A few more notes on driving in India. Some roads have lane markings and other painted indicators to help guide motorists as to the right place to be while motating. Except on a few super highways, these lane markers are useful only to the line painters who can bring their parents out to a stretch of highway and say “Look Ma, I painted that.” There are no other uses for lane markers because absolutely no one on the road pays any attention to them whatsoever.
I earlier claimed that all Indians drive on the left side of the road, but that’s not even close to true. Many Indians drive on which ever side of the road seems appropriate to them. I assume that one of the Indian motoring laws reads something like this: “On a divided highway, don’t EVER drive on the wrong side of the median….unless you have a pretty good reason to do so. If you do have to drive against the sense of traffic, please only do so on the shoulder, or, failing that, in the farthest lane from the median…BUT, if you think of a pretty good reason why you should blast along completely against traffic in the fast lane (the one right next to the median), well, hey be our guest.”
Back to two-wheelers. Very few drivers/riders wear helmets, although you do see a few and I get the sense that it is a trend that is increasing slowly. In the US, almost all motorcycles and scooters carry a single individual, the pilot. In India, you see at least as many two wheelers with 2 people astride as you do with just one. Furthermore, you see quite a few that have three on board. This can be two parents and a young child, but even more often you see 3 very slim young men packed like sardines on the bench seat. Whereas in our country it’s common for one of the guys on a road trip to call out “I’ve got shot gun!” here I imagine the reservation statement is more like “I call tail gunner” in order to avoid being the sandwich filling.
But in India the two wheelers do not limit themselves to a mere three on a bike. We’ve seen four, two adults and two small children, often enough to know it’s not an anomaly, and believe it or not, we’ve seen five on a bike (2 adults, three small children) more than once.
When motoring, progress is slow in India. On Friday Ashraf drove us to Aurangabad, about 240 km away from Pune. The trip took more than 4 hours, so we averaged less than 40 mph even though there were long portions on 4-lane, divided highways between villages.
We arrived at Aurangabad well after dark, and we had to call the hotel for directions a few times, but finally we arrived at the Meadows on the western edge of town. Our key guide book, the Rough Guide to India, had given the Meadows a top recommendation. It’s a once elegant place that is slowly going to seed, but it maintains enough grace to overcome the high level of deferred maintenance that has built up. Situated on 13 acres, the multitude of cabins and cottages, supplemented with a beautiful outdoor pool, are a very pleasant retreat from the bustle of the city itself. The winding paths are confusing, however. For the nest two days, whenever we tried to get to the restaurant, the office or our unit, we would invariably find ourselves wandering about, whereupon the bell-wallah who had originally delivered our bags to the room, would appear and ask “office?”, or “restaurant?” or “room?” and when we nodded at the right desired destination he would point in the exact opposite direction to the one we were traversing.
When deciding on this trip, we had asked Ashraf if we should book a room for him and he gave us this infuriating “you Sahib, me driver-wallah” non-answer. Dana told us not to worry about him, that drivers know how to take care of themselves. But after checking in to the hotel that night, I went back to ask Ashraf if he had a place to stay, and he said “yes” in such a way that I knew he meant “no”. All of a sudden I became his dad. I asked again if he had a place to stay, and this time he admitted he did not. He had a somewhat forlorn look on his face and I even sensed a little bit of fear perhaps. So I said, “Look, they have rooms here, I’ll just book you one.” The rooms were going for about 4200 Rupees ($85). He definitively shook his head to that, saying that rooms at that hotel were too expensive. The parking lot guard agreed with him, which I think was his way of saying “we don’t really allow drivers to stay here.”
So I got a little tougher and demanded that Ashraf tell me what he planned to do. He said he would find a place. I asked if it would cost money. He said yes. I said, OK, just bring me the bill in the morning and I will pay you back for your room. He said OK. But I sensed that wasn’t quite the end of it. So I asked if he had any money and he shook his head and said ”No”. Now I know that wasn’t literally true, but I was willing to believe that he did not have enough on him to book a room. When I asked how much he needed for a room, he said 1000 Rupees. Which I gladly gave him. Whether or not his night really cost 1000 Rupees I don’t know. How much of it he skimmed I don’t know either. What I deduced, though, was that in the future we needed to be very clear about the arrangements before commissioning a driver for an overnight trip.
It was after 9:00 pm when we arrived, but we were hungry so we bashed our way (with help from the bell-wallah) to the restaurant where we were told with only a certain amount of patience, that just because an item was on the menu that didn’t mean they actually served it there. Having become more adventurous with Indian food, we ordered a few local specialties, which the waiter said he would try to make not so spicy. We’re getting used to the spicy heat of Indian food – it’s usually more a front or middle of the mouth heat rather than the throat grabbing blaze of Mexican food.
In the morning we headed for Daulatabad, a hill station with the remains of a nearly impenetrable fort on top. This fort was built by the original Muslim invaders in the 13th century, but, impenetrable or not, it changed hands many times, going to a number of Hindu sects, back to the Muslims and back to two different indigenous Indian groups. Our stop to climb the hill to the top of Daulatabd began a very interesting day, full of unforgettable experiences.
As soon as Ashraf had the car sequestered in the parking lot, we were surrounded by street hawkers, a happenstance that would take place pretty much all day long. These guys were selling guide books to the fort, picture albums, postcards, carved elephants, beads and all manner of other trinkets. We did our best to fend them off, but it’s pretty overwhelming when you have a small, unwelcome entourage trailing your every move, always badgering you about buying something. Once we got inside the fort, which had an entry fee, the vendors had to give leave of us, but they continued their entreaties until we were blessedly out of sight. Of course, once inside, the trinket vendors were replaced by the “official” guides, each with a little plastic card that said “GUIDE” on it. The badgering from them was only a little less intense. They assured us they knew all the secret places and warned us about dangerous tunnels and steps, but we forged on without their services.
Rounding a corner I looked up at one of the towers anchoring a segment of the fort’s walls and I was surprise to see a monkey leaping from ledge to ledge. A few more steps took us to a large colony of the same varmints, all sitting idly on the wall, studying the crowd of tourists gathered around almost as intently as the tourists were staring at them. They were Rhesus monkeys whose delicate hands and fingers and perpetual looks of sadness on their faces gave powerful visual evidence to the claim that humans are closely related to these beautiful animals. They were not actively begging for food, and for once the gathered tourists were behaving by refraining from offering up human foodstuffs.
The monkeys were one highlight of the fort. The hour or so we spent inside the fort, climbing the various stairs and ramparts to the top, was pleasant enough, but it bore out the wisdom of some words Peggy had spoken to me shortly after we arrived in India. “You’re Brad and I’m Angelina” were those prophetic words. After our foray to the Daulatabad Fort, I began to appreciate what she meant. Everywhere we went, we were stared at. At one point, it looked like we were right in the way of a camera shot that an Indian tourist was prepared to take. I pulled Peggy out of the picture frame, only to notice that the photographer swung her camera around to keep Peggy IN the frame. Aha! She was actually taking a picture of Peggy, not some incredibly interesting architectural feature of the fort. Eventually Peggy would be featured in dozens of shots taken by Indian tourists (almost all of the visitors to the fort that day were Indian).
Many Indian women and girls stopped Peggy and asked if they could have their picture taken with her. Once the photos started, more and more women and girls would gather round to have their pictures taken with the big white woman as well. Occasionally a local would ask to have his or her picture taken with me, but Peggy w as clearly the person they most wanted to feature in their “look what I did on my vacation” slide shows.
I finally realized that to many people in India, Peggy is the next coolest thing to seeing Angelina Jolie. I cut a pretty wide gawkers’ swath as well, but I started referring to myself as Tom Skerritt rather than Brad Pitt. (If you vaguely recognize the name but nevertheless wonder who the heck Tom Skerritt is, I think you get my point).
I had to practically tear Peggy away from the throngs of school girls who were mobbing her for pictures, but we finally made our way out of the fort, back past the gauntlet of ever more aggressive hawkers and into the car so we could continue our journey to the Ellora Caves.
The next several kilometers were on a winding, hilly road, as we had to cross a small mountain to get to Ellora. Coming around a corner we happened on a large group of men walking very slowly up the hill on the far left side of the road. They were all looking down and I noticed another man, prone on the road surface, rolling slowly up the hill. One roll at a time, he would use his outstretched arms to roll from his stomach to his back and onto his stomach again. The look of anguish on his face was startling. I pretty much figured out what was going on right away, but I asked Ashraf to explain and he confirmed that this man was either doing penance, asking for something from his god or giving thanks to that same holy being for some miracle already received. I was impressed by the man’s willingness to put his body through a very harsh experience, no matter what reason lay behind his decision.
At Ellora the legions of hawkers was much worse than the crew we’d just left. Not only were they much more numerous, they were also more aggressive. And they had a new technique. If you said “no” enough times, they would finally say “Maybe Later?” at which point you were so thankful that they appeared ready to leave you alone that you invariably would say “Yes, maybe later.” I should have foreseen the trap they were laying for me.
Our first stop was the definitely third world toilets, which the hawkers let us visit in relative peace. But as soon as we began our hike to the first of the 30 plus caves in the complex, the pushers were back. Distinct memories of an unfortunate experience with a slightly lame boy in Morocco a number of years ago flooded my brain.
In that instance, the young man followed us all day long, yelling “5 mirrors, 10 dirhams!” at me every 5 seconds or so. Nothing could get him away from us, “No”, had no effect, “No, thank you” even less and even using “La”, the Arabic word for “No” did not impress him. But at one point I tried a variation of the “N-O No!” form, by saying “N-O La!”. At this point you could see a form of hurt and anger cross over his face and that actually got to me. His visage cleared shortly and he went back to his “5 mirrors, 10 dirhams” pitch almost immediately.
But I felt like I had personally insulted him, so later in the day, after he had continued to follow and proposition us, I finally stopped him and said, “Look, you’ve worked really hard on us. I don’t want the mirrors, but I want you to have 10 dirhams for your efforts.” He took the money, put it in his pocket, looked me straight in the eye and said “5 mirrors, 10 dirhams!”. He was trained to sell and by Mohammed he was going to continue his day’s work no matter what.
With that thought running through my head, I turned to the most aggressive of the Ellora dealers, who was following us very closely, and said “Do not follow us” in a pretty stern manner. That seemed to have the desired effect – not only did he back off, but his entire coterie got the hint as well. We ran more vendor gauntlets throughout the day but I felt we had averted a grim and dispiriting rerun of the Morocco experience.
The caves at Ellora are a wonder and well worth a trip if you ever get near Mumbai. They have been carved/chipped out of a long stretch of cliff face that fronts a massive stand of solid rock. When you see a room carved out of solid rock it’s not too impressive. When you see a room with integrated pillars you’re a little more impressed. Then comes a two story cave with internal pillars, many of them decorated with carved flower leaves and even some human figures. This is more impressive. Then come three story caves with interior rooms and temples, including one temple with a vaulted ceiling that was very mindful of a medieval cathedral. Even more elaborate caves had likenesses of Buddha and various Hindu gods either carved into the back wall or sitting as free standing statues. Remember everything that you find inside the cave was part of the massive rock edifice. Everything was created one small layer at a time from the original click face.
The closest similarities we have are the faces at Mt. Rushmore. Those were also blasted and carved from a cliff face. But if the Mt. Rushmore team had started by carving a very elaborate set of rooms, followed by free standing statues of the four presidents, that would be closer to what you see at Ellora. These works all date from the 7th through the 9th centuries. They were created without any explosives or power tools, and they represent the various religious movements that slowly ebbed and flowed over that particular region of India.
As remarkable as the most detailed caves were, they had nothing on cave 16. Cave 16 is not a cave at all, but a free standing Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Shiva and adorned with all manner of elephants, lions, gods, people and religious symbols. The entire structure was carved one small layer at a time out of the rock, but this time from the top of the cliff to the base of the temple. The temple complex is huge – 250 ft by 150 ft, and it is mind-boggling to imagine how they could create such an intricate complex out of solid rock. Who had the spatial relationship skills to design such a thing is beyond my ability to comprehend.
My rechargeable camera battery had been showing signs of pooping out before we got to the Kailasanatha Temple (cave 16), and it made good on its threat soon enough. I went back to the car to get Peggy’s iPod, because it represented the only piece of backup photo equipment readily available. I had to fight off the hordes of pitchmen, but I did get to see another batch of Rhesus monkeys, this time well plumped up, evidence of the tourists’ insatiable desire to amuse themselves by feeding the wildlife.
After viewing and photographing the temple from every aspect imaginable, we were ready for a rest, but I wanted to see if I could get a few shots from above, so while Peggy cooled her heels (which is not technically possible in a land as hot as India), I found a small, obviously lightly used path which took me up and behind the temple where it was much easier to visualize how this thing had been painstakingly hewn from the top of the rock slab.
We stopped at the lunch counter for some very average Indian food, then regained the car whereupon Ashraf headed back down the mountains toward Aurangabad. After a few kilometers of driving, we came upon a site that I doubt I will ever forget. The same man whom we had seen painfully and painstakingly rolling uphill on the rough asphalt was still at it. There now was evidence of blood coming through his clothing at various places and the look of mere agony we had originally seen on his face was now replaced with a look of anguish and despair that was chilling. His entourage was still with him, but you could see by the looks on their faces that the strain of his determination in the face of obvious distress was clearly weighing on them as well.
I was so shocked to see this scene that I did not bother to ask Ashraf to note the mileage, but by the time we got to the spot where we had first seen the pilgrim I guessed he had made about 4 kms in 4+ hours. I had no idea how much farther his sense of mission would take him, but I was overwhelmed by the efforts he had made and was bound yet to make. Paris-Brest-Paris is nothing compared to rolling uphill for hours on end, but it did give me a chance to spend a wistful moment to try to contemplate why humans try to endure things that any smart or sane person knows full well should not be endured.
