I know it’s been weeks since I’ve posted to this blog! I promise more updates are forthcoming (on Holi and our getaway to Mumbai), but in the mean time, here are some random things to fill in the gap.

Ellie’s India Travel Dictionary

As we’ve previously mentioned here, Elliotte seems to be going through an incredible learning phase where her vocabulary and imagination are exploding! We especially love all the India-specific words she’s picked up, words she never would have known had we never come here. We’ve thought about compiling “Ellie’s India Travel Dictionary” with all the vocabulary one needs to know to travel in this country, at least according to our two year old. Here is a sample:

“Rickshaw”:The best form of transportation, because there are no car seats.
“Aloo”: A better word for “potato”.
“Dip Bread”: Any kind of messy, delicious gravy based dish you eat with naan, paratha, or roti.
“Ganesha”: The friendly-looking elephant in the hotel lobby and the star of your current favorite book.
“Gandhi”: The guy on all Indian currency whose most remarkable characteristic is that he has no hair.

Escaping the heat in Bollywood

On a particularly hot day last week, we took Ellie to see her first Bollywood Movie (actually her first movie of any origin): a romantic comedy called Hasee Toh Phasee. It was all in Hindi and there were no subtitles, but the plot was simple enough to get the gist. Of course, the reason we were really there was for the music, singing and dancing, no translation needed. I mean, that’s everything in Bollywood right?

Here is one of the musical numbers from the movie. Of course I have no idea what most of the lyrics are, but I’ve had them stuck in my head for a week now:

A quick update on our living situation

I mentioned before that we were considering moving out of the hotel and into an apartment. And we did! For two whole days we lived in a real apartment complex that was a 5-minute walk from Greg’s work, close to restaurants and shopping and right next to a nice park we love. However, now that we are older and have a young child, we realize there are things that are non-negotiable for us whether we are living at home or abroad. We need safe, clean living areas (no bugs! no chemicals!), reliable electricity, Internet to stay connected to work and family, and access to people who speak at least a bit of English. Although the management and staff of this apartment were eager to make us comfortable, we just couldn’t imagine staying there for four months. So, we are back in international hotel land! However, we have hired a car and driver to take Greg to and from work and Ellie and me wherever we need to go everyday (safely). Having a driver wait to chauffeur us around all day long is totally weird and will take some getting used to, but hopefully we will feel less isolated.

Next on my list is to hire someone to teach me Marathi – at least the basics – and maybe a little Hindi. In Korea, our lives became so much easier when we learned to read Hangul. Of course, a lot of English is spoken here. It seems that upper-middle class people tend to speak English almost exclusively to each other when out and about, especially in Mumbai. Even in Bollywood movies, which are all in Hindi for a Hindi speaking audience, characters will conduct entire dialogues in English, particularly if the dialogue concerns issues of business or science. People here are just amazingly adept at code switching, but I guess that’s a skill one comes by naturally if you are tri- or quatri-lingual.

And just for fun…one linguistic cue I might never fully master: the Indian ‘head bobble’. “Yes? No? What?!”: