Category Archives: Life in general

Postscript

This blog entry is long over-due.  Since Katy’s brilliant post mid-April, we have had our hands absolutely full with plans, contingency plans, disasters, near disasters, joy, sadness, culture-shock, jetlag, and everything else in between.   I’ll try to do a brief re-cap of what happened the night of April 16th (the day we were scheduled to leave India).

This week in mid-April was a long, tedious, frustrating, and unfortunate week.  We had begun to steel ourselves to say our painful goodbyes, get our laundry done, pack our suitcases, and clean our apartment.  We did a fairly decent job of getting it all done in good time.  The drama happened after we got to the airport.   Later I remarked to Katy that had all the drama involved just me or even us (Katy and me), we could have handled it. The fact that Leila and Reuben were involved got more tiring and felt more personal.

We spent the day knee deep in suitcases and packing.   The kids didn’t really want to nap because they were excited too.   We shrugged and said, “Oh well, we can sleep on the plane.  They might as well stay awake now!”   Our cars were packed, and we were soon off to the airport.   After taking almost an hour (near midnight) to check in all 10 suitcases, get boarding passes ready, and steadying ourself with the hope that we can soon sleep once we buckle in…at the very last gate for immigration, the normally routine process went really bad.

The problem was that we came to India on a 5 month trip, so we applied for the normal 6 month visa. We applied a month before we left, which seemed like the “savvy-traveler” move to make.  However, the geniuses at the Indian consulate in Chicago stamped the visa that was effective from when they actually received our application, not for when we would actually land!   So the visas for Leila, Reuben, and Katy would expire on April 10… not april 17 when we hoped to leave India.

Note:  I must be clear here.   As soon as we saw the visa in our passports, I called the consulate and talked to them about my concern.   The official on the line assured me that it was ok. He explained to me in clear terms that the visa would not be effective till we actually land in India, which made perfect sense to me. So I was happy, I didn’t need to check again because this was the Indian embassy that assured me of this. This, my friends, was a BIG MISTAKE as we would discover the night of the 16th!  🙂

The immigration officer at the gate looked at us and said in a monotone, “Sir, your visas are expired.”   Confidently I replied, “Yes, I know.  We were assured that it would be ok by the Indian embassy.”   I even showed him our date of entry that was stamped on the passorts.   He kept saying, “But your visas are expired.”   I was puzzled and asked him in exasperation, “So now what? Is there a fine?”  He said, “Um, you will not be able to fly tonight Sir!”   I was holding myself together admirably up until that point but then I lost it.  I let them face the full fury of words that I had bottled up all night.  Deep down though, in all fairness, even then I knew that they were doing their job and it was ultimately our own oversight (even if we were misled by the immigration authorities).

Our flight was stopped and our luggage unloaded.  We trudged slowly downstairs to the Air France desk where two valets eventually showed up with trolleys loaded with our checked bags.   We had them usher us to cabs from where we made the slowest and longest trip back to our home in Bangalore.   We crawled into our beds and went to sleep restlessly, disappointment writ large on our faces.   Our tired bodies couldn’t rest with our minds racing relentlessly.

Early the next morning, after we narrated our stories to our families, we hunkered down to re-book tickets (earliest available ones were for the 29th, two weeks away), go to the Foreigners Registration Office (the less said about this place the better), get visas regularized and exit permits issued. It was a 5 hour ordeal to get Leila’s and Reuben’s stuff taken care of but for Katy, we needed to get a police report.  This was a wonderful demonstration of incompetency on the part of the police department. They even had to send an officer to our home to verify things and interview me for an hour. Anyway… after spending even more time at the FRO next day (no joke.. close to 8 hours), we got our stuff taken care of.

