Back to meh

After a few weeks of (relative) normalcy in which we began venturing (masked) out into the world, the case numbers in Hong Kong have begun rising and we’re back in our caves. Because we are seeing a worrying rise in local transmission cases, the sources of which cannot traced, this “third wave” is even more serious than the earlier ones.

To add to my woes:

1. My mum got fever (seemingly related to a UTI, thank goodness)
2. Someone in my dad’s office contracted Covid-19
3. Mimi developed a stye in her eye
4. I had to do a root canal, the cost of which was additional pain
5. Our helper J finally left us to join a new family (though the adjustment to that has not been as bad as I might have anticipated

Somehow, this second round of hibernation seems harder to swallow, and from day 1, I missed office, finally resorting to turfing V out of the room he had colonised. It should be better because I at least don’t have to help the kids with schoolwork but somehow I find myself more irritable than ever with my tiny laptop screen and cries of “I’m bored” resounding around me.

Still, here in Hong Kong, we are relatively safe and (touch wood) both V and my job seems secure.

How are you doing amid these strange times, dear reader?

Easter in a time of coronavirus

Christmas and Easter are the two big festivals on the Christian calendar. We tend to be in India for Christmas and Easter in Hong Kong has never lived up to what it would be among extended family in India. I refuse to give up on it completely; till a couple of years ago, I would avoid meat and dessert on Good Friday and try to get into a reflective mood, even though I don’t count myself among the believers.

This year, though, I pretty much forgot about Good Friday, and whacked into my fair share of chocolate. I have two Easter traditions – an Easter egg hunt (basically a glorified chocolate treasure hunt) for the kids and a lunch at a restaurant that does Peking duck (no particular reason for eating duck in Easter; just that we’ve happened to choose that restaurant for two consecutive Easters).

Obviously, the latter wasn’t going to happen, but I did do an Easter egg hunt for the kids. Being me, I got my act together only on Saturday afternoon, so nipped down to the shops to buy chocolate (instead of eggs, I use Lindor balls and Ferrero Rocher). To my horror, the supermarket was packed; beyond wearing masks people were making to attempt to stand further away from each other in the checkout queues and there was one woman I kept running into despite my best efforts who kept sneezing. Arrrrgh!

V has been extremely diligent about making sure we don’t need to grocery runs too often but supplementing with online ordering and insisting our helper be disciplined about doing a grocery run as soon as shops open. I thought he was being a bit extreme, but I had to eat my words.

Anyway, last year, we did the Easter egg hunt at home at Nene’s insistence (because he was afraid other kids would barge in and deplete his stash, probably because he knows his mother would encourage other kids to barge in) even though we have a maze downstairs that would be perfect for the purpose. The previous year I had done a mix of clues and random searching, but they insisted they didn’t want that. This year, to my surprise, Nene said he wanted the hunt in the maze.

It’s a simple thing to organise, but they do enjoy it, even though I wish Nene wasn’t so competitive about the number of eggs.

For lunch, I wanted to order in, but realised we’d probably struggle to get a delivery in as early as we’d want to eat (11.30. I know!), so we ended up making a trip to the wet market after ages and buying crabs, which V cooked up.

We had a couple of video calls with both sides of the family, which was nice. Also had a big video call with extended cousins – it was nice to see everyone, but the number of people was pretty unmanageable.

It does make me think that one of the big disadvantages of living abroad is how festivals become a very small affair.

Why wife jokes aren’t funny

Tags

feminism, humour

I’m sure none of us has had the good fortune to escape the many jokes which use wives/husbands beleaguered by wives on their family Whatsapp groups. In the sainted past, one could go at least a few days (or even weeks!) without having to listen to these PJs of the worst kind, but now thanks to the wonders of technology one can savour the pleasure of gagging over the sexism of one’s (usually male) family members every day.

I always thought that I belonged to a fairly progressive family (while being under no illusions that the patriarchy is still alive and well). Unfortunately, my cousins whatsapp group is rife with this stupidity. Now seeing as I’m an ardent feminist and usually quite fiesty, you’d be surprised to know that I have kept silent all this while. I didn’t want to rock the boat and be that feminist. Yeah I know.

But even I have my limits. And I won’t deny that I’ve become (even more of) a grumpy ol’ crone since I have been stuck at home. Now I don’t even have literal fresh air to distract me from the irritation of other people.

