Jason flew back to Toronto on Tuesday for ten days to attend CIBC's annual executive conference, leaving Jack and me to hold down the fort in Hyderabad. He has a shopping list that includes Costco vitamins and DEET bug repellent, neither of which we've had much luck finding here. The list seems to be growing by the day, so we'll see how much room he has left for his own clothes.
Meanwhile, Jason has been thoroughly enjoying being back in Toronto. The fresh air, crisp blue skies, beautiful fall colours and, perhaps most of all, the sidewalks. He's been sending me enthusiastic reports about being able to walk around without constantly looking at his feet. In Hyderabad, even when there is a sidewalk, there's no guarantee it will continue uninterrupted. Sometimes you'll encounter a huge open channel across it, possibly intended for a culvert that was never installed. The local solution is to lay an old wooden door across the gap and carry on. On my walk to the Botanical Gardens for yoga, I've been crossing one of these makeshift bridges for months. This week, someone added a second old door alongside the first. We now have a two-lane bridge! I'm not sure whether this counts as infrastructure investment, but it certainly feels like progress. Jason, meanwhile, is enjoying Toronto's rather extravagant approach of providing continuous pavement.
I had a chance to escape the city myself this week, heading out to the Anantagiri Hills with two friends, one Australian and one Japanese. My Japanese friend, the same adventurous woman who was interviewed alongside me during the Ganesh celebrations, chose the destination. We visited the Ananta Padmanabha Swami Temple before walking along a nearby forest trail. The hills are about an hour and a half to two hours outside Hyderabad, and it was lovely to be somewhere quiet enough to hear insects buzzing and grass moving in the wind. There were birds everywhere, and with the help of photo identification I was able to put names to quite a few of them: bee-eaters, egrets, parakeets, a pond heron and several others. It was a peaceful morning and a welcome change from the noise of the city.
I've also been thinking about what people sometimes call "the real India." We get questions about whether we're seeing the poverty and difficult living conditions that exist alongside the wonderful experiences we write about. We absolutely are. There is a small slum dwelling just outside the gates of Botanika. We see people sleeping on benches, people approaching cars at traffic lights asking for money, street dogs, piles of garbage, dust and dirt. Sidewalks, when they exist, are often cracked or uneven, and in poorer parts of the city people sometimes lose their water supply without knowing why or when it will return. My visits to the orphanage bring me close to some particularly difficult realities, although the children's private lives aren't mine to share.
We live a very comfortable life here, and we're conscious that our circumstances give us choices that many people around us don't have. We generally choose to spend more time, both in our daily lives and in this blog, talking about the people we're meeting, the places we're discovering and the experiences we're enjoying. Those things are part of the real India too. But we do notice the poverty and inequality around us, and it would be dishonest to suggest otherwise.
Some of the differences are more subtle. Every time Momi, our maid, leaves our building, her bag is checked by security. If I give her clothes or shoes, I have to write a note confirming that she's allowed to take them out. Vishal has never been checked, and I'm fairly certain the technician who came to service our air conditioning wasn't either. I don't know the full building policy, so I can't say exactly why the rules are applied differently, but it's hard not to notice who gets searched and who doesn't.
Then there's my ongoing adventure with HSBC. This week the bank called to inform me that "sir" had approved my having a bank account. Sir, of course, being Jason. Apparently my husband's permission was the missing ingredient in my banking application. They were therefore closing my complaint, and someone would call the following day to arrange the account. That call has yet to materialize. So, after several months of trying to open an account in my own name, I have finally achieved the important milestone of being granted permission by my husband. The whole thing was delivered with impeccable politeness. Apparently I can have a bank account now. Sir has approved.
We aren't going to change these things during our time here, but they're worth acknowledging, particularly when people ask us about life beyond the places we visit and the things we enjoy.
