Last Entry

We knew the day would come when we would post the final entry to our blog. We just could not comprehend on September 10, 2005 when we landed in the dead of night in Chennai that this day would arrive so quickly. Recapping our full experience over these past months in a few paragraphs is beyond our literary reach. We can say without hesitation that we have had a most marvelous adventure.

After a few carefree days of vacation in Paris, we will land in the US on May 11 and resume lives that, prior to our life in India, we considered adventuresome. Yet having trekked about the Indian subcontinent, strolled the streets of Hanoi, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and dusted from our trousers the dirt from Sri Lankan gem mines, we may find our sense of adventure in the familiar surroundings of our Atlanta home requiring some adjustment. We are ready for that challenge.

We will face other challenges upon our return as well. We will move from left hand to right hand traffic flow, centigrade to fahrenheit, from never drinking the tap water to having our fill, bananas purchased from street vendors to bananas sold in wide-aisled, well lit Kroger stores. We’re looking forward to it.

The view from our back balcony overlooking the N.R. Colony will change to a view of full-leafed oak and poplar trees. Rather than having our neighbor’s dog Princess as an occasional visitor, Katie, Leopold and Sammy will be our regular canine companions. Grimmy and Elana, our two tiny fully grown cats, will find comfort with the return of our inviting laps.

Work at Jay’s Bangalore office will continue. New arrivals will continue to fill the ranks of the Bangalore Overseas Women’s Club. Our Indian friends from the apartment who are already home will continue to mingle on Republic Day in the apartment compound. We suspect our absence will hardly be noticed.

What will long linger are our many wonderful memories, many of which we’ve captured in this blog. Some that transcend photos are the retelling of his escape from the tsunami waters by Coconut Raj, the heat felt on our skin in the towns along the Malabar Coast and the quiet nod of appreciation when a few rupees were given to street beggars. These and other memories will remain as we adjust from urban to suburban living, rupees to dollars and begin letting our imaginations formulate our next great adventure.

Pink Elephant Sale

As we move into our final days of preparation to leave Bangalore, Helen has had to stay laser-focused on another local affair. As the chairperson of the Overseas Women’s Club (OWC) community-sized yard sale fund raiser called the Pink Elephant Sale, her attention has been locked on securing donations, volunteers and coordination with various vendors.

All her hard work and that of the many OWC volunteers paid off when the event was held on Wednesday, 2-May. Nearly 95,000 rupees was raised for the OWC charities. Of the 86 boxes of donated clothing, toys, housewares and shoes, there were seventy empty boxes at the end of day. The remaining goods will be distributed to the OWC charities. Wednesday was truly a win-win day.

The Pink Elephant Sale was held in the large, tree shaded overflow parking lot provided by St. Mark’s Anglican Cathedral. Built by British expats in 1808 and enlarged a century later, the imposing church structure was the back drop for the sale. In a wink to the continuity of history, British expats again mingled on St. Mark’s grounds for the sale. Only this time they were joined by modern 21^st expats from Australia, New Zealand, the US and Europe that now also call Bangalore home.

The sale lasted 2 ½ hours. A 30 minute early bird sale was opened to volunteers to select from the 3,000+ donated items. Then the sale was opened to the wider community. People streamed onto the grounds. Volunteers manned tables with goods and more volunteers sat at cashier tables ready to accept the 10, 20 and 30 rupee notes for most goods.

Everything moved seamlessly that day, giving credit to the long hours of behind-the- scenes preparation work. Donated goods were assembled at our apartment and at the home of another OWC member in Whitefield. Goods at our apartment were first stored in our back bedroom then moved to our front balcony. More storage space was provided by the Salarpuria building manager. Our neighbor, Champa Barbut, a Sri Lankan OWC member, had boxes in her apartment as well. Volunteers gathered on two occasions to sort goods and affix price tags. Lots of work!

Without question, the greatest debt of vendor thanks goes to Solutions 4 Delivery. S4D not only donated the boxes and trucks to haul goods from our apartment and out of town Whitefield to St. Mark’s, the crews helped to load, unload and reload the leftover donated goods with the zeal of spirited volunteers. Attempts to provide a tip for their services was kindly rebuffed with, “We are volunteers, too.” Many thanks are offered to Mukal and Deepak and their crew from S4D.

Now it is time for us to finish our own packing.