Here are links to more photos than anyone could look at in a lifetime:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26545681@N07/sets/72157622539091049/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26545681@N07/sets/72157622658796578/
Friday, October 30, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Driving in India
A variation on a classic riddle – how long does it take an American to install a light bulb in India? In my case, a good 20 minutes. I have a little desk in the corner of our living room where I try to do my work. The corner is not well lit, so on a recent trip to Big Bazaar I bought a little goose neck desk lamp. Being way smarter than I look, I also bought two bulbs – a 40W incandescent bulb and an 11W Compact Fluorescent. It may be old hat to you, but I was surprised to discover that bulbs here do not screw in, but rather twist in. There are no threads at the bottom of the bulb, but rather two pins, 180 degrees apart. And rather than just one contact at the very base, like on our bulbs, there are two contacts. The receptacle that holds the bulb of course has two contact points as well, and two L-shaped grooves along the cylindrical wall that holds the bulb tightly against the contacts. The idea is to slide the two pins on the bulb into the vertical portions of the L-shaped grooves, then twist the bulb clockwise just slightly until the pins move along the horizontal parts of the grooves until they seat.
This sounds like a good system, but a cheap lamp and cheap bulbs tend to create lots of friction. Combine that with a receptacle mounting bracket that is as sturdy as toilet paper and you have to go through quite a wrestling match, involving mechanical pencils, leatherman multi-tools and swearing in three languages before you can get the stupid bulb to actually seat in the lamp’s receptacle. Of course now that I’ve done it once I have every confidence that the next time I attempt this particular maneuver it will only take me 19 minutes or so.
I went to the gym the day after the 3-day Diwali holiday, and the cute young attendant was sitting at the front desk. She asked me if I enjoyed Diwali. I said yes. She wanted to know if I had enjoyed the Diwali sweets (candy is a very big part of the celebration). I said that I had, but added that I really liked shooting the firecrackers even better. She wrinkled her nose and said she was a “green” person so she didn’t approve of fireworks because of all the litter (i.e. firecracker detritus) that it creates. I quickly assured her that next year I would refrain from shooting any firecrackers during Diwali.
The power goes out here almost every day, and can stay out for hours some times. I’ve already mentioned that we have some big batteries and an inverter in our apartment (every upper class residence has these) to handle most electrical appliances when the outside power is off. The inverter can not handle the AC units nor the refrigerator, but it seems to power almost everything else. Hold this thought for just one minute.
Most days Peggy has Ashraf drive her to work, then she calls me when she’s done for the day and I walk over to Avaya (about 10 minutes) and walk her home. Hold that thought for one minute as well.
We live on the eighth floor of our building. I usually walk the stairs, both up and down, rather than taking the elevator because the exercise makes me feel virtuous, even if it is not as effective at keeping my weight down as a good case of intestinal infection seems to be.
When I walk Peggy home after work, we usually take the elevator from the ground floor (which starts at zero here) up to our eighth floor unit. Tonight, just after the elevator lifted off from the ground floor, the power went out, plunging us into darkness and stopping the elevator in its tracks. This was not good. Having experienced outages of hours in the past few days, I told Peggy that we might be in that tiny, dark, dank, claustrophobic place for a long time. Just as I was seriously considering panicking, the lights in the elevator flickered a few times then came on. The incessant Muzak (a 20 second loop that either was stolen from Kenny G’s studio outtakes or was the winner of the most recent “play as annoyingly as Kenny G” competition) started up, which was probably a good sign, but was not comforting to me because I was convinced the elevator was going to power down again before we could get to the 8th floor. I punched every floor button to try to get the elevator to stop and open up, which it finally did, whereupon I convinced Peggy that climbing the stairs would be in our best interests.
The interesting revelation came when we got to our apartment and discovered that the power was still off there. That implies that the apartment building either has a back up generator or some really big honking batteries and inverters to power the elevators when the city goes dark.
Not only does power go out quite often, so does our broadband connection. Sometimes it’s just not there any more. But that happenstance is fairly rare. What is much more predictable is how slow the internet gets from about 8:00 pm on. Even at 2:00 am the internet can be very slow here. When I marveled at this when talking to Sanjay a few days ago, he summed up the situation in two words “call centers”. Right! India is famous for the number of jobs that have been outsourced here; many of them call center jobs supporting customers in the USA. When it’s 2:00 am here, it’s 4:30 pm in New York, prime time for Americans who are having trouble with something to call for support.
We normally order breakfast in the morning. As part of the fee we pay for the service apartment we’re renting, we each get complimentary breakfasts every day. Many mornings the same young man, whose name is Ashish, delivers breakfast for us. Like many young men in India, especially Muslims (which I assume he is), Ashish sports a well kept dark mustache. A few days ago the doorbell rang and when I opened the door there were Ashish and one of the cleaning crew supervisors whom I’d seen a number of times. They were there to schedule the day’s cleaning session, but as I spoke with them it dawned on me that both had just shaved off their mustaches. I knew it had to be very recent because Ashish (with mustache), had served our breakfast less than two hours earlier.
I pointed at my lip and said “what did you do to your mustaches?” They both broke into huge grins and said they just shaved them off. I asked why and all they could say was “Johnny!” Johnny is the assistant manager of these units (working for Sanjay) and he is apparently their boss. Why he decided that mustaches had to go I don’t know, but I’ve since noticed that all the young male staff who used to have mustaches are now clean-lipped.
H1N1 is a concern here, just like in the US and many other countries. Just two weeks before we arrived here, a Pune-based Avaya employee died from the disease. There are billboards on the streets that preach good sanitation to combat the spread of the disease and some people wear masks or kerchiefs over their nose and mouth presumably to cut down on the chances the pesky little germs will get to them.
Despite these attempts at awareness, it’s surprising to see the public drinking stations in the little shopping center nearby that is called the Destination Center. At the Center there are a number of water coolers standing outside of some shops. On top of the upside down bottle that holds the water to be dispensed is a metal cup, also turned upside down. When someone is thirsty, s/he goes to the water cooler, grabs the metal cup, fills it with water, drinks from it then turns the metal cup upside down again and puts it back on top of the water bottle. The next person does the same thing, using exactly the same cup. I didn’t see anyone bother to wipe the rim of the cup or use hand sanitizer on it or in any way worry about any germs left from the last partaker. Maybe germs can not live on a metal cup so the practice is completely safe, but it seemed very odd to us.
To ease you into the topic of driving in India, let me first mention that gas here runs about $1 per liter (slightly less than $4 per gallon). That’s high, especially compared to the standard of living here, but no where near European prices. Interestingly, like in almost every country except the US, diesel is significantly cheaper here (less than $3 per gallon). There are many more two wheelers (scooters and small motorcycles) than there are cars on the streets. I don’t pay rapt attention to every two wheeler that I see, but I’ve looked at thousands in the weeks we’ve been here and I have not yet seen one with more than 1 cylinder. When I told Ashraf that I have a two wheeler he looked surprised (because I don’t understand anything about India he thinks I’m an idiot when it comes to every aspect of life). When I told him it weighed over 300 kilos his eyes almost bugged out of his head. He very correctly noted that I would have to be from Mars to think about riding such a behemoth in Pune traffic. Assuming that owning a Harley is a world-wide status symbol, I was crushed when Ashraf had no idea what a Harley was.
I have finally figured out driving in India. At first it looks like total anarchy, but it’s not. There is one very basic rule here. Simply put, “THERE ARE NO RULES!” Traffic here is like running water in a creek bed. Each little water droplet is trying its best to get down the creek, but there are millions of other little water droplets all trying to do the same thing. So they squeeze into every space available, thereby maximizing the total throughput of the water droplets as they make their way downstream. Do not try this at home, but imagine how much more quickly a traffic jam would clear out in the US if everyone used every possible inch of road surface (or anything else nearby like lawns, sidewalks, farm fields etc.) to maneuver forward instead of more or less sitting idly in his or her lane waiting for the big knot of traffic to unclot.
Driving in India is a game of chicken, it’s a game of inches, it’s a game of intuition and, surprisingly, it’s a game of gracious accommodation. The most important vehicle accessory here is the hooter (horn), which is way more important than mirrors. Many two wheelers don’t even have mirrors, many trucks drive with their mirrors tucked in (rendering them useless) and we’ve been told that when students are taught to drive on the mean streets of India’s largest cities, the mirrors on the student cars are covered over.
Everyone drives on the left hand side of the road (this is a former British colony after all). When you’re making a left hand turn here, it’s like making a right hand turn in the US in the sense that you are turning from an inside lane to another inside lane. When Ashraf makes a left turn at a busy intersection where there are no stop signs, traffic lights or any other mitigation devices, he does not even look in his mirror or over his right shoulder to see if anyone is coming in that lane. He just makes the assumption that anyone coming will see him pulling out and move over to accommodate his move. The first time I witnessed this I naturally assumed I was going to be killed, but he’s done the same thing numerous times since and I’m still alive.
Right turns are equally adventurous. The idea is to start nosing into oncoming traffic. They will swerve out of the way, but eventually you will be nosed out so far, and/or you’ll have enough other nosers with you, that oncoming traffic will slow or stop so you can cut across their lane to finish your right turn.
Given that no one pays much attention to rear view mirrors, the horn is very important. Horn toots can mean the following: 1) I’m coming up on you; 2) I’m right beside you; 3) move over a little; 4) Don’t even think about coming out of that driveway; 5) Get the f*** out of my way! Surprisingly, number 5 is rarely meant by a horn toot. Despite the fact that everyone is out for him/her self and everyone is honking at everyone else and everyone is threatening to run into everyone else at every moment, people don’t seem to get very angry about all the seeming anarchy. They continue to play their individual games of chicken and when it’s obvious that they are in danger of losing, they give up their position with a shrug and start matching wits with the next locomoter on the road.
The cooperative aspect is probably the most unexpected element of the mayhem. Even though you are trying to move in an unimpeded manner, bluffing each and every other thing moving on the road, the sense of compromise in order to keep traffic moving is palpable. I chalk it up to attention and intuition. Peggy and I can’t even move around our kitchen without bumping into each other every 10 seconds, while the entire country of India seems to perform this transportational dance in perfectly discordant harmony. You do see a few drivers talking on cell phones here, but by and large people really pay attention, because to do otherwise invites disaster.
Does that mean accidents don’t happen here? Hah! Here are some very frightening statistics on accidents in India - http://nitawriter.wordpress.com/2008/10/20/what-is-the-solution-to-indias-high-accident-rate/ . Just to cherry pick a few, India kills more than 130,000 people per year in motor accidents and the country records 10% of the world’s total number of accidents. Most of the serious accidents happen on the highways, rather than in the cities where speeds are kept low due to the massive congestion. (I should not have read this report less than 6 hours before we embark on a long road trip.)
On balance, riding in Indian traffic is always petrifying, but the multitude of near misses Ashraf records every day are just part of real life here.
This sounds like a good system, but a cheap lamp and cheap bulbs tend to create lots of friction. Combine that with a receptacle mounting bracket that is as sturdy as toilet paper and you have to go through quite a wrestling match, involving mechanical pencils, leatherman multi-tools and swearing in three languages before you can get the stupid bulb to actually seat in the lamp’s receptacle. Of course now that I’ve done it once I have every confidence that the next time I attempt this particular maneuver it will only take me 19 minutes or so.
I went to the gym the day after the 3-day Diwali holiday, and the cute young attendant was sitting at the front desk. She asked me if I enjoyed Diwali. I said yes. She wanted to know if I had enjoyed the Diwali sweets (candy is a very big part of the celebration). I said that I had, but added that I really liked shooting the firecrackers even better. She wrinkled her nose and said she was a “green” person so she didn’t approve of fireworks because of all the litter (i.e. firecracker detritus) that it creates. I quickly assured her that next year I would refrain from shooting any firecrackers during Diwali.
The power goes out here almost every day, and can stay out for hours some times. I’ve already mentioned that we have some big batteries and an inverter in our apartment (every upper class residence has these) to handle most electrical appliances when the outside power is off. The inverter can not handle the AC units nor the refrigerator, but it seems to power almost everything else. Hold this thought for just one minute.
Most days Peggy has Ashraf drive her to work, then she calls me when she’s done for the day and I walk over to Avaya (about 10 minutes) and walk her home. Hold that thought for one minute as well.
We live on the eighth floor of our building. I usually walk the stairs, both up and down, rather than taking the elevator because the exercise makes me feel virtuous, even if it is not as effective at keeping my weight down as a good case of intestinal infection seems to be.
When I walk Peggy home after work, we usually take the elevator from the ground floor (which starts at zero here) up to our eighth floor unit. Tonight, just after the elevator lifted off from the ground floor, the power went out, plunging us into darkness and stopping the elevator in its tracks. This was not good. Having experienced outages of hours in the past few days, I told Peggy that we might be in that tiny, dark, dank, claustrophobic place for a long time. Just as I was seriously considering panicking, the lights in the elevator flickered a few times then came on. The incessant Muzak (a 20 second loop that either was stolen from Kenny G’s studio outtakes or was the winner of the most recent “play as annoyingly as Kenny G” competition) started up, which was probably a good sign, but was not comforting to me because I was convinced the elevator was going to power down again before we could get to the 8th floor. I punched every floor button to try to get the elevator to stop and open up, which it finally did, whereupon I convinced Peggy that climbing the stairs would be in our best interests.
The interesting revelation came when we got to our apartment and discovered that the power was still off there. That implies that the apartment building either has a back up generator or some really big honking batteries and inverters to power the elevators when the city goes dark.
Not only does power go out quite often, so does our broadband connection. Sometimes it’s just not there any more. But that happenstance is fairly rare. What is much more predictable is how slow the internet gets from about 8:00 pm on. Even at 2:00 am the internet can be very slow here. When I marveled at this when talking to Sanjay a few days ago, he summed up the situation in two words “call centers”. Right! India is famous for the number of jobs that have been outsourced here; many of them call center jobs supporting customers in the USA. When it’s 2:00 am here, it’s 4:30 pm in New York, prime time for Americans who are having trouble with something to call for support.
We normally order breakfast in the morning. As part of the fee we pay for the service apartment we’re renting, we each get complimentary breakfasts every day. Many mornings the same young man, whose name is Ashish, delivers breakfast for us. Like many young men in India, especially Muslims (which I assume he is), Ashish sports a well kept dark mustache. A few days ago the doorbell rang and when I opened the door there were Ashish and one of the cleaning crew supervisors whom I’d seen a number of times. They were there to schedule the day’s cleaning session, but as I spoke with them it dawned on me that both had just shaved off their mustaches. I knew it had to be very recent because Ashish (with mustache), had served our breakfast less than two hours earlier.
