Sacrifice and the Career

Before you have children it is quite normal to fear their arrival due to all of the things that you will have to give up: late nights partying with friends, intimate dinners, spontaneous trips, sleep. These are just some of the things that we begin to process and grieve when the two lines appear on the home pregnancy test and life becomes, at the same time, more complicated and more simple. Everything seems to speed up and concepts of time fundamentally altered. Something that I have often laughed about with other first-time parents is how you often wonder what you actually did with your time before you had children. The demands of a child can be so great and drive your focus into high levels of Bodhisattva mindfulness, that the days of lounging on the beach or (gasp) watching a mildly entertaining television program seem a lifetime ago.

Yet since Kaia’s birth, while I have been a significant figure in his life and day-to-day upbringing, my professional obligations and opportunities have been supported by my wife’s commitment to bring Kaia’s primary caregiver. This has allowed me to teach and research with the comfort of knowing that he is in the company of someone who truly loves him and focused on his needs. I certainly do not think that I would be where I am at professionally without her support. While all important decisions have been made as a family and some compromises made, I have been very fortunate to be able to have done just about all of the things that I have wanted to. But this, for many men, is not an uncommon story.

One of the things that attracted me to being Kaia’s full-time caregiver is that I wanted to learn more about sacrifice, service and love. These has long been important traits that I have attempted to cultivate in my life, but the challenge of doing it within the intimacy of your family struck me as being a whole other test. I knew that the priority of my wife’s new job and the need to care for Kaia would push aside some of my own interests and activities, but at the same time I could perhaps better understand my priorities, not as mere rhetoric, but as a true reflection of my actions. But it would be disingenuous to imply that I had some grand scheme or curriculum in mind that would help move me to higher consciousness. Hardly. I just knew that I would be confronted with some exciting (at least at the time) opportunities that I might have been able to jump into in the past, but now I would have to miss out on. “Stay at home” parents experience this all the time, especially in regard to their career. I can say now that I have had to do the same.

The loss was the opportunity of present a paper an international conference in London scheduled for late August. The scheduled panelists and respondents showed a large number of prominent figures related to my field of research, and this would have been the first time that I would be sharing my work with others in such a venue. My paper was accepted in a very stiff competition, and the three day conference would have no doubt yielded a number of great insights and future contacts, not to mention the prospects for publishing through a planned volume of selected papers from the conference. Yes, it would have been a fabulous event---WOULD HAVE because I found out just last week that over those same dates, it will be an extremely busy time for my wife’s work. The previous plan was for her to take vacation time while I traveled for 5 days, but now with her anticipating a 10-12 hour per day schedule for that week (at that time they will be having a grand opening of a new HIV/AIDS education and training center that will be a centerpiece for the entire country and the event will be attended by all kinds of dignitaries), there is no chance that we can make it work between us. Something had to give and there was little doubt that London was not happening. Even as I write this, I am still disappointed. But this is what I wanted, isn’t it?

It is interesting how this situation has initiated a thread of thought that I did not expect to contemplate so soon: the fear and doubt of losing your career to child-rearing. Now, this is not to say that I am riddled with concern about my ability to work or develop professionally—far from it—but rather, I can now begin to understand how important it is to recognize the great challenge in doing both—raising your child and keeping your career—well. The few people whom I have met who I think do this well seem to have two things in common: they have clear priorities and limits for their time, and they don’t take themselves too seriously. While we could all benefit from improving on the latter, maintaining these priorities are not so easy. But in many ways, I think that they are easier to maintain when they are challenged. This conference was just a minor event in understanding sacrifice, but it does bring to light some of the powerful external forces that influence our parenting and partnerships. I will write more in the future about the discourse around ‘stay at home dads’ (this is what this weblog is about, isn’t it?), but there really isn’t much sympathy out there. Women like to say everything from, “now you know what it feels like” to “get used to it”, which expectedly, don’t help. Most men just can’t even go there. So while the calendar inches closer to the Autumn Equinox and the conference goes on without me, I’ll be hopefully kneading and water recharging Play-Doh with alternate hands as Kaia asks for the tenth time to squeeze it through the processor.

