School

It's been a year since the kids joined a CBSE school in Dubai. They still miss their school in Chennai (which shifted to the CBSE curriculum in part after they left) and are not convinced by my theory that the Samacheer kalvi syllabus prescribed on the whim of a political leader did them no good. They still struggle academically as a result.
The second language Hindi continues to be their biggest problem - coming from a State known for its anti-Hindi agitations, their knowledge of Hindi did not go beyond the alphabets. Mira shifted to Malayalam as a result after spending a year studying the alphabets and learning to read and write her mother tongue which she could speak quite well. Malayalam with its 52 letters is not an easy language to master at short notice but she is improving.
The good thing about taking Malayalam has been that she has been thrown into the company of children doing various languages -  French, Urdu (Pak mainly), Tagalog (Filipinos). It means she is in a co-ed batch (here, many schools have separate campuses for boys and girls after primary) with Africans, Iranians, Filipinos and our neighbours from the subcontinent. Unlike those who take Hindi who are in exclusive boys only and girls only divisions after Class 4, Mira can interact with boys and I hope that it will help her be more confident and bold in the long run.
Ash for his part makes friends easily and has a close circle of 4 friends and is therefore loath to shift to any other school. Cricket coaching twice a week adds to his interest.
The school conducts events and campaigns - like Breast Cancer Awareness day today when students are exhorted to wear pink; Diwali and Onam celebrations when you can go in traditional outfits - apart from anniversary celebrations. You guessed it - it has a Malloo management but the students are from all over India, predominantly north. That the fees is very reasonable means that its doors are open to those from the lower economic sections (My heart however goes out to a boy who was made to stand outside the class as punishment for not paying fees for long - apparently his father had not been getting his salary during the recession last year). "RR" (relief and rehabilitation) students are also part of the student population.
Teaching is not the best in many Indian curriculum schools with many teachers who lack a teaching degree or interest in the job at hand. Cant blame them - the work pressure is too much for the salaries on offer.
p.s. It is heartening that the dishes I prepare are well received by the kids's friends. While one loves my bread upma (the recipe for which Mira gave me after asking her friend who brought the strange dish) is popular with one, noodles or soondal with another, chicken stew-appam yet another etc. After a hurried breakfast at 6.15 am before they run to catch the school bus, it is their brunch in school at 11 am that gives them the necessary nutrition. Well, many mothers send junk food or a fruit unable to plan or rustle up something wholesome. Except in the week the KHDA  comes for school inspection when school authorities request parents to send healthy food. :)

Gems

While expecting a guest for lunch, I advised Ash: Dont eat too much. Uncle will think you are greedy.
Ash: In that case he is greedy too. He eats a lot.
***
Mira is trying to study social studies on her own and asks me: Do animals get married?
No, I said.
Then what is this animal husbandry?!
***
Mira: Are followers of Buddha called Buddhus?

She's like my m-i-l who changes a hospital recovery room to discovery room, ventilator to regulator and Clinton to Kintan :)

Reading challenge

A challenge I have taken up is getting the kids to read the newspaper everyday - well, most days. Mira has slipped out of my hands after the summer vacation project to write about a news report that interested her every week - the country, its neighbors, the impact of the event discussed etc. So I had spent some time explaining Brexit and UK vs rest of Europe. Still, when a visiting uncle asked Ash what Brexit is, he said,, 'I think a guy contesting the US elections'!
The embarrassment made me prescribe intense newspaper reading. My victim was Ash, who cursed and procrastinated.... He read out headlines while I washed the dinner plates. However, certain questions he posed - what is prostitution, rape, adultery - left me fumbling for an answer. Prostitution, I told him, is an illegal trade, rape is treating someone badly physically, and adultery is getting too friendly with someone else's wife. My answers seemed to satisfy him and he did not ask any further.
Still, at some point I will have to initiate sex education at home. Or will they learn in school?

Veiled friendships

Today as I return from a walk in the corniche, there are two ladies in Black in front returning home after their morning walk. One of them looks back and spots me. I can only see her eyes, she looks at me and says: hey I don't see you at the gym now? I then realized that she is one of my gym companions, a familiar and friendly face from the sub continent. We make small talk and then go our own ways .
This is one curious thing I do here. I had a few friends at the driving school who I could recognize only by their voices. Only when they say, 'hey, how far have you progressed' I realize this is so and so. Two such acquaintances suddenly pulled up their veils -  it leaves me in a momentary shock, for their actual faces were different from what I had imagined.

The difference

Keeping wild animals at home seems a fad here, according to news reports. I'm yet to come across any though. For that matter, I haven't seen pet dogs either which are popular with the western expatriates - only read about abandoned dogs and other pets when their owners leave the country.
One thing I like is that there are no stray dogs here, only stray cats. So we have none of Kerala's dilemma about eliminating dogs. And none of that ubiquitous bird species - the crow. Occasionally pigeons and mynahs perch on our window sill. And little birds like sparrows looking for food on the wayside....