I pointed at my lip and said “what did you do to your mustaches?” They both broke into huge grins and said they just shaved them off. I asked why and all they could say was “Johnny!” Johnny is the assistant manager of these units (working for Sanjay) and he is apparently their boss. Why he decided that mustaches had to go I don’t know, but I’ve since noticed that all the young male staff who used to have mustaches are now clean-lipped.
H1N1 is a concern here, just like in the US and many other countries. Just two weeks before we arrived here, a Pune-based Avaya employee died from the disease. There are billboards on the streets that preach good sanitation to combat the spread of the disease and some people wear masks or kerchiefs over their nose and mouth presumably to cut down on the chances the pesky little germs will get to them.
Despite these attempts at awareness, it’s surprising to see the public drinking stations in the little shopping center nearby that is called the Destination Center. At the Center there are a number of water coolers standing outside of some shops. On top of the upside down bottle that holds the water to be dispensed is a metal cup, also turned upside down. When someone is thirsty, s/he goes to the water cooler, grabs the metal cup, fills it with water, drinks from it then turns the metal cup upside down again and puts it back on top of the water bottle. The next person does the same thing, using exactly the same cup. I didn’t see anyone bother to wipe the rim of the cup or use hand sanitizer on it or in any way worry about any germs left from the last partaker. Maybe germs can not live on a metal cup so the practice is completely safe, but it seemed very odd to us.
To ease you into the topic of driving in India, let me first mention that gas here runs about $1 per liter (slightly less than $4 per gallon). That’s high, especially compared to the standard of living here, but no where near European prices. Interestingly, like in almost every country except the US, diesel is significantly cheaper here (less than $3 per gallon). There are many more two wheelers (scooters and small motorcycles) than there are cars on the streets. I don’t pay rapt attention to every two wheeler that I see, but I’ve looked at thousands in the weeks we’ve been here and I have not yet seen one with more than 1 cylinder. When I told Ashraf that I have a two wheeler he looked surprised (because I don’t understand anything about India he thinks I’m an idiot when it comes to every aspect of life). When I told him it weighed over 300 kilos his eyes almost bugged out of his head. He very correctly noted that I would have to be from Mars to think about riding such a behemoth in Pune traffic. Assuming that owning a Harley is a world-wide status symbol, I was crushed when Ashraf had no idea what a Harley was.
I have finally figured out driving in India. At first it looks like total anarchy, but it’s not. There is one very basic rule here. Simply put, “THERE ARE NO RULES!” Traffic here is like running water in a creek bed. Each little water droplet is trying its best to get down the creek, but there are millions of other little water droplets all trying to do the same thing. So they squeeze into every space available, thereby maximizing the total throughput of the water droplets as they make their way downstream. Do not try this at home, but imagine how much more quickly a traffic jam would clear out in the US if everyone used every possible inch of road surface (or anything else nearby like lawns, sidewalks, farm fields etc.) to maneuver forward instead of more or less sitting idly in his or her lane waiting for the big knot of traffic to unclot.
Driving in India is a game of chicken, it’s a game of inches, it’s a game of intuition and, surprisingly, it’s a game of gracious accommodation. The most important vehicle accessory here is the hooter (horn), which is way more important than mirrors. Many two wheelers don’t even have mirrors, many trucks drive with their mirrors tucked in (rendering them useless) and we’ve been told that when students are taught to drive on the mean streets of India’s largest cities, the mirrors on the student cars are covered over.
Everyone drives on the left hand side of the road (this is a former British colony after all). When you’re making a left hand turn here, it’s like making a right hand turn in the US in the sense that you are turning from an inside lane to another inside lane. When Ashraf makes a left turn at a busy intersection where there are no stop signs, traffic lights or any other mitigation devices, he does not even look in his mirror or over his right shoulder to see if anyone is coming in that lane. He just makes the assumption that anyone coming will see him pulling out and move over to accommodate his move. The first time I witnessed this I naturally assumed I was going to be killed, but he’s done the same thing numerous times since and I’m still alive.
Right turns are equally adventurous. The idea is to start nosing into oncoming traffic. They will swerve out of the way, but eventually you will be nosed out so far, and/or you’ll have enough other nosers with you, that oncoming traffic will slow or stop so you can cut across their lane to finish your right turn.
Given that no one pays much attention to rear view mirrors, the horn is very important. Horn toots can mean the following: 1) I’m coming up on you; 2) I’m right beside you; 3) move over a little; 4) Don’t even think about coming out of that driveway; 5) Get the f*** out of my way! Surprisingly, number 5 is rarely meant by a horn toot. Despite the fact that everyone is out for him/her self and everyone is honking at everyone else and everyone is threatening to run into everyone else at every moment, people don’t seem to get very angry about all the seeming anarchy. They continue to play their individual games of chicken and when it’s obvious that they are in danger of losing, they give up their position with a shrug and start matching wits with the next locomoter on the road.
The cooperative aspect is probably the most unexpected element of the mayhem. Even though you are trying to move in an unimpeded manner, bluffing each and every other thing moving on the road, the sense of compromise in order to keep traffic moving is palpable. I chalk it up to attention and intuition. Peggy and I can’t even move around our kitchen without bumping into each other every 10 seconds, while the entire country of India seems to perform this transportational dance in perfectly discordant harmony. You do see a few drivers talking on cell phones here, but by and large people really pay attention, because to do otherwise invites disaster.
Does that mean accidents don’t happen here? Hah! Here are some very frightening statistics on accidents in India - http://nitawriter.wordpress.com/2008/10/20/what-is-the-solution-to-indias-high-accident-rate/ . Just to cherry pick a few, India kills more than 130,000 people per year in motor accidents and the country records 10% of the world’s total number of accidents. Most of the serious accidents happen on the highways, rather than in the cities where speeds are kept low due to the massive congestion. (I should not have read this report less than 6 hours before we embark on a long road trip.)
On balance, riding in Indian traffic is always petrifying, but the multitude of near misses Ashraf records every day are just part of real life here.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Diwali in India
Dana had served us excellent Margaritas the night before and we supplemented that with a pretty good bottle of Indian Merlot at Little Italy, so Saturday, the biggest day of Diwali, was slow in getting started. Slow for us but not for the truly exuberant Diwali celebrators who had started blasting firecrackers at 5:00 am.
When we finally arrived at somewhat conscious states, we decided to wander down to Destination City to buy some fireworks for ourselves and to have some lunch. We went back to the only real restaurant in the center (there are lots of other eating places, but they are all street food stands or tiny storefronts with 2 or 3 tables each).
The same more or less impeccably dressed little man who had waited on us before greeted us warmly and shook our hands. We then attempted once more to order Tandoori Chicken. This time I had spotted a picture on the menu that looked quite like a roast chicken and because it was in a section of choices that all had Tandoori in their name, I figured one of them must be Tandoori chicken. It turns out they all were, each some variation on the chicken theme. Neither of us was terrifically hungry and we were very mindful of our last experience when we were brought double of everything we ordered, so this time we very carefully and very shrewdly placed our order. No starters, only two pieces of Naan bread and one full order of Tandoori chicken.
The menu listed half order and full order and when I asked our waiter about this he explained that a half order had two pieces and a full order had four pieces. Because we were ordering just one order for the two of us, we decided we should have four pieces rather than two. We supplemented this with one order of Veg Rice and sat back to smugly congratulate ourselves on having not only ordered the right amount of food, but also having done so with such remarkable aplomb.
Imagine our shock when a platter containing eight pieces of chicken arrived shortly at our table (along with a huge bowl of rice). Shaking our head in bemusement over the waiter’s ability to circumvent our specific order, we dug in and found the Tandoori chicken to be excellent. The rice, like most rice dishes we have experienced in India, was very oily, but quite tasty.
When the bill arrived I was shocked once again, because the waiter had only charged us 200 Rs. (a little over $4.00) for one order of Tandoori chicken. I called him over to explain that he had forgotten to charge us for the second order. He looked at me quizzically and assured me we had only gotten one order. Not convinced, I pointed out to him that we had been promised 4 pieces of chicken and had gotten eight. His response (with my assumption of his thoughts) went as follows: “(Are you from Mars?) Sir, there are four pieces in a full order but it’s too hard to eat a large piece of chicken with your fingers unless we cut each piece in half so that is what we do. (Why do they always send us the idiots?)”
We tried to walk off our larger than expected lunch by exploring the outer reaches of Magarpatta. Just as we reached a back gate the droning chants of a Muslim call to prayer could be heard in the distance. There is a fair sized Muslim population here and we knew there were mosques about, but we hadn’t yet heard that hypnotic call to prayer that was so commonplace in Dubai. The chant is comforting and compelling in equal measure and I can understand how it might motivate one to hustle down to the nearest mosque for a few moments of prayer.
As the chanting continued, we heard the unmistakable opening strains of the Eagles’ “Hotel California” coming from a nearby Disco, and the juxtaposition of the two songs was spell-binding. I suggest you try it yourself – crank up some mosque chants on your home stereo and then start playing “Hotel California” from your external iPod speakers and you’ll be blown away by how well they fit and work with each other.
After a long walk we returned to the Destination Center so I could buy some fireworks. All day long we had felt almost like we were in a war zone because the cacophony of exploding fire crackers was incessant and actually got worse as we moved into evening. The attendant at one of the few stores in the Center that sold fireworks must have assumed all foreigners have explosion fetishes because he tried to sell me the equivalent of cherry bombs when I asked for fire crackers. I rummaged through his stash and found a small box of small crackers (each about an inch long and a quarter inch in diameter).
We made our way to one of the plazas in the interior of our apartment complex where we could just squeeze out a space amongst all the kids, teenagers and parents who were blasting off all manner of fireworks at a giddy pace. I placed one layer of crackers on the ground, twisted the fuses together and lit the tip of the fuse with a match. Being old and less fearful of fireworks than I should be, I sauntered back while the little pile went off like a machine gun, adding pleasantly to the sonic mayhem going on all around us.
I repeated this exercise a few times, always grinning wildly when my faint acoustics supplemented the booming of the big crackers going off right and left. Still having plenty of ammo left, I decided to tie two layers together and the increased breadth and depth of racket was quite pleasing. Still, the fascination of sharp noises that hurt my ears wore off fast enough, so I took the final three layers of crackers I had left and tied all their fuses together, placed the wad on the ground, lit the fuse and strolled back a few steps, only to have one of the crackers fly out of the exploding pile, whereupon it hit my leg just as it blew up. I felt a quick sting and looked down to see a flesh wound a good quarter of an inch in size. That may seem small and insignificant, but you can’t imagine the warm feeling it gives you to know you took one for the good of Diwali. I hope Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu have all made note of the incredible sacrifice I made just to honor them on one of the holiest Hindu holidays on the calendar.
On Sunday, along with friend Dana, we had the good fortune and great pleasure to enjoy a Diwali lunch with one of Peggy’s co-workers, Ashwin, and his wife Ritu. We met their two sons, who immediately, and accurately, discerned that we were old and boring and went back to their video games. Ritu had prepared a fairly traditional Indian lunch, trying to hold back on the hottest stuff to spare our delicate western stomachs. The food was all excellent and we were pleased to have gotten a chance to taste some home-cooked indigenous food.
The afternoon was spent in conversations about India and how rapidly it’s changing in many ways while remaining so very traditional in many others. We were apprised of the difference between an arranged marriage and a love marriage and told horror stories of the incredible stress a typical 3-day Indian wedding places on both parties.
Many, probably still most, marriages in India are of the arranged type. The parties to the marriage are paired up by their parents, although there is some give and take in this process that allows each of the youngsters at least some say in who their final partner will be. But this type of relationship is not the kind that we are used to wherein two people fall in love, date for a while then finally decide their relationship was made in heaven and destined to last for eternity so they decide to get married. This latter approach is what the Indians refer to when they talk about a “love marriage”.
Ashwin and Ritu started out as an arranged couple, but fell in love during the process so they consider their marriage a hybrid of the two types. Even so, because the relationship had started on the arranged track, they were obliged to go through with a 3-day wedding, which is designed in part to introduce the two to the notion of intimacy. They both described the utter exhaustion that resulted from this approach and assured us that for days they were both too tired to make use of the (supposedly) new found skills in intimacy.
As part of the decidedly upper, or at least upper middle, class in India, they are very modern in their thinking. They would not presume to arrange a marriage for either of their sons and they expect one or both to leave India for higher education. They also flaunted the whole left-hand-forbidden for eating rule, making us realize that for all the tradition we hear about and seemingly experience, there are some powerful forces for moderation and modernization at work in this vast country.
Back home, while trying to get some work done, I usually try the TV to see if there is anything interesting. For those who think American cable is the vast wasteland, I’m here to tell you that India can give us a run for the money. We get 75 channels and probably 70 of them look exactly the same. On each of these channels there is an Indian person in colorful clothing sitting or standing in front of a very colorful backdrop talking about something that I don’t care about or understand (which pretty much covers all of the world’s topics). This reality pretty much forces me to watch Cricket, which I still don’t get. After paying at least a little attention to one game, I went to a cricket web site later on to see if the story about what happened at the match would help explain this strange sport to me. What a great idea! Here’s one example of how much clearer it is to read about Cricket than it is to watch it:
“Ganga danced down the wicket to launch leg-spinner Max Waller straight down the ground for six, but fell in unfortunate fashion to the final ball of the over when a quicker googly fizzed in down the leg-side came off his inner thigh on the stumps.”
If that doesn’t clarify everything, then let’s face it, you must be from Mars.
Recent photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26545681@N07/sets/72157622624446906/
When we finally arrived at somewhat conscious states, we decided to wander down to Destination City to buy some fireworks for ourselves and to have some lunch. We went back to the only real restaurant in the center (there are lots of other eating places, but they are all street food stands or tiny storefronts with 2 or 3 tables each).
