The hunt for the black shoes

Two more days until Ishita starts Jr Kg. With this important milestones comes school stuff shopping. In India that means school uniform and school shoes shopping as well. And Ishita’s school asked us to come today to order the uniform which will be handed to us on the first day of school, the uniform in question is a very toddler friendly one very similar to the one Ishita got to wear twice a week in playschool and nursery: a skort and a t-shirt. Along with it the school will provide us with standard uniform black shoes in September, until then and for the duration of the monsoon, we are to send our kids in black Velcro sandals to school. Which is a good idea as the monsoon usually ruin shoes and keep socks and feet wet, making it a nightmare for the kids, the school and the parents.
The problem is that while the school will take orders and provide the uniform shoes in September, for the monsoon shoes we are on our own, the only specification being that the shoes should be simple and black.
I thought that black being such a usual common colour that would be a simple task. After a hunt spanned over two days I can tell you that there is nothing simple trying to find simple black sandals in toddler sizes.
I started my quest on Saturday, aiming at the local commercial streets in my area, visiting small shop after small shop, figuring that they would be the one to have what I was looking for, but most shops had official school shoes the typical girl Mary Jane shoes, the ones I will get from the school in September, and had Velcro sandals for adults and older kids but not in small sizes. The small sizes come in Barbie and Dora pink prints for the girls and in Spiderman and Ben 10 for the boys, with only black accents if they come in black at all for the boys. Upon my asking for black sandals the shop keepers helpfully suggested imitation crocs, and seriously I can’t believe the school is not considering these as monsoon shoes because I don’t think I saw a single shop in my area not selling crocs. After visiting about 6-7 shops that day and having a cranky little girl tagging along, we went back home, with the plan of heading to the mall where there is a Bata store on Monday. Bata is the ultimate place to find basic sturdy decently priced shoes in India, and interestingly enough there is no Bata in the main commercial streets in my area, but there is one at the nearest mall…oh the irony.
So here we were off to the mall today. Right after we went trying t-shirts and skort at the school to book the correct size of uniform and been told once again that Velcro sandals stands for plain good old Bata type ones. Arriving at the mall I zoomed all the way to Bata, just about happy to find them, grab a bite and go home and be done. Simple I thought, except that it turned out to be yet another fail. They had plain black Velcro sandals there of course…for adults and teenagers! None for small kids, these come only in pink for girls and green, blue or brown for boys, none even close to pass muster as simple not so black but still basic enough. From there a mad hunt started : Lifestyle, Westside, Shopper’s Stop, Max, Ginny & Jonny, Ruff, FBB (they have no shoes), Pantaloons (No shoes either), Mom & Me which had only one pair that wasn’t very simple looking but at least black and with no cartoons on it but in a size two numbers too small, Woodlands, Mochi, and even Big Bazaar, which usually sell that kind of cheap simple things, but had only neon colours crocs for toddlers. At this point we had been at it for an hour and Ishita was starting to whine so we headed for a quick lunch of idli and dosa before tackling the Croc brand store where they actually did come with a Velcro strap model, but in blue with a red strap! Gah! Passed in front of Clarks not wanting to even try because the idea of possibly finding something there and ending spending close to 2k for shoes she’ll wear 3 months was a repellent, gave Nike, Adidas, Puma and Reebok the same miss.
2 hours after entering the mall full of energy I was dragging my feet defeated while ironically one of these “ta-da-da” instrumental track you would picture as a score in an epic movie where the hero returns home on his valiant steed triumphant with his hair in the wind, or steps down his fighter plane being the sole survivor and saviour of humanity…Musical score probably destined to perk shoppers up and make them feel all powerful in search of the perfect item…Unless of course what you are looking for is the holy grail itself..err a very simple boring basic pair of black sandals for a toddler. So the music kept on going ta-da-da, Ishita kept saying “let’s go home” and I kept thinking “Bloody school uniform rules”. And just because I had to find them or else send her in red and white Velcro straps we already had at home I decided to go back to the market area near my place, this time focusing on the shops that were or closed or missed the previous trip.
The first shop we tried today was closed on Saturday when I visited, they had them, all in sizes too small for her…but at least I finally saw that no I was not asking for the impossible and that yes toddler shoes in plain black do actually and truly exist, at this point with over 20 stores visited this was the glimmer of hope I needed to keep me going. I figured out that if one store had them in tiny size, there must be another I missed the other day that must have them too. that’s how I decided to give a try to a shop that was selling, prams, baby walker, diapers and children toys a try, but only after I saw that they had 3 pair of colourful fake crocs in the shopping window. At this point you think that any shop that display footwear even if it is just crocs might be worth investigating.
And that’s were the miracle of miracle happened! They had ONE yes ONE pair in Ishita’s size!!!! One pair of simple, sturdy, practical, basic plain black Velcro sandals, with no embellishment, prints or cartoons.

