Rajani's Book Review

Rajani has just finished reading her first chapter book by an Indian author. She has the following review:

Nine-year old Siddharth has parents that want him to play outside, like nine-year old boys do. He goes out, and he hears a rustling noise. First, he thinks it is a snake. Then, he goes to the fence and peeks over, and he sees a little baby elephant. So, the elephant and Siddharth are friends. First Siddharth tells the baby elephant his name. Then, the baby elephant tells its name : its name is Aishwarya. Siddharth roared of laughter. But the elephant tells him that it is rude! The elephant wants him to call her Alise.

Alise and Siddharth have lots of adventures together. Alise is a real talking elephant. She likes to chew gum, and likes to put a bow on top of her head. She likes to play cricket.

The "Bearded Bandit" is a man who kills elephants for theirs tusks. So, his assistants are looking for the "elephant graveyard." They hope to find lots of ivory tusks. Alise whispers, 'master, quickly, come here!" And soon the Bearded Bandit is face to face with Alise. Alise lifts him with her trunk, by his waist, and she asks Siddharth to cover his mouth before his assistants hear him shout. After that, Siddharth said to Alise, "put him in the deep pit." Then they call the forest rangers, and they become heroes.

Alise and Siddharth go on an airplane to be on television, and Alise gets everything she hopes for. Siddharth's parents are proud of him.

The book is Living Next Door to Alise by Anita Nair, with illustrations by Anitha Balachandran. Penguin Books India, 2007. 99 pages.

School update:

Rajani is home for the end-of-term-holidays. The first term ran from June through September, and culminated in a series of "worksheets" (we don't use the t-e-s-t word!) on all subjects: English, Math, Science, and Hindi. She has done wonderfully well on all, and wants me to specially mention her highest score in class for Science. She continues to write lovely sentences, despite the lack of free writing in school. [I make her write some journal everyday, and you can a sample of her free-form writing above, as it was dictated to me.]

In Math, she is adding in the hundreds, (3-digit additions), and is adding more than two numbers at a time (11+ 27+ 7),and is subtracting, borrowing from the tens. She is also learning multiplication tables. In Hindi, she has all her vowels, and most of her consonants down. Next term, she will begin putting them in words. On Mondays, she gets a spelling test from the reading of the previous week. She spells, reflection, rhinoceroses (I couldn't when I was 6!), remember, and light bulb (thanks to the lesson on Edison!)

My proposal to try out a project in the style done in Mrs. Collinge's classroom, was welcomed by Rajani's teacher, Ms. Sudha Narayan. We brainstormed with the children on animal topics, and we formed 4 groups of 4-5 children each. The animals chosen were: tiger, lion, leopard, and horse. We devised games, I borrowed books from the very sparse collection at the local library, other parents sent in coloring tasks, and word puzzles. The goal was to learn a few facts about the animal, and read a lot of books - fiction, non-fiction, and get resources from the web.

Many parents, anxious for the children's projects to be successful, printed out huge lists of facts, created little folders, bound and labeled them, and um.. basically, completed the projects for the children! Ah well! We do want our children to succeed so! It was hard to explain that the process was more important than the end product. Nonetheless, we were proud, at the end of term, to hang up the children's work for parents to see.

A New neighborhood Pal:

They do have a way of figuring out who the animal lover is, even in a city of about 7 million. We first noticed it huddling under our neighbor's car. It was by nature very affectionate and friendly. It only took a couple of tries before it walked up to us with its tail in the air. And before you know, she had us trained to give her a cup of milk, on demand! Now, she visits us in the late afternoons, and hangs out by our car most of the night. She has figured out that we live upstairs (though uncertain as to the floor), for, yesterday, we found her climbing up the neem tree, trying to spot us! We are hoping to grab her for a quick visit to Blue Cross to have her fixed and checked out. She seems quite young, very curious, and thoroughly enjoys the pets and scratches.
Ramya says: No, we have not named her, and no, I don't know if she is going to come back to the US with us!
Rajani says: We have three names for her:
"kutty meow [little meow] Chatterbox Subramanian"
The cat says: Purrr....

