Takshashila Gurukulam

I have been terrible at updating this blog lately. Work has been crazy busy – this is our high season and we have had 1000+ visa applicants every day for a couple of months now. But it’s also transfer season and many of our colleagues are leaving and new ones are coming on board. I am now one of the seasoned officers (Ha!) and thus doing a lot of training. We also have tons of projects in addition to our regular consular workload, which means that one or both of us have to work late quite often. May and most of June were depressingly hot (read 110+ F/43+ C) so we spent them either cooped up in the house, at the pool or at air-conditioned spaces, which are not all that exciting. But the monsoon season started a couple of days ago and the temperature plunged down to 90s F/30s C, which is a lot more livable though now we have the mosquitoes and the Dengue they bring to worry about. But such is life in India…

This post is actually an update to the one about Nia’s Ninth Birthday, at which we collected donations in lieu of gifts for the birthday girl. The idea was for Paul and I to match the amount Nia collected in donations from her friends and then give the amount to girls in need. We had heard of a girls’ school 4 hours away in Uttar Pradesh but our plans changed a little when we realized that our friend Melanie was working with a different co-ed school in Uttar Pradesh called Takshashila Gurukulam and could put our donation to good use. Melanie was getting ready to leave India and was trying to finish a project she had started at the school – creating a multi-purpose room where the children could eat their breakfast and lunch but also where they could have art and music class and use it for various other purposes. She had started a mural in the room but did not have the money to finish the mural or purchase chairs and tables for the room. Our donation (about $400 in cash as well as clothes, books, toys and a small computer) would help her finish the project. 

We decided that we wanted to visit the school and meet the kids. So one Saturday, we loaded up our in-kind donations in the car and off we went. An hour and a half later we arrived at a couple of mostly-finished buildings.

The school is Dadri, Uttar Pradesh. It has two campuses – one for primary school students (nursery through grade 5), which also includes common areas and a dorm (pictured above) and the other for secondary school students (below).

The school is surrounded by fields in which many of the students work to help their families put food on their tables. We were told that a bunch of wild peacocks live in the fields around the school too, though we didn’t see any while we wee there.

Canadian Fellow, Abbey Marsden, who is teaching at the school, gave us a tour of the school. Our tour started with the dorms. The school is not a boarding school and many of the kids live with their families and commute to school but it does provide some space where underprivileged kids can board. Here are a couple of pictures of one of the dorm rooms, which was in the middle of renovations.

It was very modest and brought tears to my eyes. Another Fellow, Tariq Haq from U.S., who also teaches at the school, was helping brighten up the place by painting a mural of the solar system.

Next, we visited a 5th grade class, who were in the middle of a test but paused long enough to recite a couple of Karadi rhymes for us.

The teachers use these rhymes to teach the children English. I found one of the rhymes, called “I am just like you,” particularly moving. It teaches the children about various parts of India and their respective local languages but also introduces them to the ideas of diversity and tolerance. I wish I had known they were going to recite because I would have loved to take a video of them performing as it was quite charming but their impromptu performance caught me unprepared. I do want to share the rhyme with you though because I think it’s beautiful, so here’s an animated version:

Just like you

We visited every classroom and said hello to all the kids including the littlest ones, some of which were as young as 3. They were all excited to see us and though they were a little shy, most of them were happy to sing a song, tell us a little bit about themselves or ask us questions about where we were from.

In one of the secondary school classrooms the kids were working together on a letter to the editor of  India Times about violence against women. If that’s not inspiring, I don’t know what is! It makes me excited about these kids’ future and so glad we decided to make a donation to the school.

We also visited the school’s library, which was beautifully decorated with a jungle mural.

Last but not least, we visited the canteen/multi-purpose room where our donation would go for purchasing of tables and chairs and finishing the lovely mural which looks like an illustration of the “I am just like you” rhyme mentioned above.

I will leave you with a couple more pictures – one of the children playing Kho Kho (a traditional Indian game) during recess ...