The same more or less impeccably dressed little man who had waited on us before greeted us warmly and shook our hands. We then attempted once more to order Tandoori Chicken. This time I had spotted a picture on the menu that looked quite like a roast chicken and because it was in a section of choices that all had Tandoori in their name, I figured one of them must be Tandoori chicken. It turns out they all were, each some variation on the chicken theme. Neither of us was terrifically hungry and we were very mindful of our last experience when we were brought double of everything we ordered, so this time we very carefully and very shrewdly placed our order. No starters, only two pieces of Naan bread and one full order of Tandoori chicken.
The menu listed half order and full order and when I asked our waiter about this he explained that a half order had two pieces and a full order had four pieces. Because we were ordering just one order for the two of us, we decided we should have four pieces rather than two. We supplemented this with one order of Veg Rice and sat back to smugly congratulate ourselves on having not only ordered the right amount of food, but also having done so with such remarkable aplomb.
Imagine our shock when a platter containing eight pieces of chicken arrived shortly at our table (along with a huge bowl of rice). Shaking our head in bemusement over the waiter’s ability to circumvent our specific order, we dug in and found the Tandoori chicken to be excellent. The rice, like most rice dishes we have experienced in India, was very oily, but quite tasty.
When the bill arrived I was shocked once again, because the waiter had only charged us 200 Rs. (a little over $4.00) for one order of Tandoori chicken. I called him over to explain that he had forgotten to charge us for the second order. He looked at me quizzically and assured me we had only gotten one order. Not convinced, I pointed out to him that we had been promised 4 pieces of chicken and had gotten eight. His response (with my assumption of his thoughts) went as follows: “(Are you from Mars?) Sir, there are four pieces in a full order but it’s too hard to eat a large piece of chicken with your fingers unless we cut each piece in half so that is what we do. (Why do they always send us the idiots?)”
We tried to walk off our larger than expected lunch by exploring the outer reaches of Magarpatta. Just as we reached a back gate the droning chants of a Muslim call to prayer could be heard in the distance. There is a fair sized Muslim population here and we knew there were mosques about, but we hadn’t yet heard that hypnotic call to prayer that was so commonplace in Dubai. The chant is comforting and compelling in equal measure and I can understand how it might motivate one to hustle down to the nearest mosque for a few moments of prayer.
As the chanting continued, we heard the unmistakable opening strains of the Eagles’ “Hotel California” coming from a nearby Disco, and the juxtaposition of the two songs was spell-binding. I suggest you try it yourself – crank up some mosque chants on your home stereo and then start playing “Hotel California” from your external iPod speakers and you’ll be blown away by how well they fit and work with each other.
After a long walk we returned to the Destination Center so I could buy some fireworks. All day long we had felt almost like we were in a war zone because the cacophony of exploding fire crackers was incessant and actually got worse as we moved into evening. The attendant at one of the few stores in the Center that sold fireworks must have assumed all foreigners have explosion fetishes because he tried to sell me the equivalent of cherry bombs when I asked for fire crackers. I rummaged through his stash and found a small box of small crackers (each about an inch long and a quarter inch in diameter).
We made our way to one of the plazas in the interior of our apartment complex where we could just squeeze out a space amongst all the kids, teenagers and parents who were blasting off all manner of fireworks at a giddy pace. I placed one layer of crackers on the ground, twisted the fuses together and lit the tip of the fuse with a match. Being old and less fearful of fireworks than I should be, I sauntered back while the little pile went off like a machine gun, adding pleasantly to the sonic mayhem going on all around us.
I repeated this exercise a few times, always grinning wildly when my faint acoustics supplemented the booming of the big crackers going off right and left. Still having plenty of ammo left, I decided to tie two layers together and the increased breadth and depth of racket was quite pleasing. Still, the fascination of sharp noises that hurt my ears wore off fast enough, so I took the final three layers of crackers I had left and tied all their fuses together, placed the wad on the ground, lit the fuse and strolled back a few steps, only to have one of the crackers fly out of the exploding pile, whereupon it hit my leg just as it blew up. I felt a quick sting and looked down to see a flesh wound a good quarter of an inch in size. That may seem small and insignificant, but you can’t imagine the warm feeling it gives you to know you took one for the good of Diwali. I hope Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu have all made note of the incredible sacrifice I made just to honor them on one of the holiest Hindu holidays on the calendar.
On Sunday, along with friend Dana, we had the good fortune and great pleasure to enjoy a Diwali lunch with one of Peggy’s co-workers, Ashwin, and his wife Ritu. We met their two sons, who immediately, and accurately, discerned that we were old and boring and went back to their video games. Ritu had prepared a fairly traditional Indian lunch, trying to hold back on the hottest stuff to spare our delicate western stomachs. The food was all excellent and we were pleased to have gotten a chance to taste some home-cooked indigenous food.
The afternoon was spent in conversations about India and how rapidly it’s changing in many ways while remaining so very traditional in many others. We were apprised of the difference between an arranged marriage and a love marriage and told horror stories of the incredible stress a typical 3-day Indian wedding places on both parties.
Many, probably still most, marriages in India are of the arranged type. The parties to the marriage are paired up by their parents, although there is some give and take in this process that allows each of the youngsters at least some say in who their final partner will be. But this type of relationship is not the kind that we are used to wherein two people fall in love, date for a while then finally decide their relationship was made in heaven and destined to last for eternity so they decide to get married. This latter approach is what the Indians refer to when they talk about a “love marriage”.
Ashwin and Ritu started out as an arranged couple, but fell in love during the process so they consider their marriage a hybrid of the two types. Even so, because the relationship had started on the arranged track, they were obliged to go through with a 3-day wedding, which is designed in part to introduce the two to the notion of intimacy. They both described the utter exhaustion that resulted from this approach and assured us that for days they were both too tired to make use of the (supposedly) new found skills in intimacy.
As part of the decidedly upper, or at least upper middle, class in India, they are very modern in their thinking. They would not presume to arrange a marriage for either of their sons and they expect one or both to leave India for higher education. They also flaunted the whole left-hand-forbidden for eating rule, making us realize that for all the tradition we hear about and seemingly experience, there are some powerful forces for moderation and modernization at work in this vast country.
Back home, while trying to get some work done, I usually try the TV to see if there is anything interesting. For those who think American cable is the vast wasteland, I’m here to tell you that India can give us a run for the money. We get 75 channels and probably 70 of them look exactly the same. On each of these channels there is an Indian person in colorful clothing sitting or standing in front of a very colorful backdrop talking about something that I don’t care about or understand (which pretty much covers all of the world’s topics). This reality pretty much forces me to watch Cricket, which I still don’t get. After paying at least a little attention to one game, I went to a cricket web site later on to see if the story about what happened at the match would help explain this strange sport to me. What a great idea! Here’s one example of how much clearer it is to read about Cricket than it is to watch it:
“Ganga danced down the wicket to launch leg-spinner Max Waller straight down the ground for six, but fell in unfortunate fashion to the final ball of the over when a quicker googly fizzed in down the leg-side came off his inner thigh on the stumps.”
If that doesn’t clarify everything, then let’s face it, you must be from Mars.
Recent photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26545681@N07/sets/72157622624446906/
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Wine and beef in India
After eating gingerly on Saturday, my appetite returned Sunday. Having more or less survived our first harrowing week, we decided to spend Sunday within the confines of Magarpatta City, giving Ashraf the day off. We took a late lunch at the large, tent-themed restaurant at the Destination Center and had to fight our way into one of the outdoor tables. The fight had nothing to do with thronging crowds (there were approximately 1 other couples dining outside), but rather our host’s expectation that westerners like us would melt if we weren’t in the cozy confines of the chilling AC they had going in the inner sanctum of the restaurant. Given that the afternoon wasn’t that bad (maybe about 80) and they had a nice fan sweeping the table we chose, it was very pleasant to sit under the awning in the great outdoors.
A fairly serious little man, more-or-less impeccably dressed, came to take our orders. When I asked if he had Tandoori Chicken he said yes then went on to explain all the different ways the prawns would be prepared. I tried again with the Tandoori Chicken, but he was not to be dissuaded, so I finally gave up and ordered the daily special – prawns fixed about a thousand different ways.
Peggy ordered only a starter, some kind of chicken thing that we both assumed would end up being prawns as well, and I ordered just the entree. Even though I was hungry, I didn’t want to overdue it, so a starter and a main course to be shared by the two of us seemed just right. Of course we each ordered Naan as well.
When the starter arrived we congratulated ourselves on our shrewd menu planning because it was a honker of a starter. Next came two large baskets of Naan bread followed by a huge plate of shrimp, segregated into little piles to demark each different preparation style. My gosh, I thought, this is like being in a Mexican Restaurant in the US where the portions are about the same size as the state of Sinaloa.
We still had not mastered the keep-your-left-hand-in-your-lap eating style, so I’m sure we grossed out most of the staff as we went about demolishing as much of the feast as we could. Despite our boorish behavior, the little man came up to us after we got to the “no mas” part of the meal and asked where we were from. I answered that we were Americans from Colorado and he nodded knowingly. “Do you know where Colorado is?” I then riposted. He sheepishly shook his head – not really. But he was very excited to have some Americans enjoying his food, even if it was obvious to him that we knew nothing about proper eating etiquette not to mention the most personal of hygienic duties.
I was a little surprised at the size of the bill. Appetizers showed on the menu in the 200 Rs. (the normal abbreviation for Rupees) range and I could have sworn he told us the Prawn Special (which occasionally masqueraded as Tandoori Chicken) was 300 Rs. Our bill was for double that. Right……….. He had made the unilateral decision that when Americans are so stupid that they can only order one starter and one main course for two people you had to take pity on them and make sure they had enough to eat by doubling both courses. Another lesson learned.
On Monday I visited the local health club, innovatively named Abs, to check into a membership. A very attractive young woman, who had been working there all of a week, took me on the tour. Mostly the club was below average by US standards – very few machines mostly showing some age – but the crowning jewel was an incredibly well kept outdoor Olympic size pool. Swimming is not one of my regular exercise endeavors, but the lure of the azure water made me want to become the next Johnny Weissmuller.
Hard negotiating ensued after the tour. First I had to convince the receptionist that I lived in Magarpatta, because the club is limited to residents and those who work in Magarpatta only. Then I had to make the decision as to Lean or Prime. Remember India is not into eating beef, so we were not talking about the meal to celebrate me becoming a member, but rather which type of membership I would buy. Indian sales assistants are trained to actively sell the items they represent, so the push was on for me to buy the Prime membership. The Lean plan would cost $30 per month for three months, but would limit the hours during which I could use the facilities, would restrict what type of classes I could take and would probably cause acne. Prime came in at a kingly $43 per month, but being the coy type, I said I would think about it and come back on Wednesday to seal the deal.
After making a stop at the Destination Center for seltzer, just as I was walking back out to the street, a young man on a two wheeler stopped and smiled at me. I smiled back, not sure what this was about. I had not seen any pan handlers or obvious shysters in Magarpatta up to this point, but it seemed like this guy wanted something from me because he continued to stare at me and smile. Just as I was figuring I would nod one more time and be on my way he yelled out “Gary!” So, once again being about as quick witted as they come, I yelled back “How are you?” not having any real clue who he was.
He parked his two-wheeler and as soon as he got off, revealing himself to be nearly my height, I realized it was Om, a young engineer in Peggy’s organization who had been at our going away party in Broomfield a few weeks prior.
Om, like most Indians we’ve met so far, is a very gracious individual and it was a pleasure talking to him. He wanted to know how things were going and if there was anything he could do to help us out. He offered me the use of his two wheeler at any time, which I had the very good sense to decline on the spot. Having a run in with someone I knew, at least a little bit, brightened my day.
Tuesday was election day in India and the government declared it a holiday to encourage voting participation. No businesses were allowed to open that day and Peggy had most of the day off. Because she is trying to manage groups in India and the US simultaneously, she has two work days: from about 10:00 am until 6:00 pm is her Indian work day and from 7:00 pm until midnight or so is her US work day.
Since the very first moment we had gotten into his car on our arrival in Pune, Ashraf had promised to take us to the Wine Yard. For reasons that were not clear to me then and are even less certain now, Ashraf has it in his head that the Wine Yard is the place to take American tourists. Because Tuesday was a holiday, Peggy would not work during the day and no stores would be open, it seemed like the perfect day to visit the Wine Yard. Before agreeing on the excursion, however, we made Ashraf promise that he would vote on Tuesday morning before picking us up.
Right after ringing our bell that morning, he proudly showed us the blue ink spot on his finger which is a sign that a person has voted. He claimed it was the first time he had ever voted in his life. During the first part of the ride he moaned about how bad all politicians are and claimed he trusts no one. India is worse than most democracies in the cynicism shown by its politicians, but I think may of us can sympathize with his complaints.
Had we known how far away the Wine Yard was, we would not have agreed to the trip. I specifically asked Ashraf on Monday when we were talking about this excursion if the place would be open given that Tuesday was a holiday. He assured me it would be. And seeing how much of India’s informal economy was percolating just fine that day made me assume that Ashraf probably knew what he was talking about. And of course, the fact that I also assumed he was being paid a commission to take us to the Wine Yard gave me additional confidence that the place would actually be open.
Which should be enough forewarning to allow you to already have deduced that there was a large “DRY Day – CLOSED” sign in front of the restaurant that fronted the vineyard that we had learned the hard way was 100 km and 2.5 hours of tedious driving away.
As much as was possible, Ashraf looked like he had seen a ghost. In general we like road trips and the drive up had been fascinating – lots of people, vehicles and animals to look at. At one point we drove past a string of camels, and as camel lovers ever since our trip to Dubai last year, that was one of the high points. Still, to be cajoled against our better judgment into a trip to a Wine Yard only to find it closed was a bit more than disappointing.
After some mumbling and head scratching, Ashraf jumped out of the car and disappeared. Peggy and I made a joint vow that from that moment on we would only go where we wanted to go, not where Ashraf as tour guide wanted us to go. In a few minutes Ashraf was back with good news – they were going to open the Wine Yard for us so we could buy some wine! Great! I think!
