July 28 -29

Check out our fancy high-heels and dresses!

Chinese lunch with Sonia

July 28 - Today we took Nani to the hospital. The whole family - Nana, Big Nana, and Bai went along with Mommy, Maya, and me. We got to sit in the back of the van. We were too early for the appointment and therefore decided to go shopping with some of the street vendors. Mommy bought Maya and me new high heals and a fancy dress each. She had to bargain with the vendors but lost her bargaining touch! Still the price was good.

On the way back, we took Nani, Nana, Big Nana, and Bai to Inorbit Mall for the first time ever. They loved it in the glass elevator and got a little cold when we sat down to eat. We all loved the food we ate as always. Just so you know, pizza is the same as in the States.

July 29 - We met Sonia (mommy's friend). First we ate at a Chinese restaurant and ate with chopsticks again. We ate ice-cream after that and the guy made the waffle cones from the batter in front of us. We had never seen fresh waffle cones made before. After that we went to see a bollywood movie on the big screen. They spoke Hindi and English in the movie. We liked the movie. Sylvester Stallone and Denise Richards (who are American movie stars) also starred in this movie.

Words I learned today:

In Hindi, Thora-thora थोरा-थोरा means "little bit"

Ma माँ means "mommy" papa or Pitaji (Pit-a-ji) पिताजी means "dad"

July 27

Celebrating Nani's 75th birthday!

Maya and I on our first Motorbike adventure!

Today is Nani's birthday - she turned 27 (no, just kidding!) 75! Some people also came to fix some lights in the building. One of them had a motorbike and took us on a ride. It was a lot of fun and more fun than a motor scooter.

We also went to the bazaar and bought Rakhis (Raa-khees). This is a celebration where a sister usually ties a bracelet (the Rakhi), on her brother's wrist to show her love and appreciation. Brothers vow to protect their sisters and give them a gift to show their appreciation. Since Maya and I do not have a brother, we changed the tradition a bit and tied Rakhis on each other instead.

We also went on a long auto rickshaw ride again with Big Nana to buy Nani a cake for her birthday. She loved the little celebration we did with candles and all! Everyone had a good time. Maya and I also went with Bai and bought red roses for Nani as our gift.

Words I learned today:

Chalo चलो in Hindi means "Let's go"

Mrs. Ednalino = ಮ್ರ್ಸ್. ಎದ್ನಲಿನೋ in Kanda, and मर्स एड्नालिनो in Hindi

Theresa = ಥೆರೆಸ in Kanda and थेरेसा in Hindi

July 26

Meera, Maya, and two others on a scooter

Meera and Maya by a Banyan Tree

Today we did two cool things. One, we visited a temple because today is Naag Panchmi (a festival celebrating the snake god). We were hoping to see a real cobra and feed it some milk. However, because cobras are now protected animals, they do not have them in the temple or on streets anymore. Maya and I took a picture by the sacred banyan tree. The banyan tree is sacred in India.

We also went on a motor scooter ride. Maya stood in front with another little boy while I got to sit in the back. The ride was super fun. I hope I get to do it again tomorrow. I also went with Bai to the bazaar and she bought me some bangles!

Words I learned Well I did not learn any words. I learned how to write in Hindi and Kanda. The first one is in Kanda, and the second is how you write in Hindi:

Meera = ಮೀರಾ, मीरा

Debbie = ಡೆಬ್ಬಿಎ, देब्बिए

Maggie = ಅಗ್ಗಿಎ, मग्गी

Maya = ಮಾಯಾ, माया

Bob = ಬಾಬ್, बोब

Jai = ಜೈ, जय

Amy = ಅಮಿ, अमी ; Morgan = ಮೋರ್ಗನ್, मोर्गन

July 23 - 25

July 23 - We went to Center One Mall। Me and Maya played in the play area while Mommy went shopping. She got me a chess board and Maya a jewellery box. We also bought high heal sandals! Mine was black and has pretty flowers on it. Maya's is gold with sparkles. We wore them all evening.