We celebrated by hitting McDonalds with Leila and having delicious gelato afterwards! 🙂 I am sparing you all the other details of this ordeal because it was pretty ridiculous. Through it all though, Leila and Reuben have been wonderful reminders of good things in this world. There were no temper tantrums or behavior issues that we had to be saddled with in this. While I have always been proud of my kids, I think the pride was kicked up a couple of notches to see how easily they rolled with the changes.  Katy’s previous blog post was only reinforced through all this.

We are finally all back in the US as I type this.  Hard to believe that it has been almost a week since we have been home.   Our memories of India are now infused with sounds of laundry, the aromas of Katy’s cooking, the briskness of the Michigan air, and the comfort of our own home.

We are happy to be back.

Reuben gave us another reason to celebrate, watch and enjoy!

 

Facetime?

The techi-ness goes way back!

Yes, finally, JP gets to take over for a bit from his beautifully eloquent wife and share a small thought that has continued to amaze me. Anybody who knows me, knows the techie-side to me. I have always been very fond of taking things apart and finding ways to incorporate technology into my life, even if it is absolutely unnecessary. When I was about 9, my dad got me an electronics kit with instructions on how to wire it to do crazy things. As a result, I found a way to make it an FM transmitter, I learned how to make “disco lights,” and I even once learned how to bug a room. (This last experiment was a life-lesson to me. One evening, one of my teachers came home to chat with my parents about me. I thought it would be swell to be in the other room and eavesdrop. Unfortunately, my 9 year old fingers wired things a little backwards, so instead of us hearing them… yep… they heard us!). My electronic kit was my favorite toy. It unfortunately met its untimely demise when I wired up an annoying siren and put it under my brother’s pillow when he was sleeping. Needless to say, after James was done, my experiments with that unit were done also. In hindsight though, who knew that this seed that was sown in my heart would blossom into a fascination with machines and finding ways to humanize them in our lives to this day?

JP and his "Electronics Kit"

I had to put my reliance on technology on hold till I went to the US for my studies. My parents and I tried to write letters but when you wait for a month to receive anything, it can get a bit tedious. Fortunately, email was slowly beginning to take root in India by this stage. My parents only had a dial up connection but that was all it took. All of a sudden, what used to take us weeks, and sometimes, months became a daily affair. I knew what my mom made for breakfast, what the dog was upto that day, what the weather was like (not necesarily fun to listen to when we were in the throes of an Iowan winter), and so many more sundry details about daily life in India. It brought my worlds closer.

Katy and I dated long distance for almost a year and a half before we were married. I taught Katy how to set up MSN messenger on her computer, bought her an USB webcam, and almost every morning, I would wake up and chat with her. I thought it was pretty amazing. For work purposes, I even bid on a “memory bar” (think thumb-drive) on ebay. I thought 256 MB was a TON of space. (Bye bye floppy drives…GASP!) I even wore that around my neck like it was a gold necklace. This was only 8 years ago! Pardon my use of a cliche, but how quickly technology changes.

Oreo wants the famous "memory bar"

Today, I skype regularly with friends, churches, and groups back in the US. I am able to shoot and edit photos and videos on my phone that I can then upload to facebook or email to our parents. I regularly text friends worldwide. I can play the popular game “Words with Friends” with dear friends and families in the US while I wait at long traffic lights. Leila is able to color pictures on her little ipod and email her grandparents. Just this week, Amy, Katy’s sister and Katy had a video conversation on my phone over breakfast. She was baking cookies (at 7:30 pm Monday) and needed a recipe… Katy was eating breakfast with the family (at 9:00am Tuesday in Bangalore). Somehow Seattle and Bangalore seemed to fit together around that table.

I love technology. People have always told me how holding a kindle or an ipad can not feel as organic as holding an actual book. I get that. I also get how a face to face conversation will beat facetime/skype hands down every time. I know that power outages, spotty internet, travels, etc. can wreck havoc on communication if you depend on technology too much. But, in spite of all that, we (the Sundararajans) live in multiple worlds. We have people we love and care about. We would love to share coffee for hours on end and chat about our lives. Since we cannot realistically do that as often as we’d like, using technology to invite people to walk with us into the sundry details of our daily lives makes sense.

