What Happens Now?

I have missed you! I have been silent for so long. It is not for lack of challenges and colorful encounters to write about but rather because my blog seems to now be irrelevant. We moved back to Singapore December 2009.

So yes, what happens now?

If you remember, I started this blog as a sanity saver in Delhi. With my sanity no more intact, I am now in Singapore perhaps with an even greater desire to share my life with you. I know now that life can be beautiful anywhere, that challenges abound in one way or another and that our job is to meet them all head on, one by one, and come away from our daily battles wiser and a little and wearier perhaps but happy that we went through the exercise called life.

So let me tell you about our time in Singapore thus far and then we can later decide what to do with this blog.

The first weeks in Singapore with so little was pure joy! David had no Raju, I had no Ambrose, Meenu or Mr. Lal. No mali (gardener) and no chowkidar (security guard). And yet, we were perfectly self sufficient--how smug we were! We had cutlery for 4, dinnerware for 3 (we splurged on a Christmas platter), 3 cups that looked like little flower pots, and 3 little black stools from Ikea. No pots and pans, no dining table, no study desk. We had a fast deflating air mattress that served as living room sofa. We had a king sized bed and poor Rachel had to sleep on a makeshift mattress which had no right to to its name.

After the challenges of keeping house in Delhi, we decided that we would take only the space that we absolutely needed and situate ourselves in the center of town where everything we needed and wanted would be within a fifteen or twenty minute walk from home. We walked everywhere and hailed taxis when it was necessary. Delhi did not give us much of an opportunity to walk places but we now made up for the three years of relying on Raju and Ambrose. We were on our own. I will not lie and tell you that I never thought of Ambrose. I did. All the time!

In the rhythm of my days as a dilliwali, life was full of friends, tennis, and photography. No mind was ever paid to the home that seemed, on the surface at least, clean and orderly. Whatever was not to my liking I tolerated because it seemed less painful than teaching the staff to do it exactly the way I wanted it done. Not just teaching but repeating instructions more often than I cared for. I complained to a friend that Meenu just couldn't seem to get things right. She looked at me, this wise old self sufficient friend of mine, and said, "then do it yourself." Horrors!

Here I am today, memsahib no longer, and doing it myself! We have a small two bedroom place just a minute away from Paragon, a dangerously swanky mall. The Market Place at Paragon supplies our groceries though admittedly at much higher prices than my good old A block fruit wallah and the C and E block vegetable wallahs. But fruits and vegetables are fresh and abundant and I am spared the drudgery of vegetable and fruit disinfecting. Whether we bear left or right on Orchard, we can, in 10 minutes, walk to cineplexes with 8 theaters each. On any given day, if we hankered for Thai, Japanese, Vietnamese, or even Filipino food, the only difficulty was making a choice. Shopping, whether in the Uniqlo or Hermes caliber is literally just around the corner. It has been wonderful!

We bought a car which felt essential though logically was frivolous. I have enjoyed driving everywhere, even to the American Club which I can get to by foot in 10 minutes. One evening, David and I were talking about keeping the car clean. I am a stickler for clean and David is a stickler for...well...whatever. We found Chandra in the apartment garage. He approached us and offered to clean our car. I thought he said his name was Sandra so I questioned why he had a girl's name only to realize very quickly that it was CHandra! And this from a former dilliwali! Shame on me! For 50S$ a month, he would clean our car five days a week and even promised to clean the interior if i gave him the key. It has been 3 months and I have not taken him up on it. Was he hedging when he offered me that? Could he tell I was borderline OC? Another wise and perceptive Indian! Can't seem to get away from them. I have enjoyed my car tremendously and the freedom it provides. I have enjoyed singing in the car, listening to BBC, but once in a while still wish that Jai Ho would play on air.

I spent many hours unpacking and putting things in place, shoving things in every nook and cranny to make order from the chaos that moving creates. Everything is in order now. Max is home from his one month stint in prison. We have breakfast and sometimes lunch or dinner at home. When David cooks I clean up and when I cook I still clean up! Life cannot always be fair, it seems. A lady comes to clean Max' litter box three times a week and comes every Sunday to clean our little apartment. And I am the happier for it! No amah drama, no Mr. Lal injuries, no mali delays, no chowkidar absences. In exchange, I do the laundry, wash the dishes and keep the kitchen clean, pick up the newspaper, recycle the recyclables. Not a bad deal at all! Sweet!

There has been a lot of travel for me over the four months but I am certain that we will soon establish for ourselves some sort of rhythm to our lives. Unfettered days, at least for me, can quickly lead to aimlessness. I hope to pick up the camera a little more seriously, hope to learn a little bit more everyday and hope to throw myself into a new project very soon. It has been a breeze adjusting to Singapore but has been more difficult to cleave my heart from Delhi. Who would have guessed?

So, what do I do with this blog? Tell me?