So when once again, I saw a couple of jokes using wives as a punchline, I decided to speak up. Predictably, the dudes in question got defensive. In trying to explain to them why I disliked these jokes, I found it surprisingly hard to find something online. In fact, when I Googled “why wife jokes are not funny”, the top results were “why women aren’t funny”. Insert facepalm emoji.

As I step out of academia, I am realising more and more how the common sense there does not apply to other people. Many people have just not got the memo, and even if they did, they didn’t understand it.

Since I couldn’t find a readymade explanation for why wife jokes should be consigned to the annals of history, I decided to write one:

These jokes come from a long tradition of jokes that use women as the punchline. Remember the “dumb blonde” jokes that have thankfully died a quiet death? Either women are stupid or frivolous or talk too much. For example, the wife that cannot stop shopping or spending all her husband’s money.

A variation is the poor husband who has to face his wife’s ire (never mind, domestic violence rates). This was the joke that broke the camel’s back on my family group. The problem with the joke is twofold:

1. It’s flat out tiresome. It’s been made so many times that it gets boring. Also constantly making the same joke about the same group of people is not just not very creative, it’s bullying. What else would you call picking on the same group of people? The punchline of these jokes is essentially – women be crazy ha ha ha. How many times do we have to hear that before we stop laughing?
2. Jokes function best when they are punching up. A white person joking about being oppressed by a black person would probably fall flat. But when the same dynamic is translated into gender terms, anything goes apparently.
   Women are already subject to discrimination and oppression. (That is something middle-class men do not want to acknowledge became apparent in my family discussion). We may have made great strides in gender equality, but that project is far from finished, even in our privileged circles. Men still rule the roost.
3. Given the above, jokes which cast men as being at the mercy of their wives are particularly galling. In a similar way to how Indian goddesses as trotted out as examples of how enlightened Indian culture is, these jokes purport that women are supreme in their homes, when the reality is anything but. While women have carved out the home as a source of power for themselves, having not been given the choice to do anything else for centuries, it is still often the man – who has the benefit of economic independence and the whole patriarchal infrastructure shoring up his sense of self worth and entitlement – in most families, who calls the shots in the final analysis even in the home.
   Moreover, like the mythological goddesses, there is a suggestion latent in these jokes of women going too far, of their power (however limited in reality) being in danger of actually threatening men. The joke thus functions as a way of circumscribing what is essentially seen as a transgression of women by ridiculing them.
   Have men ever wondered why women talk so much anyway? Perhaps because they don’t have the luxury of saying just a single word and being heeded at once.
4. The other problem with these jokes is that they perpetuate stereotypes of men and women that are in the “men are from Mars, women are from Venus” vein. This is the very idea that has conveniently kept women out of many spheres arbitrarily deemed the exclusive province of men on “natural” grounds. “Arbitrarily” because from a scientific point of view, men and women are much more alike than different. Many of the differences we insist on seeing, if they exist at all, are the result of social conditioning. So there’s a self-fulfilling prophecy at work here: men and women are different because we insist on saying that they are, and these jokes are part of that narrative.
   The ineluctable difference between men and women is often both the punchline of the joke and its defence. Thus, when it is pointed out that it’s rather cruel to denigrate a group that is already oppressed, the oppression of women itself is called into question. Men and women both have their strengths, we are told. Sure, everyone has their strengths, though I tend to think our strengths are much more individually differentiated, rather than being part of some lumpen “women’s strengths”. Even if one accepts that women as a group have particular “women’s strengths”, we have been historically prevented from exercising them on an equal footing with men.
   The “men and women have their strengths” line is a nice way of saying “stay in your lane, ladies” (and that lane just happens to be subordinate but we’ll be nice and not say so). It’s similar to people justifying the caste system on the grounds that we need this hierarchy for society to work.
   Yes, we know, the world will fall apart if women wear pants, literally or metaphorically. And if such a dastardly eventually were to come to pass, how can men cope by pointing fingers and laughing.
5. But but “dad jokes” and “inept husband who doesn’t do any work” jokes! How is it that women can poke fun at men? First, see point 2.
   Then, think about how frequently we hear “dad jokes” versus “wife jokes”.
   Finally, I do not find “inept husband” jokes funny. Men refusing to pitch in with the housework and the double burden women carry has serious consequences for women.
6. So obviously one will finally be accused of, in nicer terms of course, being a humourless feminist bitch. Usually, it is phrased as “no one will be able to make any jokes anymore if everyone gets offended”. The threat of a world without humour has been ongoing for decades at least but as far as I can see, despite the best efforts of us social justice warriors, humour has not died. In fact, dare I say that we have landed up with better humour? Think of stand-up comedy today versus what it was a couple of decades ago when being funny was basically pointing to people who looked different and alughing. Comedians are now forced to reach higher than the lowest hanging fruit and that’s a good thing.
   Try harder, dudes. I’m sure you might actually be funny one day.

