Republic Day with the Kids

I’m not beyond making friends on the internet. Usually, in fact, it’s worked out pretty well in the past, and no reason to think it’d be any different in a booming high-tech city with a huge population of young professionals working for all sorts of MNCs.

First step? Joining two local “meet-up” groups. One linking up folks interested in adventure, the other sports.

Last weekend, I autorickshawed to the lakeside Sanjeeviah Park for a pick-up ultimate frisbee game. Nine guys and a gal with a pretty wide range of ultimate experience – stretching from too worried about defensive strategic alignments versus never thrown a Frisbee before. In the combination of the two, a great morning of frisbee.

And today? Republic Day in India.

A holiday to celebrate the world’s largest democracy. And it’s longest constitution. At the moment, a whopping 395 articles and already 94 amendments only 61 years into the experimet.

The adventure group had a few activities lined up for the mid-week holiday, but only one really caught my eye. Hanging out with orphaned schoolchildren at a local deer park?

Yes, please.

The adult half of the meet-up gathered just outside the gate of a local women’s college. (My first monkey sighting in India was a cute little troop scampering atop the masonry wall guarding the college.) Most people didn’t know too many people there, small pockets introduced themselves. It was nice to see a familiar face from ultimate frisbee.

A Microsoft programmer here, an Infosys business analyst there. BEP folks, in our consular slang, as they come from the types of companies that have strong reputations and can get a spot in our Business Executive Program for easier visa processing.

English is the default link language for young professionals in a place like Hyderabad. Some people are from here, others from up north or different parts of the south. Most were educated in English-medium schools and it’s obviously the lingua franca in the international hi-tech offices.

We bussed to the orphanage, a modest house-sized concrete building in a residential neighborhood. (Aadarana.) A colorful awning covering the bare roof, offering the biggest open indoor space. With curious eyes, uniformed boys shyly offered their hands. Curiosity doubled to wonder as I offered a “Namaskaramu! Na peru Jeremy. Mee peru emi?”

One of the hardest parts about starting to understand a new culture, I’ve found, is learning about names. In Hungary, I can remember how baffled my ears were by the Zsofi’s and Gyongyi’s of the world, let alone adding surnames into the mix, too. Same now in India, I don’t know what names to expect, and can’t always here what they’re trying to say. The only solution? A spare pen in my pocket and the canvas of my palm. A growing list of names and initials.

Free of a set plan or agenda, a plopped down on the floor amid a sea of brown eyes and black hair. I spread out a state highway map, a favored hobby in Hungary, and a crowd of brown hands poked at the innards of Eau Claire and Ashwaubenon as I explained in a blend of three languages a little about my little corner of America. Five minutes later we switched, they told me more about themselves, in an easy blend of three languages. I had to work hard to keep the German and Hungarian out.

After an hour, the official program began. The partner girl’s orphanage arrived in a variety of colored uniforms, one per grade. Then the orphanage’s benefactor arrived. He raised the ceremonial tricolor, high aloft portraits of Gandhi, Nehru and Dr. Ambedkar, to a rowdy anthem. The next minute, he asked each of the children what they wanted to be when they grew up. First the boys. Software engineer, doctor and cricketeer were the leading responses. Then, my favorite part, the girls, too. Doctor and teacher were most common. All to applause from 50 young adult adventurers. I smiled a lot.

We loaded back onto the buses, this time with 50 extra little sets of smiles, headed outside the city limits to the deer park. The facility itself was a little anticlimactic, and hardly deserving of the national park label on the ticket window. A little safari bus rumbles down a dusty dirt path with occasional glimpses of deer and peacocks in a savannah-like natural environment. A five-minute loop dumps you back outside the animal fence.

Better, of course, was fun with kids. Small circles eventually evolved into a big game of duck-duck-goose, although they used none of those words. If caught, you had to do a dance or sing a song in the middle. I know this may be hard to believe, but I strongly believe I was racial profiled, which led directly to the center stage.

I only had to think for a moment. It was chicken dance time. “I will teach an American dance,” I proclaimed in Telugu to cheers. I might have described the specifics, though, in English. A minute later, a hundred first-timers were snapping their beaks, flapping their wings, wiggling their butts and clapping their hands. While getting faster each round, of course.

It proved so popular I had to break out the Hokey Pokey ten minutes later, so these kids are set for their first American wedding...