Schooling in Bangalore-Part I

I do not think I fully qualify to write about schooling in Bangalore yet but I really wanted to share the experiences that I have gained so far. As I said earlier, I wanted to cool down before writing about this so that I do not make a biased opinion .
Finally, we decided to try next year for A's Big school so that we get more time to know about schools in Bangalore and might also buy a property by that time to know our final location.

Except for NPS and a handful of few other schools, there are mixed reviews about all schools. So much so, that making a choice gets extremely difficult.

Experience #1: NPS Indiranagar: Last Year A was underage for Montessori. After standing in a long queue of aspirant NPS-ite parents, I discovered that she is over age for Montessori and under age for LKG. So, the receptionist offered that I must buy form for the 2011 session. I was surprised and asked her what if they decide to change the form format or even change policies, etc. She said vaguely, "Oh no no, you can buy it now and I do not think they will change the format. If they do you can take another one........". I knew this was just a technique to get Rs. 250 out of my purse. I thanked and started to leave. Frustrated and disappointed as I was, I started to walk towards the gate when a man came to me and asked me if I got the form. I saw him standing about 8 people ahead of me in the queue and thought why was he waiting for me here and why he was asking me this. I told him that my daughter is underage and moved on. He started walking with me and told me how he can help me. He asked me to bring the original birth certificate the next day and that he will take me to Raghu, the politician who lives in Thippasandra and another politician with the birth cert. And tried to assure me that A can get admission there.
First, I will never go to a politician for admission that too in a new city. Second, I will never show an American Birth cert. to a politician or anyone else.
I knew where he was getting to. So thanked him and asked if he knew me. He told me that his child is in A's class at the play school and he has seen me a lot of times. I was wondering why I had never seen him. But I was really scared as to what if he meets me again and asks me to come to the 2 politicians, etc. But Thankfully, that did not happen.

Exp. #2: NPS Koramangala: The lesser told the better.
They Ran out of forms on day 2 of form distribution at 10 AM!!
After spending 1.5 hrs in traffic we were standing outside NPS Kormangala to find this out. No one was there to provide info or help. No Notice. I had never felt more aimless and clueless in life ever before. We, along with about 70 other parents were standing outside the school gate waiting for someone to come out to tell us something. All other parents were shooting in the dark.
So that one was also ruled out because of the madness, shortage of forms, etc. etc.

Exp. #3: Presidency School East: When I got the form of this school after my 2 experiences at NPSs, I felt I if I had won an award. I kept staring and smiling at the form for a few seconds. Well, all was well and we submitted the form. This time they were short of brochures. We got a call for interview and a follow-up SMS also.
On the day of interview, we got the brochure and were asked to update the new application form. That means, the form they distributed about 5 days back was an old format and this was the new one!!! I felt like screaming but it was for A's future so I kept my cool. After filling up the tedious form again, we sat in the lobby waiting for our turn and I observed other kids and parents.
Call me snob or whatever, I did not find more then 2 parents who looked 'like us' types. It was not very encouraging. It felt as if anyone and everyone can come to this school. Children were dressed in funny dresses, as if they have come to a fancy dress party or a park. Don't even talk about some mothers. Atrociously dressed! Heavily embroidered jeans, jazzy magents/ parrot green/ flurocent tops!!
Many kids wore a lot of jewellery, bangles and anklets making noise, ash or sticker bindis/ bindas.
I was busy observing when we got a call for "observation". To my surprise, A performed and behaved excellently. They took copies of our documents and original birth certificate for verification and asked us to move to another lobby.
We waited there for about 1.5 hrs again observing colorfully dressed people and kids. A's name was called out and H came back running to declare that they have lost our original birth certificate!! Actually the place was nothing more then chaos!It was completely badly organized mayhem. Nobody had any procedure or protocol. H ran around like crazy to find the documents. Just then a senior teacher came to announce, " Please do not give us your originals. We are NOT asking for originals. Copies is what we need." This was testing our patience and limit of endurance now.
After about 15-20 mnts, H came with the BC. The teacher who took it had kept it in one of the document baskets with her "just like that".
After more then 2 hours, we were finally called in the principal's room where the only question was how A will commute and the only info was the fees and that we have to deposit Rs. 43K to comfirm our admission. We were confused. So I said, " We are not carrying our checkbook right now." The answer was- "we do not take DD or checks, only cash." Oh so this is your black money pool or something???-we thought. We told them that we will think and come back.
Also, the school fees was about 70K p.a. plus bus, books, uniform, etc. It seemed like ANYONE in bangalore can afford that kind of expenses.

We left and came home with A having 103 degrees fever.

We have given up on admissions for this year now and will try next year. Till then, good luck if you are in Bangalore and trying for admissions!
I will write soon about the variety of schools in bangalore.

The Color of Our Skin

One gentleman/ lady made a very interesting comment on my blog "What is Quality of Life?". And it has made me wonder how different things could be just if the color of our skin was different.

The comment states: "it was a simple question of someone overtaking me wrongly, and me honking - but we both stopped side by side at the next traffic signal, and he made a gesture to cut off my head. This was in the heart of Sunnyvale, CA. Would he do it if my skin had a different color - I doubt it."

The last italicized part is what caught my attention.
This is a very valid point that he has made.

Now picture the same situation in India. Lets assume any city in India. I have seen a lot of people giving stares/ looks and also showing middle finger and shouting abuses while someone honks at them while they wrongly overtake. Million dollar question is- would he have shown me the finger if the color of my skin was white? - Probably not.