So, obviously, it goes without saying how grateful we are that we have a blog to journal parts of life with you. Another neat way in which our worlds collide.

(And just for fun, I am going to publish this post from the WordPress app on my phone… why not?!)

“TWBAGB” (And just like that… we’re back)

Sometimes it is nice to walk away for a bit and live life.   Katy and I honestly felt that our season of writing blogs was behind us.  We loved sharing our life in small web-snippets when we got the chance, but we soon realized that with the hectic pace that we live our lives, that writing a new blog post was slowly sliding down our list of priorities.   While I would be lying if I said that we missed our blog I will admit, on occasion, we would have those… “this would be a great blogpost (twbagb)” moment but they were fleeting and replaced with another “twbagb” moment.

So why now?  Good question.   I think a part of me has always believed that regardless of how fast life goes, unless you slow down and take note, moments in life remain un-savored.  So we begin again.   We will try to be faithful in our recording of life’s lessons.  We will try and process our seasons of life on here with you.   Will we be regular?  Probably not, but we will try to get here whenever we have a great “twbagb” moment!  I hope you enjoy walking this road again with us.

Here is a photo slideshow encapsulation some of our life since our last entry…:)

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And then…

There were four!  😉  Katy and I have known for a while but have now decided that you get to be in on the secret.   In a highly anticipated and yet hardly surprising move, we are proud to announce that there will be another little Sundararajan joining our ranks!   We are very excited about this news.  Please pray for continued good health for Katy and the baby.   We are hoping for an on time May 4 delivery.  Till then, we will keep you updated on the progress here.

Sorry for the delay in updating our blog but I wanted to make sure the update was a good one!  Love you all!

Skin deep

While eating breakfast a couple of days ago, Katy and I had an interesting discussion.  We wondered if Leila would be considered a minority here in the U.S.   Would she even be considered a person of color?  We both could see how a plausible case could be made from both sides of the fence.   I LOVE that we don’t really have an answer for it.

Lately, another observation we have made is that when we read books to Leila, she has begun to identify characters in her book with people she knows.  She always has to find “mama,” “dada,” or “eeila.”  This inevitably leads to some hilarious moments at our home.  Katy is often times shocked at what Leila points at.   And more often than not, I am picked as the one white guy in the book.   She sometimes will also find her uncles, aunts, cousins, and friends in these books too.   The very curious aspect of this game is that when it comes to identifying herself in her books, Leila almost always picks a character who is dark-skinned.  I find this absolutely fascinating.   Most people, when they see Leila, do not immediately think of her as dark-skinned.  She is often referred to as tan or olive complexioned.

In both cultures that make up Leila, being fair-skinned has its own advantages.  There is often an under-lying assumption made that beauty lies in lighter skin tones.   Lighter skin often also means an altered status in society, and being a part of the group with better options in life.   This is where I find Leila’s self-identification fascinating.   She identifies herself as a person of color!  Not that she has any societal pressures to conform to anything at this point.  🙂  I still  think it is amazing that she lives in a pre-dominantly Caucasian town, and yet, seems to think she looks different.   I wonder if this is something that we will find to always be the case, or if at some point, she’ll want to blend in.   It makes for a curious and fascinating case-study!  (At least for me!).

This picture was taken last week…

Ear-Boring

It is customary in parts of India to celebrate little girls.   Usually before they turn one, there is a ceremony that is performed and her ears are pierced.    It marks a significant step in the transition from the baby to a little girl.   Katy and I have always wanted to incorporate as many Indian customs as we can into Leila’s life, so she grows up understanding and respecting the two cultures that make up who she is.

