welcome the grit of Brooklyn right about now.

How can I explain that buying the right water bottle for the kids can take weeks because every time I buy one it breaks because everything plastic and not handmade is made in China and utterly crap.

Will it translate when I say that Evie has a slight Indian accent, does the Indian head wag and uses words like, “paining” for “hurting” and says “tomato” like Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady? Will it make sense when I describe most of my days being spent trying to find ‘good’ bread or balsamic vinegar or meat (no, it’s not true—mutton and goat aren’t the same as beef)?

And how to explain the help situation. A situation you yourself refused to participate in before you learned the lay of the land and realized 1) everyone in your 700 villa community has helpers, and 2) you need help because getting things done takes so much more time and effort than you’d ever thought possible. And there isn’t a Target-like store around the corner to make things with 3 little kids easier, and even if you do find a store that has what you need, they will only have limited stock, and instead of 6 kids’ plates in blue they will have 4 and try to convince you that the red is close enough of a match, or the store will open up an hour late because they are having their holiday party while 100 customers wait outside the store without any signage warning you of this delay due to a party. Or you go to pick up your new glasses prescription and can’t get them because even though the signage says that the store opens at 9, it’s now 11 and none of the employees have yet to arrive. Besides the fact that by employing help you (or your husband in my case) are single-handedly supporting the families of people who are desperately poor and need the income, having all of that help frees you up to actually do something you’ve always wanted to. And in India this is completely dependent on your level of wealth, and because money goes farther here than at home, we, as middle class expats, are able to pose as wealthy with the same benefits.

Many of the Indian and expat women in my neighborhood have time to have a second adolescence, to explore their interests outside of their roles as wife, mother and/or employee. My neighbor is taking Indian singing lessons and acting in local plays. Other neighbors perform dances to Hindi songs at neighborhood gatherings. Others, like myself, work-out in cross fitness, yoga and/or Bollywood/Zumba classes, in my case, a blissful 4 days a week. THE BEST! I have also been able to really address my periformus syndrome by going twice a week to see one of 12 chiropractors in India, which has made a tremendous difference in my chronic pain level. And even Dan gets to take better care of himself by going to the gym twice a week and golfing at least once a week. This helps with the stress of dealing with a culture that does things so differently than ours does. Never in NYC would we be able to do all this with young kids.

Instead of spending all day cooking, cleaning and doing childcare, others are able to work full-time, volunteer with a local NGO, or in Urvi’s and my case, are able to try to sponsor that preschool where 35 kids sit day-in and day-out in utter squaller and disease (more to come on this) because they need infrastructure (working toilets, running water, electricity), teachers that actually have an interest in and training in teaching, scholarships to continue going to school, and hygiene and sanitation training (1000 Indian kids die each day of diseases which can be prevented with hand washing and soap). So although at times you feel spoiled, is your time better served doing housework or trying to help where the government hasn’t been able to. And if you don’t help, who is going to?

I cannot wait for our Brooklyn buddies to see all that India is about. The beauty and the squaller and everything in between. It’s the contrast that makes this place so interesting and incomprehensible. It’s a ‘you had to be there’ kind of place. So come be here! (I should for sure be writing the travel ads for this place!)

This is a picture of our neighborhood and what surrounds it. The trash goes right up to the posh and is blocked out by a fence and money.

Hopefully I didn’t scare anyone off…

Back home, the neighborhood would be up in arms when a hospital was closed and turned into condos, or when the local schools were too crowded to educate the neighborhood population and one closed its pre-k to make more kindergarten slots. Or when there had been a series of stroller thefts. Or one time when there were shots fired in a neighborhood park (where Mia, Evie and I happened to be at the time). However, like almost everything in Bangalore, neighborhood crises are completely different than they were back home, and are treated with an attitude I have come to respect, if not love and sometimes f—ing hate, which is that ‘it will all work out, somehow, and what’s the use of getting upset?’ This is a completely un-New York frame of mind, which tries, and hopefully elongates, my patience on an almost daily basis.

