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Running in Prague

Posted on April 6, 2011
by Dinesh Dutt

Almost exactly three years after my first visit to Prague, I found myself back in the Paris of Eastern Europe, attending the same conference that I attended the last time, staying at the same hotel as the previous time. But, I was here without Shanthala and the weather was spring. “Spring in Prague” was a damp squib the last time. But this time, it was the magic the words conjured. A historical aside. Prague Spring refers to the events of the spring of 1968, when the newly elected Communist Party President, Alexander Dubcek, instituted a series of reforms to turn Czechoslovakia into a socialist democracy. The euphoria ended in the summer when Soviet tanks rolled into Prague and put an end to the whole thing. Back to the spring of 2011, the temperatures were mild during the day and skies were azure. I had to run outside. The cobblestones beckoned.

The jetlag had me out of bed by 3.30 or 4 in the morning. After some fitful attempts to fall back asleep, I’d awake and go down to the 24 hour bistro for my morning jolt of caffeine. After some googling and talking to the concierge, I thought of running along the Vlatva river bank, along the path that seemed to hug it. The morning still had a bite of bitter winter left in it. I had forgotten my long pants, but decided to go for a run anyway, thinking that I’d feel warm once I was a few minutes into the run.

The track started off looking serene in the early morning light. My heart warmed to the prospect of running along the river for 4 miles.

Running Along Vltava, Away From Old City

But pretty quickly, the track veered off the river and into a jumble of derelict and dilapidated buildings. It was like running in some industrial wasteland. I read that Czechoslovakia was an industrial powerhouse, starting in the early days of the 20th century as a vassal of tthe Austro-Hungarian empire and continuing on to the post-WWII era. Many industries located themselves along the river for easy access to transport. This lead to a heavily polluted river that has started to recover only after the Velvet Revolution, when the heavy industries made way for a lighter service sector. That explained the buildings and their location.

Dilapidated Buildings Along The Track

But the history and the scenery didn’t help the chill eating through my thin shirt and exposed legs. My legs and chest were warm, but my fingers and toes were becoming numb rather quickly. I saw two other runners, both of whom were suitable covered in warm clothing. I hit the main road in about 10 minutes or so and rather than continue, I decided to head back.

I was disappointed. Was this the beautiful track that some of the sites described ? Why didn’t the concierge say anything ? At breakfast, I ran into one of the two runners I had seen in the morning. She was attending the same conference. She said that she had gotten scared looking at the decrepit buildings, fearful that she may be dragged into one of them and assaulted. Her fears may have been misplaced. Prague is a city with almost zero violent crime according to the residents and tourist books. One of the locals told me that the Czech are fairly peaceful, as evinced by the overthrow of Communism, dubbed the Velvet Revolution for the smooth transition, and the peaceful split with Slovakia, dubbed the Velvet Divorce. According to the Prague Monitor, a newspaper, while violent crime in all of the Czech Republic rose by 7 percent in 2010, the overall crime rate is the lowest in the past ten years and especially low in Prague. But, what seems non-threatening to a man can be a fairly threatening place for a lone woman.

The woman told me that running in the opposite direction from the one I had chosen to go that morning would be more promising. You can even get to the Charles Bridge running that way, she said. I resolved to run the next day, but much later in the day, when the temperatures were far more suitable.

That evening, eschewing the conference social event, I took a tram, number 3, and headed to the outskirts of the city. I wanted to see what the city was like outside the historical and tourist-filled quarters. The tram crosses Wenceslas Square, the square where the Velvet Revolution began, and soon travels along the river Vlatva, the river that bisects the city. I saw a walkway that paralleled the river, for quite a distance. I saw people jogging, walking home from work, parents strolling with their infants and roller skating. Bikers shared the path with the pedestrians and it was a peaceful sight.

The next day, I set off on my run around noon, headed in the opposite direction from the one I had taken the previous morning. The weather was perfect, not too hot and not too cold. The skies were clear. From the very start, the walkway was set in much more pleasing surroundings. It paralleled the river on one side and a modestly busy boulevard on the other.