July 24 - we didn't do much but still had fun by going to a different mall। We took a walk and got some ice-cream. It was yummy. We also went to Domino's pizza - it was Nana and Nani's first time eating pizza in India. They ate the spicy chicken topping while we stuck to cheese.

July 25 - we went to a hillstation by the name of Lonavala. The scenery was beautiful. There were waterfalls everwhere and clouds were touching the ground! We could barely see at times.

We went to Bhushy Dam and Sarovar lake drove by Raj Mahchi (a fort). We got wet at Bhushy Dam and Maya liked going on the stepping stones leading to the dam. Mommy was a little scared and did not allow us to go much further but I forced her to go. We also saw lots of monkeys and their families.

When we stopped for lunch, the waiter gave us finger bowls to clean our hands. This was fun. It was a bowl of warm water with a piece of lemon. We squeezed the juice in the water and rubbed our fingers with the lemon. This made our fingers smell clean and good. Then we went home. We also took a walk in the bazaar. Maya ate another bhutta (roasted corn on the cob), while I ate another ice-cream.

We also saw Rakhees. These are beautiful bracelets that sisters tie on their brother's wrist to celebrate Brother's and Sister's Day. In India, they don't celebrate Mother's and Father's day as every day is celebrated for them. A few minutes later, we took another walk with Bai (our maid). She bought Maya and me some candy - two each.

Words we learned today - "Dhanyawad" (Dhan-ya-waad) धन्यवाद् means "thank you".

July 17-22

July17 - Today we decided to visit a city named Mysore. This is about 80 miles south of Bangalore and is known for the famous Mysore Palace. The drive was very scenic and it took us 3-4 hours to get there. We saw bullock carts, beautiful mountains, and landscaping. When we reached the palace, we took a guided tour inside. The guide knew a lot about the palace and was quite funny and asked us a lot of questions about the palace to help us remember things. My favorite part of this trip was we got to ride on an elephant and a camel! Maya touched the camel's slobber -e-e-u-u-u-u!! We also visited a place called Chamundi hills where the view of the city was beautiful.


July 18 - We visited mommy's friend Gwen who she knew since 5th grade. She lives quite far away and she is very short. She has two daughters Kavya and Kajol who are our age except Kavya is 5 and Kajol is 3. Later in the evening, we said bye to Jai and Vaishali. As gifts, they brought us Barbies that were dressed in Indian sarees. We love them. Maya named her Barbie Saleen. We will miss Jai and Vaishali as they were so nice to us.


July 19th - we said bye to everyone in Bangalore - my grandma, Revti (the maid), Sulochana (the driver's wife) and Srinivas (the driver). They had all been very nice and helpful to us. The flight to Mumbai was fun. We were the only kids and the flight attendants were treating us as royalty - we got special cookies, fruits, and non-spicy food. Maya ate a lot of carrots. When we reached our hotel, we loved it and went straight to the pool even though it was raining a little. We had a blast. Next, we went to see Nani and Nana at their house. Daddy met them after a long time.

July 20 - we took daddy for a drive to Mumbai. He was okay but we wanted to work. So, we came back to the hotel. Next, we invited Nana, Nani, Big Nana and Bai (the maid) to our hotel for dinner. They had not been out of the house for a social event in about a year! They were so delighted to dress up and come for the ocassion. They liked our hotel too and the food. I am glad they were able to do this.

July 21 - we went to Mumbai again and had lunch with Mommy's friends Sonia and Sujata. We had met Sonia before but this was the first time meeting Sujata. Mommy knows her from 6th grade. As usual the rain and the driving was difficult for dad to take. We were home by 4:30 p.m. We went swimming in the pool - it was fun since it was raining too. We ate dinner and came back to the hotel. I was sad since daddy was leaving tomorrow to go to Bangaluru. I will miss him as I will not see him until we reach Indianapolis again.

July 22 - we said bye to Daddy early in the morning and then checked out later to go and stay with Nani and Nana again. Now we will have access to the computer more often. Daddy is in Bangaluru until the 26th. Daddy, just so you know, I miss you and wish you were here to see how much fun we were having. Oh and 1 more thing how do you say these sentences and words below in Kannada?


