Umbra by Kishore Murthy

I have been driving for the past 11 years, for the most part a motorcycle with the past three years, a car… but in Bangalore, India. We follow two sets of traffic rules in Bangalore - one on paper and the second on road. The biggest difference I see between Bangalore and here is the lane discipline. The other immediately noticeable differences are the presence of few two wheelers on the road and absence of autorickshaws.

In Bangalore the concept of driving was simple ‘Nugidavanige dhari’, which means the one who pushes his way gets the road. Some amount of aggression was needed to survive and keep your ground. Those who were timid, drove slowly and hesitated got pushed to the side or run over by other vehicles. The eye was trained to watch all other vehicles, pedestrians, stray dogs, cows, buffaloes, kids, cyclists, etc and anticipate their movement into your path or out of your path. This estimate then guided me to take necessary action to have my way and avoid accidents. My dad calls driving in India as the ‘Great Escape’ .

The most important and essential weapon in the battle for space in traffic is the horn. Installing a good / loud horn and using it judiciously could get you through the worst of traffic. In the last couple of years Bangalore traffic has gotten very crappy and its not because of more vehicles on the road but because of more bad drivers with poor judgment and commonsense… the worst being the BPO/Call center taxi drivers. In the last year and half I had to drive 40-50 km pretty much on a daily basis during peak traffic hours.

After driving in Bangalore for 11 years I had built a significant amount of reactive reflexes that kept me alive on the road and my vehicle unharmed. I did have a couple of accidents, most of them being minor. The biggest accident I had happened a week before my wedding.

It was around 2300 hrs and I was driving home on my motorcycle. There was hardly any traffic and I was driving on a main road at 70 km/h. I was near the Johnson market and from the corner of my eye I could see plenty of stray dogs on the side of the road. What I did not see until it was too late was the two street dogs in the shadows on the median/divider. The dogs suddenly ran across the road. Everything that followed seemed to happen in slow motion, I rammed into one of the dogs, it was black in color and quite fat. And the next moment I was flying in the air in a somersault, yanked slightly to the left as my shoe got stuck at the foot pad of the bike. I landed on my left knee and after a five foot long travel on my hands and chest I came to a stop.

Luckily the vehicles behind me stopped and people came to my assistance. A kid from the small dhaba at the Johnson market got me a jug of water and I sat down at the side of the road. I even had some of the people who were drinking at the dhaba insist on offering me first aid but I hushed them away politely. The dog I hit ran away very fast and I don’t know what happened to it. I sat for 20 min waiting for the adrenaline spike to die down and to see if my knee swelled up. I seemed to be in one piece and drove home with just some abrasions and a twisted bike handle that cost me very little to fix.

Here I am now, in the US where all my reactive reflexes are useless or worse, a hindrance. People drive in their lanes and much faster and you don’t use the horn unless there is a problem or emergency.

I drove for the first time in the parking lot for just a couple of minutes under the expert guidance of my wife. It was an important one and it helped me to get comfortable with the dimensions of the car and reinforced the fact that the driver sat on the left side of the car and everything on the road was to the right.

My next opportunity to drive was a road test for my driver’s license at the DMV (Dept of Motor Vehicles). I failed the road test as I did not come to a complete stop at a red light before I turned right. My third driving experience was another road test at the DMV the next week. This one went fine and I got my driver’s license. Though the road tests were unassisted I felt comfortable knowing that there was someone sitting next to me.

Yesterday, I made my first (unassisted) drive with just me and my nine month old daughter strapped in her car seat, in the rear. I was driving her to the day care provider who is just 5 min away and I have to say I was scared shit less… afraid that I might make a mistake and cause an accident. I don’t know how long it will take me to feel comfortable again driving and begin to enjoy them once more… with time I am sure it will happen .

Its been around 2 months since I moved here. I am trying to adjust playing the role of Mr. Mom to my 9 month old daughter while the wife is working… it will be so until we can find a day care provider for Anju. I can then get back to studies, finish my exams and get the damn certification. I miss the hospital and I miss it even more when I tune into Discovery Health. I have to say that the programs on Discovery Health are just fantastic. Kudos to them. I think they should start something like this for India.