Why I Love this time: How, sometimes, he will wake up, roll over and sit up, look around for about five seconds and then turn to you and say “car?”

The Doctor

For anyone over the age of 30, health care has to be near the top of the list when relocating to a new place. While there are plenty of things to be concerned about related to moving logistics, finances, food, etc., staying healthy—and having a healthy child—is really what captains the day-to-day work of parenting into friendly waters. It would certainly be possible to organize life into two headings—healthy Kaia and sick Kaia—for life in each respective world is radically different. Unfortunately, this week, the winds of fate blew in the latter direction, mixing together an unwanted recipe:

Anxious Papa

· a heaping scoop of uncertainty—flavors are more rich when in a whole new living environment;

· a pinch of change from shifting weather conditions from hotter to hottest;

· a dash of anxiety from the background drumbeat of a cornucopia of infectious diseases;

· one sick child with runny nose, inflamed throat and high fever.

Add ingredients and stir vigorously throughout night and early morning, waking every 15-30 minutes to check on concoction.

Serves 1 to 2 parents and all those in close contact. Yield and anxiety can be ramped up by simply increasing the number of sick children or the number of days left untreated.

Needless to say, the result of all of this was the inevitable: our first trip to the pediatrician in India.

Now even though Kaia is only 21 months, he has had four pediatricians. This is not because we have not liked them (although some like ‘Dr. Scoldsmamaalot’ were not our favorite), but because of all the moving around we have been doing. As a new parent of a young infant, there is a great deal of anxiety that accompanies any illness that your child has, but it is compounded significantly when you don’t feel like there is a medical professional whom you already know and trust, ready to treat your child. You would think that, after having to do this three times now, twice in the US and once in Japan, that I would be better at untying the knots in my stomach that came from the realization that we needed to see a doctor right away. If you did, you would be wrong. There was a rat’s nest inside my gut. I actually had been sitting on the name of a pediatrician for about 2 weeks--Dr. Sanjon John—and it was time that Kaia and I paid him a visit.

Madras is actually considered by many people to be the medical capital of India. There is a plethora of medical clinics where you can get everything from heart surgery to liposuction (which has the distinction of being one of the most subtly dramatic sights of inequality I have seen in the city, what with an encampment of squatters rummaging through garbage bins nearby the clinic’s front steps), and many come from all over the country to receive medical care in the local hospitals. In fact, there are some who claim that this area can be considered the medical capital of South and South-East Asia. For this, I am not so sure. My fear instinct had me just wanting to be sure that this doctor washes his hands before seeing Kaia.

Dr. John’s office is on the other side of town, about a 20 minute drive by car. Of course, we can overlook that, statistically, it is much more of a risk to Kaia’s health to drive ANYWHERE in the city than whatever he might be suffering from. Such is life in Madras.

We finally arrive at his place and, like many doctors, Dr. John’s clinic is a humble structure of three rooms (waiting, office, storage) which is attached to his home. Kaia and I make our way across the slity driveway and, per the sign in English and Tamil, ‘kindly remove our shoes’, step into the waiting room and take a seat in the row of attached, molded fiberglass chairs that look like a deluxe model of the kinds you find in bus stations. My posture has always ensured that I slide quickly into ‘slacker pose’ when in these seats, but before I could do so, the door opened and Dr. John asked to come in.

Coming from the US, and most certainly from Japan, I am accustomed to two or three layers of people before the doctor makes his or her grand appearance. In the US, there is of course the administrative check-in, followed by (in the case of Kaia) someone of weigh and measure, and sometimes, a nurse practitioner to give vaccinations, before the knock on the door starts the 5-7 minutes you have with a doctor who, god willing, can remember your name. In Japan, it is similar in terms of layers, but you cannot help but be struck by the amazing ratio of nurse to doctor—in some places like 6 to 1!—and ask yourself what the heck they do all day. In this clinic, however, there were no long medical history forms to fill out, no insurance cards, no co-pays, no scary nurses--Just a middle-aged Indian man with a comforting smile and gentle manner.

After a few minutes of explaining Kaia’s symptoms, Dr. John did a simple check up of basic indicators (including the use of a camping flashlight to look inside his throat and ears!) and found that Kaia’s throat was inflamed and that all of his signs pointed 99% to a common affliction known affectionately as “Madras Throat”, or in more western parlance, strep throat. Immediately, the doctor recommended, we would start Kaia on some antibiotics and within a few days he would feel much better. No need for throat cultures or other procedures that might be common in other parts of the world. I was comfortable with his diagnosis and treatment plan. I just hoped that Kaia would be too after a few days.

In the end, I can say that I am very relieved to have finally secured a pediatrician for Kaia. What Dr. John’s clinic might lack in subscriptions to Highlights magazine and digital scales, it is very clean and, most importantly, Dr. John is excellent with children, knowledgeable and accessible around the clock. Also, as the doctor of choice of the American Consulate in Chennai, he is familiar with dealing with expat children and their manic parents.

He even washes his hands.

Why I Love this Time: How he lets me cut his hair and, even with all of the big chunks and uneven bang lines, he doesn’t care one bit about these flaws nor how anyone will look at him.

Coming Down the Road: The Bus

If you were born from the late 1960s onward, there is a very good chance that you were read Richard Scarry’s classic children’s book, Cars and Trucks and Things that Go. For young children excited about moving vehicles and animals it is wonderfully creative, and as a friend said about the author, “this guy just understands kids”. In this world, mice drive tow trucks, a pig named Pete mans the pickle truck, a bunny rabbit waves from an alligator car, and little goldbug makes an appearance on every page. This is the chaos of Busy Town—with dozens of stories and creatures making their way from someplace to somewhere. Sound familiar?

As you might expect, Kaia loves this book. He can sit with it for 10-15 minutes, even longer if we read it with him, just pointing out and laughing at all of the crazy vehicles. So, it was a logical next step when we were driving in a taxi one day and he was a bit fussy while sitting on my lap, that I pose the question to him, “what’s coming down the road in Busy Town?” The game had begun and I had a whole new way of looking at the Indian street.

While the things that you see while driving around the city may not match a baboon in a shoe delivery car shaped like a worn leather shoe, there are some things that come rather close. One of these is when young men attempt to get on an already full—and moving—city bus. In fact, I don’t think that Richard Scarry has any vehicle in his creative mind that matches the Madras city bus around rush hour. These hulking green and white vehicles strike me as more tank than transport, but for 2 rupees to anywhere in the city, their price cannot be beat. Like their cousins in crime, the auto rickshaw, the city bus is a top-shelf polluter that belches out a plume of black with every tap of the accelerator pedal. If you are unlucky enough to be driving just behind a bus in an auto rickshaw when this happens, you can almost hear the tiny fibers in your respiratory passages being singed and tarred. I cannot imagine what the lungs of the poor traffic police look like. Fortunately some in the city have taken to wearing respirators, but it is all too common to see them hanging around their necks rather than on their faces. It reminds me of being a teenager on my motor scooter and driving around with my helmet on the side hook and not on my head. Back then it was a weak attempt towards being cool. I hope that the same is not the case for these men.