We drove through a couple of manned checkpoints to the back of a large warehouse and we were welcomed into the home of a man who appeared to be the caretaker. He took us upstairs and started ripping open boxes of wine, pulling bottles out to show us. I asked Ashraf if we could taste any of it, but he just shrugged and reminded me that it was a DRY day. I was not real excited about buying wine without a chance to taste it, but Ashraf and the caretaker were both looking at us with puppy dog eyes, so I agreed to take a bottle of cabernet, a bottle of sauvignon blanc, a bottle of sparkling and, way against my better judgment, a fifth of local Port that cost $3.00.
These wines were all made locally from locally grown grapes in an area called the Nashik Valley. It is considered one of India’s finer wine producing regions. Part of the reason Ashraf wanted us to visit the Wine Yard so badly was because he had taken other Americans there before and they had bought boxes of wine, a fact that he not-so-subtly reported to me on our way back to Pune. Smart guy that I am, I served the guilt trip right back at him by saying that most people only buy wine if they get a chance to taste it. (We just now tasted the Port and we were both shocked to discover that it was even worse than we could have imagined.)
On the way back from Nashik, I foolishly asked Ashraf if he thought Dorabjee, the original grockery store he had taken us to, would be open on election day. Having noticed plenty of shops and stands open during our long drive, I thought maybe it would be. He said he thought so, too, but when we got into Pune and made our way to it, we were disappointed to see that it was closed (just as the law had proscribed). I had a bottle of spaghetti sauce, some noodles and some fresh veggies waiting at home, but I really wanted a little hamburger to add to it. Silly me, I asked Ashraf if he knew where I could buy some beef that day, and the next thing we knew we were at the meat market in central Pune.
The stench was incredible as we wound our way through small stands displaying freshly killed chickens, lots of mutton and lamb, freshly caught prawns, and a variety of fresh fish. Wending our way through the maze of meat vendors, we finally came to a large room with various parts of beef carcasses hanging on hooks. In front of each huge piece of meat stood a large tree stump and a man with a cleaver. The POA was to go to one of these butchers and tell him what you were looking for whereupon he would cut a chunk of meat off the carcass behind him then throw it on the flattened surface of the tree trunk in front of him and start to wail on it with his cleaver. I was looking for hamburger, but scoping out the operation I realized the best I could hope for was small chunks of stew meat.
Our butcher hacked off a 1 kg (2.2 pound) steak and started pummeling it with his cleaver, the fingers of his left (!?) hand never more than a few millimeters from the blade edge when it bit into the chunk of beef. He cut the pieces into 1 inch cubes, threw them into a bag and demanded 100 Rs. ($2.00). If that sounds cheap for beef, I can assure you it is not, because we have never had such tough beef in our lives. I tried to chop it into smaller pieces before sautéing, but folks, that beef was just plain bad. But we’re here to learn so we can chalk that whole experience up to another excellent lesson learned – there is a reason why cows are sacred here.
Coming soon – all about Diwali and how to drive in India (from a person who is way too smart to ever try it).
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
India strikes back
The ride to the hospital in the ambulance would have been hilarious had it not been so frightening. With that subtle foreshadowing in place, let’s go back to Thursday when I took yet another trip to MG Road (which you have probably already figured out is the local abbreviation for Mahatma Ghandi Road). My friend, Sandeep, at the Maharashtra Cheap Store, had been good to his word. He proudly showed me the 220V power supply he claimed would breathe new life into my Vonage appliance. I held my breath as he plugged it in, fearing the worst. When the little blue LEDs sparked up and danced I allowed myself a broad smile – my ability to connect to the rest of the world looked assured.
While at the Cheap Store, I bought a new cell phone for Peggy (her iPhone would not accept the Indian SIM card we were trying to use). The guys there had the new phone up and running in short order. When I showed them my Blackberry, which had shown definite signs of rejecting the Indian SIM card that I had tried to transplant, they explained it wouldn’t work with that particular type of Indian SIM card. My Blackberry is unlocked, it is a worldwide phone and I was told by T-Mobile support that I should have no problem using an Indian SIM card. But in the uncertain English Sandeep’s tech guy used to explain to me why this card wouldn’t work in my phone, the best I could gather was that there was some type of frequency issue. Oh well – I bought a second cute little Nokia.
On the way back to Magarpatta City we passed an elephant, padding slowly along in the left hand (slow) lane. Ashraf stopped so I could take a few photos. He got the elephant driver’s phone number so we could call on Saturday and arrange elephant rides for Peggy and me.
After returning to the apartment I was shortly interrupted by the cleaning crew wanting to clean the unit. I decided to go for a short walk, but when I asked if it would take about 20 minutes and was told it would be an hour I was a bit surprised. Even more surprising was the reality – they were still at it an hour and a half later when I returned.
On my walk I visited the Destination Center, a small outdoor shopping center within the confines of Magarpatta City that contains many small eating stalls. Trying to watch the scene without looking like I was obviously staring was hard to do. Nobody knows who I am here, but everybody wants to check me out. I’m definitely a strange looking character to the local population. Although we live in a tech park with relatively upscale housing, there are very few white foreigners here. On my various forays in Magarpatta I’ve only see one other white guy. To make matters worse, I’m tall and I usually wear shorts (it’s hot and humid here). The number of Indians I’ve seen wearing shorts I can count on my right thumb. So, you might be asking, why don’t I wear long pants so I don’t seem so out of place? I thought about that, but realized that everyone would stare at me whether I had on shorts or long pants, so I decided to make sure they have more to talk over at the dinner table by continuing to parade around in my shorts.
Even though it was not covert, my spying did confirm one thing the guide books emphasize over and over: eat only with your right hand. Most of the Indians that I watched kept their left hands on their laps under the table, even when they had to do awkward things like tearing Naan bread. They just figure out a way to do everything with their right hands because left hands are for bathroom duty and are therefore considered more than suspect for any eating chores. Many of the Indians that I observed did not use silverware of any kind, strictly their right hands and fingers even for messy courses like rice and beans.
Back at the apartment I got my VOIP system up and running just in time to start feeling truly punk. Hoping it was just a wave of stress, I went to bed with trepidation.
By morning it was clear that a turf battle to rival the “Gangs of New York” imbroglio was going on in my gut. Not much nausea but waves of painful gut spasms told me it would be a long day. I skipped coffee and breakfast, loaded up on fluids and tried to get some tasks done. By the time the cleaning crew arrived about noon, I had started to feel chilled so I begged them off, put on a heavy sweater, long pants and socks, turned the AC off, got into bed, pulled two heavy duvets over me and proceeded to shiver for hours. The temperature outside was well into the 80s and certainly close to 80 inside the flat.
After a few hours of spasms, shivers and dehydrating trips to the bathroom, I decided maybe I should get some professional help. I called Peggy and she brought one of her managers, Sulbha, with her to take me to the hospital so a Doctor could give me a once over. By the time they arrived, I had gone from chills to drenching sweat and I was feeling extremely unstable. Even though they kept insisting that I had to stand up and walk out of the apartment so Sulbha could drive me to the hospital, I started to swoon when I tried to stand up. I felt so woozy I was sure I would just crumple if I stood up. Sulbha took charge of the situation, calling an ambulance to come pick me up. I lay back down for a few minutes and managed to gain enough strength to walk down to meet the ambulance.
The ambulance arrived in a few minutes (the hospital that dispatched it and to which I was taken was only a mile or so away). The next few minutes were worthy of a Keystone Cops episode. The Ambulance, a tiny minivan, backed up to where I was seated, the attendants hopped out and popped the back gate. I climbed onto the tiny cot on one side of the van while Peggy jumped onto the small bench on the other side. My legs were way too long for this tiny contraption, so I had to lay with my knees propped up. The back of the van reeked of raw gasoline, not your best antidote for a sour stomach.
Away we went, siren wailing and Sulbha racing after us. The driver was intent on using his siren to cut a swath through the formidable rush hour traffic. He tore around corners and flew over speed bumps. Every maneuver threatened to pitch me onto the floor, so I had to grab the edge of my cot with one hand and the back of the passenger seat with my other. At one point I looked at Peggy and just started to laugh. I still felt like I was going to die, but this ride was so absurd that I could do nothing but laugh.
We made it to the hospital with me still on the cot, my legs still propped in the air and my innards still aroar. On to a rolling stretcher and into a draped off examination room where technicians proceeded to draw blood twice, take my temperature, and give me an EKG. The two things I really expected them to do – a blood pressure test and a saline IV in my arm – were not forthcoming. Eventually a doctor came in, asked if I had diabetes or heart problems, pretended to be surprised when he heard my age, prescribed a course of drugs and asked if I wanted to be admitted to the hospital. I was feeling somewhat better and certainly not in need of a night in the hospital, so I respectfully declined. When I asked if there was any chance I had H1N1, the doctor, all the technicians, the rest of the patients in the ward and probably innocent passers-by in the street, all roared with laughter. I took that as a “no”.
Sulbha graciously handled all the forms, did all the negotiating and paid all the bills. She gave us copies of the bills for our records. Health care reform has apparently already happened in India. Total cost for ambulance ride, emergency room treatment and 3 courses of drugs - $13.
Here's Peggy's view of the incident*************
It was a truly (deleted) day, today. Gary called me saying he was really sick, but not to come home. Why are men like that? I was with Sulbha, having lunch. She drives me back to our place; Gary is fully dressed, under 2 duvets, shivering. I get him to sit up, he starts sweating profusely, saying he can’t stand up, and that he is going to throw up. Sulbha whips out her cell phone and starts dialing. I get him a cold wash cloth, says he has to lie down, and he can’t get down to the car. Sulbha gets the hospital, a doctor, and an ambulance. Sulbha is our people.
He gets up, gets down the elevator, and the ambulance shows up, siren and light on. Here we go. It’s a tiny, little van with a cot and a bench in the back. Two guys jump out; load him in, point to the bench for me. The guy driving starts the siren, and starts driving like those TV cop shows. He is going over the potholes so hard that Gary head is bouncing at least 12 inches off the cot. He tailgates people that don’t get out of the way like a German on cocaine. It is truly surreal, this can’t be happening.
We get to the emergency room, and it is the same one I went to last year. Sulbha is right behind us in her car, runs in with me, and starts firing off commands in Maharati. The questions are flying. No, he doesn’t have heart problems, or diabetic, yes he is 62, are you sure 62? They take blood, do an EKG, and then another doctor comes in. Gary’s ankles are hanging off the bed, I am trying not to cry. The doctor says he has a fever, not much, and starts asking about how many diarrhea incidences he has had. Then Gary asks if he has H1N1, the doctor laughs, says no, probably a stomach problem.
More questions, Gary is looking more pink, less gray, more questions, then a shot of something. The doctor says it a little infection, he needs to do electrolytes, 3 other drugs, and asks if Gary wants to be admitted to the hospital, Gary says NO, and he wants to go home. Sulbha drives us both home, and he has been in bed ever since. So ends the week.
**************
Lots of sleep, lots of fluids, no food and 36 hours after my I lost my form, I started to feel much better. Except for a piece of toast and one sip of coffee, I skipped breakfast, but felt good enough to accompany Peggy on a short shopping trip Saturday afternoon. Once again, we came upon our favorite elephant, swaying ever so slowly down the road. Ashraf stopped, we jumped out and he took pictures of us snuggled up beside the beast. Ms. Elephant found my toes interesting, giving them more than a once over with the tip of her trunk. Before we could make a move to get back in the car, a little man who apparently was the elephant’s owner, jabbed me in the arm and said “Money!” I reached for my wallet as I asked Ashraf how much I should pay. He replied “20 Rupees” (about 40 cents) but when the little man saw the wad of Rupees I had in my wallet, he demanded 100.
An animated argument ensued, which Peggy and I watched like a tennis match, our heads going back and forth as the contestants volleyed counter proposals at each other. Finally Ashraf nodded at me and said “50 Rupees” which I produced and placed in the little fellow’s still outstretched hand.
When we got back in the car, I got a well-deserved lecture from Ashraf, the gist of which was to keep my money in my pocket until a price was agreed, and in any case, never flash a wad of cash. I immediately saw the wisdom in this advice and proceeded to restock my wallet with a modest amount of 100s and 10s, putting the bigger bills in a place so secret I can’t remember now exactly where they are.
On to Pune Central to check out the Indian idea of high fashion and do a little grocery shopping. I was starting to feel a little peaked and realized I needed to use the rest room but when I entered the stall I was surprised to discover this – no toilet paper. Not in the sense that the toilet paper roll was depleted or there was no roll on the hanger but rather in the sense that there was no place to put toilet paper in this stall. Instead I warily eyed the hose and sprayer hanging on a hook on the wall and, being the quick type that I am, finally realized that the whole room was more or less wet from the last user’s visit.
Not being versed in using a hose and sprayer in lieu of toilet paper, I left. Luckily, we had some tissue in my backpack which I retrieved and put to good use in what we westerners think is a traditional and effective style.
I won’t bother to try to explain exactly how hygiene is practiced here, mainly because I don’t really know, but if you have a better imagination than mine, you’ll probably come up with some pretty good ideas.
That night we joined a former co-worker of Peggy’s, Dana, who travels to Pune on a regular basis. In deference to the recent state of my stomach, we decided to go to “Little Italy” for dinner, but Dana’s driver got confused and we ended up at a place that I think is called the “Spice Garden” or something like that.
We had a very nice dinner, with excellent food, but two things kept it from being perfect. Number one was the wine. We ordered a bottle of Indian Shiraz, but it was too sweet for my taste and certainly not what you would call a good wine. The second problem really got to me, because it’s a story of promise dashed by bitter defeat.
Background music played unobtrusively while we chatted about the current state of Indian affairs. At some point an automatic receptor in my brain clued me into the music, which was bluegrass(!) and at first I thought the tune was “12 Inch, Three Speed, Oscillating Fan” (currently one of my favorites), but after listening for a few seconds, I realized it had something to do with a lamb rather than a fan. But just as I brought my party’s attention to the fact that bluegrass was being played in Pune, India, they shut it off right in the middle of the tune! I was crushed. They replaced it with some phony main-stream country song, but the message couldn’t have been clearer – Gary: don’t even THINK you’re going to find any sympathy for bluegrass music here!
More soon.