I never thought in my life that something that simple looking would end up being such an ordeal to find. Back home kids are not even allowed to wear shoes in the classroom until grade 6, parents are told to buy a pair of soft soled indoor slippers of their choice which will kept on the shoe rack outside the classroom by the coat hanger and in which the kids will have to change into upon arriving to school, the idea behind the move being to not drag dirt in the classroom the kids will stay into for 6 hours of their day. And while I remember my mom hating taking us school slippers shopping because it would end up with us hating most of them, at least she wasn’t limited to one style and one colour and could if my sister and I ended up being too picky just pick one pair in any colour and just tell us that bargaining for styles and colours was efficiently over, and we were usually done with the ordeal in one or two stores max…not over 20 to find the one style and colour imposed by the school itself.

Big school here we come

While quite a few schools have re-opened this week for the 2013-14 academic year, Ishita’s one is one of the few that will start next week. We had the orientation session yesterday, where they gave us a temporary set of ID cards to fill with pictures and details until they issue the permanent ones, got told about the school rules, the date at which the uniforms are to be picked up, how the first few days will go, and given a run through on the curriculum to refresh our memories about what made us all go for that particular school and curriculum.

That part gave me warm fuzzies, because as I already mentioned I picked up the school she is going to based on how well it would suit’s Ishita’s learning style instead of going by the whole brand name brag factor some parents like to go to around here. More clearly put, DH and I are less than impressed with schools that brag about teaching kids how to write at age 4 and the level of 95 percenters they bred. We both know that it all comes at a personal cost, a young child not cut for the academic pressure will suffer a great deal, and in general academic “excellency” comes at the expense of something else in the development of a child. While most schools are aiming at a more rounded curriculum these days, we really wanted one that is as child friendly and as uncompetitive as possible, we want our daughter to grow up to be a grounded, balanced human being, not a performing monkey able to spit out complicated math formulas on demand. And I think our multicultural family set up is showing there, I grew up in a school system that put emphasis on problem solving, thinking out of the box and that pretty much went by the principle of the famous Latin quote: “Mens sana in corpore sano” (a healthy mind in a healthy body). meaning that Physical Education is as important as what you learn in books, and back home PE is graded, a bad enough mark in gym class can fail a student and cause them to repeat a year. Though of course to flunk gym usually means you have been behaving badly in that class with your attitude rather than performance, kids are not expected to be sports achiever, their overall attitude and willingness to help the teacher set up and store away the equipment and general spirit in the class are graded to and a good spirit can salvage a craptastic performance at a sport discipline.
DH grew up in the Indian traditional rote learning system, in which he fared average, having difficulties focusing on studies. As a result he is one not very impressed with it, and recognizing its flaws, and admits that not much of what he learned in school really prepared him for real life. A thing we both don’t want for Ishita.
But I have been there writing about it already so I will stop there. The orientation session reminded us about the things we loved about the curriculum we chose: no forced writing session and rote ABC learning in Jr Kg, more emphasis on communication skills, personality development, art centric activities, music, dance, PE, kinetic learning, refining motor skills and deduction learning. they also reminded parents that competition had no place in the school, all kids are equals, learn differently but are equals, that just because one kid is better verbally than another doesn’t make one superior. They also are interested in seeing their parents involved in their kids life and and told us that we should all pay attention to what is learned in school as several themes will be touched during the year and they highly welcome parents volunteering to come to school to teach the kids about the skills they have, or the cultural activities their families observe and share it with all the kids in the class.
All in all that whole orientation session not only made me feel even more certain I made the right choice, but that I was right to go ahead and admit her in that school without waiting if any of the other “big brand” schools in the area would even admit Ishita.
Now we are in the final few days before D-day, off with a list of things to do: take passport photographs, buy a rain coat as no umbrellas are allowed, pick up the uniforms, ask about what they mean by “black velcro sandals” for the monsoon in the process, and start getting this whole gig on the road. I opted not to put her on the school bus and will go by Auto daily to drop her and pick her up, because I personally feel she is not yet ready to sit quietly in a big bus and could not live with myself if she got harmed in a sudden harsh breaking from the driver, especially when I am a SAHM and consider it my job to do this drop off and pick up thing. My only concern at the moment being that the Auto driver union is threatening to go on strike when the school starts, and of course the monsoon which makes driver reluctant to take you anywhere while it rains, but I am sure we will figure out in such event.