Friday brought another reminder of how differently everyday errands work here. At home, if the pharmacy doesn't have a medication, they order it and you pick it up later. Here, getting prescriptions filled can turn into an expedition. I visited three pharmacies looking for medication for Jack and me before Ganesh suggested trying the children's hospital. They had Jack's medication, thankfully, but mine turned out to be available only at the pharmacy attached to my doctor's office.
Even vitamins have required prescriptions and a surprising amount of searching. On Friday I had a prescription for calcium, magnesium and vitamin D, which finally allowed me to get them. Last month, finding iron and vitamin D was another adventure, and when I eventually located them, I could only buy fifteen days' worth. I'm looking forward to Jason arriving home with a Costco-sized supply.
I've also been conducting a thorough investigation of Hyderabad's ice cream establishments. This week I finally made it to Cream Stone, adding it to an increasingly impressive list that includes Scoops, Natural, Milano, Food Stories and a couple of independents. Prices have ranged from ₹80 at Scoops to ₹600 at Food Stories, which is quite a spread for a serving of ice cream. Milano remains my favourite, and they even make an ice cream sandwich.
I thought I was approaching the end of my research, but on the way home from the zoo my Australian friend informed me that I still needed to try Iceberg. Apparently I haven't been nearly as thorough as I thought.
Friday was also a big day for Jack. Vishal took him to a friend's wedding, which was held in the middle of the day. School was therefore replaced by a cultural outing, and Jack dressed up in a golf shirt and pants, armed with a small bouquet of flowers for the happy couple. There were more than a thousand guests, which is a fairly impressive introduction to Indian weddings.
Jack gave us his account afterwards: "I watched a man put flowers on top of their heads, and chant but I didn't understand what they were saying. We listened to Indian music, and went to another floor and had Indian food with Vishal's friends. Everyone was happy and really nice. We had to wait in a long line to say hi."
He seemed to have had a wonderful time, and I love that Vishal includes him in these experiences. Jack gets to see parts of everyday Indian life that we might otherwise miss entirely. It also means that Jack has now attended an Indian wedding, I have attended one, and Jason is the only member of the family still waiting for an invitation. Given that Indian weddings can have a thousand guests, you'd think someone could squeeze him in.
Saturday morning we headed to the zoo with friends, arriving early in the hope of avoiding the worst of the heat. Several enclosures were empty, although we couldn't decide whether they were permanently unoccupied or whether the animals simply hadn't started their workday yet. The zoo is quite nice, with a large collection of animals and a fleet of battery-powered open vans that take visitors around the grounds. Jack was particularly enthusiastic about the vans, which made the whole outing much more appealing.
We saw leopards, a jaguar, lions, deer, antelope, emus, zebras, rhinos, tigers, Indian foxes and plenty more. Many of the animals are native to hot climates and seemed entirely unbothered by the temperature. I always have mixed feelings about zoos, though. I know they can play an important role in conservation, but I find it difficult watching animals that appear to be trying to escape. A white Bengal tiger swam across its moat and tried to climb the wall, which made me quite sad. And oddly enough, all the peacocks were kept in cages, even though we regularly see peacocks wandering freely around the Botanical Gardens near our home.
We also managed to celebrate Halloween, although it required a little improvisation. IKEA, where apparently all good Western traditions are celebrated and sold for expats to enjoy, had supplied us with decorations. We bought candy and signed up for the list of apartments participating in trick-or-treating.
We even carved a pumpkin, or rather half a pumpkin. I'd bought a whole one the previous week to make soup, and by Halloween only half remained. We carved what we had, placed the cut side against the wall and hoped nobody would look too closely. From the front, it was a perfectly respectable jack-o'-lantern. From the side, considerably less so.
Costumes appeared to be about a sixty-percent participation activity, which worked out well because Jack hadn't originally planned to dress up. Once he saw children he knew arriving at our door, he changed his mind and decided to go out as Spider-Man multiverse, before he got bitten. This apparently explained why he was dressed as an ordinary boy rather than wearing a Spider-Man costume.