Current photos at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26545681@N07/
While at the Cheap Store, I bought a new cell phone for Peggy (her iPhone would not accept the Indian SIM card we were trying to use). The guys there had the new phone up and running in short order. When I showed them my Blackberry, which had shown definite signs of rejecting the Indian SIM card that I had tried to transplant, they explained it wouldn’t work with that particular type of Indian SIM card. My Blackberry is unlocked, it is a worldwide phone and I was told by T-Mobile support that I should have no problem using an Indian SIM card. But in the uncertain English Sandeep’s tech guy used to explain to me why this card wouldn’t work in my phone, the best I could gather was that there was some type of frequency issue. Oh well – I bought a second cute little Nokia.
On the way back to Magarpatta City we passed an elephant, padding slowly along in the left hand (slow) lane. Ashraf stopped so I could take a few photos. He got the elephant driver’s phone number so we could call on Saturday and arrange elephant rides for Peggy and me.
After returning to the apartment I was shortly interrupted by the cleaning crew wanting to clean the unit. I decided to go for a short walk, but when I asked if it would take about 20 minutes and was told it would be an hour I was a bit surprised. Even more surprising was the reality – they were still at it an hour and a half later when I returned.
On my walk I visited the Destination Center, a small outdoor shopping center within the confines of Magarpatta City that contains many small eating stalls. Trying to watch the scene without looking like I was obviously staring was hard to do. Nobody knows who I am here, but everybody wants to check me out. I’m definitely a strange looking character to the local population. Although we live in a tech park with relatively upscale housing, there are very few white foreigners here. On my various forays in Magarpatta I’ve only see one other white guy. To make matters worse, I’m tall and I usually wear shorts (it’s hot and humid here). The number of Indians I’ve seen wearing shorts I can count on my right thumb. So, you might be asking, why don’t I wear long pants so I don’t seem so out of place? I thought about that, but realized that everyone would stare at me whether I had on shorts or long pants, so I decided to make sure they have more to talk over at the dinner table by continuing to parade around in my shorts.
Even though it was not covert, my spying did confirm one thing the guide books emphasize over and over: eat only with your right hand. Most of the Indians that I watched kept their left hands on their laps under the table, even when they had to do awkward things like tearing Naan bread. They just figure out a way to do everything with their right hands because left hands are for bathroom duty and are therefore considered more than suspect for any eating chores. Many of the Indians that I observed did not use silverware of any kind, strictly their right hands and fingers even for messy courses like rice and beans.
Back at the apartment I got my VOIP system up and running just in time to start feeling truly punk. Hoping it was just a wave of stress, I went to bed with trepidation.
By morning it was clear that a turf battle to rival the “Gangs of New York” imbroglio was going on in my gut. Not much nausea but waves of painful gut spasms told me it would be a long day. I skipped coffee and breakfast, loaded up on fluids and tried to get some tasks done. By the time the cleaning crew arrived about noon, I had started to feel chilled so I begged them off, put on a heavy sweater, long pants and socks, turned the AC off, got into bed, pulled two heavy duvets over me and proceeded to shiver for hours. The temperature outside was well into the 80s and certainly close to 80 inside the flat.
After a few hours of spasms, shivers and dehydrating trips to the bathroom, I decided maybe I should get some professional help. I called Peggy and she brought one of her managers, Sulbha, with her to take me to the hospital so a Doctor could give me a once over. By the time they arrived, I had gone from chills to drenching sweat and I was feeling extremely unstable. Even though they kept insisting that I had to stand up and walk out of the apartment so Sulbha could drive me to the hospital, I started to swoon when I tried to stand up. I felt so woozy I was sure I would just crumple if I stood up. Sulbha took charge of the situation, calling an ambulance to come pick me up. I lay back down for a few minutes and managed to gain enough strength to walk down to meet the ambulance.
The ambulance arrived in a few minutes (the hospital that dispatched it and to which I was taken was only a mile or so away). The next few minutes were worthy of a Keystone Cops episode. The Ambulance, a tiny minivan, backed up to where I was seated, the attendants hopped out and popped the back gate. I climbed onto the tiny cot on one side of the van while Peggy jumped onto the small bench on the other side. My legs were way too long for this tiny contraption, so I had to lay with my knees propped up. The back of the van reeked of raw gasoline, not your best antidote for a sour stomach.
Away we went, siren wailing and Sulbha racing after us. The driver was intent on using his siren to cut a swath through the formidable rush hour traffic. He tore around corners and flew over speed bumps. Every maneuver threatened to pitch me onto the floor, so I had to grab the edge of my cot with one hand and the back of the passenger seat with my other. At one point I looked at Peggy and just started to laugh. I still felt like I was going to die, but this ride was so absurd that I could do nothing but laugh.
We made it to the hospital with me still on the cot, my legs still propped in the air and my innards still aroar. On to a rolling stretcher and into a draped off examination room where technicians proceeded to draw blood twice, take my temperature, and give me an EKG. The two things I really expected them to do – a blood pressure test and a saline IV in my arm – were not forthcoming. Eventually a doctor came in, asked if I had diabetes or heart problems, pretended to be surprised when he heard my age, prescribed a course of drugs and asked if I wanted to be admitted to the hospital. I was feeling somewhat better and certainly not in need of a night in the hospital, so I respectfully declined. When I asked if there was any chance I had H1N1, the doctor, all the technicians, the rest of the patients in the ward and probably innocent passers-by in the street, all roared with laughter. I took that as a “no”.
Sulbha graciously handled all the forms, did all the negotiating and paid all the bills. She gave us copies of the bills for our records. Health care reform has apparently already happened in India. Total cost for ambulance ride, emergency room treatment and 3 courses of drugs - $13.
Here's Peggy's view of the incident*************
It was a truly (deleted) day, today. Gary called me saying he was really sick, but not to come home. Why are men like that? I was with Sulbha, having lunch. She drives me back to our place; Gary is fully dressed, under 2 duvets, shivering. I get him to sit up, he starts sweating profusely, saying he can’t stand up, and that he is going to throw up. Sulbha whips out her cell phone and starts dialing. I get him a cold wash cloth, says he has to lie down, and he can’t get down to the car. Sulbha gets the hospital, a doctor, and an ambulance. Sulbha is our people.
He gets up, gets down the elevator, and the ambulance shows up, siren and light on. Here we go. It’s a tiny, little van with a cot and a bench in the back. Two guys jump out; load him in, point to the bench for me. The guy driving starts the siren, and starts driving like those TV cop shows. He is going over the potholes so hard that Gary head is bouncing at least 12 inches off the cot. He tailgates people that don’t get out of the way like a German on cocaine. It is truly surreal, this can’t be happening.
We get to the emergency room, and it is the same one I went to last year. Sulbha is right behind us in her car, runs in with me, and starts firing off commands in Maharati. The questions are flying. No, he doesn’t have heart problems, or diabetic, yes he is 62, are you sure 62? They take blood, do an EKG, and then another doctor comes in. Gary’s ankles are hanging off the bed, I am trying not to cry. The doctor says he has a fever, not much, and starts asking about how many diarrhea incidences he has had. Then Gary asks if he has H1N1, the doctor laughs, says no, probably a stomach problem.
More questions, Gary is looking more pink, less gray, more questions, then a shot of something. The doctor says it a little infection, he needs to do electrolytes, 3 other drugs, and asks if Gary wants to be admitted to the hospital, Gary says NO, and he wants to go home. Sulbha drives us both home, and he has been in bed ever since. So ends the week.
**************
Lots of sleep, lots of fluids, no food and 36 hours after my I lost my form, I started to feel much better. Except for a piece of toast and one sip of coffee, I skipped breakfast, but felt good enough to accompany Peggy on a short shopping trip Saturday afternoon. Once again, we came upon our favorite elephant, swaying ever so slowly down the road. Ashraf stopped, we jumped out and he took pictures of us snuggled up beside the beast. Ms. Elephant found my toes interesting, giving them more than a once over with the tip of her trunk. Before we could make a move to get back in the car, a little man who apparently was the elephant’s owner, jabbed me in the arm and said “Money!” I reached for my wallet as I asked Ashraf how much I should pay. He replied “20 Rupees” (about 40 cents) but when the little man saw the wad of Rupees I had in my wallet, he demanded 100.
An animated argument ensued, which Peggy and I watched like a tennis match, our heads going back and forth as the contestants volleyed counter proposals at each other. Finally Ashraf nodded at me and said “50 Rupees” which I produced and placed in the little fellow’s still outstretched hand.
When we got back in the car, I got a well-deserved lecture from Ashraf, the gist of which was to keep my money in my pocket until a price was agreed, and in any case, never flash a wad of cash. I immediately saw the wisdom in this advice and proceeded to restock my wallet with a modest amount of 100s and 10s, putting the bigger bills in a place so secret I can’t remember now exactly where they are.
On to Pune Central to check out the Indian idea of high fashion and do a little grocery shopping. I was starting to feel a little peaked and realized I needed to use the rest room but when I entered the stall I was surprised to discover this – no toilet paper. Not in the sense that the toilet paper roll was depleted or there was no roll on the hanger but rather in the sense that there was no place to put toilet paper in this stall. Instead I warily eyed the hose and sprayer hanging on a hook on the wall and, being the quick type that I am, finally realized that the whole room was more or less wet from the last user’s visit.
Not being versed in using a hose and sprayer in lieu of toilet paper, I left. Luckily, we had some tissue in my backpack which I retrieved and put to good use in what we westerners think is a traditional and effective style.
I won’t bother to try to explain exactly how hygiene is practiced here, mainly because I don’t really know, but if you have a better imagination than mine, you’ll probably come up with some pretty good ideas.
That night we joined a former co-worker of Peggy’s, Dana, who travels to Pune on a regular basis. In deference to the recent state of my stomach, we decided to go to “Little Italy” for dinner, but Dana’s driver got confused and we ended up at a place that I think is called the “Spice Garden” or something like that.
We had a very nice dinner, with excellent food, but two things kept it from being perfect. Number one was the wine. We ordered a bottle of Indian Shiraz, but it was too sweet for my taste and certainly not what you would call a good wine. The second problem really got to me, because it’s a story of promise dashed by bitter defeat.
Background music played unobtrusively while we chatted about the current state of Indian affairs. At some point an automatic receptor in my brain clued me into the music, which was bluegrass(!) and at first I thought the tune was “12 Inch, Three Speed, Oscillating Fan” (currently one of my favorites), but after listening for a few seconds, I realized it had something to do with a lamb rather than a fan. But just as I brought my party’s attention to the fact that bluegrass was being played in Pune, India, they shut it off right in the middle of the tune! I was crushed. They replaced it with some phony main-stream country song, but the message couldn’t have been clearer – Gary: don’t even THINK you’re going to find any sympathy for bluegrass music here!
More soon.
Current photos at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26545681@N07/
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Culture Shock
I’m no longer trying to find a ticket out of here. But it is an incredible culture shock to plunk yourself down in the middle of India stone cold sober. I am really beginning to appreciate the mother of necessity that caused the British to invent and overdo Gin and Tonics.
Just in case this all appears to be a non sequitur, advanced delirium or worse, let me go back a few weeks to the beginning of September when Peggy said to me, “Honey, let’s move to India!” I once was smart enough to laugh off such suggestions but my current cognitive abilities can no longer recognize the truly inane, much less muster the sufficient synapses to say “NFW!” So a few hurried and harrowing weeks of preparation, visa applications, vaccinations, tearful goodbyes and more than occasional concerns that we were out of our feeble minds brought us to the airport with massive bags in hand. Our first leg to Frankfurt was a breeze, as was our stay with our great friends Rolf, Conny and Adrian (daughter Lea, ironically, is safely sequestered in Boulder as we traipse around in the monsoons of India).
After indulging in way more food, chocolate and wine than is recommended by the FDA, the thought of spending some time where meat, sweets and alcohol are all rare seemed kind of charming. We flew out of Frankfurt at 1:30 pm, lost 3.5 hours en route and landed in a monsoon in Mumbai at 2:00 am. Our connecting flight to Pune was not scheduled to leave for another 8 hours, so we took a pre-arranged shuttle to the Mumbai Hyatt, where we checked in for 3 hours of sleep.
The weather had changed considerably during our rest – instead of just a steady monsoon, it had become a furious, lashing monsoon, which we later learned flooded some portions of the city. The rains kept our plane on the ground for an extra hour (with us inside), but the 20 minute flight to Pune provided just enough time for a few quick winks before the awful reality and finality of what I had agreed to do sank in.
The reason we are here is so Peggy can rescue Avaya. Or some part of it anyway. She has a bunch of engineers here who are not accomplishing their goals in a sprightly fashion and she was cajoled into spending three months here whipping them into shape. The cajoler (her boss), a Brit of Indian descent, is a lot smarter than me – he cut his trip short and caught an early flight out of here today!
We landed in Pune on Sunday about noon, with rain still falling, heat and humidity high and thronging masses in every direction. Luckily, we found our driver, Ashraf Ali, quickly. We were contradictorily instructed to stand by the curb but stay out of the rain while Ashraf went for the car. As we discovered, Indians do not melt in the rain and neither do we.
Shocked was the look on Ashraf’s face when he saw how large our 4 bags (plus dobro guitar) were. Pained were the muscles in his back as he struggled to get them all into the little Mitsubishi he commanded for our transportational benefit.
Our ride into Pune was exhilarating and dispiriting in equal measure. Dodging other cars, motor bikes, bicycles, pedestrians, auto rickshaws, dogs, oxen and at least one elephant was the exhilarating part. Fearing for our lives every centimeter of the journey was sapping. The driving game in India is fascinating once you get over your mortal fear. Even though it appears to be completely anarchical, there is a certain flow to it that really works. Locomoters here stay very focused on their tasks, but they also seem to have a certain instinct for knowing who to cede to and when. I have driven in a number of congested cities in the world, including New York, London and Paris, but I wouldn’t dream of trying it here. Luckily, for better or worse, Ashraf is our designated and dedicated driver for the next three months.