Mumbai Monsoon proof gear

India is a fairly dry country about 9 months a year, with many areas where it will barely rain at all outside the monsoon season. Heck about 80% of all rain falls in India happens during the monsoon. And when it rains, it pours…at least in Mumbai.
When I was living in Bangalore we used to get rain during the monsoon, but not in such a huge torrential amount as Mumbai gets. If a rain spell stroke us, we would retreat to the nearest mall or cafe and wait for the rain storm to pass, it could take around an hour or so at the most until it became walkable outside. So needless to say that for quite some time we never even really invested in umbrellas while living in the garden city. you don’t see people carrying them around at all time during the rainy season either, and they aren’t sold at every single corner store the way they are in Mumbai. Not that people don’t use umbrellas down there, it’s just that they are far less a necessity over there than they are here in Mumbai. I think we ended up buying one for each of us in 2007 but probably only used a handful of time. We started putting them to intensive use when we moved to Navi Mumbai in 2010, at which point I swear they started copulating in the storage room and bred a flock of umbrellas judging by how many we packed and unpacked when we moved back to B’lore in 2011. I think one of DH’s colleague forgot one he never picked, we won another one as a freebie somewhere…when we shifted back to Mumbai in August 2011 we killed a few of these umbrellas, in 2012 DH invested in a big wide cane like umbrella for himself, we bought Ishita one, and I finished killing the remaining old ones.

So much so that this year I had to go umbrella shopping because the only survivor left was a white tiny umbrella I remember buying in Switzerland in 2008 after I landed in my homeland realising that I never packed my umbrella in Bangalore, having completely forgotten that in Switzerland the weather is far less predictable than in my new home. I remember finding myself stupidly stranded in the train station in Geneva because of a downpour, and went doing what any forgetful genevan does: head to the nearest store to buy one of these small foldable ones that cost barely 10 bucks  and will come to your rescue once, or twice before breaking down.
Turns out that this white one was more durable that I thought, it is after all still intact in 2013, but then it was the smallest of the stock of umbrellas we had, it would have come in handy in Bangalore, in Mumbai it barely covers your head enough, and I got drenched using it last Sunday, vowing to bid it goodbye (or sending it to the emergency brolly stock). I ended up coming back with this one :

