Around the world and a few taxi rides - 3

Kenneth was from Nigeria. He has been driving Lyft as the school has not opened. He goes to BYU-Idaho and was waiting for the school to start. We were going to BYU Provo campus and started chatting. He asked me about India and I was telling him that I am from the southern part of India. He answered by asking me whether I know a place called 'Madurai' in South India. You could've knocked me down with a feather.

Astonished, I told him that I am from Madurai and how he knows the place. Apparently, before coming to US, he spent a year as a Nurse-in-training at the Aravind Eye hospital in Madurai. We started talking about Madurai and he mentioned that there are a good number of Africans - coming to Madurai - to study and work. And we parted.

Finding someone who knows Madurai in a place like Provo is such a random event that I wasn't prepared for it. It also showed that the world has shrunk so much that there is no point in getting worked up over things like that.

Suraj drove me back from the hotel to JFK for my return journey home. I was sleeping for half-way and then started talking to him. Suraj came to America five years back and is driving Uber/Lyft all the time. He is originally from Nepal and was telling me that I have to visit Nepal as there are so many places to see.

Out of the blue, he asked me how to get into IT. A lot of his friends are making a lot of money there and he wants to get in as well. I told him it is not a great reason for getting into IT and he should really figure a different reason if he really wants to get into IT. So Suraj told his story.

He came to US along with hi wife and started driving taxi for someone, since that seem to be the faster way to start earning. After a couple of years, he bought his car - a Toyota Camry - he started thinking of getting into another job. Thats when his wife got diagnosed with Cancer. He had to take her to doctor almost every weekend - consultation, radio therapy or chemo - something or other. So he decided to stick with taxi driving as it gave him to flexibility to take care of his wife. He was making about $1000/week and was focused on caring for his wife.

Then he said, as a matter of fact, that his wife passed away five months before and now, he doesn't want to drive taxi anymore and wants to find a job elsewhere and see if he can re-start his life. At this point, I was just shocked. I was not sure what to tell him. There was silence sometime. Then I told him what he can do to get into IT. 

JFK - In Night

JFK - AUH (EY 100)

JFK - International terminal has 'Shake Shack' now. I consider 'Shake Shack' to be the best burger shop all around in US - 'In N Out' comes a close second. However, the 'Shroom burger in 'Shake Shack' should be one any one can close to liking a veggie burger. I prefer the Cheeseburger anyway - so greasy, you can feel the arteries clog right away. May be, I will write a separate post on it.

The only disadvantage of the Gulf carriers is the travel time. It is at least 12.5-14 hours any day and that almost kills the joy of flying - especially with such good service and comfort. This time, in addition to the difficulty of flying for 13 hours, very sub-standard service by Etihad added to the misery.

I love the A380 - it is one of the beautiful planes around. It is huge and every time I cannot stop wondering, how does this thing even fly. But this is one of the best planes to get into if traveling by economy - especially on a Thursday. My prayers were answered when I saw that the middle seat was unoccupied and the guy in the window seat moved to the back of the plane.

When will we land?

While I sleep in all my flights, it is impossible to do that in these as even after a decent 4-5 hours sleep, you still have another 7-8 hours to kill. Etihad has the worst selection of movies and shows. I ended up watching 'Young Sheldon' , 'Friends' and GOT as there were no decent movies to watch. The food was sub-standard and in tiny portions (which may be a blessing).

After 14 hours, it was a relief to stand on the ground again - but I'd one more leg to complete.

AUH - MAA (EY 268)

I planned to sleep through this one and so grabbed a bit of dinner in the airport and boarded the plane. I was seated behind a little girl who decided to cry the entire 4 hours of the flight and thereby ending my grand plan.

So it was back to watching some inane shows to kill time - Etihad has a streaming service in this one and that is not much for entertainment.

That ended the about 35000 Km, round the world trip and I have no idea why I wanted to write about it - may be, just being vain, I guess -but it was fun writing it anyway.