Driving Ms R

Looking back at the lighter moments....
When I joined for the driving course, V told me: 'There is a cafe selling snacks, eat something if you are hungry.' I discovered veg and chicken samosas, sandwiches, burgers etc at the ladies cafe run by a Pak lady. The samosas were good, and I packed a couple of them occasionally for the kids.  In fact, I think that became my main intention about going for the class.
And after each failed attempt at parking or on the road, I gave V a sheepish smile or pretended nothing had happened. All he would say was a modified version of the dialogue from the Malayalam film Yodha: 'Enthiye ente mwal thottu thunnam paadi vannittu?'
Despite the financial crunch, he never said anything and kept up hope I would make it the next time. Converting into Indian Rupees, it seemed a fortune. Or enough to buy a second hand car here. But of course, a car is not the same as the skill to drive it.
And then there were bus drivers who either sympathised or asked in wonder: Madam, havent you finished yet? When I told V that I was feeling embarassed, he suggested that I tell them that I had got a job at the institute.
However, I felt I would have to rent a flat in Qusais, the area I learnt to drive. Because I knew it like the back of my palm by the time I finished. The rest of Dubai-Sharjah is like a maze to me - all roads and areas look the same except for some major landmarks. Back in India, each house, each tree is a landmark and you could find your way comfortably.
Then there was old lady Farhat, who chastised me in Hindi/Urdu for making a blunder - like taking to the left of the road when she asked me to go left. The fact that one has to keep to the right of the road was something that I occasionally forgot. having spent four decades in a country where we kept to the left of the road. "For a moment I thought I was in India, ma'am', I said, looking for an excuse. "Forget about India, you are in Dubai now," she screamed in exasperation.
p.s. I am taking tentative steps at driving on my own (without the instructor and her brake) in V's car every Friday. It gives him a headache watching me drive and with impatient drivers honking behind!

Ladybird in the desert

Growing up, we always looked at Gulf kids with envy and scorn. For they had chocolates, trinkets and other stuff we in India had never seen. Which they rarely shared or gave. We fancied them but we had no close relative in ‘Persia’ to gift us any. So we scorned their dads doing blue-collar jobs in the desert for two or three years in a row and coming home to a grand reception. They sported gold chains and bracelets and used a smattering of English words in their conversations.

Whatever, it changed the face of my village. From a place with huts or small dreary shacks in the 70s, Chandanapally transformed into a beautiful village with two-storied bungalows by the beginning of the 80s. Gone were the shit on roadsides or off the beaten track in rubber plantations as people began building their own toilets. Our modest single-storied house built with meagre salaries earned in government jobs by my grandfather and father paled in comparison.

The scorn was such that when dad began looking out for a groom for me, Brother entreated that I dont choose a guy working in the Gelf. For he apparently headed the gang that made fun of the typical Malloo in the Gulf. I did not meet any Gulf suitor anyway.

However, here I am 16 years later living my life in the Gulf – in Dubai, the pearl of the Gulf. The prejudices have made way for admiration for the desert paradise and empathy for the expatriates working here – including many from Kerala, scraping a living. Many who struggle to give a life of comfort for their dear ones back home.

Here I have the comforts of Kerala minus its sore points – no hartals, no filthy public toilets etc. Instead, I see a mini Kerala – in the people around me, in the restaurants and the availability of all possible Malloo fare under strict quality control. The FM channels in Malayalam and Tamil make me feel more at home than I did in Chennai. The newspapers that cater predominantly to Indian readers.

The icing on the cake is that there are over 200 nationalities here, giving me immense possibilities to  meet people from countries that have so far been a spot in the map.

Lost and found?

Mira has a problem. She has a 'friend' who is troubling her in small little irritating ways. Her things go missing or is messed up. For instance, her footwear go missing from where she left at church or elsewhere and is found after searching high and low in some other corner of the premises. Her watch or her ear rings go missing _ I dont think the person's intention is to steal but just to misplace them where she can't locate them. Her brand new kajol is used to scribble on the floor or her marker pen to scribble on the door. The worst was an obscene message going from her phone (which they take when we are not with them so that they can reach us in an emergency)to her dear friend. Of course we have no proof to nail the culprit save for the fact that the said person is with them when it all happens.
Mere suspicion is not enough to take it up with the parents. It will also spoil relations as most parents think their children are special and can do no wrong. Parents will rather believe their own kid than outsiders.
I assume this is a behaviour problem -jealousy towards a peer (girls will trouble girls only), strict parenting which makes her do forbidden deeds outside her domain and at the same time the confidence that she can fib well enough to convince the disciplinarian at home.
But what do I do if I'm not in a position to minimise interaction with the person?

