Taking Mom to India

Jeff Greenwald takes his 75-year old mom, a retired school teacher, to visit India. Actually, just the tourist drags of Delhi and Rajastan, but it's an interesting travelog all the same, mainly because they seem to have gotten out of the usual tourist itinerary. They even visited a girls-only school in Rajastan:

On our final day in Udaipur, I directed our driver to the Rajasthan Mahila Galeda Senior Secondary and Primary School. This was the first in Rajasthan to offer education to girls.

Usha Kiran, the vice principal, instantly arranged an informal tour. "There are 1,500 girls studying in this school," she said.

The grounds were spacious: big white buildings surrounded by arched porticoes, separated by gardens and playgrounds. Four teachers joined us; they were adept at answering my mother's questions about curriculum, testing and further education.

Mom was in her element. This experience clearly meant more to her than any marble monument. Here she could appreciate the similarities between her world and the lives of Indians. It was a hinge that swung everything into place and taught my mother what I had learned, with difficulty, nearly 30 years ago.