Around the world and a few taxi rides - 2

So Lyft has a privacy policy. They don't share the driver's phone number or any contact details with the customer. So, as soon as I found out that the bag was missing, I tried reaching the driver and that went to a mail box. Lyft does not have a contact number as well. The only way to reach is through a support mail box. So, I wrote to them asking to share the driver contacts. That when I was told about the privacy policy.

However, they promised to reach the driver and provide an update. Only that the driver could not be reached. He went off grid. I was told to wait for an update. That did not sound good at all.

Now, this went on for 2 days. I sent a reminder mail every other hour and I was told to be patient, wait and that they are actively reaching out to the driver - except that he was not responding.When I asked whether I should be filing a police complaint, I was told to do that and they will share the driver details if subpoenaed. That was no good as well.

Meanwhile I checked with my insurance company - through whom I purchased the trip insurance - and they were ok to process a lost baggage claim but I should be having a police complaint. I may not be able to recover the full value of the lost laptop - but I will get some money at least.

Provo police department has a very helpful online police report tool. Only that there should be no known suspects. I did have a suspect and luckily, I took a screenshot of the booking - which has the plate number of the car the driver was driving. So a direct complaint at the station will be the easier way to recover lost baggage.

However, I didn't want to escalate and basically was hoping that the driver was not a thief. Naive, may be, but it is hard to believe that anyone will knowingly steal. So, though I told the Lyft support that I am filing a complaint, I was willing to wait another day to see if anything happens.

The Amazingly beautiful Provo station with the FrontRunner service to Salt Lake City

So, after three days (and thirty mails) of mental agony - and completely crazy days of orientation in the campus - finally got the message that the driver has dropped off the bag at their hub in Salt Lake City. Given that the next three days were holidays - Labor day - I have to wait another 3 days to pick up the same.

Let's pick up that bag!!

The pick up was uneventful and the formalities taken care of - we got back the bag after 7 days. Overall the support from Lyft sucked big time and I have to keep threatening and bugging them to get any updates at all. They even charged a lost & found fee of $15 when they were unable to contact the driver and reversed it after I made a stink about it. The lesson is that never lose anything in the taxi.

Provo River Parkway

We stayed in a hotel behind which runs the Provo river. As rivers go, the Provo river is not much. It barely wider than a brook and barely qualifies as a river. The water is not even knee deep but the clear water flows with a hum of its own.

 As I found out, what I stumbled upon was the Provo River Parkway trail. Took the time to walk for about a couple of miles one day and was amazed by the beauty of the trail in the middle of that concrete jungle.

The trail is laid out in asphalt for cycling and walking along the river and there are cute little wooden bridges where there is a need to cross the river. Otherwise, the river and the trail runs along even under the highways and behind office buildings and all along the Provo city.

There were signage all along the trail with a little bit of the settlement history of the town of Provo and the Utah Valley area. Here is one important part of the history of the sewage disposal in the town.

 

While walking along, there were a constant stream of people fishing, cycling or running. Sibi and I took a walk along almost everyday and were constantly reminded the state of our rivers as well.

 

SLC - JFK (DL 1202)

For some reason only known to my sub-consious mind, I like Airbus planes more than the Boeing ones.  While I think the 77W is a beautiful one, somehow a A320 or A350 looks prettier. I couldn't say why but it is what it is. 

DL 1202 - Isn't it a beauty?

In US, it is rare to find a Airbus and in this instance as well - it was a 757 for the next leg of the journey to JFK - New York. However, whether it was the clear skies of the west or what, the 757 was looking a beauty as it pulled into the gate.

Delta, probably has the best service in the domestic sector and it was there to see from checkin till the baggage collection. The red-eye to JFK is not a favorite way to fly - the last time I flew this one, it was 2+ hours delayed and the entire flight was a misery during the flight and then for another day when you have to walk around like a zombie. However, it was better this time as the take off happened on time and I just slept through the entire flight to JFK. 

Around the world and a few taxi rides - 1

This trip was special as we were traveling to set Sibi up for his UG admission in Provo, Utah. It just happened that I have to go to the East coast as well and so I booked individual tickets around which ended up with me rounding the Earth once.