The big purple one on the right, I planned to take it beside my old Swiss plain white one, but Ishita insisted we take her pink one in the picture too. Notice how hers is totalled, and it’s not even from using it that much in the rain, but from playing with it so much with it inside! This year her school announced there will be no umbrellas allowed in school, only rain coat, so I didn’t buy a new one for her, she can continue totalling hers this monsoon during the weekends. I am hoping my own brand new purple one will last the season considering that it is all plastic, but seriously considering the abuse these things go through in this weather I didn’t really feel like spending a massive fortune on one, I just knew I wanted something bigger and do without the foldable feature because frankly as handy as it comes to store a dry umbrella in your purse, they tend to break faster. Not to mention that in Mumbai they don’t spend a lot of time being dry in the first place, minimising their stay in a purse greatly.
But they are still very popular in stores. As I said all stores and supermarkets end up selling them during the monsoon. because that is one of these seasonal accessories you can’t live without. I never even knew there was that much choice in the brolly department…EVER In Switzerland despite having rain year round, umbrellas are more conservative: black, white, solid standard colours, and a rare floral print here and there. If you ask me they are as dull as the weather is most of the year in my homeland. In Mumbai you have several sizes, rainbow coloured ones, tiny ones, foldable ones, kiddie ones that have popping eyes and wings (as in Ishi’s butterfly one), they come mostly in colours and prints in most stores, you even have some “double umbrellas” which I have seen once in Navi Mumbai. It appeared to me that umbrellas around here are to be fun compared to back home. The monsoon is dearly awaited as the Summer months drag and get hotter and more humid, and it is starting to feel like people continue celebrating the rain with colourful umbrellas, despite the monsoon becoming a bit of a pain a few weeks into it. Then of course there are those like DH who need to have one that look “smart” to go to office because, well you know you can’t be a senior employee in a company and have all the juniors taking you seriously if you walk in with cartoon printed one. But for all the others that don’t have to look serious, there is no limits. The brighter the better, which considering how dark it gets during a downpour might not be a bad idea, easier to spot a pedestrian carrying a rainbow umbrella than one carrying a black one while you are driving.

Cooler days…happy me

The monsoon hit this weekend! It finally did hit! At first I thought it hit on Friday night when we suddenly had a big storm, torrential rains and the usual blast of cold air that comes with it, but the next morning the paper informed us it was just a pre-monsoon shower, though at this point I am not totally convinced they were right. Saturday was a humid, but cooler and clear day, but we woke up on Sunday morning to a much different weather. It was pouring down cats and dogs and it never really stopped since then.
We had moments of drizzles alternating with violent downpours, and a cold breeze flowing through the flat. It became actually cold enough for me to need my sweat pants….oh dear I missed them so! And I greeted them like you greet an old friend.

As I type this, it is still raining, about a day and a half later, I have drank a significant amount of herbal tea and regular tea because…well…being the tea lady that I am, I tend to see Summer as punishment forcing me to cut down on hot beverages. I am in sweat pant pair number two, having soaked the bottom of the first one yesterday afternoon when I told DH it was a weather to go eat chaats, I let them dry the rest of the day but this morning had to go walk my dog and that had them win a trip to the laundry hamper.
The monsoon has that effect on me that it has on a vast majority of people: it revives me, from a half dead creature I go to a fully functional one in a matter of hours. My eyes at the moment can’t really get tired of seeing the rain fall (I know the feeling will wane soon enough, but for now, rain is the most marvellous sight in the world). I started feeling like cooking and baking again, my creativity is back too and Ishita found a pompom caterpillar project in one of our books. And while she lost patience after half a third of a tenth of a millionth in her first pompom, I made them all happily, feeling a bit like my mom when she would suddenly go back to knitting in the Fall. And here is the result:

Ishita’s school will open on the 19th, so I will need a few projects to keep her busy at home since right now the playground is pretty much turned into a pond, and her school reopens on the 19th of this month. And while I am not sure she is too crazy about not being able to go to the park to play with her friends, she is enjoying the cooler climate as much as I am, exited to go wear her long sleeved t-shirts again.
The only one not too happy about the climate change is my dog, who is at the moment sulking away in a bedroom and refused to go potty in the street this morning and chose to embarrass me by doing it after her walk in the lobby of our building while we were waiting for the lift and having me run upstairs to go grab a plastic bag and race back down to get it cleaned as quickly as possible.

Mystery solved

A few weeks ago I was writing about some weird water seepage problem in my living room and my trying hard to track the source of the leak in vain.