That means, if I were white in US or in India, I would have been treated quite differently in any given traffic situation. For different reasons at both places though. In US because I would have been one of them and in India because I would have been superior (as most Indians treat White skin as a sign of supreme creed and race) to them and not one of them.

So is it the color of our skin that is the problem?? Or is it that we just make it a problem and see it as racism because we assume too much??

Indian Culture and Halloween

Do the two make any sense to you? If your answer is "No" then I am not the only conservative Indian around.

In the last 2 weeks, we saw some posters mentioning Halloween parties within apartment complexes organized by children, more organized Halloween nights well sponsored and arranged at some hotels in Bangalore. It did not hit me so hard until last Friday, Oct., 30th.
There was a knock at our door and I said to A, "Its Papa". Opened the door to get the biggest shock of my life. A group of about 15-20 kids, age range was 6-15 years, dressed as witch, ghosts, Dracula, etc. were standing at our door step shouting "trick or treat, trick or treat" in the utmost desi way. A started crying thinking her worst fears of Mummy calling Bhoots (ghosts) if she does not eat has finally come true. I gave them all candies I had in the house and told them how nice they looked and bid adieu. But before leaving, some of them demonstrated their characters/ costumes. Like the witch pretended to fly on her phool jhaadu (broom), a girl wearing a tiny white shoulder-less dress (like that of a hot bride) and a veil, lifted up her veil to show her bruised face, tomato red lipstick and blackened eyes and not to be missed- blonde wig!

I am not exaggerating. I wanted to take pictures but A was completely out of wits and I just wanted to shoo the ghosts away.

I was not at all excited or pleased about the entire thing. Not because they scared A or took all the candies but because this is not I was looking forward to while we moved back. This is not the culture we wanted A to have at the cost of being eve-teased (pun intended).

It actually left me with a bad taste for the next few days. As far as I remember, celebrating ghosts was not a part of Indian Cultural Curriculum.

How western can we get?! Or is it that we have lost track of time and it is year 2050 or has cultural globalization has badly hit India? But this was the last thing that I expected out of my very own Indian culture.

I do not think any of these kids knew the significance or rationale behind Halloween. They were just too happy to act American.

And yes, there were a few Page 3 parties in Bangalore to celebrate Oktober Fest also last week!!
I am looking forward to Thanks giving feast(turkey), Easter egg hunt, St. patrick's Day or may be even, Mardi Gras! You never know.

What is Quality of Life?

We often talk about Quality of Life (QOL). It has special significance while we make a decision about R2I or not-R2I or may be R2A. We always compare and attribute our decisions on QOL. But what the hell is QOL??

Is quality of life tangible or intangible? Is it Physical or Metaphysical? Is it real? All these thoughts sometimes storm my mind especially when I am in some pain or when the thoughts of rushing back to US resurface (resurface coz it keeps surfacing often).

H and I are very often stuck in this QOL web while discussing life in India Vs. Life in US.

Here is my analysis of QOL. It might help people when comparing their lives in US or post R2I.

What is QOL?

“QOL reflects the difference, the gap, between the hopes and expectations of a person and their present experience.”- I read somewhere and I think it is very well put.

As for me, QOL is a subjective mix of physical well-being, mental bell-being, achievement of ones goals and leading a comfortable life. It may also be called a sum of happiness and satisfaction.

Components of QOL?

Physical Health, Mental Health, Financial stability, Education, Professional satisfaction (work and colleagues), General happiness with Family (you spouse and kids- time spent, things done, etc.), Relatives, Friends, house and Neighborhood you live in, General environment( Food, Shopping, Roads, Cleanliness, public facilities, people around, etc.), Belongingness, Security (Security from robbers, kidnappers, eve-teasers, muggers, etc.) etc. etc. Add to it the ease of achieving all these.

I will not get into how to achieve QOL, etc. We all are smart enough and have our own ways to achieve it.

But the calculation of QOL is what we were struggling to get to. And now, I have devised this method. I would be grateful if someone can give me a better mathematical formula.

For everything not achieved or lost in transition: -1

For Indifference: 0

For everything achieved: 1

For everything that can be achieved far better/ easily: 2

(My assumptions are based on my experience of staying in CA and in Bangalore. The financial equation changes if CA is changed to may be IL, TX, or FL, etc.)

Here is our result based on various parameters listed here:

Parameters	India	US
Physical Health	-1	1
Mental Health	2	1
Domestic Help	1	-1
Financial Stability	2	1
Family Life	0	1
Relatives	2	1
Friends	1	1
House	1	1
Neighborhood	1	1
Professional Satisfaction- Career	1	1
Professional Satisfaction- Colleagues	0	1
Education- Quality	2	1
Education-Convenience	-1	1
Belongingness	1	1
Security/ Safety	-1	2
General Environment-Food	1	1
Gen. Env.- People	0	1
Gen. Env. - Roads	-1 (-10 may be)	2
Gen. Env.- Hygiene	-1	1
Gen. Env.- Cleanliness	-1	2
Gen. Env.- Public Facilities(Libraries, Toilets, Water, Power, security, etc.)	-1	2
Ease of Achieving	0	1
Climate/ Weather	1	1
Total Score	9	25

(Again, these are my calculations based on our factors.)

Isn’t that a huge difference?!

It is not a surprise and it is definitely not something we did not know before R2I. But never gave numbers to anything. Even if we did, would that have changed the decision? Perhaps not. But it is not a bad idea to do maintain a PNL account of our lives. Isn’t it?



Some interesting Links:
http://www.gdrc.org/uem/qol-define.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_5003150_measure-quality-life.html
http://www.calresco.org/lucas/qol.htm