Anglo Indian friends/families from my native town

We  had  many Anglo-Indian neighbors living around my house during my childhood/school/college years. They introduced me to western- music, fashion and lifestyles. I enjoyed all the delectable cakes, sweet confections from their house during  Christmas.

I loved to watch the Christmas tree/decorations in their homes. I had a secret wish -  to be a Christian during Christmas just to get a gift from Santa Claus. Well ,sometimes our secret wish can come true after many years. I loved the unique interior decorations in the house. My desire for  mid-century modern furniture and home decorations was influenced by them.

Most Anglo Indians from my town immigrated to Australia during my high school years. These are some of the memories of  them from my childhood.

Nordmann family lived opposite to PS mama's (my dad's best friend) house on the first floor . My family lived in the same neighborhood. I used go to PS mama's house often after school especially when my mom was in the  hospital.

Nordmann family had 4 adult kids all in high school. I vividly remember their daily evening routine . They had this huge dining table near the front door and they never closed the doors except at night. I remember seeing Mary amma - the tamil Christian house keeper who worked for Nordmann family, taking out huge cut/blocks of cooked beef from the huge pressure cooker and placing it on a huge plate.  The hungry teenagers usually ate the meat with knife and fork.   I was seven or eight years old girl then. I always ran back to PS mama house when I spot Maryamma bringing the cooker to the table. I hated the smell of meat and I would watch them eating dinner from PS mama's door step.

The eldest one - Cleito was a funny guy. I used to call him Cleito anna (big brother) . He would take a big chunk of meat in his fork just to scare me. Now when my American friends order beef in the restaurant this scene comes to my mind every single time. I had a lot of funny colleagues like Cleito . During lunch outings, they would eat the steak (cooked to rare which look like a raw meat to me )with all funny expression just to make me feel uneasy. 

Childhood never stops at school for some happy guys.  I had a  group of colleagues/buddies at Intel who were kids at heart in spite of having kids.  We got the attention of serious faced techies  at the cafeteria almost every afternoon thanks to our thunderous laughter.  The curious CB used to sit with his team mates (desi guys mostly tamil guys) few tables away from us. Atleast one of them would always come and aske me "Enna  eppadi ragalai everday ? (why so much laughter everyday) .  We had such fun/happy times like kindergartners  though we all worked on core security prodcuts for a world famous tech giant.  I missed them big time when I joined qualcomm.

Mr. Nordmann daughter Sandra’s collection of faux pearls in pastel colors mesmerized me.  I was 8 years old, when I  had a first glance at them lying on a dressing table in her dimly lit bed room . Till date, I love wearing huge colored bead necklaces because of her. She reminds me of sultry actress from American/English movies from 1960’s. She ranks first in the list of pretty girls I knew from my childhood.

Cleito anna's  pet - a white mice . He was like a magician with his mouse. The white mouse would come out of the attic when he whistled to eat the food. He was sad  to have lost that mouse in train while travelling to Banglore before leaving for Australia. He was a gorgeous guy who had this short girl friend. Both were famous hockey players in our town.

My first ball room experience was at an annual Anglo Indian’s New year celebration. I was in elementary school then. Fancy dress competition was a regular event at the new year's gala.  A guy came dressed like leper sitting on a wheeled cart. I stared at him thinking he was a real leper and wondered about his presence in the New Year’s party. I cried out loud when he came closer to just scare me.

I was scared of lepers during my childhood. I heard factious stories from adults about lepers abducting kids. My school was located next to a  famous cathedral in town. And many of them used to line up and sit against my convent's wall asking for money.  Growing up I was very touched by our convent nun's kindness - embracing poor kids in the school and helping the lepers.  This aspect of Christianity made me an admirer of that religion.  And my Montessori school nuns helped us tremendously during my mother's long stay at the hospital.  Two decades later I was married in that famous cathedral.

I remember my favorite baby girl - Kitty Paul from Paul's family dressed like a cute yellow chick for new year's fancy dress competition. She was then a 2 yr old beautiful chubby girl with catchy blue eyes. In 1999, I met her as a beautiful young girl along with her mother Mrs. Paul and Sister Ruthie at the railway station while travelling to Bangalore. My mom and Mrs. Paul were admitted in the same hospital when my mother went for kidney operation and Mrs. Paul for open heart surgery.