I've done this rounding multiple times and in today's world, they are nothing special. Everyone does it. To me, the purpose of the trip and the all around sub-par flight experience made sure that I write about it. I have to vent my frustration at two of the leading airlines somewhere.

So, here goes.

The first leg of the trip was to Salt Lake City and we chose to fly Cathay Pacific to the West coast. This is a route I've not done in a long time as my business trips become more common to the East coast and the days of our living the West were long past. So it was a little excitement to book this one.

I booked the tickets at least 3 months before our August 26 date and then started watching the #AntiELAB protests unfold in Hong Kong sometime in June. The everyday protest against the repressive bills introduced by the mainland government was by far the longest running and powerful demonstration of the people of Hong Kong people's will against the China regime. I started following Zeynep to get updates on a regular basis and was fascinated by the amazing resilience of the protesters and some of the iconic imaging from the protests. I have no idea how this will end and how to define 'end' here but what I know is that it is inspiring to see the people on the streets fighting against the power.

 Eugène Delacroix's painting from French Revolution?

Around the end of July, the protests have moved into Hong Kong International Airport. There were sit-ins, cancellations of flights and all, so now the protests are becoming something of a personal matter. Though I'd a month to travel, I was starting to think whether I should be making alternate arrangements. Though I felt a little selfish, I also felt that may be re-booking through Singapore or elsewhere is a way to show my support, in a small way. As the protests escalated and the protesters were pushed out of the terminals, it felt a little anti-climatic. I would've loved to be landing in the middle of the protests.

So, though Cathay flights were cancelled from Chennai for a day of so in August, they kept flying and so decided to go on with the same booking.

MAA - HKG (CX 632)

I sleep through most of my flights. That's one way to avoid the fear of flying. Eat, sleep or watch a movie is always my plan to get through these long, boring flights. And I did exactly the same thing as soon as I boarded the plane. 

However, I woke up when the ride got very choppy and I saw that there were some souls sleeping through it and some who got up because of the sudden shaking of the plane. I looked up the map and were over the Andaman Sea - where the weather is always choppy and there were lightnings outside the window.

The service was average and there were no announcements on the weather outside and though I asked for coffee twice, there was no response. I finally went to the galley and get the coffee. The weather cleared as we moved inland and I went back to sleep - but it was short and got up as we were over the South China sea. The only entertainment at this point was to watch this Air Asia plane fly along with us for sometime and we landed in HKIA.

HKG - LAX (CX 884)

Expecting a protest ridden airport, we were surprised to see a squeaky clean airport with no sign of any protests. We had a short connection. So just waited in the gate for our plane to arrive.

CX 884

CX 884 has some interesting history. So, it was with an expectation that I was looking forward to it. And 77W is another interesting plane. However, this one though looking beautiful from outside, had a horrible seat configuration with Cathay trying to pack as many people as possible like so much as sardines in a can.

What makes that worse is the service - which was pretty much non-existent. The guy next to me was a vegetarian and he was given consistently a non-vegetarian meal every time. He kept complaining and it was astonishing that they never corrected it. In fact, they gave a vegetarian pasta as a replacement meal along with a beef salad. The guy was aghast and returned the meal and just had an apple.

I slept the entire way and got up around the time we were in California air space. We got out fast and cleared the immigration quick and went to the American terminal for our connection to Salt Lake City.

LAX - SLC (AA 3024)

The wait in the American terminal was horrendous with us trying to get away fast so that we can get a good sleep and the wait for the plane was unbelievably long.

The regional flight was a small one with a lot of students in it - most of them going for the same reason as us- and we ended up in different seats.

The lady next to me was coming from North Carolina to visit her sister and spend the winter in Salt Lake City. She just recovered from surgery and so it was more of a rest for her. She kept asking so many questions and the 1.5 hour over the beautiful mountains of the west and the arid landscape with huge canyons and rivers. That it was a evening flight with a beautiful sun set in progress was an added incentive.

As we land in Salt Lake City, it was dark and we were so tired that we wanted to get to the hotel. I am usually chatty with the Lyft drivers. However, after an initial hello, I slept through the one hour ride to the hotel.