 

 

Whirlwind Christmas

We weren’t supposed to be in India for Christmas. For one, my boss grumbled about giving me leave during the Christmas week again this year (which frankly was really petty because the Chinese people seem to get leave during CNY every year. This is the problem with Christmas becoming a universal holiday).

But also, we needed the kids to do school interviews in Bangalore and that could not happen during Christmas week because everything shuts down. So, the plan was to go to India in October.

Then it turned out that we would need to be in Bangalore during Christmas week for my V’s parent’s 50th wedding anniversary celebrations. I wasn’t sure how I was going to swing that, but I did a solo trip to Mumbai in October.

Finally, I told my boss, I’d work from India that week. I managed to take the same flight as V and the kids who were going for a longer stint. We flew in the day on Singapore Airlines, which was very nice, avoiding the midnight arrival in Bangalore.

Christmas in India is always hectic but worth it. Every alternate night was some sort of party. My sis-in-law who had broken her leg still organised a carol singing route. We went to V’s friend’s new house. There was a big Christmas lunch, by which time Mimi was exhausted and had multiple meltdowns, but we also had a fun big game of housie. My other sister-in-law had a dinner and had us stay over.

I had been rather skeptical about the big event – my in-laws’ golden wedding – because they don’t have the best marriage. It seemed like the epitome of hypocrisy for everyone to be doing this hoopla over an essentially toxic relationship. But my mother-in-law once said that it takes something to last this long. I dunno, I’m a quality over quantity kind of person.

But in the end, it was fun. There was a mass, at which I did a reading and then regretted it because a) I had to cover up by sari with this massive poncho b) the regular reader insisted on doing the first reading so I had to scramble with the second c) the second reading ended up being one that told wives to be subject to their husbands and even perhaps surprisingly husbands to love their wives.

There was party after with lots of dancing. Surprisingly, the chosen entertainment was a Bollywood dancer leading the crowd. Apparently, the south no longer hates Hindi music, though we did have a couple of Malayalam songs.

My one wishlist was to get some grooming done, and I managed to get my pedicure, waxing and blow dry done before the big event and receive lots of compliments on my transformation. I have not mastered the art of walking, leaving alone dancing, in a sari though.

Every year, my in-laws urge my parents to come down for Christmas. This year, being a big anniversary, they decided to, so we had everyone under one roof, something I’ve always been apprehensive about, but it was fine.

Amid all this madness, I worked four days, two in one sister-in-law’s house where I made the mistake of trying to work in the living room amid games of Taboo and general chit chat and two in the other’s where I learnt my lesson and set up my workspace on the terrace bar (closest to the router).

I went into this holiday feeling somewhat judgy and resentful but I came out of it feeling generally positive about my husband’s family. My sisters-in-law and their husbands not only went out of the way to accommodate me, but also my parents. They are gregarious and generous people who think it is perfectly normal to stretch themselves to the limit throwing massive parties and welcoming extended family into their homes. While this is not to be taken for granted, I have seen and benefited from it time and again. They are also full of drama and emotion, which I do my best to stay on the sidelines of.

I have been feeling this for a couple of years – and I touch wood while saying this – but V’s parents are pretty peaceful. They are very tolerant about whatever we do in their house, and I am not expected to rush around working. It took me over a decade to get to this place, and this is not to say that I have not been the recipient of MIL snark or that having two children, including the coveted male grandchild, did not help, but I am not anxious around them anymore and have realised that much of my earlier angst was the result of insecurity – on both sides.

Also, V and I managed to be on good, even great terms, over Christmas for the first time in a couple of years. I hate to say it but Bangalore suits V. He is among people he wants to be around and he is involved in stuff that doesn’t include me. We achieve the right balance of separate-and-together when we are there.

I managed not to fall sick this time, despite the long hours and party food, for which I am super grateful.

I was happy to fly back to Hong Kong a few days before V and the kids and get some recovery time in though. I spent New Year’s Eve catching up on sleep, taking a long walk and watching the Downton Abbey movie before crawling into bed at 10 pm. I went to office on New Year’s Day, even though there was a massive protest planned, only to find everyone else had decided to work from home. I was super excited to log into my two big screens after a week of swotting over a tiny laptop though. I treat myself to a greasy Shake Shack lunch, came home early and binged on the second season of Big Little Lies.