Running On The Walkway By Vlatva Towards Old City

Prague has some 20 odd bridges across the river, connecting the old city with the new, the east with the west. Across one of them, called Cechuv Most (or Cech Bridge), I crossed over the river, heading up a stairway and path towards the Prague castle, Hradcany.

The path up led to glorious views of the city, looking south and north.

Bridges Across Vlatva, Looking South From Letenske Sady

Prague Bridges, Looking North from Letenske Sady

Bridges of Prague, Panoramic View from Letenske Sady

The track meandered amongst the hillocks above the city, weaving its way up and down towards Hradcany. Along the way, I decided to also head down and touch the famous Charles Bridge (Karluv Most) and maybe head back to the hotel from there. The day was beautiful and I stopped to take many pictures. It was unfortunate that I only had an iPhone to capture most of the pictures.

Monument of the German Occupation of WWII

Prague Street, Malostranska Metro

Instead of crossing the Charles Bridge which was crowded as always, I ran back up the way I came and continued north on the hill paralleling the river, going towards Stefanikuv Most, another of the bridges across the Vlatva. People were relaxing in the post lunch hour along the myriad benches.

Letenske Sady (Letna Park), Prague

Relaxing Along The Benches of Letenske Sady

The run was over sooner than I wanted. I had a meeting that I wanted to go to, a meeting that was already half over by the time I finished my run. As I sat through the latter part of the meeting, I regretted not going on. I don’t know when I’ll be back and if I’m back, I’ll have the time to run and explore the city as much detail as I could have.

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A Long, Strange Trip: The First Days

Posted on February 8, 2011
by Dinesh Dutt

I woke up suddenly with a heightened sense of alertness. There was a strange sensation in my ears. I raised myself to look at the clock and a wave of  dizziness swept over me. I felt nauseous. The clock said 1 am. I’d been sniffling all day, had little sleep due to the long journey from SFO to Bangalore. I was a little worried about Maya. She had been throwing up since the morning, unable to keep even a glass of water down.

I lay awake considering possible actions should the nausea and dizziness increase. Would I be able to call for help (my friends were sleeping downstairs) ? Would I puke on the floor and make a mess or would I be able to crawl to the bathroom ? Was the bathroom door shut and if so could I reach the handle ? And why was I dizzy and nauseous ? A couple of friends and some other associates had been diagnosed with cancer in the past few months. Was I next ? Was something malignant lurking beneath my dizziness ?

I tried to focus on calming myself and feeling less dizzy. I tried to slow my breathing and be more even than normal. I double checked that my mental acuity was normal. But my mind continued to wander. I wondered if I should wave a white flag, declare that I was foolish to have attempted the trip alone and head back home right away ? Before I left the US, I had learnt that tickets were not available till the 19th or so. What if Maya fell badly ill ? Shanthala was the calm one in the family. Without her by my side, my fears mushroomed. My mind returned to more immediate predicaments. I pictured myself falling on the floor as I tried to go to the bathroom, hitting my head and knocking myself out, Maya waking up wanting to vomit or crap and not finding me, crying and shaking me as I lay on the floor and then puking and cramping all over me and around me. I pictured my friends coming up at daylight to find the mess.

Enough already! I screamed to myself. Stop this nonsense.

Some time had passed, I decided to slowly get up and see how I felt. I felt unsteady, weak. I sat back down wondering if sudden, large movements might make me dizzier. I debated if I should walk to the door and switch on the room light so that I could read the “The Indian Clerk” or if I should stay on the bed and read something on the iPhone. What was happening with my ear ? It was not ringing, it was not any sharp clear sound. So what was it ? I struggled to fond the word to describe my condition. It was a low, almost like white noise. Buzzing. Finally! I had the word.

