April 24, 2007, 3:41am PST

...Meru was born!

My sister had a little boy weighing in at 7lbs 9oz and measuring 19.25 inches long.

Word is he is adorable and perfect, but that is the unbiased opinion of his grandmother.Sahana sounds well and happy. She had a fast and furious labor, and she gave birth totally naturally!

I can't describe how i feel. i just wish I could be there to hold that little monkey.

love,
Surabhi Doddamma

waiting for the monkey

i can't sit still.

waiting waiting waiting 10,000 miles away

my little sister is having a little baby even as i write this.

i had no idea i would be so anxious when the time finally came. but here i am, hardly a finger nail left on these tips. my phone has become another appendage, i can scarcely look at anything else.

just waiting for it to ring.

there she sits serenely pregnant only two short weeks ago.

soon she will be two.

check out this elephant birth

here.

nanage kannada tumba kashta

so i've been taking private kannada classes twice a week for a couple of months now, and i'm just not where i want to be. i guess it's a little slow-going. partly it's because i haven't devoted enough time to practicing between lessons. i can communicate pretty well with rickshaw wallas, but whenever anyone tries to talk to me, i'm lost. since i've been taking more buses, i've been feeling particulary frustrated by not being able to speak the local language. even in rickshaws, i'd love to be able to chat with the drivers (at least the few who aren't complete jerks). i miss living abroad and being able to converse with everyone, like in the DR for example; there's really no better way to learn about a place than to be packed in a moving vehicle with a bunch of loose-lipped strangers. here i can't even eavesdrop!

my teacher, prasad, is pretty good. despite his horrendous breath and tendency to get a little frustrated by my and patrick's lack of comprehension, he is an experienced teacher of kannada. so far, however, my best sentences are ones such as the following:

behind my house is another house. (nan mane munde innondu mane ide.)
in front of my house is a big tree. (nan mane hinde dodda mara ide.)
to the left of my house is a car. (nan mane balagade ghari ide.)
to the right of my house is a street. (nan mane edagade raste ide.)

now, when would i say these things, except to impress surabhi's parents? don't get me wrong, i love impressing surabhi's parents, but still. i think after my exam next wednesday (yikes!), i'll be able to study and practice more.

today i learned my favorite word: tombatombattu. it's the number 99. tombatombattu bottles of beer on the wall, tombatombattu bottles of beeeeeer...

fireflies '07

saturday night we went to an all-night outdoor music festival at an ashram in south bangalore called fireflies. it was a lovely night of incredible live performances under a beautiful and expansive pipal tree. definitely a highlight of our adventures so far. check out our pictures here.

summer's here!

so, as expected, goa was incredible.

isolated beaches, fresh seafood any time of the day, and of course tropical fruits galore. i was sad to learn that tender coconut water is considered an odd thing to drink out in goa. apparently since they use SO MUCH coconut in their food (and alcohol), they are loath to cut them down before the fruit fully ripens. so i saw LOADS of cracked open coconuts drying on rooftops and driveways, but not a single young tender one for the drinking!

still there were many highlights:

* rooftop yoga at 7:30 am overlooking the Arabian Sea, with palms swaying in the late dawn breeze and the sounds of morning rustling in kitchens below.

* lazy breakfasts at our favorite shack run by lovely Nepali party boys with great taste in music and seriously beautiful smiles.

* sunny afternoons spent in hammocks in the shade of beach shacks and dwarf palms sipping fresh lime soda or pineapple juice

* time to read novel after novel without interruption or guilt!!! (Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami and Vernon GOD Little by DCB Pierre for those interested)

* midnight scooter ride back from Palolem wrapped around my favorite superstar scootermaster, Paigey, under a starry blanket of sky.


*****************

the return to Bangalore has been a bit jarring but this place we call home has been changing while we were away. It is fully summer here now. the kids are out of school and making rackets everywhere you go. the little green buds have burst into flowers and wide green leaves everywhere, making this garden city more green than ever.

AND we had our first summer rain! these aren't the monsoons that every one anticipates with longing and dread. these are the summer rains. short little bursts of rain that cool the earth and the air by at least 10 degrees and remind you why Bangalore is, arguably, the most beautiful city in India.

i'm feeling good
just go with the reverie, ok?
xo la queena ;)

home

we've just spend five gloriously chilled out days on agonda beach in goa. what a spot. even the stray dogs are more chilled out there. it's hot as a mofo, but worth every second. because it was the end of the season, we had the two kilometer beach pretty much to ourselves.

i realized that there's absolutely no escaping crows, at least in south india. i've come to regard the crow much as i regard the rat or the pigeon in new york city. ratas con alas, if you will. worse, actually. the crow's cawking, especially at 6 am, is perhaps the most unpleasant auditory experience in existence.

on a more positive note, i had a wonderful ayurvedic oil massage by surabhi's yoga teacher in agonda, mohan. given that he was a man (quite a mousy one at that) and that he closed the door to the hut, locked it rigorously, and then instructed me to take everything off except my underwear, i was absolutely convinced he was going to do something sketchy. it's not like we were in some spa in the states where you get a sheet and five towels so as not to expose your private bits. no, we were in a hut on the beach; a table covered with plastic was the only object inside the structure. he started with my back, of course. it was going GREAT. i was marveling at how much better it was than my previous ayurvedic oil massage. following that thought was oh my god, what's going to happen when i have to turn over? i turned over when instructed, and deliberately kept my eyes tightly closed as he was oiling me up. "you will like on your breasts?" "uh... no." but thanks for asking. in the end, it was the best 400 bucks ($9.33) i've spent yet.

sadly, mohan cancelled surabhi's appointment the next morning, so she missed out on the massage experience. but she did make an excellent purchase in the nearby tourist hot spot palolem: sunglasses. not any sunglasses. she's a spitting image of ivy queen when she wears them. i call her la queena. mel, you would really appreciate.

being back in bangalore is nice, most notably because the weather is near perfect. it's green and beautiful and our flat was particulary welcoming after five days in a dingy, unbearably hot little room. after only a couple of hours, however, our pollution-induced sore throats and burning eyes were back. home sweet home.