We had a steady stream of trick-or-treaters and eventually ran out of candy. I placed an emergency order through Swiggy, but hadn't acted quite quickly enough and had to turn away three children while we waited for reinforcements. The children were surprisingly discerning customers. Some inspected their selections and put sweets back if they didn't like them, while others simply requested particular varieties. Fortunately, we won't be here next Halloween, so if our apartment receives a poor rating for candy selection, it won't affect our long-term reputation.
One thing I still haven't managed to master after four months in Hyderabad is the geography of the city. I know how to get places, in the sense that I can enter a destination into Google Maps, send it to Ganesh and sit in the car until we arrive. But I have very little understanding of how the different neighbourhoods fit together. I recognize roads we've travelled repeatedly, yet I couldn't confidently tell you whether two places are close to each other or on opposite sides of town.
Yesterday, when we were collecting a friend before going to the zoo and considering a café stop afterwards, I had absolutely no idea whether the café was conveniently on our route or would require a major detour. This morning, on the way to pottery, I sat in the car feeling quite certain we were travelling in the wrong direction, while simultaneously knowing that Ganesh and Google Maps probably had a better grasp of the situation than I did.
I think this is partly what happens when you stop navigating for yourself. In the days of paper maps, you had to understand at least a little of where you were going. Now I can travel across a city of millions of people without ever really learning where anything is. I may know more about Hyderabad's ice cream shops than its geography.
Our Sunday pottery outing was a lovely way to finish the week. Jack and I made little clay tea light holders for Diwali, then wandered through the pop-up booths selling food and handmade products. I bought chilli oil and hot honey, which means I now need to figure out what to cook with them. Naturally, the chilli oil contains curry leaves. I've learned that there are very few foods in Hyderabad that can't accommodate a curry leaf if someone is sufficiently determined.
I also found some beautiful floral roll-on oils that smell divine, and Jack has apparently developed a taste for iced oat milk cappuccinos. He can now order one himself, and I think it may be his new favourite drink. Between the pottery, browsing, coffee and little things to bring home for the kitchen, the morning felt rather like a fall farmers' market back in Canada, although with a distinctly Hyderabad interpretation.
And while Jack and I were making pottery and preparing for Diwali in Hyderabad, Jason was busy hosting his own celebration back in Toronto. With only ten days in Canada, he decided to organize a Sunday afternoon drop-in at the house so he could catch up with as many friends as possible. Naturally, the occasion needed a suitably grand name, so invitations went out for "The Maharaja Has Returned!" He even made a sign for the front door directing everyone to the backyard, where the royal reception was to take place.
About thirty wonderful friends came by, and Jason was absolutely delighted. He'd been looking forward to seeing everyone, and I know how much it meant to him that so many people took the time to visit. He told me afterwards how lovely it was to catch up, hear everyone's news and spend an afternoon surrounded by familiar faces. I think he was genuinely touched by the turnout, although I'm sure the Maharaja would insist that thirty guests was a perfectly reasonable attendance for his return.
He decided to bring a little India to the Kingsway, ordering butter chicken, rice, naan and samosas from a local Indian restaurant, along with Kingfisher beer. Apparently the food was delicious, although the bill was a rather rude reminder that he was back in Canada. It was most definitely not in rupees. Yikes, Canada is expensive! After four months of Hyderabad prices, ordering Indian food for thirty people in Toronto must have been quite a shock.
Jason was so happy that everyone came, and it sounds like a wonderful afternoon. He's still got a few days of meetings and shopping ahead of him before returning to Hyderabad, where we're getting ready for our first Diwali. With any luck, he'll arrive with the vitamins, bug spray and everything else on my list. I just hope he leaves enough room in his suitcase for his clothes.
The Maharaja Has Returned, Party… (Toronto, Canada)
Finally some nature at Anantagiri Hills…