“Usually my husband takes me out. I don’t drive here” Indu explained. She continued: “My mother doesn’t want me to take a bike.” When going somewhere too far to easily walk, “usually we go by bike or by auto.” When going “outside of Vellore, we go by car.”
“I like salwars (sull-wah-r) and kurtas (kurt-ahs).” Shrugging, Indu added, “sometimes I wear jeans and t-shirts, but in the home with the family, I dress more for the parents.” In Indian tradition, “once we get married, we don’t show off so much.”
As a homemaker, “I work from the morning around the house and then on the kid,” Indu explained. When three-year-old Diya naps, “I like to browse on my phone. That is when I do Facebook. That is when I do my makeup things so that Diya does not want to play with all the things.” Sometimes, Indu added, “I do crafts. I like gardening, but nowadays I go to bed.” However she spends the freedom of naptime, “the two hours give me some freshness of mind. It is my time.”
“I know how to read and write English, Hindi and Tamil. (Hindi and Tamil are Indian languages.) I also understand some Telegu, but Tamil, English and Hindi my primary languages.” There are two main “Tamil Nadu-style greetings.” The first is “Vanga!” (v-ah-n-gah), which “means please come.” The second is “Vanakam!” which is closer to a direct translation of hello.