We check-in and enter the room to find that we've missed Sibi's laptop bag - with a new Dell 2-in-1 - in the car.

Sibi starts college - 2

There is an extensive support system available in the country for those who chose to pursue studies abroad. We extensively did a lot of research ourselves but also validated and took advise from a group of these institutions which helped in making decisions at various stages.

One of the very first thing we did was to attend the events organized by IDP in various places in the city. They are good because they give a chance to meet with the university representatives (not necessarily the ones we chose to apply - but still it gives a general idea of what to expect). IDP is also one of the institutes authorized to conduct IELTS in India (the other being the British council) and so they help out on the preparations for IELTS as well as in understanding the admission requirements etc of the universities.

The other entity we relied on was USIEF. They organize fairs and have tons of material to understand the application and admission process. They have a center in the US embassy in Chennai and they engage heavily through social media as well.

Once we finalized the universities, started following the university social media handles as well - this is needed as a lot of reminders on the dates and other important updates are posted consistently. All the universities that we were checking on had a very active social media presence. Some, like Memorial University in Canada, send their admission officers independently to India and unless you follow them in Twitter, you may never get to know of this.

Overall, I found the entire application process to be very stressful. Even with all the preparations, the requirements for each university was different - some wanted the transcripts notorized, some to upload, some to send a copy by mail, some to get it evaluated with a third party educational consultant (which costs a bomb!) - all these within the 12 unis we chose to apply. Teacher recommendation letters had similar combinations as well. Added to this, sending the original 10th mark sheets (later, 11th and 12th as well) by mail to IERF for evaluation and and getting it back by mail without losing it, adds to shatter whatever fragile peace of mind that is left.

I should thank the entire teaching staff of AMM School and the principal Mrs. Mahalakshmi - for their continuous support during the entire process to provide the recommendation letters on paper or typing that in the system for some applications and all in between. Their patience to take in every request and process them within the short time frame every time is not something that every school administration does.

And BYU had an additional requirement to have an interview done with the LDS Church officials followed by a phone interview with the Bishop in Salt Lake city as well. The entire leadership team at the LDS church in Chennai - especially the president, Prince Jayakaran,  were very helpful in completing the recommendations (after much challenges in the system) and also in the days afterward in terms of connecting us with the other students in the university. The whole process would've fallen to pieces without their timely assistance.

All this was approximately from October - December 15, 2018 when most of the application deadlines were. While we tried to keep Sibi's involvement minimal, it was not possible as he has to write the essays, following on recommendation letters at school and be generally involved.

However, it was a relief to have submitted the application for all the universities that we wanted to apply. BYU had one extension to December 18 for submission and we submitted on December 18 evening (thanks to some last minute push by J).

After that, it is time to wait for the results and at times, additional requests for information on submitted documents. These requests came in from almost all the universities for us and we kept responding to be on time.

If the application process for stressful, waiting for the decisions to come in was super stressful. Iowa State was the first one to send the acceptance (they have a mandate to accept everyone, so its not a great secret!).

Then came the acceptance from Memorial University - our first choice in Canada. That kept the backup plan on a strong place and so we were pretty certain that some more are going to come through. By January, we had acceptance from Iowa State, Memorial, Calgary, Saskatchewan, BYU - Idaho and an admittance to the PSA program in TAMU. TAMU was a disappointment as we were expecting a direct admittance and not through PSA.

SUNY applications were rejected as they were not 'complete' with supporting documentation - we never really found out what was missing as the common application system hands over the control to the universities at some point and they just update the status and getting a clear understanding of what went wrong was not possible (for us at least!).

Finally the acceptance letter from BYU came through on Feb 16, 2019. At that point, we know that the process is complete for us. 

Sibi starts college - 1

Sibi is starting college this week. In USA. At Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

None of the sentences are as difficult to type in as the above ones. It means Sibi is going to start his life and is going to own up a large chunk of his life from this point onwards. It will be something we will have to deal with in the coming months - getting used to his absence at home. And that is going to be very difficult.