Taking care of an infant and doing things around the house is so tough. I have much more respect and admiration for my mom who raised three children and was a stay at home mom / housewife for over 30 years. Kudos to her. I really want to do something extra special for her this Mother’s Day. Any suggestions?

The neighborhood we are in is very beautiful and the convenient thing about it is that there is a shopping complex bang opposite our apartment complex. Starbucks, Giant, Subway, Mac Donalds, CVS Pharmacy, etc all just a 2 minute walk away. This has made our life so much easier.

When we moved in, the weather was too cold for my taste but gradually it has warmed up and I feel much more comfortable now. Recently the cherry blossoms were blooming everywhere… what a splendid sight it was. It made my walks even more pleasurable. Now the flowers have fallen and you see green leaves sprouting in their place. There are lot of birds that visit our balcony and hang out in the trees that face the balcony. The other day my wife went out and bought some Petunia plants and a bird feeder to hang on our balcony. We don’t have any bird feed in the feeder yet… it so happened that the Home Depot out here does not carry bird feed anymore but sell the bird feeder. So far, I have seen Black Birds, Doves, Sparrows and Red Cardinals. The Red Cardinals are my favorite.

We lost four Saturdays to the DMV (Dept of Motor Vehicles). The first visit my wife took the car to the DMV to get it registered, etc. The place is crowded on Saturdays and people turn up very early to queue up. The second visit was to get myself a driver’s license. We landed there half an hour before the place opened… there were already many people in the queue. I got to take the written part of the test and the vision screen but could not do the road test.

Apparently they do only 10-15 road tests on Saturdays… the number seemed to change depending upon who was working that Saturday.

The third Saturday was the worst, we were there an hour before the place opened. There were only a couple of people ahead of us in the queue and I was the sixth for the road test or so the paper I filled in told. The people at the DMV screwed it up completely and I was called in 9th… that meant an extra two and a half hour wait. So, by the time I did the road test we had been waiting for four and a half hours. Waiting that long with an infant is such a pleasure, right? And to add to the misery I failed the road test.

On the fourth visit we were at the DMV an hour and fifteen minutes before it opened. I was the fourth on the road test and I finally got my license. The craziest thing was the fact that on all occasions the person at the counter who took my application and the person who did my road test was a desi .

I got to visit the Woodland’s Hotel in Fairfax recently. It felt good to be sitting with family amongst desi’s eating desi food. Both the times I have gone there I have had the buffet and it has been authentic and really good. I think my cousin who came with us also thought the food was excellent too.

The buffet has a lovely spread of both South Indian dishes and North Indian dishes and on Sunday’s they even have chat items like Pav Bhaji, Pani Puri and Bhel Puri. One can eat only so much… so obviously I did not try everything on the buffet. MY personal favorites were the Idli chutney, Vada sambhar, Bisi Bele Bath, Pongal, Pani Puri and Gajar ka Halwa. The only disappointing dish was the Masala Dosa as there was no masala/red chutney smeared inside the dosa. So basically it was just some dosa rolled with alu palya in it.

Last month I got to attend an exhibition of paintings by Dana Johnstone who is a close friend of my wife Jessica. The paintings on display were brilliant and I think even our little Anju enjoyed it.

My visit to Harris Teeter’s was an overwhelming experience. We spent nearly 2 hours there and by the end of it I was very very loopy and disoriented. The store was huge and basically had everything… just name it. All through I could hear my wife say “Now you see why I would get so frustrated when we went shopping in India”. The number of choices available just blew me away. There were even food counters and salad bars… I think one could live in that store, never come out and be very happy.

Last weekend we visited some friends in DC, they live on Capitol Hill. The weather was sunny and beautiful and I got to walk around in the city. It was a lovely experience… I even saw a Blue Jay. We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant, Las Placitas. The food was great and I enjoyed it to the very last bite. The weekend before that we went to a park along the GW Parkway. We took a much needed long and wonderful walk and Anju got to play in the grass for the first time… she thoroughly enjoyed it .