I switched on the iPhone and googled for “buzzing in ear and dizziness” and read through the entries that spoke of various illnesses from the more common ones such as tinnitus and inner ear damage to stranger beasts such as Meniere’s Disease, dormant herpes virus and so on. What would it be like to be afflicted with a disease named Meniere’s Disease ? And who was this guy Meniere ? As I read through the articles, Maya lay by my side breathing loudly. I wondered if she was getting a cold.

As I sat there reading, realization dawned on me about how difficult the life of a single parent might be, especially one with a small child. The precautions they had to take, the planning they had to make if something should happen, to get help if something happened in the middle of the night, the difficulties in caring for a small child when they fell ill, the pressure and loneliness without a backup right next to them. I sat there on the bed with all these thoughts swirling through my jet-lagged, sleep-addled brain. Some more time passed. I began to feel better, the dizziness seemed fainter as did the nausea. I got up and felt sufficiently steady. I walked over to the end of the room and switched on the light. The worst part of that night was over.


We had landed in Bangalore the previous day at 2 am. The flight had been surprisingly easy. Maya had been an impeccable traveller. She took off her shoes at the security checkpoint before I even said anything to her. She loves the escalator. As we waited to board the plane at San Francisco, she spent almost a half hour walking the same long escalator over and over again. All that exercise coupled with the flight being well underway as her nap time approached, helped her sleep well on the way to Hong Kong. She ate well on board, chowing down the better parts of the airplane meal and filling the rest of her belly with food that I had carried from home. She hardly watched any TV, spending most of the time reading to herself or asking me to read to her or playing with some paint and paper that she got on the plane. She didn’t exhibit even a single sign of frustration despite sitting in the plane for almost 15 hours. I felt like I was travelling with an adult.

At Hong Kong, she insisted on hauling one of the cabin baggages. I was travelling light and so with her help, the transit was a piece of cake. As we walked to our boarding gate for the final leg to Bangalore, Maya spotted a play area and took off. She let loose all her pent-up energy after sitting for so long by running around like crazy. Tired, she slept most of the way to Bangalore. When we landed, she seemed well rested. She even pushed the luggage cart with all our baggage all the way to the car, causing heads to turn and passers-by to express their delight at her energy and strength, even more impressed when told that she was not even three.

I had arranged to stay with some close friends for a day or two since my parents had moved houses well beyond the outskirts of the city to a remote gated community, about a three hour drive from the airport. After travelling for almost 24 hours, I didn’t want to tax Maya’s patience by asking her to sit for another three hours. Also, I was going to my parents’ new house for the first time and didn’t want to risk travelling to an unknown, remote place in the middle of the night. Furthermore, with the remoteness of the location, I worried about easy access to doctors should Maya fall ill as she acclimatised to India. Our old driver, who ran a taxi service now, was there to pick us up and drop us off to our friends’ place (his taxi service license wouldn’t let him cross the state lines, as my parents’ house was in another state).

I was excited to see our friends again and Maya was thrilled that she was finally on firm ground, out of cars and planes. Our friends’ daughter, who had been eagerly waiting for Maya, was awake at 4 am, waiting for us. Maya ate a little, hugged everyone and we all went to bed. The next morning, my friends’ daughter fed her a good breakfast and bathed her. Everyone was having a good time and I looked forward to an enjoyable vacation, one that matched my expectations. And then god said ha!

After her bath, Maya wanted to pee. As she was sitting on the toilet seat, she suddenly threw up. Within a few seconds, she had emptied her belly of all the food she had consumed the past eight hours or so. She seemed a little surprised and upset at vomiting, but otherwise seemed OK. I spent the next twenty minutes cleaning up the bathroom and washing her up.

I was not worried. A simple one-time vomit, I expected. It had happened before, when we first came to India and on returning to the US the last time. Both times, it had happened a few hours after the long flight. But this time, by the afternoon, she had vomited several times, about 20 minutes or so after she consumed anything, including water. So we decided to call my friend’s daughter’s pediatrician. He recommended a non-antibiotic anti-emetic. That helped stop the vomit, but she didn’t eat anything after the first episode of vomiting. Her energy level and spirits seemed normal however. With the jet lag, we both fell asleep by 7 pm. And then I awoke at 1 am to the dizziness and nausea.

