Monster Horn in India?

Our driver, Ashraf, had dropped hints about buying his own car and setting off as a one-man driving company. After meeting with his boss, I quizzed Ashraf about his desires to buy his own car and go into business for himself. I was trying to probe how much of a business plan he had developed, and he surprised me with how much planning he has done. He claimed to have about 1.5 lakhs saved up as a down payment for his car. A lakh is 100,000 Rs, so his savings represent about $3000, but even more importantly, they probably represent more than his entire annual pay (salary plus tips).

Probing further, I discovered that Ashraf lives about 10 Km from his office, he is not allowed to take a car home at night, he does not own a two wheeler, he does not take the auto rickshaws, but rather pedals a very rundown bicycle to and from work every day. Most things he tells me are exaggerated, so I don’t fully buy that his bicycle commute takes one hour each way, but even at 40 minutes, that’s a very impressive commitment to the job he claims to have held for nine years now. I gained a new level of respect for Ashraf after this conversation. He is living a life that I could not tolerate, but he seems dedicated to giving his two young daughters opportunities that he never had.

That night I re-assumed the mantle of doctor, searching the Internet for information about skin rashes. I considered and discarded the possibilities of shingles, scabies, chicken pox, measles and smallpox, leaving me stuck on allergenic hives as the most likely culprit.

After not sleeping well, being driven nearly mad (I know that seems redundant) by itching sensations and discovering on Tuesday morning that I was losing ground to the rash, I decided to consult someone who knows more than me (meaning there were over 6 billion souls to choose from). Shulbha, the kind woman who works for Peggy and who had shepherded my first interaction with the Indian medical profession, again rose to the occasion, locating a skin specialist fairly close to Magarpatta. She insisted on driving me there, so we set off in the late morning for a short jaunt.

Dr. Vaishali U. Jagtap’s offices were impossibly small. There was a suite of three rooms, each about 5 feet wide by 7 feet long. The first office was the waiting room. In that room was a receptionist pushed against one wall, and a bench big enough for 2.5 people to sit on just across from her. After 2.5 people were in the waiting room, any other patients would have to cool their heels outside the door.

I apparently came in my Brad Pitt getup, because the receptionist absolutely could not take her eyes off me. I suspect she had never in her career as a medical receptionist had a big, goofy American in her office and she wanted to make sure she didn’t miss a single detail of my very strange existence.

The doctor’s office was next, a little tiny desk with two very small chairs across from it. Dr. Jagtap, a very attractive, petite Indian woman, conducted a short interview then asked to see my rash. Apparently deciding she needed to see me in a more professional setting, she had me move into the examining room, again a room so small that we both barely fit into it simultaneously.

She took out a magnifying glass and studiously examined the worst of the splotches on my skin. After only a few minutes she pronounced her diagnosis – allergy-induced hives, treatable and not terribly serious. She prescribed some drugs, I paid the still gob-smacked attendant 150 Rs and Shulbha took me home.

I was amazed by this second brush with the medical business in India. Dr. Jagtap spent 8 years (4 college, 4 medical school) in higher education to become a doctor, but based on her posted office rates (150 Rs first visit, 100 Rs for any “fallow on” - her words - visits), it’s hard to imagine her making more than $20K per year.

On the way back from the doctor visit, we saw a woman bicyclist get knocked over by a car. She was not seriously hurt, but she got up and started screaming at the driver in Hindi. He rolled down his window and began shouting back – apparently intent on proving that the incident was the bicyclist’s fault. I’ve been knocked down by a car and it’s a very frightening experience, but this episode showed me again how brutal the driving environment is here.

Wednesday was declared “I want to go home” day because we were both sick, the day played out in a dark and rainy fashion and neither of us could think of any good reason why we shouldn’t be back in Colorado at that very moment. I chippered up for a brief moment when I realized the last of the seven one-day cricket matches between Australia and India was about to start, but when I tuned in the appropriate channel, my hopes were dashed. Cyclone Phyan was at that moment passing over Mumbai (and delivering sheets of water to us as well) and the cricket match was cancelled.

By Friday my rash had become close to intolerable and Peggy had basically lost her voice. Even though she had been sick all week, she felt compelled to spend many hours on the phone with her Avaya minions and all that talking took a toll on her vocal cords.