Well since that post, the wall started growing more crystals, a second wet patch appeared on the bottom of the wall, the ceiling on the balcony started dripping filling about 3 glasses of water in 24 hours, green fungus appeared in some of the wet spot, and 2 weeks ago it was totally unexplained wet patches right smack in the middle of my living room’s ceiling that made their debut, a few days of observing them made me think that my first thought of the whole issue being related to the use of an AC came back to the top of my mind because said wet patches would start spreading in the evening and disappear during the morning to only re-appear the next evening.
To summarize the saga, DH did go to our upstairs neighbours when the whole problem started to be told that they hardly ever used the AC and that we should just bear with the water seepage since the building is plagued with these in the bathroom…never mind that our leak is in a wall that has no pipes in the living room. Since DH found no evidence of any leak upstairs he asked the society manager to do his bit and check things, which he whined about saying that he was fed up hearing the same story about all the residents. At this point we of course resigned ourselves to the fact our living room wall would look like a science experiment, but wanted to make sure that our landlord at least was kept in the loop and sent pictures of the damage to him, with him replying he would escalate it with the society manager. Weeks passed, and the ceiling blotches appeared, which I documented again in pictures, and today I got a visit from the society manager and the plumber to check the extent of the damage. They both agreed that it had to come from upstairs so they asked me to accompany them to the flat above mine. I had a odd vibe that it would not go to well, so I stayed behind them letting them take the blow, and I was right, an old auntie barked in their face to please come the next morning as she didn’t want us in, the manager fortunately seemed used to that kind of resistance and informed her that he was just investigating a leak issue and wanted to check if they were having signs of seepage in their living room in an effort to properly trace the source of the leak, it seemed to have worked, they inspected the kitchen and living room in peace, until the younger lady, probably the daughter or daughter in law of the auntie in question started lecturing me aggressively on how it was a perpetual issue in the building and to stop bothering about it and not disturb them…at this point I had been staying silently in the background, wishing I was not there while the two men carried their inspection and asked to have access to the “flower bed” outside the balcony to check their split AC connection as they seemed to have found something suspicious with it, at first the lady tried to refuse to give them the key that shuts their window, but gave up quickly.
By then I had time to have a very good look at the flat: completely redone, clad in expensive marble, plaster of Paris moulding everywhere to make it look like a palace, balcony taken inside the flat, new non standard sliding windows…and ta-da the infamous split AC unit that they swore to DH’s face was never used on at full blast in a living room nobody was using until we arrived. The plumber came back inside informing the auntie that their split AC had no condensation draining pipe peaking outside the external wall as it should. She dismissed it saying that it could not be an AC damaging the walls and asked them to leave and do their job fixing the rooftop, they insisted she bring it up with her son, and she agreed, though seriously it sounded like a fake agreement to me. Now while I do not doubt the roof might need a check up, the building has 7 floors, and I live on the 3rd, and I am the only one with any water seepage in the living room in that row, a seepage so bad that water drips in a bucket in such substantial amount I can empty it daily, something that if the damage was on the roof would have affected all the other residents but has affected only me.
seeing that the lady was going to bite the manager and the plumber left with me and offered to give me a better explanation out of earshot from the bullies in my own flat.
So it seems that when my lovely upstairs neighbour installed their split AC they didn’t install a draining pipe to carry the typical condensation water out, while all people usually have a green pipe following the power line to carry such water in the storm water drain, theirs have no sign of it even existing, meaning that their AC has been draining water directly in the wall against which the unit is fixed to the point of soaking the whole wall wet and finding it’s way through the concrete natural cracks all the way to my place where the water found an escape considering I am the proud owner of typical rental flat cheap painted flats that let moisture seep out, while they clad theirs in mouldings, and vinyl paint.
At this point the society manager told me that as a tenant I don’t have much weight against them so he advised me to bring the result of the investigation with my landlord so he could in turn lodge a formal complaint with the cooperative and that we will have to see where it goes from there.
Frankly I have no hope at all of the problem getting solved, the neighbours are in aggressive denial mode, and unless someone forces their way in and break their wall and force them to install their AC properly, my flat will continue dripping away during the hot season as it seems they need the AC in there almost 24/7 even on a day like today which was a cool one as the monsoon seems to have arrived.
I took recent pictures today, and we sent them to the landlord along with the update on the situation, at least we are documenting the issue and saving our asses on the security deposit front, since now we all know who is responsible for the damage in our living room.
So the Mystery of the leak is indeed solved, the resolution of the issue is still pending, and probably will pend for a very long time judging the attitude of the neighbours in question.