Like in many places, the most humorous thing you can find on a bus is the sign stating the ‘capacity’. One can only imagine the process that went into the crafting of this policy and the good private laugh the crafters must have had in considering its implementation and enforcement. As anyone who has ridden an Indian bus knows, whether it be for 500 feet or 500 miles, if there is a space big enough for a human head, it can and will be filled. What is remarkable is to see what this approach to transportation does to the vehicle itself when pushed to the limit. During rush hour, it is common to see a bus lumbering down the street with a left side—the entry/exit side—some 3 to 4 feet lower than the right side, nearly scraping the asphalt. This is largely due to the amazing number of people who are hanging off of the side of the bus, often holding on with a few fingers and no place to anchor their feet, all while the bus cruises along at a 25 to 30 MPH clip.

Aside from the explanation that Indian men (I’ve never seen a woman and cannot imagine that it is even possible while wearing typical female attire) can channel Spiderman during times of distress, it is remarkable to watch how they run and catch the bus. There is a bit of track and field in the passing of a baton during the relay that goes into the start and eventual leap, but mostly it is sheer determination, because the bus driver makes no attempt to slow down (as if he could even see them) and there are other obstacles to content with while running after the bus. Of course, not all of the participants in the “bus leap” are awarded with a lift down the street and there are always those who are literally left in the dust. It is really a sight to see.

Up until a few days ago, I had thought that these riders did not pay the 2 rupee fare and risked their life and limb because it was a free ride. However, now I know that I was wrong and they are indeed expected to pay, and the ticket taker will eventually collect from them. How do they get to them on a crazy bus? That I still don’t know, but somehow, like many things in this country, it just happens.

So, as it was one of his first (and still favorite, if not multi-functional) words, Kaia is fond of pointing out the busses on our trips down the Busy Town of Madras. I wonder what is going on in his head has he watches these young men dash to jump on the bus. If his gaping mouth and puzzled look are any indicators, he is as fascinated as me. They should really make an Indian equivalent of Cars and Trucks and Things that Go. Now that would be a classic.

Why I Love this Time: When he gets really excited, how he will run around in circles until he gets so dizzy that he falls in a heap of laughter on the ground.

Mr. Spiderman

Birthday Party

Today we attended our first birthday party in India. A child from Kaia’s play group was turning two and, since receiving our invitation one week ago, I had been really looking forward to it. Of course, events at this age are completely about the parents and relatives, so I was looking forward to seeing how this expression of affection was different than in Japan or the US. Kaia had a good nap, so I think that he was just looking forward to riding his Uncle Sethu’s car. It wont be long before he can anticipate the wave of sugar and child (un)safe party favors that will mark his calendar until he becomes a teenager.

I had been thinking that the event would be somewhat formal, but I was a bit surprised (and embarrassed—at least I changed into long pants!) when we walked in the event (not at their home, but at an outdoor event center) and saw so many women dressed in glittering sari and men in their best pressed shirts and cruda wear. Of course, as a foreigner with an already odd look about him, I’m sure that any fashion faux pas were immediately forgiven, but I was relieved that at least I had put Kaia in a nice outfit.

Inside, waiters clad in black bow ties made their rounds with super sweet lemon ginger beverages that made me briefly crave the Santa Cruz Organics’ lemon ginger echinacea beverage that you can find in the western US, and the mingling and children running around could have been happening anywhere—that is, anywhere that has a dosai bar and fresh fried vegetable pakora. At this age, Kaia is not so interested in other children (unless they have something that he wants or they take something from him), and is very happy playing and exploring on his own. The new play structure, with age appropriate slide and rocking horse immediately captured his attention and we were off.

Some of the young boys who are around Kaia’s age and who are in Kaia’s playgroup have started to push and pinch. It is very interesting to see Kaia’s reaction whenever they do this to him as he is genuinely stunned that he is being deliberately hurt. It has happened enough now to see that he is, at this age, much more of a thinker than a reactive child. Some of these kids will immediately hit back or get this defiant posture, but I have to say that I am glad that Kaia seems to be a bit more gentle in his approach to aggressive behavior. We will see how he continues to develop, but for me retaliation—like ‘hit the other child back’ or ‘push them back’—is not acceptable, and is something that I’ve heard others say when these things happen to Kaia. In some strange way, it is actually kind of exciting when these very obvious ‘teachable moments’ happen because it is a great time as a parent to talk to your child and help them to understand and best respond.