We arrived at our apartment in the Cosmos section of Magarpatta City with no new creases on the car’s exterior. A small army was waiting for us, having presumably been forewarned about the tonnage of our luggage. Our unit is on the eighth floor of one of 20+ units that make up the Cosmos housing section. At first, the apartment seemed depressing – it was dark, hot, humid and smelly. But after opening blinds, turning the air on and unpacking our humongous loads, we discovered that the place was not half bad. We have a decent size living room when you enter, probably 15x25 feet. The kitchen plus dining nook is about the same size and is open to the living room making for a relatively spacious feeling. The master bedroom is probably 15x20 with an attached bath. The spare bedroom is a little smaller and also has an attached bath. Both baths are somewhere between 1st and 3rd world in nature, but not anywhere near as primitive as most residents of Pune must live with.
We were tired and I was especially cranky but Ashraf wanted to entertain us so we agreed to a trip into town for some basic grocery supplies. He assumed we were hungry, so he dropped us off at an Indian restaurant that catered to tourists and relatively sophisticated locals, and, I suspect, offered kickbacks to drivers who could steer newbies their way. I absolutely hated the dark, kitschy interior, the fake stone-ware glasses and pretty much every thing about it. The food was probably OK, but we were already freaking about what we could eat and drink without dying of foreign microbes right on the spot.
After more harrowing traffic adventures and a shopping spree at a middle of the road quality grocery store (which Ashraf called a “grockery shop”), we returned to our apartment and the reality of being in a very different place. All the things I hate most were in my very immediate future – horrendously large and inconsiderate crowds; dampness and humidity; absolute lack of anonymity; no mobility; no chance of refreshing bicycle rides; constant direct exposure to abject poverty; and a population that is still very much in thrall to the caste system which has defined them for so long. I fired off a missive of woe and went to bed a downhearted man.
Monday morning meant work for Peggy and a day of trying to adapt for me. Ashraf dropped Peggy at work, then set off for the center of Pune to help me find myriad things such as basic cooking gear, a computer printer and more food supplies. I met a really nice guy at the home supplies store and an equally nice woman at the tiny computer store. The grockery store experience was better (the day before the lines were interminable, and old ladies, apparently like old ladies the world around, kept trying to butt in line). All told I spent about 16,000 rupees that day (at around 48 rupees to the dollar). Ashraf had already started whining about how little he makes, claiming that he is paid 100 rupees per day (about $2.00). So, if he was being truthful (which I seriously doubt), in less than an hour, I spent half of his yearly salary.
Once back at the apartment, I tried to get my office set up. We do have a wireless router in the unit, but there was no good place to declare office space, short of the back bedroom which was way too dark for my mental health, so I commandeered the dining table. At which point my adventures in electricity began. Sometimes I’m a pretty smart guy, and I had anticipated some of the electricity issues by putting two 6-outlet power strips in my luggage along with a few power converters and a bunch of plug adaptors. Peggy had started the electricity saga the night before by plugging one of the outlets into an adaptor and then directly into a 220V power outlet in the apartment, only to have the fuse in the power strip blow immediately, thereby tripping one of the breakers in our unit. I nearly duplicated the feat a bit later, although I thought I was being the smart one, when I plugged the second strip into a 220 to 120 converter, then into the wall, only to have the fuse on that strip blow also, once again tripping a breaker in our unit.
Not wanting to admit complete failure, I used my leatherman multi-tool to take the two strips apart, rip all the circuitry out and hardwire them as strictly multi-outlet extension cords. And why would I do such a thing? Because many of the power supplies we brought along to power various gizmos are already 120-240 compliant, so all we need is the right plug factor to get them to work. By plugging a power strip into an adaptor and then into the wall, we could plug our multi-voltage power supplies directly into the US-style plugs on the power strip.
But things are never so easy, even when you think you are being clever to the max in your preparation. I brought my Vonage box with me, assuming that I would be able to use my 720 Colorado phone number in India simply by plugging an Ethernet cable into the Vonage box. I had been told that we might not have a hard-wire Internet connection, wireless only, so I went the extra step of buying a wireless-to-wired Ethernet bridge so I could create my own wired connection if need be.
The experience wherein the fuse on a power supply burned up even when running through a 220-120 converter, gave me pause. I really did not want to burn out my Vonage box, thereby leaving me with limited choices for calling the US. So I bought newer, better voltage converters here in Pune and gave them a try. My Vonage box, as you may have guessed, does not have a multi-voltage power supply, but when I plugged the cord into the converter that was plugged into the wall, the lights on the box twinkled to life, only to dim and then go out a short time later. Had I already accomplished one of my greatest fears and burned out my lifeline to the only civilization that I understand? It seemed so. I was bummed.
Trying to put my fear aside, I turned my attention to the electric 2-burner, portable cooktop that had been installed in our unit. One burner worked great, the other popped a circuit breaker in our breaker box every time I gave it a try. When I called Sanjay, our apartment manager who speaks perfect US-English, he said he would have the guys bring up a gas cooker the next day so we wouldn’t have to worry about the circuit breaker.
Shortly thereafter, I noticed that most of the electrical stuff in the apartment was not working, including the stove, the fridge, the electric tea kettle and the 3 air conditioner units. Most of the lights still worked, as did the overhead fans, the wireless router and a few of the outlets. Just then the cleaning crew arrived. Even though we are in an “apartment” it’s kind of like a hotel room, with room service available and cleaning services performed every day. I asked one of the young men (all the cleaners seem to be men) about the power outage and he said “Oh yes, power is out all over town.” The monsoons had reappeared, so that explanation seemed plausible enough.
So why did some stuff work if power was out all over town? The young man opened a high cupboard in the hallway and showed me two huge batteries and a power inverter. The batteries are continually recharged when power is on, but if it fails, they take over, powering an inverter that runs only the critical services in the unit.
Having battery backup and an inverter seems very modern and indicates a propensity to use technology to overcome problems. The apartment has some other interesting features. When you enter the unit, you put your key fob in a special slot in the wall that is the main cutoff for almost all power in the unit. If you don’t put your key in there, almost nothing will work. When you do insert your key fob, all power is on and you can use whatever you want. This feature is meant to enforce energy conservation by automatically turning off all but critical electrical services when you are away.
Another interesting feature is the geezers in the bathrooms. A riddle which I just made up on the spot would go like this: Q: What do you have when Peggy and Gary are both occupying their separate bathrooms at the same time? A: Two geezers in each. (OK so they can’t all be gems.) A geezer is simply a water heating device that consists of a small tank (probably 2-3 gallons) and a powerful heating element to give nearly instant heat. This building, like many in India, has solar hot water tanks on the roof and that’s where most of the hot water comes from, but the geezers are used as backup and supplements.
On Monday night we had to make another trip into the city to get passport photos so we could qualify for Indian cell phones (an Indian version of a Homeland Security measure). The rain was absolutely pummeling the city and our driver came so close to hitting a pedestrian that it scared even him. Seeing an elephant padding down the street with a huge poncho covering only a portion of his back was quite a treat. We were hungry and tired so we asked Ashraf to take us to a McDonalds for dinner. I’m sure you’re way ahead of me on this, but many McDonalds here do not serve beef. They had plenty of chicken and vegetarian offerings, but not a burger in sight. We treated Ashraf to a Chicken Big Mac dinner, which seemed to delight him no end.
Monday had been a day to build confidence and adapt to our surroundings, but Tuesday pretty much undid everything for me. The rains had stopped, so there were lots of pedestrians to add to the transportation confusion. Along with pedestrians come some of the most pitiful beggars you’ll ever encounter. Women with babies bandaged in various ways to indicate horrible tragedy, men in nothing but loincloths and headdresses on, so skinny you can see ribs and organs. Every time we were stopped in traffic, the beggars would flock to us (they could sense a foreigner a mile away) prostrating themselves on my window while Ashraf yelled and cursed at them. The intense, unyielding stares they affix you with are heart-rending. Yet, every book and expert implores you not to give in to the squalor and misery and reward them for begging. The more successful they are, the more they are willing to mutilate themselves and their children in order to make themselves ever more pitiable. It was tough to be faced with human souls who are living such a miserable life and feel like there is no course of action that would actually help them. Even while we were motoring, the misery of the city is never far away. The shanty towns, huts of trash and tents of carpet remnants, filled with mud and reeking of sewage, were seemingly endless.
I was still on the hunt for a voltage converter that would actually power my Vonage box, but the department store we came to first did not open until 11:00. The next one we tried did not open until 11:30, so Ashraf decided to drop me at a coffee shop he knew (which was probably also offering him kickbacks), called the German Bakery. There was nothing discernibly German about it and not much of a bakery either. The place was staffed by bored, rude young Indians and populated by ex-pats who reminded me so much of the drug addicts in the basement catacomb of the Turkish jail in the film “Midnight Express” that I really wanted to leave immediately. But I had a problem. My Indian SIM card was not yet working in my cell phone so Ashraf said he would pick me up again in 15 minutes.
15 minutes of watching the scene was as much as I could take, so I popped out the front door to find my driver but he was no where to be seen. Instead I was confronted by the legions of beggars, taxi men, hotel procurers and solicitors of god knows how many other things, all focused on trying to get money from me. I walked to the corner, trailed by my minions, but I could not see Ashraf anywhere. I had no phone to use and no illusions that the snarling staff inside the German Bakery would give a whit for my plight. I tried the other corner, still no Ashraf. The discordance of the throngs pestering me really added to my sense of discomfort. After 5 minutes searching that felt like 20, I finally found Ashraf, parked at the end of one of the side streets. I was in no mood for jokes when I got in the car, but I still needed to find a converter for the Vonage box so off we went to visit both of the department stores that we had tried earlier.
No luck on a converter, but visiting stores that seemed a bit more western buoyed my spirits somewhat. On the way home Ashraf asked if I liked music and we talked about different music and movie stars that we liked. He was a big fan of Ricky Martin and Tom Cruise. Me, not so much. There was a haunting Indian song playing on the radio and Ashraf started to translate. “There are many problems in my life”. “My family has disowned me.” “I will never amount to anything in my life.”
I remarked to Ashraf that it was a very sad song, and he said, in a way so plaintive that it made my heart sink, “I’m not talking about the song, I’m talking about my life!” It’s most likely part of the game that every driver plays in order to get more tips, similar to the begging technique: make your life seem so pitiful that the foreigner will give you something. But his further laments about his family and his place in life certainly tugged at my heart strings. His wife just gave birth to their second daughter, and now his family doesn’t like him because every one wants sons not daughters and having two daughters is viewed by many here as true failure. He is very determined to work hard to provide for his family and to send his two daughters to a private school to learn English because he believes that is the only way for them to break out of the cycle of poverty that is his station in life.
Ashraf got me back to the apartment, and I later walked over to the Avaya offices (about 10 minutes from us) to pick up Peggy and walk her back home. She had a conference call later that evening, so we ordered room service – two typical Indian meals that were tasty but left me the next day with some flu-like symptoms.
Peggy used Skype to get on her conference call. Skype has worked pretty well, but we are on some form of cable modem here, and at night, between 8:00 pm and 10:00 pm, everyone in India must be online because the Internet drops to a crawl and Skype starts breaking up. Even if I finally get my Vonage box to work, it’s not clear that performance will be acceptable during the evening hours.
Tuesday had been a rough day for me and I felt under the weather Wednesday morning, so I waited until about noon to call Ashraf and have him take me yet again into Pune to try to solve the Vonage converter problem. I went back to the store where I had bought the household goods two days earlier and the same salesman, a guy named Sandeep, called around and found a high quality voltage converter that he had delivered to him. Smart guy that I am, I had my Vonage box with me, and we tried plugging it into the converter, but to my consternation, none of the LEDs lit up. I really feared that I had blown the circuitry inside it. But Sandeep did not think so. He called around again and found a 220V power supply with exactly the right plug and exactly the right output for my box. But he would not have it in hand until later that evening. I said I would come back the next day, then as I waited outside, I noticed one of the shop workers jump on a bicycle with my existing power supply (which I had left with them for reference purposes) and pedal away, I assume on the mission to retrieve the power supply Sandeep had located.
My cell phone was still not working with the Indian SIM card, but I did not want to be stuck with no way to contact Ashraf, so I had put my old SIM card back in the phone and resigned myself to paying $2.00/minute for any phone calls I had to make.
Another stop at the local grockery for frozen chicken breasts and fresh vegetables so I could make dinner that night. (The next day Ashraf chastised me for buying frozen chicken there when he could have taken me to a chicken market where they would kill and butcher the chicken in front of my eyes so I could see that it was truly fresh.)
That’s probably enough. Next time I’ll try to describe how unbelievably jumbled traffic is here, but for now let me just report that we are both doing reasonably well, I’m no longer praying that a plane ticket back to the US will arrive in today’s mail and we are both assuming that this adventure will have some high points very soon.
Just in case this all appears to be a non sequitur, advanced delirium or worse, let me go back a few weeks to the beginning of September when Peggy said to me, “Honey, let’s move to India!” I once was smart enough to laugh off such suggestions but my current cognitive abilities can no longer recognize the truly inane, much less muster the sufficient synapses to say “NFW!” So a few hurried and harrowing weeks of preparation, visa applications, vaccinations, tearful goodbyes and more than occasional concerns that we were out of our feeble minds brought us to the airport with massive bags in hand. Our first leg to Frankfurt was a breeze, as was our stay with our great friends Rolf, Conny and Adrian (daughter Lea, ironically, is safely sequestered in Boulder as we traipse around in the monsoons of India).
After indulging in way more food, chocolate and wine than is recommended by the FDA, the thought of spending some time where meat, sweets and alcohol are all rare seemed kind of charming. We flew out of Frankfurt at 1:30 pm, lost 3.5 hours en route and landed in a monsoon in Mumbai at 2:00 am. Our connecting flight to Pune was not scheduled to leave for another 8 hours, so we took a pre-arranged shuttle to the Mumbai Hyatt, where we checked in for 3 hours of sleep.
The weather had changed considerably during our rest – instead of just a steady monsoon, it had become a furious, lashing monsoon, which we later learned flooded some portions of the city. The rains kept our plane on the ground for an extra hour (with us inside), but the 20 minute flight to Pune provided just enough time for a few quick winks before the awful reality and finality of what I had agreed to do sank in.
The reason we are here is so Peggy can rescue Avaya. Or some part of it anyway. She has a bunch of engineers here who are not accomplishing their goals in a sprightly fashion and she was cajoled into spending three months here whipping them into shape. The cajoler (her boss), a Brit of Indian descent, is a lot smarter than me – he cut his trip short and caught an early flight out of here today!