The second day was just plain miserable. Maya’s travails continued as did mine. The misery began, just like the first day, soon after her bath.

I had decided to return a few days before the originally scheduled date. Shanthala was leaving for Houston to attend a conference the day of our original return. I didn’t want to miss her for another three days. I was on the phone with Cathay Pacific looking for an earlier return when Maya began to protest and demand that I put the phone down. I told her that it was important that I speak on the phone and went away. She was quiet for an instant or so it seemed to me, before she started calling for me again. I ignored her. A few minutes later, she came bawling. When I looked at her, she said that she had peed in her pants. Worse still, she had also defecated, unable to control her motion due to the severe diarrhea. I immediately whisked her to the nearest bathroom hoping no feces had dropped anywhere. I tried to complete the call as I tried to clean her up, making her wait by herself in the bathroom a few times. She was wailing her unhappiness and at being left alone, but what could I do ? I don’t know why I didn’t drop the call and pick it up later. Was I desperate to head back home sooner ?

I had to clean the bathroom, Maya and her clothes. I bathed her again and dressed her up again. She seemed in a better mood, but I was drained. To make matters worse, Maya was clingy and in a bad mood throughout the day, fussing over the smallest thing and uncooperative. She didn’t play well with my friends’ daughter or her friends. They all seemed quite understanding and willing to accommodate her, but she didn’t want to share toys, she didn’t want to take turns, and on and on. And each such episode started a crying jag that must’ve lasted a couple of minutes. With my own fatigue and illness, I was really frustrated and tired.

In the afternoon, I also had chills, sore throat and a headache. I gargled and got rid of the sore throat rather quickly. Two doses of Ibuprofen controlled the fever. But I was miserable and weak. I spoke to Shanthala’s mom and she asked us to start antibiotics to control our nausea and diarrhea. We both took our first dose and went to bed early again. I woke up around 1 am again, but this time with severe diarrhea. I couldn’t sleep much. Maya at least slept till about 4 am or so.

The next day seemed only a slight improvement over the first two days. Maya’s vomiting and loose motion had both stopped and her appetite seemed better. But my stomach still hurt and felt distended. I had no appetite. Another small blessing was that the cold and cough seemed a distant memory. We found that the cause of our misery might be a tiny leak in the water filter, causing a minuscule amount of unfiltered water to get mixed with the filtered water.

Finally, on the fourth day, we headed to my parents’ house. My father had sent a rather friendly gentleman named Elango to pick us up. He ran a concierge service in Hosur (the town nearest to my parents’ place), part of which was providing a taxi service. My father had requested him to come pick us up personally rather than have his regular taxi driver come pick us up. My father wanted to assuage any fears I might have had about going to a remote, unknown place with a stranger. And Elango proved to be an excellent choice.

We drove close to an hour along the highways that skirted the city now. The drive was smooth and almost congestion free. My spirits began to lift. This was such a difference from the constant stop-and-go traffic endemic to Bangalore now. But, as we approached Hosur, I asked Elango how much farther we had to go. He said we’d make the turn to my father’s place beyond Hosur. I was shocked. I was under the impression, the fault largely mine, that my father’s place was between Bangalore and Hosur, not beyond Hosur. I had hardly digested this information when we turned onto a narrow, rutted road. Its about 6 kms from here, Elango said. My heart sank. The road was untarred in places, a real village road in India. And we traveled for what seemed an interminable time before we arrived at my parents’ place.