Katy and I, however, went back and forth on when exactly we wanted to get this done.  Part of our hesitancy stemmed from the fact that Leila was/is quite reticent with new people.   She has always been uncomfortable with strangers and needs time to warm up to them.   We weren’t sure how she would do with two new people wanting to pierce a hole in her ear!  Fortunately for us, her little cousin Judith just got her ears pierced.  After a conversation with my brother James, I was reassured that this will go just fine.

And so, last Friday with trepidation and great excitement, Katy and I took Leila to the mall.   We scouted out potential “reward” zones for Leila if the piercing did not go as planned.   There were merry-go-rounds, ice-cream stalls, etc., that I had every good intention of going to right after the piercing.   We soon found Claire’s on the upper level of Rivertown Crossings Mall.

Leila surprised us all with her attitude.  For one, we think her stranger anxiety is not what it used to be even a couple of weeks ago.  She has definitely gotten more comfortable with people.   This was not something you could necessarily count or plan on, but still, we weren’t complaining!  A friendly associate at Claire’s talked us through the process.

Leila listened carefully, and even let the girl apply antiseptic on her ear.  These were very good signs, but I was afraid of how it would go in a few minutes.   Soon another girl joined the group, and I was given the job of distracting Leila.   That was an easy task because Claire’s is chockfull of stuff for little girls like Leila.   Before Leila knew what happened, she had a brand new set of earrings lodged in her ear lobes.   Now, Leila did let loose the sirens and waterworks, but within a minute (no exaggeration here), the cries and tears stopped, and Leila was off to examine some purses that escaped her attention when she first walked in!

That evening, there were no merry-go-rounds, no ice-cream, just dinner out at Taco Bell!  Leila looks beautiful with her earrings.  I think you will agree…:)

Freshly Wedded

One of the perks of getting ordained is that you are authorized to officiate weddings on top of everything else.  As I referenced in my previous entry, I got to do my first wedding on the 4th of July weekend.   It was my dear friend Alisa and her fiance Jeff.   I had not seen Alisa since I graduated from college 10 years ago!  It was quite an honor to be asked to be their “celebrant.”   I had done some of the initial phone calls making sure I was able to officiate a wedding in a different state, etc.   I set up the service, wrote the sermon, booked my plane tickets, reserved a car rental, had a haircut, and even had my suit dry-cleaned.   Being the first wedding that I got to officiate solo, I wanted to do it right and do it relatively stress free for all the parties involved.

Saturday, July 3, was the big day.   Earlier that week, on Tuesday, I had lunch with my pastor at a local restaurant.  As we were eating lunch, he asked me what my weekend plans were.    I told him about the wedding.  He remarked that he had to mail some papers because of the wedding he was going to do in Ohio.   I proudly told him that Virginia did not require all these forms, and approvals.   He was glad to hear that.   However, this conversation bugged me enough for me to probe it a little bit after lunch.   The more research I did, the more uneasy I became.    Virginia did recognize ordained ministers from out of state, BUT, you still needed to get approved by the local county judge.    Mind you.. this was Tuesday, the wedding was on Saturday.   So, instead of wasting time researching, I decided to give the county court a call to talk to somebody about it.    I was very anxious about this call.

A very pleasant sounding lady answered the phone.  I explained to her my situation.  There was pause on the phone.  The lady then said, “Umm…we need a whole bunch of documents from you.”  I said, “No problem, just say what you need, and I can have them sent to you.”   She then said something that I did not want to hear.  She said, “Sir, it is too late.  We need the judge to approve you.  He is right now on the bench and after that, he is done for the week.”   I could not believe this.  I kept repeating, “But, there is a wedding on Saturday.”  And she kept repeating, “I am sorry sir but its too late.”  Finally I said, “Is there ANYBODY else I can talk to who can give me a better answer than what you are giving?”   She said, “Well, you can leave a voicemail for the clerk but she is in court right now too.”   I did not have a choice so I left a detailed message on the clerk’s voicemail.   My first wedding was already shaping up to be a disaster.