V and the kids came home a day later than they were supposed to, having missed their connecting flight and been put up in a hotel in Singapore. This was the high point of the trip for the kids, who totally loved the hotel room and three hotel meals, so we can’t complain. I spent the extra day writing a column, having lunch with friends and watching Little Women in the cinema, the kind of day I have not had in a long time.

The end of 2019 was all I could have asked for. 2020 promises to be interesting.

 

 

 

Flying solo

Since my boss is being a pain about letting me have leave during Christmas in December, I decided to do our annual pilgrimage to India in October this year. Then we realised we had to be in Bangalore in December for my in-law’s golden wedding, so it became an Mumbai-only trip, with a very short stint in Bangalore.

Unfortunately, I came down with a stomach problem that has still not been resolved, even if it is more manageable now. I was really nervous about falling ill, because V wasn’t going to be in Mumbai with me to pitch in with the kids. Depressingly, I had to resolve to eat very carefully, which takes away a large part of the fun of going to India at all.

We are now seriously looking at schools in Bangalore (if any of you have suggestions, do tell) and had to make a short trip there for two entrance tests. I was not optimistic about these given that my kids do not have exams at school and we had no idea how to help them prepare. One of the schools didn’t have space anyway, but the other ridiculously gave them an end of year test when they are only a couple of months into this school year. So that situation is in limbo.

I did get more sold on the idea of moving to India – mainly the prospect of family (more for the kids than me), bigger houses and being closer to, if unfortunately not in the same city as, my parents whose health has declined.

The Bombay trip was as good as it could be. I now only have one close friend in the city, but we only managed to meet for a very early morning coffee. I did not eat out at all, save for a sandwich at the Taj (more on that later) and some dumplings that had been ordered in.

Because V wasn’t around to chauffeur us, I didn’t take the kids out as much as we might otherwise have. We visited our neighbourhood and fed kittens, made a trip to Juhu beach that has become an annual highlight (in which I let the kids play in the water, something I think people living in Bombay refuse to do), walked down our local shopping street and did a drive into town that I have been wanting to do for a while.

We had watched a documentary on the Taj Mahal Palace hotel and since then Nene has been fascinated with it. I also thought it might be worth seeing the Gateway of India, and “town” in general, so I planned to have a bite at the Taj cafe. Unfortunately, Nene behaved like a brat in the cafe, insisting that he wanted his own plate of pasta while I tried to convince him to share with Mimi, and I had to give him a talking to, which rather spoiled the mood. And then, we had to rush out of the Gateway area due to rain.

But I did enjoy the rather nostalgic drive through town, past the route I used to take to college, even if my children were not similarly enthused.

My mum organised a dinner for close family so I could meet them all in one place though my cousins from my mum’s side were out of town.

The most fulfilling thing about the trip was that, because we were housebound a lot, the kids spent a lot of time with parents, especially my dad who seems able to relate to them better now that they are older. There was a lot of TV watching, but my dad who has either the news or sports on every waking hour, at least makes it interactive. So, on day one, they were all poised on the couch for the counting of Maharashtra poll votes, and ready to support grandpa in his aspirations for his (unfortunately losing, but you wouldn’t know it to hear him) team. They are now aware of the BJP and the Congress party, and possible merits of kabadi.

The sad thing was that literally zero kids were seen playing in our building’s very generous playground. I had to take Nene down myself and bowl to him every day. It seems more kids congregate downstairs in our estate in Hong Kong.

I must say flying without V was rather peaceful. It meant I had to be in charge of all documents but it also meant that I could set the agenda without secondguessing myself. And if that meant each child chose to buy food from a different outlet, so be it.

On the flight back, we travelled premium economy on Cathay Pacific, and it was really good. There has been some debate on the merits of premium economy with kids because the handrests do not move, which means the kids cannot lie across. However, with kids my age, the wider seats and the leg rests that come up worked well, and I could sleep without having two little people sprawled over me.

The other advantages are that the food service starts from that section first and you also disembark right after business class (and so do have to contend with the annoying people who jump up and form a tight queue).

So that was that. I survived, we had some good times and unfortunately some tears.