The place felt desolate, far removed from civilization and its comforts. There was not a house in sight. I felt like I was on the moon. My parents were thrilled to see us, but I doubt my happiness showed. We ate lunch, with Maya chowing down my mom’s food with as much gusto as she normally did back in the US. I didn’t eat much. I tried to sleep a little. Maya had already slept on the way to my parents’ house and was not sleepy. But she was very cooperative and sat on the bed next to me, reading her books. I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned. How would I keep Maya occupied here ? How would I meet my friends ? How would I, how would I ? The questions strangled any sleep I had. For the first time in my life, coming to Bangalore didn’t feel like coming home. Hardly four days had passed since we had arrived in India and the trip already felt long. A long, strange trip.

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A Long, Strange Trip: The Start

Posted on January 31, 2011
by Dinesh Dutt

Like swallows flying south in winter, we fly to India as the year end approaches. Each year for the past three years, we’ve marked the end of one year and the start of another this way. If we mark this phase as India, the grandparents mark this time of the year as Maya.

We book the tickets well in advance, usually by June or July. The time can’t seem to pass fast enough and then we’re on the plane, filled with equal parts of thrill and dread. The dread is mostly about how Maya will fare during the long flight and how we’ll cope if she gets unhappy. The first year we went with Maya, she was not even one and I was a tad apprehensive about how she would react to the air and the not-so-sterile environment of the land of her parents (she did fine). Traveling with infants in their first year is the easiest, we heard parents say. They’re too small and will sleep most of the time. The second isn’t too bad, but the third and fourth are the worst, the kids seized by the restlessness of their age and the long time in cramped quarters making for a parentally lethal mid-air combination.

After my mostly successful flight and first week with Maya last year, I dreaded this year’s travel even less. I figured that with her age, she had better ability to  reason and understand the situation than before. We started prepping her in advance, telling her that she couldn’t get upset on the plane, that the stewards  and stewardesses on the plane would get upset with her and we couldn’t travel any more after that, that she had to listen to her pop during the flight. For all  that, she’d be rewarded with good times with grandparents, our friends’ kids and magical India. She nodded and started chanting this mantra every time she  saw a plane.

I travel alone with Maya a week before Shanthala joins us and the lack of a backup adds to my concern. My difficulties would begin once we landed. I knew that I had to synchronize my jet lag with hers, sleep when she did and be awake when she was. The first week is also when the long flight with recirculated air and lack of sleep leaves us more vulnerable to upper respiratory infections and gives cause for our stomachs to be upset with us. The first year, Maya puked a few hours after we landed, throwing up everything she had consumed during the past 24 hours or so. Shanthala’s mom put it down to stomach distension due to the long flight. This year, I was more worried about how to keep her occupied. There are no cousins she interacts with, no children near my parents’ house that we know. Here in the US, she goes to a park practically everyday leaving us with only a few hours of dark to keep her occupied. In India, there are no parks for her to play in near my parents house. The two parks nearby are closed during the day and the playgrounds are in a sad state of repair. I only worried about that first week, for after that, the ever-practical Shanthala would be there to help. Also, Maya clings more ferociously to me during that first week, when the foreignness of her ancestral lands and jet lag confound her.

For every such part of dread, I’m filled with equal parts of thrill. Bangalore has always held a special place in my mind. From my childhood days, my mind would fill with anticipation of new toys, watching the latest English movies (for years I watched the newest adventures of James Bond in Bangalore) and eating at fantastic restautants. And now, my mind is excited with thoughts of good food and good times, and the excitement over new toys has yielded to an eagerness to visit the book stores (Strand, Blossom, Gangarams and more). Walking down the MG Road promenade always made me feel grand, like a kid in a toy store, even though so many things have changed there. My mouth watered at the prospect of eating the excellent Dosas and other South Indian delicacies at select restaurants. While the Bay Area has a surfeit of Indian eateries, none can do justice to the South Indian eats, especially the quality of Dosa, Sambar and Chutney that I’m used to at Bangalore. Even the most mediocre of restaurants in Bangalore produced better South Indian fare than what we get in the Bay Area. I wanted to drink Sugar Cane jiuce, coconut water. I hallucinated on the quality of the Indian desserts that I would be able to feast on, my sweet tongue lolling in anticipation. And the thrill of seeing family and some of our closest friends, of nights spent talking about everything and anything.

