Sambhavi, Manasa and Jayashree

ZEUS: This blog is being written by a committee of youngsters.

SAMBHAVI: Sambhavi is five years old and would like to say that Zeus juggled at her school and at her home. Sambhavi and her sister study at "Namma Shaale" - a Montessori school whose name translates to "Our school" in Kannada. Their mother Jayashree teaches yoga at the school. He played the flute for us, and my classmates called him the "juggling man". Sambhavi's cousin Sanjeev will be in her sister's class next month. Sanjeev, as most of you know is Reshma's son, and he is coming to Bangalore from Chicago.

MANASA: I am Sambhavi's sister. My name is Manasa. I am seven and a half, but that is almost eight. I learned about parabolas from Zeus. Zeus said anything that is thrown forms a parabola. He showed us how to play the flute. We blew across a water bottle, and I could make the sound of a flute. He gave us each a juggling ball and three tennis balls. And we got a big wooden drum. He and Dad will later get us a wooden flute. At school my classmates and I had a class of juggling and flute playing. We came home and played chess and monopoly, and Zeus videotaped my sister doing Indian dancing.

We had a big party at our school to honor Zeus. We had cake too.

JAYASHREE: I am Jayashree - Manasa and Sambhavi's mum and I wont tell you how old I am! I loved cooking for Zeus. He loves to eat and it was worth every bit of my effort. I cooked him dishes from North, South, Western India. No dishes from the Eastern part this time. He will have to come again. I hope Zeus has gained a little weight. He's been playing the flute so often I'm going to miss the live music over dinner starting tomorrow. We hope Zeus visits again. It has been such a pleasure for all of us. And...I am practising the very basics of juggling too.
Tomorrow I plan to take Zeus to visit an amazing group that has been building completely sustainable houses out mud brick houses and with rain water harvesting built in. He is looking forward to it. We've had some discussions on Gandhi and non-violence which I've enjoyed a lot.

ZEUS: The Naama Shalee School is really beautiful, and it has been great fun teaching there. Everyone knows me, and everyone knows about parabolas which by the way are pronounced as pair a bow las in India. The part of Bangalore where we are staying is so much less congested than the big cities we have been visiting although I have not really seen the central part of the city. This is really a part of the booming India that we have been reading about. I am really getting more impressed with how diverse this country is. Almost all the students here are learning three or more languages, and in this area most people are Hindu but there are lots of Christian churches too. By the way, did I mention that almost every house has a "God Room". That is the way it was described to me by one of the older students. Men here are much less likely to wear turbans. I have been listening to lots of Indian music, and it really is so much different from anything I have ever played or heard before.
Got to go. Tomorrow evening I am off to Bangkok.