Words I learned today:
In Hindi, "Main America se hoon" (मैं अमेरिका से हूँ )means "I am from America."
"Theek hai" (ठीक है )means "I am okay or alright"
"Achcha" (अच्छा) means "okay or alright" (my mom says this a lot on the phone :))

July 12-16

July 12 - we left for Bangalore or it is now called Bangaluru! we reached at 12 and met Daddy and his friend Jai. He drove us all the way home. We saw Avva (Daddy's mom) and Venki (Dad's brother) at home. On the way we saw many cows, horses, dogs (of course!) and goats. Judy, just so you know, sloppy goats means sloppy. We went to a store with Avva and bought a carom board, some balls to play, and yummy mangoes! Carom is a game in Indian that people like to play for fun. It is square board and you need strategy to play. We also went for a walk and played in the playground. Maya almost made it to the fourth bar of the monkey bars by herself until she fell and landed on her nose. We needed to ice the nose as it had swollen up and got scratched.

July 13 - We visited daddy's company Flat World. We found out that it wasn't flat! Jai taught us how to make froggies that hop for real (with origami paper). He also showed us how to do Math puzzles and gave us lot of fun things to do. Later that evening, we went to his house and met his family. Maya and I hung out with Yash ( Jai's son who is my age). Yash has a Wii and a video game which kept us entertained all evening. We had a lot of fun today.

July 14 - we met a new cousin named Navya. She is six and half. We were actually set to go to Bangaretta National Park and do a safari but the park was closed. Boo-hoo-hoo! So, instead we went to the mall and played in the playzone. We won a lot of tickets but we were 14 tickets short to get Maya's game. So, Jai went and played a game and won the jackpot. So, now we had 300 tickets more. This helped us get a lot more prizes than before. We love Jai and so we made him thank you cards. We had so much fun with Navya that we decided to have a sleepover with Navya even though we just met her.

July 15 - Mommy and Avva did a puja (prayer ceremony) at the temple. Mommy wore a sari and we wore our Indian clothes. We all looked pretty. We also got 200 rupees each as gifts. We went shopping later to a different mall hoping they would have a fun playzone too. But they didn't. On the way back, we saw some historic places and also ate a guava. It was disgusting as it had a lot of seeds. Later, we met Navya again at Daddy's family get-to-gether. We met a lot of daddy's relatives. We also met Apoorva and her sister Deepti. They were in Daddy's Two Million Minutes movie.

Words I learned today:
In Kannada, "Come to my house" is "Manay Gab Bunny"

Friday, July 10

Today, we went to Bombay again in a taxi and had no seat belts to wear. This time we went to the Planetarium. It was cool but a little boring. Then, we met up with Mommy's brothers friend Cyrus. He is a blackbelt in Karate but he doesn't look like he knows much karate. We went to a place called Hanging Gardens and saw the famous shoe. It was quite dirty inside. The view of Bombay from there was beautiful. We also ate corn on the cob but it was roasted. We ate pizza at Smoking Joe's. We saw two cows on the way and they were crossing the road just like other people.

Words I learned today: In Hindi how you say corn on the cob - bhutta (bhoo-tta)

Thursday July 9th

Today, we went to Bombay. We sat in the back seat of the taxi. There were no seat belts again and we could do whatever we want. Next, we went to Gateway of India. This was built to greet the king and queen of England. We also saw two horses with fancy carts. They are called Victorias. We also met up with Mommy's friend Sonia - they have been friends since they were five and in first grade. Sonia invited us in to her office. We also went to a store called "Fab India" and it was raining a lot. We got trapped in there. It was pouring rain and it made a mini flood.

After we finally got to the taxi, we met up with Sonia. She ran to the taxi with us. We then went to eat Chinese food. It was our first time using chopsticks! It was difficult. We ate wantons, noodles, french fries, and chicken. For dessert, we had chocolate ice cream - yummy! Our drink was water. Then we got back in the taxi to wait for Sonia's taxi. Sonia is really nice. Once she left, we took off and went to New Bombay. Then we went off to sleep.