We landed in Pune on Sunday about noon, with rain still falling, heat and humidity high and thronging masses in every direction. Luckily, we found our driver, Ashraf Ali, quickly. We were contradictorily instructed to stand by the curb but stay out of the rain while Ashraf went for the car. As we discovered, Indians do not melt in the rain and neither do we.
Shocked was the look on Ashraf’s face when he saw how large our 4 bags (plus dobro guitar) were. Pained were the muscles in his back as he struggled to get them all into the little Mitsubishi he commanded for our transportational benefit.
Our ride into Pune was exhilarating and dispiriting in equal measure. Dodging other cars, motor bikes, bicycles, pedestrians, auto rickshaws, dogs, oxen and at least one elephant was the exhilarating part. Fearing for our lives every centimeter of the journey was sapping. The driving game in India is fascinating once you get over your mortal fear. Even though it appears to be completely anarchical, there is a certain flow to it that really works. Locomoters here stay very focused on their tasks, but they also seem to have a certain instinct for knowing who to cede to and when. I have driven in a number of congested cities in the world, including New York, London and Paris, but I wouldn’t dream of trying it here. Luckily, for better or worse, Ashraf is our designated and dedicated driver for the next three months.
We arrived at our apartment in the Cosmos section of Magarpatta City with no new creases on the car’s exterior. A small army was waiting for us, having presumably been forewarned about the tonnage of our luggage. Our unit is on the eighth floor of one of 20+ units that make up the Cosmos housing section. At first, the apartment seemed depressing – it was dark, hot, humid and smelly. But after opening blinds, turning the air on and unpacking our humongous loads, we discovered that the place was not half bad. We have a decent size living room when you enter, probably 15x25 feet. The kitchen plus dining nook is about the same size and is open to the living room making for a relatively spacious feeling. The master bedroom is probably 15x20 with an attached bath. The spare bedroom is a little smaller and also has an attached bath. Both baths are somewhere between 1st and 3rd world in nature, but not anywhere near as primitive as most residents of Pune must live with.
We were tired and I was especially cranky but Ashraf wanted to entertain us so we agreed to a trip into town for some basic grocery supplies. He assumed we were hungry, so he dropped us off at an Indian restaurant that catered to tourists and relatively sophisticated locals, and, I suspect, offered kickbacks to drivers who could steer newbies their way. I absolutely hated the dark, kitschy interior, the fake stone-ware glasses and pretty much every thing about it. The food was probably OK, but we were already freaking about what we could eat and drink without dying of foreign microbes right on the spot.
After more harrowing traffic adventures and a shopping spree at a middle of the road quality grocery store (which Ashraf called a “grockery shop”), we returned to our apartment and the reality of being in a very different place. All the things I hate most were in my very immediate future – horrendously large and inconsiderate crowds; dampness and humidity; absolute lack of anonymity; no mobility; no chance of refreshing bicycle rides; constant direct exposure to abject poverty; and a population that is still very much in thrall to the caste system which has defined them for so long. I fired off a missive of woe and went to bed a downhearted man.
Monday morning meant work for Peggy and a day of trying to adapt for me. Ashraf dropped Peggy at work, then set off for the center of Pune to help me find myriad things such as basic cooking gear, a computer printer and more food supplies. I met a really nice guy at the home supplies store and an equally nice woman at the tiny computer store. The grockery store experience was better (the day before the lines were interminable, and old ladies, apparently like old ladies the world around, kept trying to butt in line). All told I spent about 16,000 rupees that day (at around 48 rupees to the dollar). Ashraf had already started whining about how little he makes, claiming that he is paid 100 rupees per day (about $2.00). So, if he was being truthful (which I seriously doubt), in less than an hour, I spent half of his yearly salary.
Once back at the apartment, I tried to get my office set up. We do have a wireless router in the unit, but there was no good place to declare office space, short of the back bedroom which was way too dark for my mental health, so I commandeered the dining table. At which point my adventures in electricity began. Sometimes I’m a pretty smart guy, and I had anticipated some of the electricity issues by putting two 6-outlet power strips in my luggage along with a few power converters and a bunch of plug adaptors. Peggy had started the electricity saga the night before by plugging one of the outlets into an adaptor and then directly into a 220V power outlet in the apartment, only to have the fuse in the power strip blow immediately, thereby tripping one of the breakers in our unit. I nearly duplicated the feat a bit later, although I thought I was being the smart one, when I plugged the second strip into a 220 to 120 converter, then into the wall, only to have the fuse on that strip blow also, once again tripping a breaker in our unit.
Not wanting to admit complete failure, I used my leatherman multi-tool to take the two strips apart, rip all the circuitry out and hardwire them as strictly multi-outlet extension cords. And why would I do such a thing? Because many of the power supplies we brought along to power various gizmos are already 120-240 compliant, so all we need is the right plug factor to get them to work. By plugging a power strip into an adaptor and then into the wall, we could plug our multi-voltage power supplies directly into the US-style plugs on the power strip.
But things are never so easy, even when you think you are being clever to the max in your preparation. I brought my Vonage box with me, assuming that I would be able to use my 720 Colorado phone number in India simply by plugging an Ethernet cable into the Vonage box. I had been told that we might not have a hard-wire Internet connection, wireless only, so I went the extra step of buying a wireless-to-wired Ethernet bridge so I could create my own wired connection if need be.
The experience wherein the fuse on a power supply burned up even when running through a 220-120 converter, gave me pause. I really did not want to burn out my Vonage box, thereby leaving me with limited choices for calling the US. So I bought newer, better voltage converters here in Pune and gave them a try. My Vonage box, as you may have guessed, does not have a multi-voltage power supply, but when I plugged the cord into the converter that was plugged into the wall, the lights on the box twinkled to life, only to dim and then go out a short time later. Had I already accomplished one of my greatest fears and burned out my lifeline to the only civilization that I understand? It seemed so. I was bummed.
Trying to put my fear aside, I turned my attention to the electric 2-burner, portable cooktop that had been installed in our unit. One burner worked great, the other popped a circuit breaker in our breaker box every time I gave it a try. When I called Sanjay, our apartment manager who speaks perfect US-English, he said he would have the guys bring up a gas cooker the next day so we wouldn’t have to worry about the circuit breaker.
Shortly thereafter, I noticed that most of the electrical stuff in the apartment was not working, including the stove, the fridge, the electric tea kettle and the 3 air conditioner units. Most of the lights still worked, as did the overhead fans, the wireless router and a few of the outlets. Just then the cleaning crew arrived. Even though we are in an “apartment” it’s kind of like a hotel room, with room service available and cleaning services performed every day. I asked one of the young men (all the cleaners seem to be men) about the power outage and he said “Oh yes, power is out all over town.” The monsoons had reappeared, so that explanation seemed plausible enough.
So why did some stuff work if power was out all over town? The young man opened a high cupboard in the hallway and showed me two huge batteries and a power inverter. The batteries are continually recharged when power is on, but if it fails, they take over, powering an inverter that runs only the critical services in the unit.
Having battery backup and an inverter seems very modern and indicates a propensity to use technology to overcome problems. The apartment has some other interesting features. When you enter the unit, you put your key fob in a special slot in the wall that is the main cutoff for almost all power in the unit. If you don’t put your key in there, almost nothing will work. When you do insert your key fob, all power is on and you can use whatever you want. This feature is meant to enforce energy conservation by automatically turning off all but critical electrical services when you are away.
Another interesting feature is the geezers in the bathrooms. A riddle which I just made up on the spot would go like this: Q: What do you have when Peggy and Gary are both occupying their separate bathrooms at the same time? A: Two geezers in each. (OK so they can’t all be gems.) A geezer is simply a water heating device that consists of a small tank (probably 2-3 gallons) and a powerful heating element to give nearly instant heat. This building, like many in India, has solar hot water tanks on the roof and that’s where most of the hot water comes from, but the geezers are used as backup and supplements.
On Monday night we had to make another trip into the city to get passport photos so we could qualify for Indian cell phones (an Indian version of a Homeland Security measure). The rain was absolutely pummeling the city and our driver came so close to hitting a pedestrian that it scared even him. Seeing an elephant padding down the street with a huge poncho covering only a portion of his back was quite a treat. We were hungry and tired so we asked Ashraf to take us to a McDonalds for dinner. I’m sure you’re way ahead of me on this, but many McDonalds here do not serve beef. They had plenty of chicken and vegetarian offerings, but not a burger in sight. We treated Ashraf to a Chicken Big Mac dinner, which seemed to delight him no end.
Monday had been a day to build confidence and adapt to our surroundings, but Tuesday pretty much undid everything for me. The rains had stopped, so there were lots of pedestrians to add to the transportation confusion. Along with pedestrians come some of the most pitiful beggars you’ll ever encounter. Women with babies bandaged in various ways to indicate horrible tragedy, men in nothing but loincloths and headdresses on, so skinny you can see ribs and organs. Every time we were stopped in traffic, the beggars would flock to us (they could sense a foreigner a mile away) prostrating themselves on my window while Ashraf yelled and cursed at them. The intense, unyielding stares they affix you with are heart-rending. Yet, every book and expert implores you not to give in to the squalor and misery and reward them for begging. The more successful they are, the more they are willing to mutilate themselves and their children in order to make themselves ever more pitiable. It was tough to be faced with human souls who are living such a miserable life and feel like there is no course of action that would actually help them. Even while we were motoring, the misery of the city is never far away. The shanty towns, huts of trash and tents of carpet remnants, filled with mud and reeking of sewage, were seemingly endless.
I was still on the hunt for a voltage converter that would actually power my Vonage box, but the department store we came to first did not open until 11:00. The next one we tried did not open until 11:30, so Ashraf decided to drop me at a coffee shop he knew (which was probably also offering him kickbacks), called the German Bakery. There was nothing discernibly German about it and not much of a bakery either. The place was staffed by bored, rude young Indians and populated by ex-pats who reminded me so much of the drug addicts in the basement catacomb of the Turkish jail in the film “Midnight Express” that I really wanted to leave immediately. But I had a problem. My Indian SIM card was not yet working in my cell phone so Ashraf said he would pick me up again in 15 minutes.
15 minutes of watching the scene was as much as I could take, so I popped out the front door to find my driver but he was no where to be seen. Instead I was confronted by the legions of beggars, taxi men, hotel procurers and solicitors of god knows how many other things, all focused on trying to get money from me. I walked to the corner, trailed by my minions, but I could not see Ashraf anywhere. I had no phone to use and no illusions that the snarling staff inside the German Bakery would give a whit for my plight. I tried the other corner, still no Ashraf. The discordance of the throngs pestering me really added to my sense of discomfort. After 5 minutes searching that felt like 20, I finally found Ashraf, parked at the end of one of the side streets. I was in no mood for jokes when I got in the car, but I still needed to find a converter for the Vonage box so off we went to visit both of the department stores that we had tried earlier.
No luck on a converter, but visiting stores that seemed a bit more western buoyed my spirits somewhat. On the way home Ashraf asked if I liked music and we talked about different music and movie stars that we liked. He was a big fan of Ricky Martin and Tom Cruise. Me, not so much. There was a haunting Indian song playing on the radio and Ashraf started to translate. “There are many problems in my life”. “My family has disowned me.” “I will never amount to anything in my life.”
I remarked to Ashraf that it was a very sad song, and he said, in a way so plaintive that it made my heart sink, “I’m not talking about the song, I’m talking about my life!” It’s most likely part of the game that every driver plays in order to get more tips, similar to the begging technique: make your life seem so pitiful that the foreigner will give you something. But his further laments about his family and his place in life certainly tugged at my heart strings. His wife just gave birth to their second daughter, and now his family doesn’t like him because every one wants sons not daughters and having two daughters is viewed by many here as true failure. He is very determined to work hard to provide for his family and to send his two daughters to a private school to learn English because he believes that is the only way for them to break out of the cycle of poverty that is his station in life.
Ashraf got me back to the apartment, and I later walked over to the Avaya offices (about 10 minutes from us) to pick up Peggy and walk her back home. She had a conference call later that evening, so we ordered room service – two typical Indian meals that were tasty but left me the next day with some flu-like symptoms.
Peggy used Skype to get on her conference call. Skype has worked pretty well, but we are on some form of cable modem here, and at night, between 8:00 pm and 10:00 pm, everyone in India must be online because the Internet drops to a crawl and Skype starts breaking up. Even if I finally get my Vonage box to work, it’s not clear that performance will be acceptable during the evening hours.
Tuesday had been a rough day for me and I felt under the weather Wednesday morning, so I waited until about noon to call Ashraf and have him take me yet again into Pune to try to solve the Vonage converter problem. I went back to the store where I had bought the household goods two days earlier and the same salesman, a guy named Sandeep, called around and found a high quality voltage converter that he had delivered to him. Smart guy that I am, I had my Vonage box with me, and we tried plugging it into the converter, but to my consternation, none of the LEDs lit up. I really feared that I had blown the circuitry inside it. But Sandeep did not think so. He called around again and found a 220V power supply with exactly the right plug and exactly the right output for my box. But he would not have it in hand until later that evening. I said I would come back the next day, then as I waited outside, I noticed one of the shop workers jump on a bicycle with my existing power supply (which I had left with them for reference purposes) and pedal away, I assume on the mission to retrieve the power supply Sandeep had located.
My cell phone was still not working with the Indian SIM card, but I did not want to be stuck with no way to contact Ashraf, so I had put my old SIM card back in the phone and resigned myself to paying $2.00/minute for any phone calls I had to make.
Another stop at the local grockery for frozen chicken breasts and fresh vegetables so I could make dinner that night. (The next day Ashraf chastised me for buying frozen chicken there when he could have taken me to a chicken market where they would kill and butcher the chicken in front of my eyes so I could see that it was truly fresh.)
That’s probably enough. Next time I’ll try to describe how unbelievably jumbled traffic is here, but for now let me just report that we are both doing reasonably well, I’m no longer praying that a plane ticket back to the US will arrive in today’s mail and we are both assuming that this adventure will have some high points very soon.
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