But I started writing this not to mope but to explain the super-exciting, roller-coaster ride of the lifetime we've had till he had his acceptance letters coming in starting Feb 2019.

It has always been our intention to send him back to US for his college. No special reasons except that the college environment is more conducive for someone of Sibi's temperament and that I wanted him to avoid the stale university environment in India.

That leaves out Sibi's wishes as to where he wants to study. So we've always kept that option open - in case, he decided to be in India for his studies, we didn't want to stop him from that as well. So he did his 3 year FIITJEE and hated it - so he dropped out of it by the time he finished his 10th. Anyway, he didn't want to focus on IITs or NITs.

He went on a trip to UK in 2017 - during his 10th holidays - all alone and loved it. He spent a month with my brother but managed to roam around solo to so many places, he became comfortable with the whole environment.

That and the fact that we've always asked him to focus on going to US for his studies mean that by the time he started his 11th, we started the process of getting him to US for his under graduate degree.

We targeted Dec 2017 as the time for his first attempt for SAT and decided that he will take it by self-study and nothing more. I got his these wonderful preparation books from The College Panda by Nielson Phu and I actually spent sometime studying those and I can say (Sibi agrees!) that they are much better than any of the other books out there.

By this time, Sibi has decided to do Mathematics and while we asked him to consider some other options as well, he declined and so we now started looking for colleges all around the world. We started with the first excel sheet of all the colleges/universities which are of interest. We also included details like entry criteria, tuition and other expenses and importantly, how the college fares in the various rankings published.

By this time, SAT was completed with an above average score. We had no idea what the score means and we wanted to decide on some universities and then decide whether there needs to be a re-write. The focus shifted to IELTS (which is a requirement for the Canadian universities) and targeted to complete that by May 2018.

After a few iterations of the college list over a few months, we ended up deciding to focus on US and Canada. And decided to focus on the universities in places I am familiar with so that I will have a way to evaluate during my trips to US. So, that ended up with the states of NY, CA and a few in the Midwest.

One of the universities I know of was the BYU - due to my trips to Lehi, UT and I started looking into the aspects of the university as well. The other universities which we wanted to focus were the SUNY, Albany and Buffalo, Iowa, TAMU, Memorial University and UNB in Canada. We added a few more later as well based on recommendations.

Selecting a group of colleges to apply to can be traumatizing. There is always a better college you chose to bypass and there is always someone who points that out. But after agonizing over a few times, you make your peace with that. For Sibi, thankfully, he was focused on Memorial and BYU - Provo and the rest were all back up options. However, we felt it important to chose the universities early so that there is a better chance of getting acceptance.

Sibi was in 12th standard by this time and we didn't want to disturb him very much. Meanwhile, I have to learn about FAFSA and a whole lot of details about Foreign Tax returns and Federal conversion rates and had a lot of misgivings about what I understood versus what was expected.

The applications for the Fall semester open approximately one year before for most universities and most close within a 8-10 weeks time frame. And that is not a lot of time if one is applying for multiple universities as the application demands of each university varies. The transcripts from Ninth standard to Eleventh standard, multiple recommendation letters, a whole lot of essays, the extra curricular activity lists and details with even dates , the scholarship application that need to be submitted simultaneously and the essays for that - the list is endless.

We did end up submitting about 10 applications for 12 universities (SUNY and Texas had a common application system for multiple universities). Sibi wrote about 10+ essays on various topics and write-ups on activities and other related questions. He wrote an equal number of essays for the scholarship applications in multiple universities. That puts an added strain to kids in the middle of the 12th standard.

Theppakulam

Theppakulam  (தெப்பக்குளம்) - literally meaning ‘raft in the pond’ - is kind of a misnomer for the place. For I know that the place gets water only for a few days in February for the Theppam festival- in which the goddess Meenakshi floats in a raft along with her consort.

I grew up in an area called Pankajam colony just off the Theppakulam and so the place holds a lot of memories for me. Of course, though the second largest city in Tamil Nadu (debatable as I think both Trichy and Coimbatore are larger), by the standards of metro cities, you can literally live anywhere in the city and feel close to any landmarks.

