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.