Education
December 17th 2005
It was a little chaotic getting to the hotel from the airport with 13 pieces of luggage, 2 children, and a husband (just kidding). Actually my husband Bob was arranging all while I was standing around with the kids trying to gauge how I was going to survive in this city where somehow 6 people had now become involved in the task of getting our luggage into a couple of cars. They all had different ways of doing it, they all wanted some compensation and they all spoke only broken English. In the midst of this chaos, a young beggar boy not much older than Sandrine was looking for a handout. My husband went in one of the cars with half the luggage and I went in the other with the rest of the luggage and Nikhitita and Sandrine. We would be driving from the north side of Mumbai (where the airport was located) to the center of the city which is where our hotel was situated.
On the way to our temporary hotel (where we would stay for approximately a month) before moving into our "permanent" housing I passed the time talking to our driver, Srinivas. The girls has fallen asleep tired of the travel and heat. Turns out that he was also from the South (as were we) and he had 4 children. He had moved from Chennai to Mumbai for work some 40 years ago and was settled here now. He had a great pride in his voice as he told me that the oldest son (all were boys) was studying in University. He also told me that he went back to Chennai to visit his parents every three years as it was too expensive to go more often.
I nodded with understanding. When I was younger we didn't go to India that often. My parents (both with higher education degrees - Ph.D. and M.S.) had come to the U.S. later than most of their generation and wanted to save for their children's educations.
As she moved restlessly in her sleep, I looked over at my sleeping Sandrine who would be four in March, realizing as I did that this was her third trip to India. She had already gone to India the same number of times that Srinivas would in a decade.
Every parent wants better for the next generation than their own. I suppose that this holds true regardless of caste, creed, or occupation. Although they had very different backgrounds, when it came down to it Srinivas was no different than my parents in believing that education offered the promise of a better life and both bestowed that gift on their children at the cost of seeing their own parents.
It was a little chaotic getting to the hotel from the airport with 13 pieces of luggage, 2 children, and a husband (just kidding). Actually my husband Bob was arranging all while I was standing around with the kids trying to gauge how I was going to survive in this city where somehow 6 people had now become involved in the task of getting our luggage into a couple of cars. They all had different ways of doing it, they all wanted some compensation and they all spoke only broken English. In the midst of this chaos, a young beggar boy not much older than Sandrine was looking for a handout. My husband went in one of the cars with half the luggage and I went in the other with the rest of the luggage and Nikhitita and Sandrine. We would be driving from the north side of Mumbai (where the airport was located) to the center of the city which is where our hotel was situated.
On the way to our temporary hotel (where we would stay for approximately a month) before moving into our "permanent" housing I passed the time talking to our driver, Srinivas. The girls has fallen asleep tired of the travel and heat. Turns out that he was also from the South (as were we) and he had 4 children. He had moved from Chennai to Mumbai for work some 40 years ago and was settled here now. He had a great pride in his voice as he told me that the oldest son (all were boys) was studying in University. He also told me that he went back to Chennai to visit his parents every three years as it was too expensive to go more often.
I nodded with understanding. When I was younger we didn't go to India that often. My parents (both with higher education degrees - Ph.D. and M.S.) had come to the U.S. later than most of their generation and wanted to save for their children's educations.
As she moved restlessly in her sleep, I looked over at my sleeping Sandrine who would be four in March, realizing as I did that this was her third trip to India. She had already gone to India the same number of times that Srinivas would in a decade.
Every parent wants better for the next generation than their own. I suppose that this holds true regardless of caste, creed, or occupation. Although they had very different backgrounds, when it came down to it Srinivas was no different than my parents in believing that education offered the promise of a better life and both bestowed that gift on their children at the cost of seeing their own parents.
posted by Danakka @ 8:58 AM
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