We got back and I basically crashed the entire morning, rousing myself only to go out Halloween shopping with the kids. That evening some parents had planned a trick or treat route, and I followed twenty candy-filled screaming children down numerous corridors. There was a barbeque after that I didn’t plan to join as I thought the kids wouldn’t be up to it and also because I wasn’t sure I wanted to socialise with sundry parents, over hot flames, but I ended up hanging out there a bit, and it seemed like it would have be nice.

It also struck me that we do have a community in Hong Kong, at least the kids do, and this could be expanded, and so Halloween in Hong Kong dispered the ghosts of my India longing.

 

 

What we did – August

Tags

Art, Hong Kong, Murakami, parenting

It has not escaped my notice that this blog has turned into a “what I read” update space. Which is telling in some ways, as possibly that is what I am more enthusiastic about these days.

But I’m going to have a stab at possibly monthly updates about what I’ve been up to, if for no other reason than me being able to look back on these days years later and have some sliver of these moments preserved.

So August. I can barely remember what went down, so I’m going to go backwards.

At the end of the month – technically the beginning of September but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to remember this at the end of September – we took the kids to the Murakami exhibition at the renovated former police headquarters turned art/culture space Tai Kwun (if you’re ever planning a visit to HK, this is worth a stop-by).

The planned outing started with drama. Nene, who seems to be going into adolescence early (more on that later, maybe), got into a fight with V about something, it escalated and he refused to come if daddy was going. Now I had prepaid for this craft event for both kids, apart from the fact that I was sure Nene would have a great time if he came and I wanted us to have a family outing, so I was not pleased.

We finally got ourselves out the door and I got Nene some cake which he decided not to eat before we entered the MTR, then decided he wanted to eat in the MTR which is a no-no for me. So then he managed to piss me off.

Thankfully, we all calmed down by the time we got to Tai Kwun. The craft activity was making these cat masks, which went down well with Mimi but stretched Nene’s patience (even though I had asked him before if he wanted to do it. This kid does not have an art bone).

Next, we were supposed to see the Murakami exhibition. I had waited to buy tickets till the last minute because I was not sure what the situation with the protests was going to be, and then when we got there I couldn’t manage to and then the online booking ended. So after the art class, I raced over the booking counter and it turned out that there was a family tour happening in 10 minutes.

It turned out to be the best thing, because ok there were activities for the kids, but I got a snapshot of what Murakami was about, which I would have struggled to had we just gone ourselves. Of course, each room was a visually stunning installation, so the first impression itself is woah. Normally, I would read every word of the signage, but with kids it’s hard. Anyway, let’s just say there’s a lot more to Murakami than the surface of his jazzed-up panoramas, his art is both “superflat” and in-depth. I’m a fan.

The family tour was in English and had little drawing activities for the kids, which again Mimi loved and Nene did not (but he survived). I encourage people planning visits to Tai Kwun with kids to look out of these guided tours and activities because they are great.

We were starving at the end of the tour – I had intended to have lunch between the craft and the exhibition, but got steamrolled into the tour – so we grabbed lunch at a rather pricey burger joint next door. It was literally empty, bringing home to us how business has suffered as a result of the protests.

***

So as you might know, unless you are living under a rock, Hong Kong has been upended now by three months of escalating protests. They started out peaceful, and in opposition to a stupid law, but quickly turned not-so-peaceful and then openly violent (first towards government buildings, then the police, then the odd opponent/mainlander), while the government stewed and acted always too late to stem the escalation.

I supported the opposition to the bill, but now the protests are mainly rip everything up and start over, which I can appreciate the anarchic logic of, just that I don’t think everybody, including half the protesters, the media (especially the Western media) and the general public outraging about the latest police brutality, gets it. If anything, I think government might be the one that realises what this is about and how powerless they are. This is an unstoppable wave that nothing they can do will step so they can only flap about ineffectually.

Despite the mayhem, we have only been affected twice or two-and-a-half times. Once when there were disruptions on the MTR and I had to inch forward in the crowd for about 20 minutes to get on a train, once when a general strike was called and we just stayed home and worked, and the last time, when we had to cancel dinner because protesters were starting fires around where the dinner was planned.

I was pissed about the last one because I felt V was too quick to cancel, though it then escalated right on the doorstep of the dinner plan so he was vindicated. However, I had a hair cut that evening (finally caved and found someone fairly good to cut my hair in our local mall instead of shlepping all the way to Sheung Wan) and hoped for once to put my blow dry to some use. I also felt guilty about cancelling on the single girl in the group, but I had a slight tummy upset that day, so I wasn’t inclined to go out anyway. Can you tell I still feel guilty?

