My brother Ramesh and his wife Ashwini, have been hosting 8 kids and their teachers from Ansan (suburb town of Seoul in South Korea).   These folks were on a 5-country tour and had already completed their visit to Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand in last 3 to 4 weeks.  They stopped in Mumbai, India as part of their trip conclusion.  Manikanta aka Sunny (Ramesh’s elder kid) had a common connection with this group, and took initiative to host these cute and very disciplined kids at his home in Secunderabad.

Ramesh had invited Radhika (my spouse) and Swati to conduct AOL’s version of yoga and meditation class designed for kids between 8 yrs and 13 yrs.  As part of my weekend ritual, I volunteered today to take these kids and extended Chintala kids for kite flying event at popular location “Necklace Road” in Hyderabad where several 100s converge and fly kites of varying sizes and shapes.  It was in 2014, I was here as part of Hyderabad Kite Festival.  After flying kites, I took them to Buddha statue which was just few blocks away from our location.

These kids do understand basic English and responded to my queries reasonably well, as I engaged with them while driving them to various location in the town.  They said, all of them  study in English medium school in their town.  They said they had best experience in Laos during this trip. There was one little girl amongst these kids, and she was super cute and my brother fondly named her as Barbie.  Many strangers were approaching us and requesting a snap or selfie with these kids, when we were at Necklace road or at Buddha statue

Overall felt, I felt it’s quite a brave effort from these teachers (and parents for approving / encouraging them) to have kids travel around South Asia regions, despite the language barriers, financial constraints, cuisine challenges, etc.   Ashwini has been serving them 100% south Indian food for entire trip, and they are accepting without too much complaints or inconvenience (but I am sure, it isn’t easy on them).

Here are few pics and video clip from the event.  More story to come, as I learn more about the journey of these kids.

 

Update on Jan 17th, Sunday:

Today all of us in the clan met at Ramesh house, to be hosted Ashwini, this time in pot luck style and enjoyed diverse set of delicacies. Objective was to get entire family introduced to our guests from Ansan, South Korea. It also coincided with our Vadina’s (big brother’s spouse) birthday, so we greeted her in 3 languages (Korean, English, and Indian) followed by Gangnam style dance by kids (our kids insisted that our guests give a Jhalak of their dance). All of it can be viewed in this 98 sec clip.

 

Updated on Jan 22nd, 2016