It's a Small World

It's a small world here in Palm Meadows (our housing development of about 500 homes). I have really enjoyed meeting people from all over the world. It's great to walk around the neighborhood and know that when you see another white person, you probably don't even speak their native language. Such an interesting mix. I read about a group of Spanish-speaking families across the city and I look forward to meeting one of them later this week.

At a gathering last night, I met...

- Jasmine, grew up in Bombay, has lived in London for the last 14 years, and finds Bangalore very different from Bombay. She mentioned they never had power outages in Bombay! Or dirt roads! Both are part of our daily life here.

- Keira, born in Trinidad, grew up there and in Australia, New York and London. She now resides here with her husband and 9 year old son, who was at the great farm outing with us on Thurs.

- Pejal, born and raised in NY, a Princeton and HBS grad, who is living in India for the first time, working for Time. I really connected with her; it was fascinating to hear her talk about growing up more "Indian" in NYC than she is here in Bangalore (her parents came to the US in 1967 and brought with them Indian culture from that era, which never changed over time like it did back in India).

- Meike, a lovely Dutch woman who's lived in Houston, TX and a host of other places around the globe.

In talking with each of these fascinating people, I was struck by their success in adapting to and enjoying Indian culture because they were able to embrace it and not strive to recreate their lives exactly as they were lived in other places... food, etc. Sadly, I've witnessed the opposite, too--a frustrated and somewhat unpleasant crowd.