What I learned today:
In Hindi, I learned how to say a full sentence: Mera naam Meera hai which means "My name is Meera."

Wednesday, July 8

Maya and I woke up late (around 11 a.m.) and skipped breakfast completely. It had rained all morning. We were suppose to go to Bombay and do some sightseeing but because it rained a lot more there, our friends told us not to come in and get stuck. So, we decided to take a walk around the block. We went to a park named Mango Gardens. We saw some ducks, swans, and crows and a dead rat! It was gross and disgusting as flies were all around and there was blood.
Next, we took the autorickshaw to go see the ocean.

On the way to the ocean, we saw some sloppy goats taking a walk. The ocean was quite dirty at this time of the year but the view was beautiful. On the way back, we saw an elephant walking the streets. He/she (we don't know but we will refer to it as he from here on), was asking for money, so we gave him two (2) rupees. He took it in his trunk and gave it to his owner who was seated on his back. It was fun to watch him go the drivers in cars and ask money this way. We have a video clip of this which we will post later. At the end of the day, Maya and I played hide-n-go-seek. Love, Meera.

Words we learned today: Nani (Na-nee) means Grandma, Nana (na-na) means Grandpa in Hindi
Avva (Av-va) means Grandma, Tatha (Ta-tha) means Grandpa in Kannada
Paniee (Pa-nee) = water, in Hindi. Neer means water in Kannada

Words I learned today

In Hindi, "Namaste" (Num-us-te') means Hello. This is how you greet people in India

In Kannada, "Kutty" (cu-ttee) means "little one." My daddy calls me "Meera Kutty"

July 7th

Today we went to the Mall. It is called Inorbit and it is pretty cool. We had a lot of fun. We won two game boards and one eraser. The first board game had 3-in-1 games. The second game had 4-in-1 games. Me and Maya haven't open that. We will tomorrow at 8 a.m. when we wake up. First, we will play chutes and ladders, then we will play a "bowling on a board." Now we will spend the time writing more blogs.

July 2 - 6 (written by Mommy for me)

It was a fun and adventurous day. We started off from Indy and thought things were going well. The weather looked great, the traffic was not bad. However, our flight from Indy to Newark was delayed. We were assured our flight leaving Newark was also delayed, so we didn't panic until we reached Newark at 8 p.m. When we reached the gate, we were told our flight was on time and the plane had already closed its doors! Between my mom's look and mine, it must have said it all to the attendant. He called the pilot immediately to request the doors be opened.

The five minutes we had to wait to board the plane felt like eternity but it was all worth it - we were on our way to Mumbai.

I loved the plane - our very own pillows, blankets, headphones and our very own TV monitor! Those clouds we flew into made us feel like we were in movie and gaming heaven. We even were served our own kid's meal. We reached Mumbai. My first words out of the plane was "this place is kinda stinky" which made Mommy laugh. Outside the airport was our own private taxi waiting for us. The neat part was we could sit anywhere we wanted and we did not have to wear seat belts.

July 3rd we finally met Nana (Grandpa), Nani (Grandma) and Big Nana (Mommy's Uncle). There house is tiny but it was a lot of fun to see. We did not sleep until 5 a.m. in the morning

July 4th - It rained all day and we got the first preview of the monsoon season in Mumbai. All we did was watched Dora (she speaks Hindi instead of Spanish here) and we did nothing at all. We felt like "Sally and I" from the Cat in the Hat book.

July 5th - it was a clear and wonderful day. Nani arranged for an autorickshaw. This was the coolest ride of all. It's a covered scooter with three seats in the back (and again no seat belts).
The ride was like a bumpy roller coaster and we had a blast. We went to a Mall and ate at Pizz Hut. Next, we played games at the video arcade. As usual Maya was able to win more tickets than me that helped us win some cool prizes. When we came back, Maya took a nap. Mommy and I went for a walk around the bazaar (the place where you can buy fresh groceries). We have now become experts in crossing streets.

July 6th - we are still recovering from our jetlag. I slept in until noon. We again took an autorickshaw ride and discovered a new Mall - Inorbit. It was even cooler than the one from yesterday.