Madurai still has a rural heart which I believe is something that cannot be taken away. I still remember farmers in bullock carts coming to sell paddy everyday in the middle of the city during school days - little has changed since then. The entire manufacturing and services revolution which transformed Coimbatore and Trichy , bypassed Madurai entirely. That’s for another day.

Theppakulam

It’s been a long time since I’ve walked around the place and so thought why not write about the place and reminisce a little?

Theppakulam was dug in the 17th century by the Nayak rulers and when we grew up, suppose to be point where Madurai proper ended. The last stop of the ubiquitous no.4 town bus service for so long , we use to look at that lonely easterly road towards Viraganur with dread.

It is in these lonely roads around here I learnt to ride a bicycle. Being the lazy guy I was (and still is), my mom used to wake me up around 5-6am and force me to do 2-3 rounds cycling around here. Measuring about a kilometre in length each side, the rides used to be so tiring and boring of course.

So she forced my cousins to take me with them for their weekend cricket matches in Theppakulam and they used to be bewildered by my skills in ball handling that there use to be heated arguments around whose team I should be in. However it is in one of those matches in this barren pond that I took a catch at point which still remains my peak athletic achievement.

That Madurai has changed now. While the Meenakshi temple has become such a touristy place that I think the locals pretty much stopped going to the temple except on festival days, Theppakulam still remains a local haunt but the quietness of the place is now replaced with a buzzing entertainment sense with road side shops and hundreds of people hanging around and inside the tank.

Muktheeswarar Temple

I took a walk around the tank just like the old days. The air was cool and the place was lively and so starts with the very quiet Muktheeswarar temple in the west side of the tank. This used to be a quiet temple and thankfully remains so even now.

The boats

Found a few boats which used to ply the pond in the school nearby. In my entire life, I have seen boats in the pond only once and so not sure what they were doing here.

The road into the city

As one walks towards the northern side of the tank, the road that goes towards the city diverges. For some reason unknown to me, a lot of marriage halls are around in this area and so the place looks lively with music and girls decked up during the marriage season.

Noticed a factory outlet shop of VS Chellam - this is a local soap brand which sells detergents and others manufactured in Madurai. I remember their hand-made soap factory we visited as part of a school tour and the smell of soap that was hanging in the air all around.

The Paper Roast at Sabarees

Had a paper roast at Sabaree's which is also here - a vegetarian restaurant which serves some yummy stuff. And if you are lucky, you can see some young nuns from the Nirmala convent nearby and on school days, watching the nuns and the girls from the school used to be a favorite pastime for us - we lived in a street just opposite to the convent and so most of my school mates use to hang around our gates till the school empties everyday.

Thiagarajar College

Moving towards the Theppakulam Mariyamman temple, you can see the college which produced so many Dravidian stalwarts - old and prestigious, the Thiagarajar college has so much of history buried in its grounds.

Mariamman Temple

Next off is the Mariamman temple. Madurai is a city where there is a festival at one of its temples on any given day. So I watched as a long line of girls - young and old - carrying mulaipaari , the traditional germination and sprouting of seeds done during the Tamil month of Aadi - singing some songs and a few older men directing them to the temple.

Mulaipari

Kamaraj Hall and the road to the second bridge

Moving towards the eastern side of the tank, the corner has the Kamaraj hall and the second bridge across Vaigai connecting this part to the Anna Nagar area on the 'other' bank of Vaigai. Madurai people always think of the 'other' bank of Madurai as some external entity and considered only 'this' bank which has the Meenakshi temple as Madurai proper and the 'other' bank used to be some outside entity.

Maruthu brothers

The eastern side of the tank has the large statue of the Maruthu brothers - now floodlighted and prominent with the road to Viraganoor going beyond it. The Theppakulam police station lies a little further.