Soon, my phone rang.  I picked it up, assuming it was Alisa, who I had apprised of the situation via a voicemail.   Taking a deep breath, I answered the phone.  I was wrong, it was the county clerk returning my call.   We had a very amicable conversation where I told her my situation.   She was quite understanding and explained to me how too many people get ordained “online”, and that the judge wanted to make sure only legitimate ordained persons were able to officiate.   I explained to her my training in this.  She asked me to fax the required documents but to still plan on stopping by the court house before the wedding to get final approval.  Heaving a huge sigh of relief I hung up the phone, and ran around town collecting my documents and having them faxed over.   That afternoon, I got the best email of the day.  It was the clerk’s office saying that the documents were in order and they’d expect me on Friday.   PHEW!

I still had the small matter of getting to the court on time.   The rehearsal was at 4 PM in Front Royal, VA, a town 2 hours or more away from the Washington D.C. airport that I would be flying into.   My flight would arrive at 12:45 PM.  So after getting my stuff, I would have to get my car rental and drive out.  I was going to cut it close anyway, but now I have to fit in a trip to the courthouse on top of that!  I called Alisa and told her that in case I was late, to go ahead and get started practicing the processional and recessional, the two most time-consuming parts of any rehearsal.

And so began my journey.  On thursday night I got an email from Delta that informed me that my reservation to DC (from Cincinnati) was upgraded to first class!  I had to temper my excitement because I, in all honesty, would rather fly coach and be on time than fly first class and be delayed.   My flights could not have gone any better.   I arrived in DC on time, and flew down the terminal to catch the shuttle to the car-rentals.   I walked into the building which housed the car rentals and audibly gasped.   This was the longest line I had seen in the US in quite a while.   Next to the D.M.V. (Department of Motor Vehicles), the slowest moving line in the US is the line for car rentals.   I had rented the cheapest car available but being the 4th of July weekend, I knew that a surprise was going to be in order!

Anxiously pacing, I slowly inched my way up, and soon I was called up.   Sure enough, my car was no longer available, and they HAD to upgrade me!  The car they had for me?  A silver 2010 Ford Mustang!

Soon, in this speedy silver bullet, I was zipping through the streets of DC, into a relatively tranquil Virginia.   I was 30 minutes behind schedule but felt pretty optimistic.  The steering column definitely felt the brunt of my “pats” when I had to weave through traffic.  Then again, traffic like this is what we call easy traffic in India!  I made it to the court house (30 minutes before rehearsal).   Got my documents examined and signed.  I was authorized to perform weddings for 5 days there!  🙂

The Mustang then revved up and we were flying toward the arboretum.   Alisa, bless her heart, did not call me till 3:55 PM, five minutes until go-time.   I answered the phone and told her, “Alisa, I will be there in 5 minutes.”  Best words I spoke all week!  The bridal party pulled in and were unloading to walk to the wedding site when the Celebrant and his silver horse flew in!  It felt great!  I gave Alisa a big hug, met the gang, and without a hiccup began the rehearsal on a sweltering Friday in Virginia.

The rest of the story goes according to script…I met wonderful people, checked in later that night at the Holiday Inn to sleep soundly, and woke up late the next morning to watch the World Cup on TV as I prepped for the wedding.  The wedding itself proceeded without a SINGLE hitch.   We had a short and sweet ceremony and I was able to proudly proclaim Alisa and Jeff a married couple!  🙂

I flew back on Monday.  And yes, according to the pattern established, I was upgraded on both my flights.   Flying first-class home was a fine way to end a wedding!

(Note:  Lessons were learned).

Life with the Sundararajans

:::Tongue in cheek::: I think it is high time for another update.

In all fairness 2010 has been a bit of a whirlwind for us. As you gathered by our previous posts that we spent the first quarter of the year in beautiful India. Our time there was fun, tough, exciting, joyful…and in general, just full. Katy and I were looking at the map of India and we discovered that, in our 3 months there,we traveled to every state on the Indian eastern border, all the way from Tamil Nadu to the border of Myanmmar! This is pretty insane when you think about it because most Indians cannot claim to have done it, but little Leila can!

