Being Punjabi, feeling at home and loving the mangoes!

So now we have been in India for over a week, though it feels we have always been here - I already feel very settled and am starting to get into a routine. I have really enjoyed my first few days of teaching, and am amazed at the obedience and concentration of the children here, unlike my unruly and often very cheeky students in London!

The children listen very well and often play from memory. To balance this I hope to improve their reading ability, essential for learning a wider range of music. I also want to focus on posture, as many of the children sit too close to the keyboard, with their wrists either too high or too low. Many of them play with collapsing fingers, so I want to help them build up strength in this area to enable greater control of tone. It´s important to make them realise how certain hand/finger positions and movements affect the sound, and I also want to achieve greater economy of movement, enabling faster playing by not lifting fingers too high. I have been showing them plenty of ideas for practicing techniques which will help them to build up little by little when learning a piece, as seeing so many notes for the first time can be quite daunting. I even found myself giving singing and violin lessons after having previously studied viola, so it seems I will be very busy here!

The past two days I have walked along one of the main roads in Gurgaon to get to my school (though I was deterred by the first heavy monsoon rains this morning!). However, I wasn´t prepared for the amount of staring I would have to endure, being the only Westerner for a long distance. But unlike in the UK, this attention is not threatening, just curiosity, and more often than not friendliness. I feel a lot safer walking through the shopping centre at night than I would at home in London. The roads are another matter however! Last night we watched a very scary zombie film in our flat, but this does not even compare with being on a cycle rickshaw entering one of the many chaotic roundabouts, frequently showing little regard for red lights or driving on the correct side of the road (I had a heart-stopping moment on my way back today after being passed on either by two motorbikes travelling in the opposite direction).

Since being here I have also enjoyed plenty of delicious food, including my favourite channa masala (spicy chickpeas). In particular the mangoes are much sweeter than the overpriced supermarket variety at home, and this is complemented by a whole range of mango-flavoured items, including mango lassi (a sweet milky drink), mango icecream and even mango cornflakes!

Like most of us I will also be working on Saturday, but hope to take a trip into Delhi on Sunday to fit in some more sightseeing!

Hannahx

PS On an interesting note, I have been informed on more than one occasion that my surname is apparently Punjabi (despite having no known Indian relations!). The officer at Indira Gandhi International Airport even removed his mask (supposedly protection against swine flu) to point this out when he saw the name on my passport.