Monthly Archives: January 2012

Pants aren’t comfortable attire in tropical humidity and blaring sun. During our travels through the Middle East and Asia, we’ve seen men wearing varieties of skirts and gowns. Malayalee men have perfected the mundu as their solution to heat. A mundu is a rectangular cotton cloth worn in a similar fashion as a sarong and is preferred attire all over the state of Kerala. In fact, Sandeep attended half our wedding in one. Mundus come in various assortments, all either solid or with a stripe border. Any further designs or prints demote a mundu to a lungi. A lungi is worn in a similar manner, but is usually made of lower quality cotton and, as per Sandeep “is like wearing your gym clothes or pajamas.”

Historically, men wore lungis most of the time, as they worked at home or in farms. Mundus were reserved for occasions such as religious observance and celebrations. Hence, after one wear, they were washed, pressed and ready for the next occasion. Today, with more of life occurring outside the home, men prefer cream mundus, which are better at hiding dirt and can be worn a few times. Just like jeans.

Even as much of the country trades in traditional clothes for ‘Western’ attire such as pants, jeans and dresses, conservative Kerala holds steadfast to its roots. It’s no wonder, the mundu serves so many glorious functions.

Most importantly, it’s cool. The light cotton provides a natural ventilation system, churning up cooler air from the ground with every step.  If you desire an even cooler walk, feel free to lift up one or both ends of your Mundu to increase the breeze.

If you’re really hot, go ahead hike it up into a mini skirt.

A Mundu can even serve as a towel when there is none.

The free flowing fabric makes it easy to perform all sorts of tasks, from playing cricket to straddling a bike.  So inspired was I by the mundu that I bought my first sarong. The only problem is that it won’t be acceptable in Kerala for me to hike it up. Women don’t show leg here, but it’s perfectly acceptable for men.

Inspired by the Mundu? They go for between $5 and $15 depending on the quality of the fabric and border design. Wear it as you would a towel, just be sure to pull it tight. Match the border with an appropriate shirt. The only other direction is that you may want to consider a religious allegiance before you proceed. Hindus and Christians wear the mundu left to right. Muslims wear to right to left, as the Koran is written left to right.

India, our motherland, has been the most difficult country for us to adjust to. Most of this has been due to lack of control. In the past, we’ve stayed for no more than two weeks, and were happy to go with the flows that our families set. However, we’re spending two months here now, and relying on others for everything is becoming uncomfortable.

In every other destination, our we have had to figure things out for ourselves. We’ve chosen to stay mainly in rentals as opposed to guest houses or home stays because we value some privacy. After a few days of scouting around for grocery stores, transportation, and babysitters we fell into a basic rhythm. We maintained control over our comings and goings, and the people we relied on were generally reliable. Our independence may have cost us the ability to truly live as locals, but it’s enabled us to maintain some normalcy for us and the kids.

We arrived in India expecting to rely on the system our families have established. We’re here to spend time with our parents and extended family and are staying with them. However, what this means is that rather than doing our own groceries, we add to an existing list. Instead of calling a tuk tuk, we negotiate around the rest of the house’s schedules for the cars and driver. A basic errand turns out to be a detailed conversation of who knows who and how and where the task should be done. We love having this time with family, but needed to establish our own routines.

One challenge was mobility. We solved that problem when Sandeep braved the Indian wheel.

Another challenge was eating and drinking what we want. Fo example, coffee in India is a dessert-like concoction involving liberal amounts of sugar and whole milk. After much hunting we found the only espresso machine in town at Third Place. Like most establishment here, its shutters don’t rise until 11 AM. After some negotiation and a promise to patron every morning, the manager agreed to serve us cappuccino at 9:45 while she readies for the day.

We love Indian food, and can’t go a week without it on the road. Even in Thailand, with it’s diverse cuisine, we caved in and sought Indian. But days on end of spice laden dishes, coconuts, and hearty meals had our stomachs begging for a break. We resurrected Sandeep’s parents barbecue, which hadn’t seen a spark since it left New Jersey four years ago.

Another goal was to find the kids some friends. They’ve had unlimited time with us, but minimal time with their peer group. We decided to use our block of time in India to enroll them in a morning pre-school. It’s an adjustment for them, since the children all speak Malayalam, but Ava and Kayan are excited to see their new friends each morning and are filling out their vocabulary with Malayalam.

Our persistence has led to a morning schedule. Sandeep and I drop the kids at school at 9:30 and then go on our speak easy cappuccino date. Back home, I make a bland egg breakfast, after which we park ourselves on the terrace. Sandeep works, I write, and we both watch the morning unfold along the backwaters and rice fields.

The rest of the day is a commotion of family errands, visitors and visits. But the days as a whole end with a good balance of extended family time and nuclear family independence.

I have an Indian driving license. My accomplishment was the result of completing a certain number of hours at a driving school. The school car had two sets of gears, pedals and wheels, which meant that the instructor drove the car and I just sat back and waited for the hour to finish. I never took a driving test – just paid and received my laminated card.

This process may explain the lawlessness of Indian roads. One ways, lanes, shoulders – none of these things mean anything to the average Indian driver. In Varanasi, our driver turned into the opposite side of a national highway for a few kilometers because he didn’t want to double back to our exit. The only road rule that is followed, most of the time, is the traffic light. When we asked a driver in Mumbai why he blatantly ran a red, his response was “It’s night time. You don’t have to follow the lights at night.” We also learnt that a right indicator does not always mean a person is turning right, but that they are giving others permission to overtake on the right. That’s a guessing game I don’t want to play.