In short, the party was a really nice event and Kaia had a fun time. The birthday cake was this (had to be 50-60 pound) monstrosity of a cake that had an almost life-sized spiderman on it, complete with all of the multiple colors and ridges to his costume. The taste test proved to be more sugar frosting than cake substance, but it was certainly a decorative sight to see. Unfortunately, it seems that the excitement of the party has led to further sickness and, while his fever broke over the weekend, there are still persistent issues that are clearly making him feel uncomfortable.

Why I Love this Time: everyday, being able to watch him sleep in the afternoon and how his nose twitches ever so slightly when the air from the fan hits him just right.

Advice

I have never been particularly good at taking advice from people whom I don’t think are in a position to be giving it. This deep streak of defiance tormented more than one unprepared and timid teacher in the Laguna Beach Unified School District, yet has proven to be a useful skill in the world of critical thinking and analysis. However, as a public father and the primary care-giver of an infant, Kaia and I seem to have formed a powerful magnet that is inevitably attracting advice from anyone who has ever looked at a child. This is not my idea of a good time.

Of course, it is not news that there is a rather weighty assumption deeply embedded in most people’s world-view (and I have repeatedly found this to be the case in Japan, India and in all folks outside of those who know what a doula is) that someone like me cannot possibly know what they are doing when it comes to the details of raising a child. This would help to explain how strangers feel it within their bounds to openly question my parenting, albeit in subtle ways.

Today at breakfast, one of these incidents happened. Currently, Kaia is being affected by a fever that is bouncing around between 37 degrees Celsius (98 Fahrenheit) and 38.5 C (101 F). Regardless, he’s been in a rather chipper mood but last night he decided to wake up at 2:00 am to hear a story about Curious George and Bob the Builder. While at that time of the day I was tempted to make George and Bob go through Celebrity Death Match, the twenty minute tale left both friends forever. By the time that Kaia woke up at 6:50 am, I wasn’t in much of a mood for chatting, but being that we are currently staying at guest house (preferably called ‘paying guest accommodations’ here in South India, as ‘guest house’ carries the connotation of it being a place of ill repute), each meal is around a dining room table with the other guests. No staring silently into your bowl of corn flakes here.

Now if there is one thing that annoys Kaia, it is being unnecessarily bothered when he is eating; He is a very serious eater. There is little doubt where this personality trait came from, but still there are few infants (let alone people) who enjoy being poked, pinched, teased and cajoled while they eat. However unfortunately, it seems that Indian adults enjoy doling it out. I have come to accept that such things are to be expected for as long as we stay here, and Kaia does a great job of keeping his concentration, but this morning, my patience already worn thin by an interrupted and short sleep and a feverish child, the last thing I wanted to hear was how I needed to do this or that.

For some reason, people who do not know Kaia or even those who are not familiar with children feel as if they can openly make ‘critical’ comments (despite being painfully insipid) when we are eating and Kaia is unhappy. This morning, fueled by a rising fever and the routine annoyances of untimely attention, Kaia was a bit fussy. As anyone who has endured such feeding experiences knows, these are times that you prefer to be in the privacy of your own home so that when the inevitable boiling point happens, there is no one else (except maybe a equally irritated partner) to unload on. Such folk also know that from the tipping point it is a quick descent into irrationality.

What did it for me was when Kaia was whining over a piece of Indian flat bread (dosai) on my plate that I knew he did not want nor plan to eat. Already he had knocked over a glass of water onto my lap, so when I gave him the dosai, it was with very clear instructions that he needed to eat it. After some time of the food sitting on his tray, once it had become clear that he had no intention of consuming it, I took it back to eat for myself. Well, of course this did not sit well with the little man and a loud shriek followed.