At a friends’ place here in the US where there are twin girls about 10 years of age and a boy of seven, Maya has a glorious time. She vanishes with the kids once we arrive, leaving me time to chat with the adults. I thought that she’d be the same with our friends’ kids. One of them emailed me regularly about eagerly she was waiting to play with Maya. The last two times, she hadn’t bonded too well with all the grandparents. With her being almost three, I thought that this would fare better too. So, overall I predicted that this trip would be even better than the previous two that we had taken with her.

So, what could possibly go wrong ?

An Irish Perspective On The Journey

Our winter escapade to India is not unusual among Indians, at least amongst those without children or their school-going variety. I think Indians of my generation and socio-economic class are blessed amongst the immigrants. We were welcomed with mostly open arms in the US, provided an excellent path to make this place our permanent home and respected in the community because we were in the computer industry. Unlike immigrants of the past who landed here and started at the bottom of the unskilled job market, we arrived as skilled immigrants, starting fairly high in the socio-economic totem pole and usually heading upwards that ladder. We arrive in a place that has a surfeit of Indian restaurants and Indian grocery stores. Movie halls play the latest Bollywood flick, Holi and Deepavali are major organized events in several places nearby and we even have a choice of temples (for the observing Hindus) to visit. That is not to say we don’t have our share of existential angst, but compared to other immigrants, past and current, we’re fortunate in a myriad ways.

The striking contrast between us and other immigrants of the past is brought home every time I hear the Irish ditty, “Kilkelly, Ireland“. The Irish fled their homeland in droves, somewhere between 1 and 1.5 million leaving during the worst period of the infamous Irish Potato Famine, between 1845 to 1855. Unlike the independent India we came from, they were still subjugated by the monarchy in Britain at that time, with the Irish famine probably analogous to the horrific Bengal famines. They set sail, usually from the harbour of Cobh, on a journey mostly to North America, that took 45 days or more and cost anywhere between 55 shillings and 5 pounds. The cramped, insanitary conditions killed so many people, that these ships carrying Irish immigrants were dubbed “coffin shps”. One description of the conditions on board such ships reads:
“Hundreds of poor people, men, women and children of all ages huddled together without light, without air, wallowing in filth and breathing a fetid atmosphere, sick in body, dispirited in heart; the fevered patients lying beside the sound, by their agonised ravings disturbing those around. The food is generally ill-selected and seldom sufficiently cooked in consequences of the insufficiency and bad construction of the cooking places. The supply of water, hardly enough for cooking and drinking, does not allow for washing. No moral restraint is attempted; the voice of prayer is never heard; drunkenness, with all its consequent train of ruffianly debasement, is not discouraged because it is found profitable by the captain who traffics in grog [watered-down Rum] [2]“.

“Kilkelly, Ireland” one of the most moving songs I’ve heard, captures the longing for the absent faces in the form of letters sent by a father, living in Kilkelly, to his son who has immigrated to the US. Each stanza of the 5 stanza song marks ten years. The song, written by the Americans Steven and Peter Jones, is based on the letters sent by their great-great-grandfather Bryan Hunt to their great-grandfather Bryan Hunt.

Kilkelly, Ireland, 18 and 60, my dear and loving son John
Your good friend the schoolmaster Pat McNamara's so good
  as to write these words down.
Your brothers have all gone to find work in England,
   the house is so empty and sad
The crop of potatoes is sorely infected,
   a third to a half of them bad.
And your sister Brigid and Patrick O'Donnell
  are going to be married in June.
Your mother says not to work on the railroad
  and be sure to come on home soon.

Kilkelly, Ireland, 18 and 70, dear and loving son John
Hello to your Mrs and to your 4 children,
  may they grow healthy and strong.
Michael has got in a wee bit of trouble,
  I guess that he never will learn.
Because of the dampness there's no turf to speak of
  and now we have nothing to burn.
And Brigid is happy, you named a child for her
  and now she's got six of her own.
You say you found work, but you don't say
  what kind or when you will be coming home.