Mrs. Paul was CB’s kindergarten teacher. She hasn’t seen  him after 12th grade and could not believe that tiny little guy from her class has turned into a tall and broad guy and married a Hindu girl  she knew well . We were friends with Michael Paul’s family. My father used to call him Mickey Paul.

Rozario's family with seven kids lived just behind our home. They were loud all the time.  They had six girls and one boy. While returning from school every day I would see at least one Rozario kid talking/flirting with the boy friend in front of their house. I also remember their loud parties with loud music. I loved hearing loud western music playing round the clock in their house. Candy a reputed hockey player from this family was my batch mate at college.

During Indira Gandhi's death we were in Chennai enjoying our Diwali break with our extended family. On returning home, we heard the news about the hush-hush marriage Andrea since she got pregnant. She was the prettiest of all Anglo Indian girls from my town and her parents were very conservative people. The marriage took place on fateful day when Mrs. Indira Gandhi was assassinated. Her younger brother was CB's classmate. During my trip back home in 2002 my cousin showed me the infamous hotel in our town which was hot spot for Anglo Indian lovers during those days : ).

My college dress code was liberal which meant Anglo Indian friends wearing backless formal dress, Kaftans and spaghetti strap dresses to college in late 80’s. My college provided us with micro mini divided skirts for sports day parade (inter department parade).  And as a  NCC cadet I had to take part in the dept parade every year.   Every tom, dick and Harry from my neighborhood got a sport's day pass by citing some imaginary sister's name during our sports day parade just to drool over the hundreds of girls wearing micro mini skirts. Our college watchman never allowed us to go outside the campus to get some refreshment after our NCC drill during college hours . My Roman Catholic college had some weird rules like this.

My good friend Anita my collegemate  is a guitarist.  She was a famous guitarist (in campus and in our city) and would play for us during lunch times.  Me, Anita and Nachal represented our department in fashion parade event. Anita for western dress, moi for cotton sarees and my married classmate Nachal for silk.  Anita's dad was CB's french teacher at school. Anita was the first friend to know about CB . She used to call me "saint" during college days . She was pretty surprised to hear that I had fallen in love , that too with roman catholic guy . CB played soccer at school and she  knew CB well during high-school  years.

Anglo Indian friends had a good influence on my life growing up in small town in Tamil Nadu. I cherish the best memories of my childhood thanks to their Christmas and New Year parties and their friendship.  Though CB and I went to different schools, after marriage we  realised that we had many Anglo Indian friends in common. And we talk often about our friends from our native place. This is best part about marrying a guy from your home town who knew your friends too. When I share a memory about our life/friends in our hometown with CB, we both go back to that time.

This week we fondly remembered and shared our memories from our home town. Thanks to FB, I was able to see the pictures of all anglo Indians friends who left my home town in seventies and eighties, especially picture of Sandra N in her late forties and other Nordmann family members.  That night I went to bed feeling like an eight year old Montessori school kid.

Happy Mother's day

Mother's day wishes all the mothers around the world  Motherhood is  a challenge and a gift .My love and  respect goes to all those strong moms out there striving hard to better the families.

My life back in India showed me the courage of mothers who never give up hope inspite of all the hardships they faced. The best was my maid Vasuki amma who worked as mid day meal teacher but worked as a maid in couple of houses to makes ends meet. She had 4 girls and one boy. Today they are all well educated, one even finsihed her CA . She would send her prekg and elementary school kids (both girls) at times to wash vessels if she is late or doing some extra work at other homes. My mom used to get so angry at her for sending the little kids . Since they came in the evening right after I return from school and before my mom returned from work, I finished all the work . It was right thing to do and never thought twice about it. They were just 5 and 8 year old girls but they would have a fight with me for not allowing them to work . They were their mother's little helpers and never felt even bit sad or unhappy but felt very proud to replace their mother. The little girls sang and entertained me when I did the chores. The little girl talked non stop and would mimic this famous dialogue from Director visu's Movie.  A little act of kindness I showed as a fourteen year old girl earned me a good place in their heart. Even today if you meet vasuki amma she will have all good things to tell about me.  Vasuki amma's kids all lead a good life today because they took their responsibilities so seriously early in their life .This was the secret behind their success. They realised the struggle their mother faced to bring them up and shared the burden . Not once I've heard vasuki amma say that she worked hard for the kids but said it's her duty to educate them , feed them well and provide a safe place to live. And the kids happily pitched in to help their mothers. I am sure this life lesson would have made them great mothers.