… and one of Nia at the entrance to the school.

Hyderabad

I had to go to Hyderabad for work for two weeks in March. The kids stayed with Paul in Delhi but the three of them came to visit me on my first weekend there and we did some sightseeing. I didn’t know what to expect of Hyderabad but was pleasantly surprised. It is in South India and is the capital of Andhra Pradesh (an Indian state). It is substantially smaller than Delhi, which has about 22 million inhabitants. But it’s  not exactly small because it has 8.5 million inhabitants, which makes it India’s 4th most populous city. It also has about a million more people the whole country of Bulgaria (where I was born).  It’s all a matter of perspective, I guess.

The city has a rich and interesting history and was the seat of several very wealthy dynasties. I had read White Mughals by William Dalrymple and was really intrigued by Hyderabad. The book is about the British Raj in Hyderabad and the relationship of the Hyderabadi Nizams (Rulers) with the British. It’s a sad book but I found it quite interesting and couldn’t wait to explore the city.  But Hyderabad is not all about history and the past. As a matter of fact it is a large IT hub where many of the world’s largest IT and consulting companies have offices, hence its nickname Cyberabad. The employees of those companies are a large part of our visa applicant pool as they travel to the US quite often for client meetings, conferences, trainings, work (H1B visas) or tourism, so we see many of them each day.

Hyderabad is also famous for Char Minar, Golkonda, diamonds, pearls, lacquer bracelets and its biryanis (rice dishes). We saw most of those things, bought some bracelets and ate biryanis.

First, we went to the old city and saw Char Minar (four minarets) and Mecca Masjid. They are located in a bustling area with a lot of historic buildings and markets. As interesting as it was, however, we didn’t spend a lot of time there because both kids wanted to wander (chasing goats, pigeons and whatnot) and the area was very crowded – not ideal for a casual stroll with kids.

That was not enough time in the old town for me, so I went back there after Paul and the kids left for Delhi and did some more sight seeing and bracelet shopping. There is a whole street it the Char Minar area dedicated to bracelets and jewelry – it was pretty overwhelming. I am not much of a bracelet person but Hyderabadi bracelets are pretty awesome. They are said to be made of lacquer, though I am not quite sure what that is, and they have small colored pieces of glass embedded in the lacquer in really neat designs. Most Indian women buy them in sets that go almost all the way to the elbow, which is a bit over the top for me but you can buy individual bracelets too if you like, which is what I did. I bought a few for me and a few as gifts, which turned out to be entirely not enough because Max broke some of them. I clearly need to go back for more. Here are a couple of pictures of bracelet stores and a picture of some men eating a fruit/vegetable I’d never seen before on bracelet street.

 

But I digress - back to the story. After old town, we went to Golkonda, an expansive fort about 10 km outside Hyderabad, which had been the capital of an old kingdom (c.1518–1687). It had also been one of the first diamond mine and markets in the world and is the source of some of the most famous diamonds in the world, including the Hope Diamond (a deep blue diamond, currently in the Smithsonian in the US),  the Koh-i-Noor Diamond (Mountain of Light - currently in the Queen of England’s crown) and the Darya-i-Noor Diamond (Sea of Light - the largest pink diamond in the world, currently in Iran’s Treasury of National Jewels). The fort is quite large and mostly in ruins but you could see that it had been really impressive in its day.

Some of us may have been quite exhausted by this point and may have zonked off on a chair in a café.

From there, we headed for Falaknuma Palace, formerly one of the palaces of Nizams (the local rulers) but currently a luxury hotel. It was designed by an English architect in a blend of Italian and Tudor styles. It had a very European look and feel. In it is what is considered to be the world’s largest dining table with 101 seats as well as one of the largest collections of Venetian chandeliers, a unique Jade collection and a huge organ,  among many other interesting  and fancy things. 

