The man asks if he can take a photograph of Selva with his kids. We say yes but she's not sure. His son and daughter line up either side of her.
"What's your name?"
Selva turns away from the camera. Asks to be picked up. My wife lifts her from the ground. Selva shows the man her back.
"Sorry," we say, "She's tired."
He smiles, "No problem," and walks off.
We walk into a restaurant and one of the waiters tries to play hide and seek with her. We wait to see if she's going to respond – sometimes she does, sometimes she doesn't. She giggles and ducks her head behind the chair she's sitting on. Peeks over to see if he's watching. He makes a funny face and she laughs again.
Reluctant rockstar
At the entrance to a large park we're swamped by a group of high school students who want a family selfie. They quickly surround us before we're able to give them an answer and take a couple of shots. There's a bewildered look in my daughter's eyes. I can tell she's a little over this.
An hour later and Selva's playing with Rebekah in the park. From the bench I’m sitting on I can see a small group approaching them. Selva runs away as one of them pulls out a camera. He follows her, his family trailing close behind. Maybe I'm overplaying my hand as the protective father, but I walk over and scoop her up. She's hyped and I can't tell if she's excited or scared. The man with the camera asks if he can take a photo. My daughter's face is pressed into my chest.
"She's tired," I tell him.
From behind him a young woman says, "Photo?"
"Sorry," I say and walk back where I was sitting.
Selva’s virtually a rockstar in this country. Not a day goes by where she isn't asked for a photo, has her cheeks pinched or offered free food. At first we were happy to oblige and liked that she was getting so much attention. But we're not so sure now. The constant touching – none of it inappropriate – and requests for photos can be a bit exhausting for our three-year-old. But, really, I think it's me that struggles with it the most. I'm just not used to such affection from strangers towards my daughter and I don't like her being touched by people I don't know, over and over again. They love kids here and I don't think me shooing everyone away from her is going to change the way they do things her, or make it easier on Selva. She's always welcome – anywhere, at any time of the day, which isn't always the case in many western countries. Having said that, it's our responsibility to make sure our daughter is okay, which means trying to read when she can handle the attention and when she's not up for it.
Had we made a big mistake?
The thing is, I don't think we did a very good job of that in the first couple of weeks we were here. India didn't seem to gel with Selva and we probably weren't very good at 'listening' to what she was trying to 'tell us'. She complained about the heat, didn't want to walk and struggled with the food. A cuddly kid all of a sudden became clingy.
Had we made the wrong decision in coming here?
It certainly felt like it. Even though we'd seeded our journey to India with lots of talk about where we were going, what we were going to do if she'd had a choice and really understood what we were embarking on, I think Selva may have opted to stay.
You see she was settled in Wellington. Living a quintessential urban life - inner city parks, cafes and cheap Malaysian restaurants. Regular contact with her family – whom she adores – and, what makes us saddest of all, a preschool she loved more than anything. Therefore, our decision to leave wasn't made without some degree of guilt and a feeling we were being selfish for taking our daughter away from everything she knew.
It takes time to settle in
So, I don't know if we'd made the wrong decision, but we'd certainly underestimated how long it was going to take for the three of us to settle into life in India.
Thirteen hours of air travel, shifts in time zones, a different culture with different food and different social mores, no fluffies, only her parents for company. It all adds up. Being dragged around town while we sort out accommodation, Indian sim cards, refillable 20 litre water bottles, places to eat, and rickshaws to ride isn't much fun either for a three-year-old who just wants to find a friend and play. Neither is being around stressed out parents who haven’t quite found their feet. Maybe she had picked up on this and acted out accordingly.
Is she okay now?
She says she is. Tells us she likes India. Misses her family. Can't figure out if she loves or hates Indian food. Definitely loved riding in rickshaws until we rented a scooter, which is now at the top of her list of favourites things to do here. She's still not sure about all the attention she gets but is slowly warming to it, especially when free food is on offer, like it is when we buy fruit from a local fruit stall owner.
The fruit-seller smiles at Selva and hands her a small bunch of lady-finger bananas.
"For you," she says, "free."
"What do you say to the lady?"
"Thank you," says Selva.
"What's your name?"
"Selva," she says.
Rebekah whispers in her ear, "How old are you?"
She holds up three fingers, "I'm three years old."
Going on a very worldly four.