Ammuma's house

I lived with my Ammuma, appupa, chitha (my mom younger sister) and with two mamas(my mom’s younger brothers) till I was three or 3.5 years old. Then my parents (aka Mr and Mrs. Nambiar) took me away from the favorite place on earth.

My ammuma house was located in a street having a Murugan temple at the end of the street. It resembled the miniature village scene from our “kolu” with two rows of houses with temple at the end of street. Ammuma and myself used to go to the Murugan temple frequently. She took me  with her everywhere she went. My favorite one is the fish/veg market and the grocery store (Nadar kadai) where I got my favorite toffee - Kummercut.

My ammuma’s house had a porch with a cement chaise like the Victorian era ones. Every evening I used to lay there eagerly waiting for my chitha’s arrival from office. She worked in Madras secretariat at that time. Every day she got my evening snack wihtout fail- a bunch of Hyderabadi white grapes and packet of roasted peanuts . I merrily ate my snack sitting on the bench on the front porch while she sipped her evening coffee. Those days every family got milk from local milk vendors. Late evening the balance milk would be used for making curd and ammuma never stored milk overnight. My first mama(maternal uncle)  who worked for commercial tax dept  got my night time milk and Pachanadan pazham ( green banana) from a nearby tea-shop daily.   Aavin milk booths mushroomed in Chennai in late seventies. Like milk/vegetable seller, the Krishna oil seller (Kerosene for the stove) came to every street to sell Krishna oil from his oil drum fitted on a tricycle.  Ammuma's kitchen had kerosene stove and she used to get kerosene from the Krishna oil vendor regularly. On my first trip to grocery store  in US , I was pleasantly surprised to see  gallon size milk bottles in the dairy aisle.

After lunch we used to take a nap together. We had frequent power cuts in those days and my ammuma was my manual fan. I still remember asking her “ammuma vichiri vudu” non stop when the ceiling fans stopped rotating. There are certain special events  which are carved forever in my memory. I can recollect my voice but don’t remember how I looked. My ammuma never had a huge dressing table mirror like the one in my house. She will fan me non-stop with the traditional ola visiri (traditional hand fan). She had all the patience that a world needed. I learnt the virtue of patience from her and from my chitha.

My ammuma came from a very wealthy family from Nagercoil . She was given good education and was proficient in English, Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi. She taught me to write family members name in English. I remember those times vividly. We used to have this checked patterns on the cement floor. I used to write family members name on the lines on the floor. I don’t know at what age she started teaching me alphabets but I was writing everybody’s name in English before three. My favorite was “Raman Pillai” my periamma’s husband name.

 Later in my life , when I scored good marks in exams or successful in my career my extended family (aunts, uncles) used to talk about my ability write people’s name in english at a very early age. I felt very shy and even little annoyed when this story was shared with visitors because I never thought it was a big deal. Taking care of NR right from birth without any guidance, I appreciate and respect my ammuma’s parenting skills more. I am amazed at my ammuma’s teaching skills. I am not very successful in teaching anything to NR. I am not even able to take his bottle away. Believe me I have tried do that right from 12 months. NR has a mind of his own. He picks up traits just like that if he is interested otherwise he doesn’t want to do anything with it. And I am fine with it. I will lend my hand whenever he needs it. God sends us all to this earth with enough skills to live our own life. I have a strong faith that my son is blessed with his own skills.

And I also strongly feel that my ammuma is my/NR's guardian angel.

The occasional cook

I had a glimpse of my husband’s culinary skills on the first night of my arrival in USA. It took almost 48 hours to reach Wichita from Chennai. I flew from Chennai to Singapore, Singapore to Seoul, Seoul to San Francisco, SFO to Denver, and Denver to Wichita. I had six hours of lay over at SFO.