On Saturday we were cheered up by a visit with Sulbha and her family at their home in the western suburbs of Pune. Her husband, Sanjeev, and son, Susang, helped entertain us, along with Sanjeev’s mother and two of his sisters. They fed us great home-cooked Indian food, explained a lot about their approach to the Hindu religion and confirmed my fear that many people in India think that Cricket games are not always straight up competition. Sanjeev is an electrical engineer (as is Sulbha although she is now working in software) and he explained how Pune is trying to deal with the increasing demands for electrical service that result in the many brown outs that we have noticed. Because of the lack of reliable power in many parts of India, most businesses have their own diesel powered generators that kick in whenever grid-power is not available. Pune has managed to convince most of these businesses to run their generators all afternoon long as a matter of course, thereby providing hundreds of kilowatts of extra power that would not otherwise be available. The Pune power company gives substantial rebates to the companies for doing this and that’s why they’re willing to go along with the program. Sanjeev said that by 2012 they will have enough power generation to meet all of Pune’s needs without requiring any businesses to supplement the system with private generators. I like his enthusiasm, but time will tell if this really comes to pass.

Sulbha, Sanjeev and Susang embarrassed us with very lovely gifts – a shawl for Peggy and two Kashmir wool vests for me. They also gave us a book about/by the living god they worship. This guy’s name is Sri Sathya Sai Gita, the successor to Shri Sai Baba and the book contains answers to 1001 questions. I have to admit there were a few questions in there that had never come to mind for me, but I do like Sai Gita’s version of the Golden Rule: “Help Ever, Hurt Never.”

After our visit with Sulbha’s family, we took Ashraf shopping for shoes. The scruffiness and disrepair of his one and only pair had become obvious during the cyclone-spawned heavy rains of the prior days, so we decided to buy him a new pair. Giving him money to do this was not an option because we felt he would use the money for other (very legitimate) purposes, but we really wanted him to have a new pair of shoes.

He drove to a shop that I suspect he had scouted previously, and he immediately picked out a pair of black, leather, lace up, ankle high shoes. Once again we assumed the role of parents, suggesting other models, asking if these shoes really fit, making him walk around in them to try them out, etc. He seemed to really want that particular pair, and they seemed reasonable to us because they were shoes that would serve just as well in “formal” situations as they would in day-to-day working conditions. So we bought him what we assume was his first $60 pair of shoes along with a new pair of socks to replace the only pair we had ever seen him in.

We saw Sulbha again on Sunday, this time at an upscale fashion house in Pune where the designer is renowned enough to have had a number of her designs shown on the walkways of the top Mumbai fashion shows. Peggy had ordered a few custom outfits (Salwar, Kameez and Dupatta) from her and we were there for the final fitting. Unpredictably, we were served corn chowder and corn fritters while we waited for the final touches to be applied. Sujata showed us through her establishment. She had 3 tailors hand sewing many of her creations and she had 3 young boys hand-making embroidery material at looms in another room. Given that we will be attending an Indian wedding before the end of the month, I ordered a custom made regal purple Kurta (very long pull-over shirt) and Chudidar (pants big enough for Andre the Giant) that will hopefully be ready before we fly off to Goa for the wedding.

Over the weekend we got to push start our car three times. The Mitsubishi had threatened to refuse to start any number of times in our first few weeks, but now it was giving notice that it was serious about this repudiation. The first time Ashraf recruited one of the guards at our building and the two of us pushed it fast enough for Ashraf to pop the clutch and get us on our way. The second time Peggy and I were the lone pushers, while our Sunday night dinner guest, Ramesh, had to be drafted into action when we were blocking some serious traffic while trying to get the beast started. This Push Car experience was nothing like the Puja at the real town of Pushkar, but I did seriously counsel Ashraf that I thought the battery terminals were either loose or corroded. He said he would take care of it.

At dinner on Sunday night at Ram Krishna, I was served the biggest entrée I’ve ever seen. It was a Cheese Paper Masala Dosa, which is a paper thin pancake, fried hard but rolled into a tubular shape that makes it look like a log when it’s served. This Dosa (which set me back a Raja-like $2.00) was easily three feet long, and the sheer madness of the size brought a hush to the entire dining crowd. I happily chowed my way through it and the experience was so rich I’m sure I’ll order it again the next time we get to Ram Krishna.

On Monday morning I ordered Aloo Paratha for breakfast, so now the incessant tune that continually churns in my head has morphed to “Aloo Mutter, Aloo Paratha, here I am at Camp Granada…”

Here’s a question that I don’t have an answer to and is not covered in Sai Gita’s book of 1001 Q&As: Can you pre-order a meatatarian meal on an Indian Airline that only serves veg meals?

And a business idea: Monster Horn Wires. Monster Cables has built quite a lucrative business in the USA on the proposition that big, fat, expensive cables will make your AV gear look and sound noticeably better. In India, because the automobile horn gets such an incredible workout, I’m guessing that horn wires only last a year or two. If we made big, fat, expensive horn wires that we guaranteed for 1,000,000 toots (or 250,000 blares), we could probably sell zillions of them. I foresee a whole chain of Monster Horn Wire shops that do nothing except replace horn wires.

Followed by a random piece of trivia: many Hindus worship basil.