Anyway, although everything looks bad, and it is for business, it is actually not unsafe on a daily basis. Because Hong Kong protesters are still a fairly controlled bunch, unless you wander into the thick of their shit and start arguing with them.

***

One weekend we went to the beach when a Typhoon 1 warning was on. That’s the lowest typhoon warning, but I was surprised V was ignoring it. I thought we’d be the only idiots on the beach, along with the die-hard seniors who swim every day, but it turned out there were lots of others.

It was lovely. The beach is really my sweet spot. Then it started really pelting down, so we got out and then had to wait a good half hour before we could get out of there.

But still worth it.

***

At work, I’ve been shunted into taking over frenemy’s job, which I made sure to give my boss shit about. I go back and forth over whether to commit to it permanently as he would like me to, but coming to the end of the trial period, I’ve decided no thanks. I’m not doing pointless shit for no reward.

***

Mimi finally made a solid friend in the building and has spent a lot of time going to her house and apparently making music videos on her computer. She was invited to two birthday parties over the summer – one of which I spent the entirety of arguing with old French dude about the protests (white men often think they know everything about everything) despite myself, then agonising that I had said too much/been rude which is now the story of my life – while Nene had none. Nene also has a couple of buddies he plays with, although he sometimes wants to avoid one of them which puts me in an odd place with said boy’s mother, but I’m trying to just roll with the male way of doing things aka avoidance.

Mimi is maturing physically faster than medical professionals would like and we’re watching that. I am constantly amazed at the lack of inhibition with which she moves her body – not sure if it’s innate (did not come from me, but possibly her aunts) or helped by her ballet class.

Nene is sports and video-game obsessed, which feeds into his hyper-competitiveness. I used to worry, but he takes failure in his stride. He tends to shit on Mimi sometimes which I will not brook. He also gets emo over the smallest things, which is a surprise because he was our Mr Placid, but hormones I guess?

***

We started the month with the beach too, going off for a weekend to Lantau Island, our little retreat in Hong Kong. I got mysteriously sea sick on the ferry there, exacerbated by a twisty bus ride and a too-soft banana I had consumed on an empty stomach, but it lasted the whole weekend and gave me a month-long aversion to bananas. Or maybe it was ovulation hormones. Nevertheless, in a sign of how Lantau is my happy, I still had a lovely time, hanging on the beach and with the fam.

The big fat India trip 2018-19 edition

Tags

Alibaug, family, Kerala, mumbai, Travel

I wrangled three weeks of leave from the boss, to his chagrin. I believe our relationship was never the same again, though maybe that’s just my guilt talking. Later, I realised his indecision was because a) he usually takes that block himself b) he’s a bad manager.

Anyway, it was worth it:

1. My primary reason for insisting on that entire stretch was that I wanted to maximise time with the sister, who I would be seeing after two years, and my newest and only nephew. This proved vindicated. That baby is adorbs. Nene in particularl bonded with him massively. V proved to me that he is ready for another baby in how he took care of this newest addition. Nevertheless, the exhaustion on my sister’s face is effective contraception.

2. For the past few years, my sis-in-laws have been grumbling about how they want to “go somewhere” for Christmas but can’t because we always visit at that time and refuse to go anywhere. The fact is that my first few visits to India with kids were so exhaustingly horrendous (see last sentence of last paragraph) that I embargoed further travel. This time I said yes, and they decided on a trip to their “native place” in Kerala. I was not thrilled for reasons described here.

In the end, it was okay. We rented a house which proved to be good because I could escape from being social now and then. Meeting the extended family was not as stilted as I expected it to be and the younger generation speaks English so I had some people to talk to. I can now remember most of them by name. It was interesting to visit the village and the food was overall awesome.

We also visited an elephant compound where temple elephants are housed. The creatures are amazing but they are tied up which is not.

3. The Bangalore leg of the trip has become easier and easier. My niece stays with us and there’s a cousins kid next door. The kids pretty much run riot all day with us only having to make sure they eat and have a bath. My in-laws are pretty peaceful with me (touch wood). I chatted with my mother in law a bit. I’m amazed at how much she does with her ailing health.

4. Not only had I agreed on a trip to Kerala, I planned a trip with my folks to Alibaug as well. It was good choice as we all got to kick back and relax. We stayed at the Radisson which is a nice property but some facilities are getting dated. What I appreciated was that the staff really are helpful, even though they struggled to keep up with demands. There were facilities for kids – and Nene discovered the joys of cricket.