A big group of my college friends came and received me at the SFO airport. Everybody worked for Silicon Valley companies except for CB. Most of them were in US when we got married except for one friend. He came to US few months after our wedding and he arranged the welcome party at SFO.    We had huge respect from our friends during our college days and everybody who knews us wanted our love to succeed. We were the first ones to get married from our group , CB at the age of 26. I got such warm reception at SFO . They had planned to take me out for lunch but we came back to the airport after a traffic delay. I had to settle with smelly, yucky shrimp fried rice at the Chinese restaurant in the airport. I expected Wang kitchen fried rice quality but ended up throwing the entire food in the trash. We were regulars at Wang Kitchen (in Parthan hotel complex in TNagar) and Southern Chinese restaurant near Anand Theater in Chennai.

I boarded my flight to Denver with empty stomach.  In Denver I had to catch a flight to Wichita within an hour.  I had just peanuts for lunch and dinner till I reached Wichita at 8.00pm. But my hunger went away after meeting CB. I was so happy and eager to see him after six months.

CB had prepared the best dinner for me. He made my favorite Tamil lunch spread sambar with egg plant, potato curry and Halibut fish fry. The food tasted so good except for one small glitch – he used channa dal(kadala paruppu) instead of toor dal (thuvaram paruppu) for sambar. Not bad at all for a guy who never made a cup of tea. The aroma of vegetable oil permeated the entire house and it was different from the cooking oils I had used in India. Even today when  I smell the aroma of vegetable oil, it takes me back to that night.

When CB was working for Microsoft in Seattle , I used to pick him from train station around mid night every Friday. He wanted  me to sleep more during the weekends and took over the duty of preparing morning cup of tea from that year. He prepares the best chai.

Whenever I returned from my business trips, he would cook my favorite south Indian food Sambar, potato curry and fish fry every single time. He was comfortable preparing those dishes without any cooking disasters. I looked forward to coming home to have a tasty home-made food after eating in restaurants during the trip.

Fast forward to 2008 February when I was eight months pregnant with NR, I had gestational diabetes. I was in bed rest from 20^th week and we got food from restaurant daily. Gestational diabetics required strict food regiment calculating carbs so CB took over the duty of preparing my daily lunch. He would get up early every day to prepare two big batches of vegetable dishes.   I was pleasantly surprised with his cooking skills. He made my favorite bitter guard or Kovaikai(tindora) masala everyday . I controlled my diabetes with food and never took insulin shots. After pregnancy I leant that bitter guard and tindora are good for diabetes.

After NR’s birth he never cooked. His hands were full being full-time employee and dad. Thanks to my SAHM status,   I fed them well.   And this valentine’s day thanks to NR, he got his groove back. We had planned to go out for dinner but NR decided to take late evening nap. CB happily stepped in to make my favorite breakfast menu for dinner – French toast, egg omelet with onion/tomatoes and hash browns. 

Life does get better when you reach your forties. As a couple you will start reading each other’s feeling so well even before we speak. We were like that from our twenties but with forties I could feel some extra dosage of care and love.

I am planning to induct NR into mama's culinary school as early as possible to get some brownie points from my future daughter-in-law : ).

My first day in US

CB arrived in US two weeks after our first anniversary. I worked for a software firm in India, so I knew the pitfalls of arriving in US with work visa. If  the  US placement is through a consulting firm, you need to share the accommodation with others for first few weeks (or for months for many friends who were not able to get a job within couple of weeks).  And then you can be posted anywhere depending on the clients requests. This works out fine for bachelor’s guys /girls but not for the married/family people. I wanted CB to settle down in his job coz having me with him meant he will have to consider lot of option before accepting a new job. I decided to join him after six months. Meanwhile, I resigned from my job, vacated our first home and moved back with my parents/in-laws for those six months.

 I landed in US on a cold winter night of February, a week before CB’s birthday.  CB relocated to that city just two months before my arrival. He never bothered to buy a car or get a driver’s license. Well having had a car since childhood he never bothered to learn car driving or never used his dad’s car. He made very conscious effort to hide his status and used to commute to college by bus.

 After arriving at the airport, I was searching for him and never recognized him until he came few yards from me. The six-foot tall slim husband I knew six months back had gained tones of weight, had a big belly and his face was twice as big it used to be.  After the initial bear hugs followed by flowers, teddy bear and box of my favorite chocolates we decided to hire the cab from airport.  The cabs are usually outside the airport complex and when we arrived there was no single cab in view. I have never seen a desolate airport like that till today. And Wichita is home to all big air craft companies like Boeing, Cessna and Lear jet.