Almost immediately from across the large table, the stern voice of a woman around the same age as me scolded me saying, “WHY are you taking that from him? You should let him have it.” This may seem like a benign comment, but at the time it was very inappropriate and I shot back a glare that had to translate into any language as, “shut the f*** up”.

Look, I realize that her ‘advice’ may have been with the best intentions, but I certainly don’t need someone who has never dealt with such issues giving me tips. I wonder if it was my wife instead of me, she would have said the same thing. Would she have even been watching? Am I too oversensitive as a father? No one likes being questioned about their parenting, but if the advice is sound, I’ll listen. In the end, a good night’s rest would have made this a non-issue that could easily be reflected back in a smile or chuckle. Lord know, this isn’t the first time that I’ve been told lame things about how to raise Kaia, and there will be many more to come, I’m sure. Let’s just hope that tomorrow promises lower temperatures and a deeper sleep.

Why I love this time: watching him eat a cookie with such joy and mess that the crumbs stick all over his chin drool, and the anticipation when he finishes and asks, “papa. Ki, beee”…which means, “Papa, cookie, please”.

Poop

Perhaps one of the most unexpected initiations and outcomes of parenting is your advanced degree in scatology, or in layman’s terms, the study of shit. Not to be confused with eschatology, the study of the end of the world (which has its own particular brand of crap to muddle in), with a careful eye, the regular encounters with your little one’s end product can be one of the most expressive things to come out of their bodies. While it’s not quite the village soothsayer predicting inclement weather by picking through chicken entrails, it does make for a curious study.

When we were living in Seattle, Kaia was exclusively a cloth diaper wearing baby (actually a ‘combed organic cotton, Chinese prefold’ cloth diaper wearing baby. How’s that for belying our descent into the depths of yuppie madness), and we were doing of the washing at home, so we became very familiar with this ‘side’ of Kaia. Prior to Kaia’s birth some people would tell me how sweet smelling a newborn’s poop is. Needless to say, I thought they were crazy. But after completing the course of meconium, it was all strawberries and cream…that is, until the inevitable passage into solids channeled the vigorous spirit of continence into Kaia.

You see, this little guy doesn’t have a problem with his bowel movements. No. If you could bottle whatever this little guy has, Metamucil and other laxatives would be history. This boy goes immediately after every meal (and I imagine sometimes during it), and when he does it is with the full force of a pancha karma enema. We should all be so fortunate.

So coming to live in India, I expected to use my advanced degree in reading feces and the regular movements of my child to monitor his overall health and well being. You can imagine how empowered I felt. There should be some ancient Asian proverb about such preparedness—something like, “Wise father reads child’s smile from child’s poop”—but, I haven’t heard of it.

The first real test of my skills came about a week after we arrived in India when Kaia started shooting out white stuff that looked more tofu than tempeh. It struck me as an anomaly at first, but after a few days, I began to worry and chose to dance with the devil by self-diagnosing on-line. For those of us who turn to the internet for any random question or thought, looking for diagnoses on-line seems a logical step. However, as anyone who has googled a symptom knows, your abdominal soreness could mean indigestion, a parasite, or the initial signs of a fatal disease. Not for the faint of heart—or those of us with a sliver of hypochondria lodged underneath a fingernail.

What I learned didn’t help so much. I was either looking at the result of a change in diet that included much more pulses and curd, or a liver disease (avoid all parenting message boards!). While Madras claims to be one of the capitals of medical care in all of Asia, the thought of having to take Kaia to an internal specialist after just a few days here made me shiver. In fact, serious medical care has been one of the biggest fears that I have wrestled with both before coming and during our time here in India. The topic of fear is for a series of postings, and one that I would like to tackle in the next few weeks. But, as far as fear and poop goes, I chose to believe it was from the dhal that he loves so much. Fortunately, after a few days, things were back to normal.