We both went through the process of getting international licenses before we left home, so decided to put his to use today. Naturally Sandeep was somewhat hesitant to get behind the wheel here.  Here are some shots I took from the front seat during the 1 km drive from home to town.

Even the kids were somewhat confused at to why Sandeep was driving. We didn’t have a car in New York City, and save for a few vacation rentals, they don’t see him behind the wheel. On our trip so far, we’ve relied on others for transportation.

Ava: Why is Dada driving in your seat?

Diya: The driver sits on other seat because the cars drive on the opposite side of the street here.

Ava: No they don’t.

For once Ava wasn’t just being argumentative, she was correct. The cars drive wherever they want.

The busiest intersection in town doesn’t have a traffic light. The solution is that a policemen stationed at a rotunda holds up a miniscule stop sign (look closely) – sometimes in a particular direction and sometimes to no where in particular. As we approached him, he sternly held up the sign to the car on our right, but motioned to us to keep moving forward. There was no logic behind the differentiation, and there is no one stationed there at night.

Sandeep started driving because it seemed silly to ask his parents’ driver to take us on short runs. We also wanted some freedom to roam around on our own. Sandeep’s been amazingly calm about the entire experience. I asked him, his father and the family driver if anything bothers them about driving in Kerala.

Sandeep: The lack of any signs. I don’t know what’s one way, there are no speed limits, or stop signs. I just try to go with the flow. I do like the fact that I don’t have to worry about breaking the law, because it is 100% unenforced.

Sandeep’s Dad: The potholes, because my car has low clearance.

Jos the Driver (has been a family driver for 15 years):  The lawless bus drivers just want to over take the cars. They’re always driving in the opposite direction of traffic.

We never paid much attention to our garbage in New York City. Sure, at home we meticulously recycled. We even toyed with cloth diapers but settled on the convenience of disposable ones. We reused plastic bags on our dog walks. But once our garbage left home, we never thought about it again.

After coming to India we are acutely aware of what happens to our garbage. Both our parents live in areas where there is no garbage collection system. They compost their wet refuse and arrange for recyclables to be picked up by scrap collectors. The rest is burned in a designated area. Yes, it is terrible, but the alternative is to dump it in some random location.  At Sandeep’s parents’, the garbage is dumped at a designated spot about 100 yards from their gate, where it is burned every evening. Many people in India don’t have private transportation, so the government chooses dumping spots that are convenient to reach but relatively uninhabited. In this case, relatively uninhabited involves a handful of houses, a tea stall and a beauty parlor around the corner. This is the scene of our garbage burning this morning.

We have taught the kids not to litter, no matter what other people do. We pass the dump every time we go to town and it’s hard to explain to Ava why diapers (likely Kayans!) are lying on the side of the road.

With our garbage literally staring us in the face everyday, we’ve altered our already frugal consumption habits. We’ve cut back on juice boxes and soft drinks and Kayan is an intense experiment at potty training. It’s not going very well.  He’s projecting a bit – this afternoon he made his dog use what he claimed was a potty.

Most of us forget about our garbage once it leaves our home. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, for us, we’re forced to face our garbage every morning. The positive impact is that the entire family is more responsible about how and what we consume.

A year ago, Sandeep left his corporate life to join a home furnishings company, Surya. I found this hilarious. Sandeep is a minimalist and opposed every item I brought into our house.

So I found it rather curious to be in North India, accompanying him to various rug making villages. He asked me to join the business trip and serve as Hindi translator (also hilarious) and photographer. After spending a few days getting intimate with the rug making process, even Sandeep started pointing out rugs he liked.

I had a cursory understanding that handmade items are more unique and involve more care, but I didn’t appreciate the labor or skill specificity required. Save for some artwork, we own very few things that are truly handmade. As much as I remain an Ikea aficionado, I now have a better appreciation for the stories that go behind hand crafting.

The rugs are made in farming villages by artisans who supplement their agrarian income with more stable employment. Each village specializes in a task, such as weaving, cutting or washing. As with many traditional artisans, those in the Indian rug industry have learned their art from their parents and plan to pass it to their children.

The industry remains extremely traditional, with women and men performing separate tasks. Women focus on work that requires patience, like separating wool. Apparently (I was told), men have no patience. Many of these artisans are camera shy. Despite laughing together as I took pictures of the rugs, their faces sprung into somber poses when they saw the lens. Here are some faces behind handmade Indian rugs.

Once the rugs are woven, trimmed, and washed, they are laid out in the sun to dry among the village crops. As the rugs pass through various stages of production, life in the villages goes on. The cows sleep and the wheat dries.

Given how labor intensive the entire process is, it seemed out of context to see a huge truck arrive to transport the finished goods. And then we saw this, which reminded us that, no matter how modernized things get, we are still in India.

We tend to buy most things for convenience, price and design. Where we do have a few handmade items, we don’t fully appreciate the community, labor and skill behind them. Some of these rugs involve dozens of artisans and several months of work to complete. Moreover, many of these skill specific trades are dying as a new generation becomes more educated. After seeing the stories and people behind these rugs we intend to spend more of our travels getting to know similar cottage industries. Once we are back home, we hope to support such artisans by including more handmade products and the stories behind them in our home.