The latest crisis facing Adarsh Palm Retreat (until this afternoon) was the neighborhood cobra. For about a month this snake had been seen in the neighborhood primarily around the maintenance office and house helpers’ bus stop. It was originally spotted in one hole, but eventually transitioned to other holes in the same general area. Because cobras are poisonous (deadly) and we have so many young kids in the neighborhood as well as people who don’t wear shoes, obviously the residents wanted to make sure that the cobra was caught and given a new home far, far away. When the snake was seen repeatedly in the same location over the course of a week it became clear that the maintenance office wasn’t going to do take care of the problem themselves, for whatever reason. So several of us called any and all snake catchers we could find the phone numbers for. The person I spoke with told me to have the person who actually saw the snake call him get in touch. No problem. Done. After 2 hours of not hearing from the snake catcher I called him back. He said that because the snake had now gone back into his hole there was nothing he could do, and he would not come over to check it out. The American in me was cursing the guy under my breath thinking that surely in his years of professional experience he has come across a way to deal with getting a snake out of its hole since a) he is a snake catcher and b) snakes go into holes. Deep breaths. This is not how it works over here.

Several of our neighbors called snake catchers as well. One even managed to come see the snake, which the maintenance office took credit for arranging on the neighborhood message board. Like the first catcher, this one also said that nothing could be done until the cobra removed itself from its hole. In the meantime those not on the message board or neighborhood What’s App group – small children, gardeners, and houseworkers, weren’t even aware of the snake. And cobra’s are great at concealing themselves in the dusty, dirty summer ground. It took a group of expats protesting at the maintenance office for them to put up yellow caution tape around the area, which is funny because a cobra is not going to stay in one location, but better than nothing, I guess. Another solution was to put half of a brick on top of each assumed snake hole. Still another was to dig up the whole area near where the snake was last spotted, to no avail. That snake could not be caught.

Fast forward 2 weeks. The snake has been spotted here and there around the neighborhood in drains, still peaking out of holes, and apparently trying to burrow into houses through holes in the structure, although I don’t know if this can actually happen or if it’s just snake-lore. Today a neighbor posted on the What’s App group that the snake was in front of her house. Of course I had to see this snake who outsmarts all the snake catchers in town. As I approached this villa, I saw a house helper looking out the window as two local men essentially in shorts and flip flops, possibly construction workers, chopped erratically at the snake’s head with a sharp 2 x 4. Myself and a teenage neighbor yelled for the men to stop killing the snake. I even went so far as to point to the snake yelling, “You’re killing Shiva!” as I remember someone telling me once that killing a snake is like killing that Hindu god, and they would be guilted into stopping. Not exactly sure if I got that all right, but it was worth a shot. More on Shiva and snake killing here: http://daily.bhaskar.com/news/JM-know-why-is-killing-snake-is-considered-inauspicious-2574338.html

The guilt didn’t work. They said, “No Shiva” although for a second they looked afraid. When the snake was dead they threw the creature into a heap next to the street, and proceed to laugh and take selfies with it. Well, the selfie part is an exaggeration, but they did take photos of the butchered snake while laughing. At one point the tail of the snake was still moving while his head was bloody and broken. I asked why they had to kill the snake, and they said that

they called a snake catcher, but that it had already been 30 minutes and he had not yet shown up.

Never in my life did I think I would stand up for the rights of a venomous cobra. I was sure that I would be the one siding with the men killing the snake, and I believe I even wrote about this viewpoint in earlier posts. But seeing the creature being beaten and broken changed my mind completely. I am a sucker for the underdog, and I am now trying to get the neighborhood to employ a snake catcher. Dan and I are even willing to help pay the salary if this horror show can be avoided in the future. We will see. Also, if I ever see a cobra near my house I reserve the right to change my mind, and yell for the men with the 2×4 to come save me.