Kilkelly, Ireland, 18 and 80, dear Michael and John, my sons
I'm sorry to give you the very sad news
  that your dear old mother has gone.
We buried her down at the church in Kilkelly,
  your brothers and Brigid were there.
You don't have to worry, she died very quickly,
  remember her in your prayers.
And it's so good to hear that Michael's returning,
  with money he's sure to buy land
For the crop has been poor and the people
  are selling at any price that they can.

Kilkelly, Ireland, 18 and 90, my dear and loving son John
I guess that I must be close on to eighty,
  it's thirty years since you're gone.
Because of all of the money you send me,
  I'm still living out on my own.
Michael has built himself a fine house
  and Brigid's daughters have grown.
Thank you for sending your family picture,
  they're lovely young women and men.
You say that you might even come for a visit,
  what joy to see you again.

Kilkelly, Ireland, 18 and 92, my dear brother John
I'm sorry that I didn't write sooner to tell you that father passed on.
He was living with Brigid, she says he was cheerful
  and healthy right down to the end.
Ah, you should have seen him play with
  the grandchildren of Pat McNamara, your friend.
And we buried him alongside of mother,
  down at the Kilkelly churchyard.
He was a strong and a feisty old man,
  considering his life was so hard.
And it's funny the way he kept talking about you,
  he called for you in the end.
Oh, why don't you think about coming to visit,
  we'd all love to see you again.

The money sent home, a family taking root so far away, a family seen only in one or two probably blurry photographs and the longing, oh! the longing, expressed with such eloquence in just “what joy to see you again”, does violence to my heart each time I listen to the song. I hear my father’s voice when I read the lines: “You say you found work, but you don’t say what kind”. He always wants to know more about my job than I find the patience to explain.

Now you see why I think we’re blessed. With cheap telephone and the advent of video chats, families separated by many oceans can still see each other and a journey is not just affordable, but far more comfortable and short.

Back To Our Adventure

So, what could go wrong ?

The first shoe dropped two weeks before we were to leave, Shanthala’s backup was diagnosed with cancer. So, she had to cancel her trip. I pondered for an instant if I should cancel the trip too, but coupled with my fantasies of Maya playing with older kids here and my desire to not rob this time from the grandparents, I decided to journey alone with Maya. I secretly realized that I may have to give up visiting any bookstore. I like to spend an hour or so at each store and I knew that wasn’t possible with Maya in tow. She’d probably be patient for about 15-20 minutes. But I hadn’t given up hope completely.

The second shoe dropped a few days after that when my parents informed me that they had moved houses, from their current location in a fairly central part of the city to a remote hamlet, far from the city. Their move took me by complete surprise. It is considered a rural area, my father said, so the landline is a via something the local telephone company calls wireless local loop. Do you have any Internet connection, I asked. We have something, he said and my heart sank. Go to a place where there is not even an Internet connection ? That was so last century, I thought.

From Bangalore Airport, it took about 2.5-3 hours to travel to my parents’ new place. Not wanting to risk traveling in the middle of the night to a place I hadn’t even seen, I scrambled to make arrangements to stay with a friend immediately after we landed. How was I going to meet my friends and relatives ? I flinched at the thought of sitting for a couple of hours each way in the car with Maya. Travelling in a car in Bangalore’s congested roads was like chinese water torture, who knew when the car would stall ? What about eating at all those places that I had been fantasizing ? Could I even walk down M.G. Road ?

With a steely heart and iron resolve (which I hoped wouldn’t rust), I boarded the plane with Maya. The only one facing the whole thing as a real adventure was Maya.

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Maya Learns to Boogie Board

Posted on November 24, 2010
by Dinesh Dutt

Kailua, O’ahu,  Hawaii.