The Eastern side of the tank has the 'notorious' Model school - where most of my periappas and chittappas (uncles) learnt to fail exams and in the process were part of some of the legendary stories in the family. - with the most famous one being, one periappa and a few chittappas (including cousins), having managed to write the 10th standard exam in the same year, goes to the school to check the results. Having waited all morning for the kids to return from school, my grandma and grandpa goes into panic thinking they should've run away or worse, after seeing the results and initiate a frantic search across neighbors and friends houses. All the kids return by evening. All of them failed the exams and decided to go watch 'Iruvar Ullam' in Chintamani theater to tide over the grief and ended up on the wrong side of the broom that day at home.

Fireworks across the sky

Having completed the round, there was nothing for me but to sit on a side of the tank and watch the fireworks happening in one of the marriage halls and feeling a sense of lightness not experienced anywhere in the world.

There is absolutely no place like Madurai..

Stepping out of the car..

One of the things I've been enjoying as the kids grow up is to discuss issues with them. It is a lot of fun to make them think through to figure out what is right and what is wrong and decide on which side of the political spectrum they want to be in.

It was gentrification of cities we talked about last week. We were driving through the city and were talking about the cost of rent versus the property prices in the city. The discussion started as we drove along the rubble of the encroached houses and shops around the MRTS station in Velachery. Most of the people who rented/built the structures were lower wage earners and I was explaining how the fish stalls there were initially moved from Vijaya nagar and are again being now moved out of Velachery itself.

I started explaining how the high rent and property prices in the area are being kept at their level to slowly push the lesser fortunate to move outside the city and how it impacts their livelihood by increasing transportation costs. Initially they were skeptical as to how to avoid such scenarios. I explained a little of the rent-control laws in NYC and other cities which help keep all strata society to be able to afford housing in the city. And how having no such protection here is favoring the greediness of the people and leaving the lower wagers and the poor to be excluded. We argued and the common misconceptions of equating cleanliness with hiding the poor was cited and we talked about how hiding the poor is not a solution but rather  generating more wealth across the society is a possible solution.

The discussion ended as we reached home. I am sure they will form their own opinions and arguments etc on the issues and the most important thing for me is to make sure that they realize that these are issues that affect people around them and if not empathetic, it is important at least to be sympathetic to that.

While Vanathy reads a lot of fiction, Sibi reads the newspaper everyday - not just the sports section but every page of it. And I think that has helped him to form his opinions on everything - I don't necessarily discuss everything with him, but when we come across some issue, he always expresses what he thinks and why. I get that the opinions that I had when I was 17 were drastically different from what I've today and so it is interesting to see the way his thought process evolves.

Vanathy needs a constant reminder to read 'up' on books and not get bogged down by the YA alone. So I keep recommending her books to read - sometimes she does and mostly she just parks it for 'future' reading. One book which she found interesting and I thought added a lot of value is this one.

Not necessarily a political book but is a powerful reminder for her on what can be achieved if you focus on what you want to do and a lot of examples of that.

Me and Vanathy were watching the 'Family Reunion' in Netflix yesterday and it was the episode where the police officers hold the black kids as suspicious 'men' and I was telling her how the racial equations are skewed in US and it is not always the rose-tinted world that she imagines it to be. When the pictures of kids shot by the officers started rolling off, I asked her to look up on Malcolm X and read a bit about the civil rights movement. Talked a little about the challenges of being black or brown in US and some of the racial tensions that still exist.

And the most important thing that I am still teaching them is to be able to look at issues for what they are rather than with a prejudiced view of an ignoramus. The whatsapp story clubs and the faux nationalistic ideologies have skewed the views so much that the comprehension of issues or a discussion on that has become virtually impossible with people equating whatabouttery as discussion. I want them to understand that and identify when that happens.

To me, it is important that they start learning about some of these real issues in the real world and be able to form an opinion and do their part. I grew up in a poor household and so was naturally inclined to try to understand the inequalities around me - helping me to form my political opinions. It is not the same for them. Seeing the world through a car window makes one insulated from the reality outside and only results in seeing the lesser fortunate as expendable without having any understanding of the issues.

If my kids somehow manage to step out of that car and be able to sympathize with causes and people, I may be able to call myself a good parent.