"Every House Has a Doorstep"*

Imagine that you moved in to a house as a one-year old. Imagine that you are 71 years old now, and that you never really left it, except brief periods in your married life. Imagine your children being born, and their children being born in that house. Imagine that your mother (and in-law), and your father (and in-law) died there. Just imagine the empty nest, now that your children are all outside the country. Imagine the little things, the big things, the thousands of photographs, the old letters, the books with inscriptions, your children's rusting trophies, the antique chair, and ALL the stuff that 3 generations of a family could have gathered. Can you just imagine what memories - sad ones, happy ones; what stories - stories of success, stories of failure, the walls could tell if they could speak?

Now, imagine having to leave that house, leave the neighborhood, whose landscape has changed so much that even you, after 71 years, don't recognize it when your travel for a couple of months!

I wonder, if you sat on the swing, would you see an old scene playing out before your eyes? I wonder, if you sat on the bed where you gave birth to your first-born, would you remember the pain? I wonder, if you sat at your father's desk, would you hear his laughter?

For someone who doesn't have an anchor, a place to call home, because she was moved around during her childhood (definitely not as much as an army kid, or a diplomat's child), I have always envied Ramesh for being able to come home to "Sita Nivas" - "the dwelling of Sita" (his mother's name, and also Rajani's middle name). On many visits back to Chennai, we have slept in the very room he used as a boy. Even as we finally fell asleep in the early hours of the morning, chatting about what had, and had not changed, we would be awakened by blaring music from nearby temples - perhaps the same songs that he had heard 20 years ago! vinaayakane, vinai theerpavane! Lord Ganesh, you end all my troubles!

[Above is the famous 5552, classic "Ambassador," standing in front of a very changed front yard of "Sita Nivas." Ramesh is known at IIT, as the Prof., who comes in the "old ambi." ]

On the 13th, Ramesh's parents moved out of their home. The task of sorting through the things - what to keep, what to discard, the physical task of packing (even with help), and the emotional task of making decisions, are all taking their toll. Even today, after an afternoon of packing, Ramesh found his mother trying to gather all the jasmines she could reach from the creeper, that I had bought for the house many years ago. (I am such a basket case about the jasmine, that I had said it should grow in any house that I belong to.) It, among other bushes, creepers, shrubs and trees, except the "vilvam" (Ramphal) tree, will have to go. It is said that the Vedas took the form of the vilvam tree, the trident-shaped leaves of which are much favored by Lord Shiva. It is so sacred, that just to see it, is considered a blessing for seven generations.

Below is a picture of Rajani and Ramesh's mother in 2004,
offering prayers at the vilvam tree in the backyard.

The house will be demolished, after salvaging much of the teak doors and door frames, and in its place will come a more modern home. Why, you might ask? I refer you to my first post about how Chennai's landscape is changing with the arrival of multi-story apartment houses, needed to accommodate a growing population. Every house around this one is at a much higher level, leaving them with backing up sewage, storm drains that are not up to date, water lines that are ancient, and a typical "shot gun" house, which is 75 feet long, and the cause of enormous aches and pains for a couple of pairs of aging legs.

Below is a view of the back door, from the front.


Many of you have experienced the challenges of such a move for your parents, in the US, as they get ready to move in to assisted living, or in to smaller, more manageable spaces. It hasn't been an issue in the past, as extended families stayed together in large joint households. Today, Indian families have become smaller, and busier, and while a few "joint families" still exist happily, children find themselves looking for apartments near their own, so that they may be of some support as their parents age. "NRI parents" are truly left to fend for themselves, or end up commuting between "abroad" and India for as long as they physically can. [Tempting as it is, it is not my intention to digress to a side story of the major issue on the hands of 40 and 50-year olds in India, and its diaspora, on what it is going to do with its elderly parents.]

I should get to bed. Everyone else has. We've had another exhausting day packing, cleaning and organizing. Good night!
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* I have loosely translated a Tamil adage - veettukku veedu vaasal padi," which could mean that each house has it own story, even though it may look quite unassuming on the outside.