Back to reality

It took some work to pry Jo and Vivian away and back home. They would have been perfectly happy to spend their last few days in Hyderabad by a pool at a hotel. Evan grew up some more. He picks his own t-shirts now and brings them to you. When it's this one (thanks, Alu & michelle), he proudly declares "Dawg. Shhhir". And when we ran out of swim diapers for him at the hotel, we just popped him on the potty and he pooped like a champ.

This was the view from our window. Yes - that's the pool - lined with burnt largish white people. But I'd like to point out the boulders. They are small chunks of granite that chipped off the large blocks. They are about ten to fifteen feet high. When we were kids we'd climb and run and play on boulders like this all day. At home, at school, at friend's homes. Boulders and huge slabs of granite. That's what my memories of Banjara Hills are made of. So this morning after breakfast Jo and Vivian and Evan and I climbed the pile of boulders to the left of the photo. Others stared.

And if you looked up instead of down at the pool, this s what you'd see. That's what a typical street in Hyderabad looks like. Not! This is in an office park and these buildings are filled with staff from Deloitte and Novartis and IBM and Accenture. This part of Hyderabad didn't exist till a few years ago. Your job gets outsourced to places like this.

On the way back home Jo spotted a fiver at the Jubilee Hills checkpost traffic signal. We got stuck in traffic and had to catch up with them so she could take this photo. We see them all the time but we don't usually have a camera.

A couple of days back Jo noticed three teenagers on a motorcycle. As they approached an intersection with a policeman, the last kid slid off the bike and ran after his friends who rode on through. On the other side they stopped and he hopped on again. Jo raised a questioning eyebrow. It's illegal in Hyderabad for more than two people to ride on a two wheeler. Unless they are small children. Then I don't know what the limit is, because we have seen a family of six a couple of times.