Anyway, life continued to roll with vicious speed when we got back to the US. Our cup hath constantly run over. We hit the road running when we came back to the US. The primary stressor for us revolved around my (JPs) classis exams. I decided to pursue ordination in the denomination for professional reasons. There is a much longer story as to why I waited 7 years after I graduated to go back for it, but that is for another post on another day. I had to prepare for four oral exams, and one written exam. The studying for these exams was all consuming. The materials were definitely fun to go over and study but the actual exams themselves were a different story. In front of over a 100 people or so, I would have to orally answer questions pertaining to topics like missions, doctrinal standards, systematic theology, and the reformed understanding of the sacraments. Additionally, I had a written exam on church governance. These are all topics that we studied back in seminary 7 years ago! I had to go back into my notes from seminary, meet with professors, and participate in study groups. This was the real reason why these exams can be stressful.

So the big day finally arrived. Katy claims that she has NEVER seen me study as hard as I did in April and May. We had the exams toward the end of May. I am glad I worried as much as I did because that made me prep well. The exams went of in spectacular fashion. The classis voted to unanimously approve all 11 of us for ordination. The relief I felt after that night was unlike anything I had felt in a long time! I was DONE.

While all this was going on, at ASM, I was quite involved in trying to raise a substantial amount to fund the building of a ministry center in India. In the meantime, Leila got to be a flower girl at yet another wedding! Our dear friends Jon and Kandyce got hitched and invited us to be a part of their unique celebrations in May.

In June, the ordination happened on Father’s Day. It was wonderful to have friends from almost every chapter of my life represented. It was a very special service that brought out the waterworks in everybody. I even had the joy of having my dear friend Prasun from India celebrate with me.

And as is often the case with me, I had to buy tickets and fly out to the east coast for the 4th of July weekend. I got to officiate my first solo wedding! I will tell you about the adventures of that day in another post.

I write this blog to catch most of you up on the second quarter of the year! If you thought the first three months were hectic (and I know we did), the second quarter was probably busier! I am looking for a quiet third quarter (relatively speaking!).

Love you all.. thank you for holding us accountable!

Tamil

Hello friends!

It has been a busy few weeks.   Our family had a wonderful time at Thanksgiving and as Christmas comes upon us, we find ourselves in the familiar realm of travel prep.  We negotiated a blizzard last week here in Holland… all the while, thinking about the tropical temperatures of balmy India.  We have to shop for flip flops and summer clothes for Leila while simultaneously thinking about snow pants and shoveling.  Crazy life we lead!

Leila has begun to get more adventurous in her walking.   Each day we discover her new skills and each day we discover potential dangers that our house and furniture pose!  We are also excited to see Leila slowly losing her “stranger-anxiety” which has plagued her for a while now.   We are quite happy to see her growing out of it.  She is back to giggling often and waving at people.   She also enjoys head-butting dad and offering kisses when she feels inclined.  This is a fun stage!

Katy and I sincerely hope that Leila will speak two languages at least.

We have (well…I have), when the moment has inspired me, tried speaking to Leila in Tamil, which is my heart language.   It has been quite a challenge to have a one-way conversation with a 13 month old.  It is a discipline that is hard to keep when you are the only one who speaks the language at home.   I must say that while I have succumbed to the English trap more often than I’d like to admit, I have had help come from some fun quarters.

Leila does not watch TV but the only exception we make is to watch a DVD of Tamil nursery rhymes that was given to her by her Indian Tata and Ava.  Thanks to the DVD, even Katy has picked up a couple of words!

The other tool that we have employed is the Tamil alphabet.   Last summer, we brought back from India a set of Tamil vowels and some consonants.   Leila LOVES these letters!

Here is hoping that as the little one grows, she grows with a love for languages!