 We waited for more than 30 minutes outside the cold, dark area for cab arrivals because getting inside airport complex meant we might miss the occasional cab which came to drop passengers. After half an hour we called the cab service to pick us and the cab arrived after 45 minutes. I was numb due to freezing temperature  in spite wearing two jackets.

We arrived at our apartment after what seemed to be an endless drive from airport. Thanks to a sensible husband our apartment was fully furnished.  The warm bath I took after two days of travel and two hours of waiting on the cold cab shelter felt luxurious .

I found the reason behind his weight gain. Our kitchen cabinet had plenty of gallon size ice cream buckets with Indian groceries. He was a kid in candy land surviving solely on chicken/cheese pizza, Fried chicken and gallons of ice cream.

The husband, who never made a cup of tea six month back, had cooked a sumptuous dinner spread with my favorite dishes.

 This is one of  the happiest memories of my life - my first day in US.

Carrier Monkey

I watched the movie - One Fine day  , on cable at my first US apartment  on a remote place ( remote to me at that time since I never saw one desi living in that area) in a remote city . Then my husband was working for an aviation software development firm in the heartland of USA and his colleague HP lived in that apartment who gave him a ride to office everyday. 

There is a scene in a movie one fine day where Melanie's boss looks at her little boy and asks, "Do you know what I think of when I look at him?" Melanie smiles, ready for a compliment but the boss's answers,  "Carrier monkey." I cringed a bit and thought do such Boss/people really exist here?. Now after 14 years or so  and having had a boy after many years of leading a healthy life where we never went to doctors office for fever or cold , I officially declare that toddlers are - CARRIER MONKEYS.

YES,  my son came up with cold, cough and sore throat three days back conveniently on a long weekend when I had plans to do some heavy weight sewing . I had a perfect nanny aka Appa to look after NR for the long weekend to do something I wanted  to stitch. But instead, we spent last weekend taking his temp every one hour and not having any sleep during night. He had mild temp up to 100.8 and are anticipating  another fever episode any time now : (.  I 've started feeling little sick too.

I DVR my favourite shows and watched  them at the only time I get in a day-  night  after 9.30 or 10.00pm when I fold daily laundry or iron my/NR clothes after NR and papa goes to bed.  Last two weeks even that little luxury was taken away from me :( . He refuses to sleep until I join him . 

He hasn't started his school yet and I am already dreading the school days ahead this summer. God please send me a  good house keeper to help me during the sick days along with the  money to afford that keeper. hee hee ,I am sure almost every mother in US says this prayer all too often.

2011- our 20th Valentines day

The ritual of celebrating valentines day started in the year 1992 with two young souls expressing their love for each other with cards and gifts.  They never had any clue how their life is going to be as a couple  and how they'll feel about each other in coming years. I knitted a woollen scarf  feverishly for three weeks as my first valentine's day gift for CB while attending graduate school in 1992. He still has the scarf though I was the one who used  it most of the time.

Life turned good in the relationship department with no extra work done to nurture it. With work and making a life for ourselves in a far away land, it took us long hours, absolute dedication and extra hard work to get to where we are now.  Nothing in life came easy for us including our baby. But with absolute faith in our partnership , mutual respect for each other's feelings, enormous patience and with god's blessing we got everything we wanted in our life.  We took that journey together and still continuing to tackle the challenges holding our hands and hearts together. For last three years another set of tiny hands and precious little heart joined our journey .  I thank god ,every day for this life and asking his guidance at every possible moment.

For this valentines day this is the scene which greeted me when I came downstairs to our kitchen.

This year's  valentines day card

With love to my wife

If you could look into my heart

you' see

All the lovely things

you are to me

All the thoughts

I somehow can't express

About our love, our home,

our happiness

If you could look into my heart,

you'd know

The many reason

Why I love you so

Happy Valentines day to my wife and my little hero.

 

Signed HUBBY

For all youngster who are taking the journey like we did twenty years ago, my only wish is give your best  before thinking about walking away or giving up. There is a special and valid reason you fell in love with each other and stick to that feeling. It's easy to walk away from situation we think are difficult, but it takes immense courage, dedication and patience to stand for the things you believe in, especially your love. You'll never regret it because you will always feel special as the years go by. I am wishing success for all those couples who are celebrating their first valentine's day this year.