So while this boy breaks our bank and negatively contributes to the size of Indian refuse piles with his constant supply of poopy diapers (now with disposables imported from Korea!), the Indian vegetarian diet has settled with him well. I am ever on the alert for diarrhea, but as long as he’s regular he’s in a pretty good mood. Wise father reads child’s smile in child’s poop indeed.

Why I Love this time: The number of times a day when, from behind, I watch Kaia run towards something with pure joy, his arms at 45 degree angles from his torso, palms open, his head bobbling up and down ever so slightly as he pitter-pats high on his toes, kissing the sky.

Songs

Twelve years ago, during my first visit to India, I was in a deep love affair with Siamese Dream, the first LP by the Smashing Pumpkins. That period of my life was an intense stew of emotion that found a welcome partner in the searing chords and raw lyrics of the album. It seemed that, with each track, I became more aware, more sensitive, more alive. Many nights I went to sleep listening to the worn tape on my walkman, the latter half of the songs piercing my grey matter as I drifted into sleep… These days, I also find myself deeply ensconced in a recurring tune; but, Billy Corgan this is not. These days the voice inside my head no longer reflects upon moody lyrics but echoes over and over, “Bob the Builder, can we fix it?!? Bob the Builder, yes we can!!!” Yes, maybe more than anything, does this represent how my experience in this country has changed from one decade to the next.

For the uninitiated, Bob the Builder is a claymation children’s cartoon from the UK that airs in the US on Nickelodeon. I had actually heard about the series from the parent of a boy some two years older than Kaia back before Kaia was even crawling, and we were living in Seattle. Prophetically, he asked me, “have you heard of Bob the Builder?” When I said “no”, with the smug grin that often comes from first-time parents of children only slightly older than yours, he replied, “oh, you will.” Funny, but I never imagined that Bob and I would first meet over 90 degree weather and triple filtered beverages. Sometimes we cannot stop the powerful locomotive of fate. Especially when it comes charging at you with the full steam of product lines and marketing strategies that slap the visage of all the cute characters on anything that a small toddler can grab. Inevitable indeed.

One of the crutches that I succumbed to prior to moving here from Japan was the purchase of a region-free, portable DVD player. It is actually a rather nifty little device that also plays VCDs, which makes it really useful considering that you can buy just about any movie here in India in VCD format for about $3-4. The quality is not as good as DVD, and the special features are not there, but it works. As it were, Bob the Builder has made his way onto VCD, and with the price being what it is, there was little to lose. Except, of course the previously silent moments in my head.

If you know Kaia, then you know that he has long had a fondness, check that, obsession, with all kinds of moving vehicles. Busses, cars, taxis, motorcycles, tractors, bulldozers and, of course, diggers. In the last month his interest in construction vehicles has spilled over into stationary machines like concrete mixers. Sometimes I don’t know what to make of it all. In the other times, I act the fool and encourage his fixation and introduce him to videos like Bob the Builder where the diggers, bulldozers, tractors, steamrollers, forklifts--and yes, concrete mixers!—not only perform their assigned tasks, but also talk and make jokes! What chance did the little guy have? No, soon thereafter the claws of synergistic marketing were into him and, naturally, myself and now we sport a good number of the Bob the Builder action figures, not to mention a growing library of board books that claim to be educational, but offer little more than a reinforcement of the characters in cute positions and poses. There’s probably an analogy between this and the sugar laden breakfast cereals pushed on kids somewhere in all of this, but that’s for an article in another time.

Part of the issue that has enabled this rapid adoption of ‘all things Bob’ is that these items can be bought here in India at a fraction of the price that one would pay in the US, Europe or Japan. For example, while the suggested retail price on all the books is printed on the cover for the US and UK (about $6.99), the worn price tag reads Rs 110, or about $2.45. So when you can buy three for the price of one, certain limiting checks can often abandon your better judgment. This is an awareness that only comes from living in a place for an extended period, traveling through an area where your home currency has significant purchasing power only makes you giddy as you calculate what something would have cost you at home. So, after one month here, I am still a ‘calculative buyer’ and what has it got me? “Scoop, Muck and Roley, with work to do, Lofty and Wendy, join the crew”, just like the song says.