Our second Summer in Mumbai

Two days ago we apparently had a drizzle in the wee hours of the morning, I woke up at 6am to a damp earth smell and wet trees, but missed the rain spell sighting, so I can’t really say I SAW the first rain just yet.
The wind is blowing more steadily, clouds passages are more frequent, and people are starting to look a bit more lively during the day.
I started walking again last week, even though I still wet a t-shirt in 5 minutes outdoor, and it seems I was not the only one to brave the park at 10am. A few people are venturing out again, a sure sign that something is changing in the air.
Ishita had her last day of Summer camp yesterday, so I moved my walk at 7am this morning with DH spending time with her while I did so. But with Ishita not being in school came the dilemma of keeping her busy long enough in the morning, so by the time I was back from my walk, DH’s tiffin was packed and I got my well deserved shower I had to come with a plan. So by 10.30 we were back out to the park.
Sadly there was no one there, which is not surprising really, adults may start venturing out again, but kiddos are usually tucked away in front of TV at this time. Not that the park in question was even critically too hot then, there was still plenty of shade and a lovely breeze to keep us fresh. Ishita could not really comprehend why the park she loves to go to in the evening to meet with her friends was so deserted, so in the end she settled for lying down across my lap on one of the big garden swings, and we lazed around in the the shade while the breeze kept us cool.
And there I was thinking that we once again reached that point where we are about to fall in the Monsoon season. And for the second year in a row we did spend the whole Summer in Mumbai, and we survived it. I managed to keep Ishita busy enough, and to not completely loose my sanity. We kept the TV to a minimum too, which I am happy to have achieved as well. When I picked her up in school yesterday I realised it was the last time I would walk her down to our old apartment complex, as in two weeks she starts Jr Kg in a new school.

As far as the climate is concerned, i am not sure which one of these two Summer was hotter. Last year our old flat was East facing with huge bay windows which pretty much turned the flat in an oven before noon, with no breeze coming in since it was facing no other direction. That said i don’t remember soaking clothes the way I did this year, but then again I didn’t have to go out in the sun at noon the way I had to this year.
Our current flat is essentially North facing, with the Sun coming at an angle on our balcony in the morning, and our bedrooms facing North/West which allows some of the evening breeze to flush the stuffy air out, but we still needed the AC at nap time, and are still waiting for the days we can do without at night again.
Like last year this Summer has managed to numb me completely and all I can now hope is that this year’s Monsoon will strike on time and offer a bit more rain and relief than it did last year.

For now my eyes are still glued to the sky, waiting for signs of that elusive first rainin which I really need my eyes to soak drop by drop in order to really believe that Summer is truly over.

End of Summer sight

Last year I was writing about how I never really cared as much about mangoes as I do about peaches, and they are back now, but that is not the only fruit I am looking forward to at this time of the year, the other one is this one :

When I posted the picture on my personal FB page a couple of my US based friends were wondering what they were, so I’ll say it here as well. These are lychees, fresh ones, and I don’t blame anybody not living in a part of the world where they are cultivated because it is rare to get them fresh in these areas. Most of my friends knew them as peeled and canned, the way I did growing up in Switzerland, where I have in all my life seen them in their rind only once.
In India I had no idea they were even cultivated until 2006 because no local fruit vendors would have them for sale in Bangalore before that. In the past few years they have been a very common sight in supermarkets in Bangalore, and are on every fruit vendors stalls in my neighbourhood in Mumbai. To me their rosy plump shell and green leaves just come to soothe my eyes and spirit after nearly 2 months of climbing heat and humidity, promising fresher days. They come in season May end until June end and then they pretty much disappear from the stalls until the next Summer. Their appearance come just before the monsoon, giving people something sweet and fresh to eat and keep them patient until the first downpour.
The fresh fruit has all the sweetness of the canned one I knew of back home, but has something extra to the taste that canning kills: a floral almost woodsy note, and an incomparable juiciness.
Ishita and I are both big lychee fans and a bunch bought from the local vendor is usually gone in a day, or two at the most.

Their arrival this year is as usually coming like a beacon of hope to me, the heat and humidity this year has been unbearable, and I just can’t wait for a good heavy rain to cool us all down. The clouds have been teasing us passing over our head, accuweather has been mean forecasting thunderstorm that never graced us this week. Needless to say that my blog hasn’t been on top of my priority list recently, beside you can’t peel and eat lychees and type at the same time, that would make the laptop seriously sticky.