Unfortunately the pool was a tad too cold. The beaches at Alibaug are a disappointment but we enjoyed a visit to the Kolaba Fort – which can be walked to at low tide but requires a boat a high tide.

I was not thrilled about the four-hour drive but it turned out that I almost enjoyed it. The key to a road trip is a good playlist and sleeping children.

5. The Bombay leg of the trip was the most tiring because we were a lot of people – three kids and a baby- in a relatively small house. We did trips to Borivali National Park, Kidzania and Juhu beach, the latter is clean enough that we let the kids play in the water.

6. Despite my best efforts I had a tummy upset and a sinus infection. I did not even drink alcohol or eat hot chips. The key I discovered is to nip it in the bud by getting antibiotics before it’s too severe.

Goodnight Irene

My grandmother passed away last week. She was 103 year old, and in the last few years of her life, the very things she feared most came to pass as her body and mind failed her. While I am sad at her passing, I am glad that the terrible last phase of her life is finally over. I would rather remember her when she was younger, the youngest looking nonagenarian many people said.

Gran was my second roommate and I can’t say we got along famously. A teenage girl and an old lady are not the best combination, though Gran did tolerate (or enjoyed) our Tom Cruise posters. Once when she was away I got the walls of the room painted blue and orange and she was not thrilled. When I went away to uni she got them painted them cream again. When I got married and moved out, her parting shot was ‘good you’re going… and can I have your drawers?” But I knew she loved me because she sent me off with one of her previous serrated knives from Dubai.

Distance and age made me appreciate Gran’s finer qualities. Her sense of style and the pleasure she took in her appearance. When the teachers in our school frowned upon us pulling our pinafores higher over our sashes to make them shorter and rolling our socks down, Gran said: ” Why? But it looks smarter that way.” She had no problems with short skirts but recommended stocking for church more for aesthetic than moral reasons. As she neared her 90s, she became insistent on getting her nails painted, preferably red. She reveled in compliments about how young she looked.

Gran was far more liberal than many people younger than her and was always up for an argument with me on all manner of scandalous things. She may not have been thrilled that I acquired a boyfriend but since I did, he might as well come tune to the TV so she could catch the cricket. When V’s parents visited for the first time, she diffused a tense moment by asking whether she could bring her boyfriend to my wedding, and earned their admiration thereafter.

She insisted on being active and had knee replacement surgery in her 90s becoming the poster child for her orthopedic surgeon.  She continued to travel and blithely told me that extra baggage was not a problem when you’re her age and in a wheelchair. She also continued to balance her passbook with an eagle eye.

I regret not talking to Gran more, learning more about her history. I only have glimpses – new dresses or hats every other Sunday, the rice pudding at her boarding school in Panchgani, where she was considered dumb for not being able to speak English, her hard days as a young wife. We were surprised to suddenly learn she played the piano.

I inherited from Gran my appreciation for beautiful things, possibly my nose and a tendency to hoard stuff. I hope I’ll have her grit and flair, but I have my doubts. There will only be one like her.

Goodnight Irene, I’ll see you in my dreams.

Loss

Yesterday I woke up to the news that an aunt had passed away. She had been in an accident and did not survive. There had been a few messages before that saying she was in critical condition but I did not see them as I was asleep. I woke up to the finality of death.

I wasn’t particularly close to this aunt. She was my mother’s cousin so not in the first circle of aunts. But the whole day I found myself tearing up. When my mum’s brother died I did not feel this much sadness, but that may be because he was ill for a long time. This was sudden. Maybe that accounts for my (over)reaction. I have experienced the sudden death of closer family members/friends and the seeming randomness of death does not amaze me anymore.

But the idea of not seeing someone who was so alive does. Although when I went to India I never planned specifically to see this aunt, I always ended up meeting her at some family gathering. The idea that she will no longer be present seems wrong somehow. This is the strange thing about death, that even after the event, you expect things to go back to normal and the person to pop up as usual. Acceptance of the finality of it takes time because at the moment it is unreal.

I believe that what really triggered my emotions was the idea that I could lose my own mother in a similar way. I know my parents will die eventually. But not tomorrow, not anytime in the near future. I refuse this possibility. And this death made it real.

I try to imagine the grief of my cousins who, like me, live away from home and would find themselves helpless when the news came. I cannot quite comprehend what it would be like to receive that phone call.

