Things We Will Miss About India

India had it's challenges, but there is definitely a long list of things we will miss about living there. Here is a shorter list gathered from all members of the family..

1) The people! This is a generalisation, but most people were friendly and kind. Many people speak great English so it was much easier to form connections with local people than in other countries we have lived. We will miss our Church branch.

2) The language. By that I mean, the Indian English. I miss hearing phrases like 'do the necessary'. A person will explain to you a circumstance and then end the conversations by saying 'do the necessary', without ever explaining what the necessary actually is. Sometimes it's obvious what needs to be done, but sometimes not at all and I'm fairly certain the person who has just told me to 'do the necessary' doesn't know what to do either haha!

Tusker = elephant

Prepone = bring something forward, the opposite of postpone

Indian Stretchy Time = an excuse used to explain away being late.

What is your good name? = what is your name? It's a literal translation from Hindi, but caught me out a few times initially while I tried to figure out which of my names was the good one.

Kindly adjust = I'm causing you an inconvenience, please adjust to accomodate. For example, if you are standing in a full elevator, but one more person wants to get in they may ask you to kindly adjust. Maybe this phrase is reflective of the dense population in India.

Out of station = travelling away from your city. I can't go to the party because I will be out of station.

Paining = something is causing pain. I heard this when I would go to the doctor/hospital. Is this paining you?

3) The clothing. Year-round Summer for me meant flowing maxi skirts and cotton dresses in beautiful fabrics, comfortable kurtas and pants. https://www.fabindia.com/clothing/women-kurtas https://www.anokhi.com/photos/photo_archives/index.html

4) Proximity to the beach. We had a fishing village down the road from us called Covelong. It was not world class surf by any stretch of the imagination, but it was clean enough, very accessible and never crowded.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g2287353-d2697738-Reviews-Covelong_Beach-Covelong_Kanchipuram_District_Tamil_Nadu.html

5) Travel! India is a fascinating place regardless, but when you live there the travel becomes much easier. You are already set up with a residence visa, bank account, phone and cultural understanding. When we first visited India (prior to living there) we were escorted everywhere by guides. After living there for a while we were far more comfortable to explore on our own. To the point where we would go off on back roads in other states using vague instructions I'd found online to try to see a waterfall right after the rains had come - we found it! We didn't get to visit everywhere we were hoping to see. On our list we still have Amritsar, Darjeeling, Ladakh and Leh, Mussoorie, Udaipur, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer. Chennai is also a short trip to other destinations like Sri Lanka, The Maldives, the UAE and Oman. We had fun visiting those places.

6) Shopping. Not for food, that wasn't so easy. I enjoy browsing around homewares, furniture stores and markets in general. India has some great options for beautiful handicrafts, antiques, knick knacks.

7) Indian food! We loved it. I now agree with Indians outside of their own country - it's hard to find good authentic Indian food outside of India. Maybe it's the ingredients. The spices are freshly sourced and ground, different types of flours etc. I really miss being able to call the North Indian restaurant across the road from us and being able to order fresh naan, or an extra curry to go with our dinner. It would arrive shortly for a minimal cost. An entire meal for our family would be approx $10 for some amazing Indian food. We all miss dosa so much! Ethan had the Indian meal at school almost everyday. He misses that. Now replaced with kimchi and rice :)

8) $2 movies. The cost of movie tickets are controlled by the government. I don't know of anywhere else where our family can all go to the movies for $10.