The licence odyssey

Yesterday was a momentous day in my life - when I ascended from the verge of despair to the zenith of relief. I had finally passed the road test and procured my UAE light motor vehicle automatic driving licence! For those of you living in the Indian subcontinent, this might not seem a big deal. Because getting a licence is not a big deal in India. I had one too though I have not driven on Indian roads after securing it nearly 18 years ago.
And I kept that information a secret when I joined an acclaimed institute in Dubai from where Vinod had got his licence a year earlier. I started with the 40 classes prescribed for a beginner, and not the 20/30 classes recommended for those with 3/5 years driving experience.
The initial days when I had to attend 8 theory classes were fun. I attended a few lectures - at prescribed intervals in English/ Arabic/ Hindi/ Urdu  - at the ladies section  and the rest at the general section. The male lecturers, all Pakistani and speaking chaste English, held more interactive and resourceful classes.
The free transport offered made my commute easy though it often consumed 3 hours daily - the rides to and fro plus the class. Passing the theory test was the first hurdle - the RTA had just introduced video clips on hazard perception apart from the general and specific questions on driving. "Unfortunately, you have failed your exam" was the RTA verdict. I had lost by 2 marks and I blamed the hazard videos that gave me 5 seconds to choose an answer. I poured over the RTA manual with renewed vigour eliciting the comment from V that I'd clear the Indian Civil Services if I studied this hard. A friend, who has been driving in the UAE for the past 17 years but who got her licence on the 5th attempt, told me about the RTA app to practise mock tests which her son had used recently. And thanks to that, I passed the Knowledge test after taking a break for my kids' anual exams.
Plus a break from practical training while my new Malloo instructor sojourned in Kerala. Wonder of wonders, she belonged to Chandanapally's neighbouring town. I had not expected this much when the course coordinator insisted that I take Ms. R because "all Malayalis went to her". From her, I learnt the basics of driving and parking interspersed with tales from her domestic life and that of some of her other students - not to mention the phone calls on her mobile on what's cooking at home  and from other parties.
She warned me that parking test was a big 'sambavam' (thing) but I felt its magnitude only when I actually sat in the driver's seat with a scowling RTA female examiner beside me. Parallel parking, she barked, and I almost made it fiddling with the steering wheel this way and that. The steering's working still eluded me in those days when I felt like an elephant asked to move left or right by the mahout. "How many times will you turn?" she snapped, and I banged the car on the pole in front. She glared at me and steered the car out for the next test before me - Emergency brake. At 30 km/hr speed and a very hard brake I managed to pass that (dont laugh - people fail even that for not getting the right speed or brake). I passed hill parking too thanks to her steering the car up the incline (my offer to do it myself made her angry all the more and I shrank back on the seat with my hands off the steering). I did not pass the 60 degree and 90 degree parking that day.
But looking back I felt there was a soft corner behind that hard exterior of hers. I passed that last of my parking with her by which time she had mellowed down and called me "my dear". In between I encountered two male examiners, one dashing and one morose, and another lady examiner - I became her bete noire thanks to my gaffes at the angle and garage parking tests.
Horror of horrors, she was the examiner at my first road test. I had gone to it confident and cocky after having passed the road assessment test by the institute on my second attempt. "You are driving at zero speed, what is the speed inside the  institute yard?" she bit out a question as I reversed the car out of the parking bay and began picking up speed. "20 km/hr," I answered vaguely. "Havent you seen the boards saying it is 30?" Like a character in a Malayalam movie famously said about a tree he crashed his car into, I had never seen one such board.
By then, I had switched trainers - from the talkative malloo to a glum Pakistani lady who reminded me of PT Usha as far as looks were concerned. She didnt take kindly to me and was moody and rude most times. But I clung on, knowing her worth as a trainer. She taught me the techniques of turns and braking, to hold the steering wheel like a flower and not as if I was clutching it for dear life, and gave me a tip for each manoeuvre. Untiringly, she ran a commentary on each move I was to make and it became ingrained in my system. And if she pulled out a pocket mirror to pluck the hair on her chin or cut her nails in the car while she taught, I ignored it - for unlike the cautious Malloo, here was a Green who was bold and knew her business.
And almost no personal talk except the day we went on the highway cruise -  mandatory 2 hours on the highway after passing assessment - when she divulged that her husband had lost his job and was back in Pakistan and that she was struggling here with two small daughters. That she suddenly clammed up half way through the ride and stopped the class 10 min before time baffled me - I assumed she was missing her husband or irritated by her hard life.
If I missed the licence by a whisker in my second attempt - hitting the kerb before parking the car in - it was not her fault. She didnt have to endure me any further either - though she vouched that my ddrving was good, just that the stiffness with the steering had to go - as she took a voluntary transfer to the men's section. Either she wanted some male company or  was tired of bumbling female students.
I took refuge in an old Pak lady who had difficulty walking to the car but was an authority inside. She made no small talk or mobile chats while on duty. But I felt a grandma's affection in her toothless smile ( just a few missing teeth, mind you) and occasional chastising. She corrected my mistakes but I failed to apply them on the D-day.
Then came my saviour in the form of a VIP trainer cum supervisor who concentrated on areas I fumbled - lane change, merging into main road from slip lane,  keeping to the centre of my lane and avoiding the yellow line. A Baroda Muslim, she was pleasant and efficient, and completed the missing elements in my learning process. I did not disappoint her.
And here I am, after a learning odyssey that helped me gain many friends and aquaintances and brought some meaning and order to my life here. It was as if I was working again, adjusting my chores around my schedule and getting the children to do things on their own (and a key to let themselves in).
Now, for the practical application of the skill...