This aunt was extremely helpful to my mother who struggles to look after my now 103 year old grandmother. She would visit my grandmother and my grandmother’s face would light up. She was always at the other end of the phone line when my mom needed medical advice. This is a practical loss as well as an emotional one.

My clearest memory of this aunt: I had developed a serious ear infection on a trip to India, there was blood and pus coming out of my ear, and yet I needed to travel. Reluctantly, our family doctor gave me a pile of medication to help avert the possibility of my eardrum bursting on the flight back. My mum called this aunt, who is a pathologist and familiar with all things medical. She explained to me very calmly and clearly in exactly what order I should take the medicines so that all the fluid in my ear dried up. It was the most sensible and clear delivery of medical advice I have received ever. I still remember her voice on the phone before I take a flight and stock up on exactly those medicines.

 

 

Bay Area bonding

So the advantage of attending a conference in US is that I got to see my sister, niece and brother-in-law (even if it turns out that the US is huge and my sister and the conference are across the country from each other with a three-hour time difference and a 7 hour flight) and I don’t have to get a visa (because I already have one). The disadvantage is the time difference, and this time I came equipped with a drug called Melatonin, which apparently helps the body regulate.

Maybe due to the fact that my flight landed in the afternoon, and although I slept on the flight it was fitful, or because of the superpowers of Melatonin, I was able to sleep through pretty much after the first night.

Highlights of the trip:

Watching a Golden State Warriors game live. The last time we visited was in 2012 and the team was one hundredth this level of huge. Now there is almost noone in the stadium not wearing a team t-shirt and people queue up during the match for the merch because the stall gets so busy in the interval. The last time I attended, I found the whole hoopla electric, and it was the same this time. Unfortunately, seated in front of us were some kids and one of the boys was obnoxious. Well, the kind of male that needs to stand up and cheer even while the action is one, obscuring the view of the others behind him, and basically refusing to listen to his friends who till him to sit down.

 

Eating Mexican food. With a half Mexican brother-in-law, I can count on his choices. In this case, we had to drive 45 minutes to the place. But it was yum. I ate a lot of Mexican food at home too, since the sis has learnt to cook it.

Hanging out with this one. Well, she hanged, and I hung out. At one point, we showed up at her gymnastics class and when she spotted me her face just lit up with the big grin. Her obvious joy at seeing me made me tear up. It made all those miles in the sky worthwhile.

 

 

To the bemusement of my bro-in-law, I had no interest in ‘doing’ things. I had done the tourist route in San Fransisco on our last trip, and this time I had a very specific agenda – hang with the family, watch one basketball game, eat Mexican food, and shop. I achieved all four so I was a happy camper. The result is that I saw more of the little town of Livermore they live in, and it was so pretty. The suburbs where my sister lives is so Wisteria Lane, where you can hear a pin drop, there are manicured lawns and flowers growing over the hedges like above. I must be growing old, because I can admire its charms.

 

The downtown is pretty sweet, even if it is just a few blocks. I ventured there for haircut, which unfortunately turned out to be one of the worst I’ve had ever. I like getting haircuts in different places, because hell, I figure it’s hair, it will grow. My sister booked me in with her regular, and I figured that I could have a consultation of sorts because I feel like that’s something I don’t get in Hong Kong due to the language barrier. Her hairdresser turns out to be a character and a chatter, but unfortunately not a great haircutter. I ended up going back and forth about getting my hair coloured, and finally decided not to when I looked more closely at my poorly shorn locks. I’m now going to have to go get it cleaned up in Hong Kong.

I did make one three-hour journey (each way!) to Palo Alto to see friend from college. I’m glad I did. We had a lot of laughs.

Finally, I shopped. The US really is a shopper paradise. In whatever category, you get beautiful things at whatever price point. I am a fan of Target. But I also went to the local outlet Mall and got a lovely Kate Spade wallet, and lots of tops from Old Navy, which hide my paunch. In addition to so many nice things for the kids. I also went a little mad with the shoes, but in the end, decided I was way over budget and returned them all. When I got home and looked into my shoe cabinet, I realised that was not a bad call.

The most amazing part of this trip, however, was hanging with my sister. The friend I met at Palo Alto commented that I was one of the few people she knows who has an uncomplicated relationship with her sister. Barring a bad patch right before she left for the US, my sister and I have always been close. This I attribute to her generous and protective nature. I realise on this trip that my sister is now my primary source of unconditional love, and I am so grateful for it. Being able to hang out with her in person twice in one year is a bonus we don’t always get, and I’m so glad it worked out.