The very first day at the beach, Maya noticed some guys boogie boarding. When we got home, she noticed that the rental place we were staying at had boogie boards of all sizes. She immediately wanted to try and boogie board. She said that she’d stand on the board in the water, showing a warrior-pose-like lounge, probably imitating one of the boogie boarders at the beach. We laughed at her comical pose, but didn’t really take her seriously.

But each subsequent time we went to the beach, Maya would pick up one of the boogie boards on the way out and insist that she’d boogie board this time. Continuing to not take her seriously, we’d sneak the board away from her on the way to the beach. By the time we got to the beach, she’d be too engrossed playing to remember her demand. Except if she saw someone doing it.

Today, we finally decided to humor her request. Shanthala carried one of the smaller boards to the beach. After a few minutes of frolicking in the waves, Maya got the boogie board into the water and decided to try. Here is a video of her effort and her eventual success! Of course, this is not the real boogie board in the sense of Maya paddling into the waves, but it is riding the water on a boogie board. She pretty much figured out most of the stuff by herself, watching a couple of people nearby doing it. Shanthala helped her by getting a board that was the right size for her since the initial board didn’t suit the purpose.

Several things come to my mind after her efforts. She steadfastly refused any help from us, wanting to figure things out on her own. She wailed her frustration and anguish if we tried to help her despite her refusal. Maya has generally had an independent streak, but I wondered if part of her reason for refusing help was because she had not seen either one of us actually boogie board. For the umpteenth time, I realized that when she wants to learn something by herself, letting her figure it out, even if it takes a lot longer than if she took her advice, is a much more workable and less frustrating experience for all of us. I especially am a tad too eager to teach her what I think is a quicker route, but she’s willing to accept my help only in certain situations, not otherwise.

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If Its November, This Must Be …

Posted on November 19, 2010
by Dinesh Dutt

If its November, this must be Hawaii. Like whales and swallows migrating south in winter, we seem to head to Hawaii, come November, at least the past few years. This is certainly not consciously premeditated.

The last time we visited Hawaii, it was to the island of O’ahu, “The Gathering Place”. This year too, we’ve come to O’ahu. After years of skipping O’ahu if only because it was home to Waikiki and Honolulu, we finally came two years ago because it was the only island we could visit without changing planes or paying a king’s ransom. Maya was nine months old then and on her first plane ride. By making a long journey even longer with connecting flights and a layover, we didn’t want to risk starting our journeys with her on a discordant note. We discovered Kailua then and fell in love with the island. When Shanthala wanted to come to Hawaii with her brother, who was visiting us for a couple of weeks, we naturally chose O’ahu again. The backdrop of Ko’olau mountains with their serrated Pali and the long, uncrowded Kailua Beach with its gentle waters and shallow shoreline make for some remarkable memories.

Maya is two years older now than when we came last. What a story the pictures tell, of now and then.

And here is a video of Maya thoroughly enjoying herself at Kailua Beach.

This entry also marks my 250th posting on this blog. I started blogging to keep distant family and friends abreast of events in our life and only distantly as a way to practise writing. Since then, the blog has evolved into primarily a venue for my writing and less about the events of our life. It is therefore an interesting coincidence that this 250th post harks back to the original intent. I hope my readers have had some measure of the satisfaction that I’ve had in writing.

P.S: I rewrote this posting because I found the original too hackneyed and pretentious. I have had little undisturbed time these past few weeks, for some reason, and so my writing has suffered, I fear. This last post was the pits. I had to rewrite it. It couldn’t be the one to mark my 250th post.

P.P.S: When Shanthala and I were making up a list of ten movies we wanted to see, a movie that didn’t make the list but whose title stayed in my mind for some unknown reason was “If its Tuesday, This Must be Belgium”. I also strangely and for some unknown reason remember the heroine’s name, Suzanne Pleshette. I still haven’t seen the movie. I don’t even know what its about. I haven’t seen a picture of Suzanne Pleshette either.

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