Falaknuma was private property of the Nizam family until 2000, when it was bought by Taj Hotels. After 10 years of renovations and restoration, it “opened to the public” in 2010. It is not really open to the public because you can’t just waltz in there unless you have a reservation at the hotel or one of the restaurants, all of which are quite spendy. Several of my colleagues at the consulate in Hyderabad recommended going to Falaknuma, s0 it was high on my list but I was also told that you can’t get in unless you have a reservation. So I called and tried to make a reservation at the Indian restaurant on the property because I had heard that it was excellent, albeit pricey. The woman on the phone told me that children under 10 were not allowed in the restaurant. I wasn’t going to leave my children behind, so I said that I would have to cancel. The woman suggested we come for tea instead and so we did – we had High tea and Nizami tea at Falaknuma, which was plenty of food and drink but a lot less money than a full dinner and we got to enjoy the luxury of the palace, which was pretty neat.

During the trip to Hyderabad, I also got to meet in person and hang out with fellow blogger Stephanie from Where In The World Am I and her lovely family. I have been following her blog from the day we found out we were coming to India. She was the only Foreign Service person blogging from India at the time, so I spent a lot of time reading her posts and looking at pictures trying to imagine what our lives might look like. I mentioned to Stephanie that I wanted to try authentic Biryani and she took me to a small restaurant called Bahar, which was very simple and unpretentious but their Biryanis were delish. We had vegetable and chicken Biryanis and they were both yum – Thanks, Stephanie!

I will leave you with a picture of the throne room at Chowmahalla, a palace complex located in the old city, which is where the Nizams and their families used to live.

Happy Easter

We celebrated Easter on two separate days, hence the different hairstyles Max is sporting. The first picture is from the Embassy Easter Party and the rest are from our own egg hunt and egg fight.

So if you celebrate it, Happy Easter to you and yours!!!

Mumbai Part II

More pictures from Mumbai – come join us on a small tour.

At the Gateway of India (not to be confused with India Gate, which is in Delhi)

Boats at The Gateway of India

The Taj Palace Hotel - we did not stay there – it’s very fancy and expensive!

Ornately inlaid flooring at the lobby of the Taj Palace Hotel

Downtown South Mumbai – the car in the foreground is an Ambassador, still widely used as a cab, government and private vehicle.

A beautifully decorated Parsee (Zoroastrian) residential building

A young tightrope walker – she was tiny, maybe 4 years old and was already earning a living by entertaining crowds in South Mumbai, while her mom accompanied her on the drum. We didn’t finish our lunch, so we shared some chicken biryani with them, which they welcomed.

The Antilia (this is actually just part of it – couldn’t get the whole building), allegedly the most expensive home in the world. It belongs to Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, one of the largest Indian companies. It is 27 stories high and is maintained by a full-time staff of 600 people.

Drying fish and shrimp on the beach at Juhu – the smell was overpowering.

A couple of beautiful churches in Bandra, a suburb of Mumbai

If I were to live in Mumbai, I’d live in this building in Bandra, which is next door to Shah Rukh Khan’s house…

… and this would be my view.

Beautiful, no – I love that rocky beach. There is a Bollywood walk of fame there, where the biggest Bollywood stars have left their hand prints.

Next on our list was a visit to a sound studio where we saw how sound is mixed and sound effects, voices and music added to movies and commercials. We also got to play voice talents and had a chance to record our voices over some real stars’ in a TV commercial.

Max didn’t care about the whole voice recording business but he loves fish and the aquarium in the studio scored major points with him. 

Our last stop was S.J. Studios, a Bollywood studio where we saw several sets – an office, a jail, a police commissioner’s office and a hospital.

We got to watch the filming of a soap opera episode in the hospital and then saw one of the stars outside, who was gracious enough to take a picture with us. We didn’t get the name of the soap opera but our guide said that the actor’s name is Arjun.

Then the kids got to run around and goof off at the police station, jail and commissioner’s office:

Locked up abroad

Making an entrance

Daddy’s the head of the Maharashtra Police

Our fun-filled adventure ended on a high note at an Asian buffet, where we ate too much and got chased by Chinese dragons.