Who knew life could change so much so quickly… from being single to becoming a husband and then a father. Its almost two years now, since I took the vows of marriage with the beautiful Jessica. And 9 months ago we brought into this world a beautiful baby girl.

But it feels like it was only yesterday that I was running around in the streets of Basaveshwarnagar, Bangalore wearing a chaddi (shorts) playing gali (street) cricket.

The past 2 years has been exhilarating and challenging with the past 6 months being extremely hectic and exhausting. So many things happened at the same time that its a miracle I haven’t lost my mind… my wife and and friends might differ on that .

Preparing for the USMLE Step 1 with an infant at home was very testing. It would have been impossible if not for my wife. I shifted my view from trying to score a 99 to praying that I at least pass with some dignity left… as the time scheduled to prepare post Kaplan shrank from the initially planned 2 months to 20 days. My computer conked out a week before the exam and I had to make do with a rental computer. Despite all that I am happy to say that I made it to the other side… I passed. I still have Step 2 and Step 3 to go.

The day after the exam there was a photo shoot for an ad in which my daughter was to appear. It was for the range of baby products by Himalaya Herbals. This opportunity just landed at our doorstep through Jessica’s friend who is a model. Then came the visa interview which ended up as multiple visits to Chennai. Luckily, while I prepared for my exams my wife took care of all the needed paperwork for the interview… I got the visa. With that aside we now had to shift our focus on the move to the US.

We always knew moving countries with an infant was going to be very challenging. This had to be a team affair. We divided our responsibilities and started the process of selling all the stuff we owned in India and were not taking with us, while on the other side securing an apartment and a job in the US. Since I am not certified to practice in the US yet, I couldn’t join up at a hospital. So, the pressure was now on my wife… luckily her old job was waiting for her and they were very happy to know she was coming back .

Selling mostly everything we owned took time and had to be planned properly. After all we still had to live in that space and fulfill the needs of an infant up until the moment we left for the airport. The shippers came 2 weeks before our departure to pack and take all the stuff we wanted to ship to the US.

Leaving India was hard, I tried my best to meet up with family and friends amidst the frenzy of activities. It was very challenging with many ups and downs and on March 3 we were on a plane to Boston. It was our first time traveling with our daughter for over 24 hrs. We did not know what to to expect. With only some minor hiccups we landed in Boston.

A big thanks to all our friends back in India for the going away party. It is truly appreciated .

MY wife’s parents live near Boston and we spent a couple of days there. My wife came down with the flu, Anju had a melt down and it took her 2 days before she let her Grandparents care for her. We left Anju with her Grandparents and drove to DC.

Alexandria, near Washington DC was where we were going to live. It took us 9 hrs to get to Alexandria and the weather was horrendous as it rained all the way non-stop. I now had the flu and was not feeling so hot. I don’t even know how my wife managed to drive in such bad weather conditions for 9 hrs with a sick passenger. After all she had not been driving during her stay in India. Kudos to her.

We managed to reach our apartment complex half hour before our rental office closed. It was perfect, for we were able to get into our apartment and dump 9 suitcases worth of stuff in it. We even manged to buy a mattress that evening. We crashed for the night at one of my wife’s friends house.

The next day the movers we had hired arrived and we got my wife’s stuff out of storage into the apartment. We also managed to get the mattress we had bought the day before with some help from her friends. With the donation of a never used vacuum cleaner by another of her generous friends we were set. We now had a couple of days to get the place ready for Anju. Jessica’s parents arrived with Anju by air and spent the weekend with us.

And there you have it, the move had finally ended… nope, not yet. The stuff from India, some by air and some by sea were still on the way. The stuff by air, mostly Anju’s stuff arrived a week after. We are still waiting for the shipment on the slow boat.

PS: I am yet to see the Himalaya Herbals ad with Anju in it. Hopefully when it comes out some of my friends will take pictures of it and send it to us.

UPDATE: Anjali’s Ad is finally out.