Why I Love this time: watching Kaia rifle through the books in his bookshelf, tossing dozens to the ground and then sitting in the center of the mess, picking up each one and turning the pages while babbling the words he is supposedly reading.

Walking The Street

If you had the capability of looking down from space onto the Indian subcontinent and, like the surveillance technology found in spy movies, take microscopic snapshots that reduced from global region to country to city to street to the heads of individual people, you might be able to cut through the thick layers of humidity, black auto emissions, the hanging weight of alternating aromas of sweet and stank, voracious mosquitoes, and blaring horns to see two heads--one large and the other small—bobbing up and down, dodging people napping on the sidewalk, ubiquitous auto-rickshaws and the occasional cow. If you could do such a thing, you would be seeing me and my son, Kaia, making our way to the supermarket, one “block” away, to buy diapers. On this day, we’d nearly exhausted the supply of diapers that come with us from Japan and we were told that this store would be able to provide us with what we were looking for.

As anyone who has spent time with toddlers knows, while they are often very skilled at walking, uneven ground can often trip them up, sending them face first down to the ground. Kaia has always been a very active child. One of his favorite things from just five months old was to hop around in one of those jumpers that fit in a door jam, and he was crawling and walking at around 10 months. For him to be happy (not to mention get tired enough to sleep) he needs to be moving around and, in our previous life in the Japanese countryside, taking him for a walk outside was a great activity. But, to put it one way, “Toto, we’re not in Nishinasuno anymore…and, hey, that scrappy stray dog with the severe limp certainly doesn’t look like Toto…”

In Madras, you are hard pressed to walk out on the sidewalk and not be immediately accosted by an auto-rickshaw driver shouting “hello!” I’ll devote a future entry to the experience of actually riding in one of these with Kaia, but from the perspective of a driver hunting down fares, it has to be a no-brainer to see a foreigner slowly making his way with toddler in tow. People have told me that the number of these vehicles has risen dramatically over the past five years concomitant with the technology boom and rapid population growth in the city. Unfortunately, these and other two-stroke vehicles are some of the grossest polluters to be found. This time I just shake my head and hand as a crude way of saying no. Kaia, fascinated by any kind of moving vehicles, waves to the driver as we walk away. This yields a broad, warm smile and reciprocal wave from the previously serious and stone-faced man. Like so many things in India, in one moment things can completely change. I think that I’ll just carry Kaia. 13 kg isn’t so bad after all.

For the first time visitor, the seemingly chaotic Indian street is both overwhelming and curious with all of the many things happening. But like many things, after a bit of time and routine, different things begin to emerge. I was recently telling a friend how you can see so many stories on the street--what walking the street lacks in safety, it makes up for in being thought provoking, particularly from the point of view of a parent. On this occasion, as we made our way to purchase disposable diapers, there was a young boy who couldn’t have been more than 4 years old, squatting on the asphalt to relieve himself. Not more than a few dozen feet later, a young girl, who couldn’t have been much older than Kaia, made circles in the dirt with her fingers as her mother pounded granite with hammer and chisel. Even as we approached the market, a boy of 8 or 9 offered fruits from his wagon stand. Kaia loves the small bananas that can be found in tropical climates, so we stop to buy a bunch for 10 rupees (27 cents). As I pay and give Kaia his banana to peel (sometimes I wonder if he likes peeling more than eating), a small crowd gathers around Kaia to pinch his cheek. I have come to learn in my short time here that this is a great sign of affection. Indians just really love little children. Amidst the laughing and smiles, a young man turns to me and asks, “where is the mother?” This is something that I expect to hear over and over again.