Finding bliss in Miami

I just finished reading "The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World".

This is a book by a guy who was working in India and comes back to the US and decides to move to of all places…Miami. It reminded me of someone else who did something similar, though the author has since moved back to Washington D.C. The theme of the book from what I got was that if you are living in the US, you will not find bliss in Miami. Well there goes my idea for a book.

A self confessed grump, searches for bliss in various countries and continents and constantly throws up references about Miami when say coming across mad driving in Qatar or rudeness in Moldova and so on. It was more fun for me because almost every incident he talks about say in Switzerland or Moldova or Bhutan seemed like something that could happen in India. He covers that part rather nicely in the chapter on India.

Each chapter covers a country and the book is set up nicely to cover two important countries India and the USA, at the end. I had to shake my head and laugh loudly as I was there…in India dealing with the contradictions everyday and I am here…in Miami dealing with the rudeness, everyday... When I talk to friends and relatives and tell them I moved to Miami, I have to move the phone away to let them say their Oohs and Aaahs for a few minutes. What do they know…as they say “Ignorance is bliss”.

Soy Crumbles Shabzi

Morningstar Meal Starters (they resemble soy crumbles and are in the frozen food )

1 medium onion

1 medium tomato

A pod of garlic and some ginger

Olive Oil

Frozen peas

Other left over veggies like say a carrot, bell pepper, mushroom, fresh spinach

Garam Masala

Any other Indian spices like cumin powder, turmeric powder etc

Corainder seeds (jeera)

In a non stick pan on medium heat, add some olive and then throw in the onions. As the onions are cooking you can chop fine pieces of garlic and/or ginger. Let the onion cook till golden brown. Add 1 tsp coriander seeds (if you have it) as the onions are cooking. Thaw the frozen peas. If you have another veggies like say a carrot and/or bell pepper throw them in as the onion is getting cooked. These add volume to what you are cooking and may mean one more serving. Add a medium bowl of peas. If you are only using peas you can add more peas. Also they cook fast hence you add it in the end. So the order will be carrots/bell-pepper/mushrooms and then peas depending on what you have. Let the veggies cook in medium heat for say around 5 minutes. Now add around a tbsp of garam-masala and throw in a pinch of these optional spices: cumin powder, turmeric powder, ground pepper or any other pepper based on the level of spiciness you prefer.

Thaw the Meal Starters crumbles. I usually do it a bowl in the microwave, run for say 30 seconds or so and throw it into the pan. There should be between 2 -2.5 bowls, so you can add some and stir it well and then add some more so the spices take evenly. Almost home….chop and thrown in the tomatoes. Remember to stir every minute or so. It should not take more than 10 minutes. You can then add chopped coriander or parsley or curry leaves after switching off the heat. Close the pan with a lid/plate and leave it for around 10 minutes.

Note that I did not mention salt as the crumbles seem to have enough salt, so you can decide if you want to add salt, but do not add it while cooking.

You can eat this with chappati/ brown-rice/Garlic Naan.

Enjoy with some good Lager or Gewürztraminer (always goes well with spicy Indian food)

Hola from Miami

After a 4 month stint in Mumbai, I moved to Miami earlier this month. Miami is well...different from the rest of the USA. It does not even feel like you are in the States. It has been a huge shock for me. After having lived for nearly 14 years in the USA and having moved and traveled a bit all I can say is..this is different.

For starters, you hardly hear any English spoken. You walk into a gym and there are people talking in Spanish and TVs tuned to various Spanish channels. So I guess there is no debate about the debate on whether America should should adopt English as the national language. I can see this being a thorny issue in the near future. In India, most people are multi-lingual. Most of my friends could speak at least in 3 languages: English, their mother tongue (Tamil in my case) and Hindi, supposedly India's national language. Hindi was deemed the national language as maybe 40% of the people speak Hindi. This also means 60% do not speak Hindi but have it forced on them. In Tamilnadu there are anti-Hindi riots which typically involve blacking out Hindi signs in Railway Stations, damaging public property and a few deaths to defend the honor of Tamil. There is this thought in India that the nation is fragmented because there is no single national language like say the USA or UK.

Another first I encountered in Miami was the other day when I was watching the local news. As the news was coming to a close there was this ticker with important information, about where the main anchor got her dress and who did the hair for the weather person. Umm which spa in Coconut Grove does Melanie Mendez go to...oh another suicide bombing in Iraq, wait a minute where did Daisy Diaz get that pretty dress...umm gas 5 bucks a gallon...darn forgot where in SoBe Shelly Sanchez gets her hair done...

Guess I must be in Miami..

India #1: Diabisity and Remittances and Global Indian Takeover

As I mentioned in an earlier blog entry coffee or tea in India usually refers to the flavor of milk served in a small cup with a lot of sugar. There is this new term in India called “Diabisty”, obviously a combination of diabetes and obesity. There are articles about this epidemic in Newspapers almost every day saying India is the diabetes capital of the world. Out of curiosity, I googled :India Diabetes capital and from what was returned apparently this is old news . India is indeed #1 and the world diabetes capital. I for my part have given up and ask for tea or coffee without any sugar as less sugar usually refers to 5 tablespoons, I think. Maybe I should pitch this radical idea to the esteemed Health Minister.

India is #1 on another list, Remittances, according to this aptly titled article: Remittance: India tops the world. I guess the best way for Indians to generate money in India is to leave the country and send money back home. This apparently is a matter of pride. Again as I mentioned this is a nation where anything can be used as propaganda and the masses will lap it up.

This dubious article: 36% of scientists at NASA are Indians: Govt survey appeared on the front page of the Times of India. I am reproducing some portions as it is pretty funny:

NEW DELHI: If you thought that Global Indian Takeover was just a hollow cliche leaning on a few iconic successes like Pepsi's Indra Nooyi, Citibank's Vikram Pandit and steel world's Lakshmi Mittal, there is a slew of statistics now to give it solid ballast.
The extent to which desis have made an impact in the US was reeled off in the Rajya Sabha — as many as 12% scientists and 38% doctors in the US are Indians, and in NASA, 36% or almost 4 out of 10 scientists are Indians.
If that's not proof enough of Indian scientific and corporate prowess, digest this: 34% employees at Microsoft, 28% at IBM, 17% at Intel and 13% at Xerox are Indians.

Anyway, there was a follow up in the Times of India titled India rising in US: Govt falls victim to net hoax. Here are some highlights:

Both Microsoft and NASA say they don't keep an ethnic headcount. While they acknowledge that a large number of their employees are of Indian origin, it is hardly in the 30-35 per cent range.
NASA workers say the number of Indians in the organization is in the region of 4-5 per cent, but the 36 per cent figure is pure fiction.

I guess along with Diabisity, this whole propoganda about India taking over the world seems to another epidemic that needs to be tackled right away.

What about your Bush?

One of the most frustrating things in India is that you usually cannot have logical discussions. Somehow most of the Indians are convinced that they are superior to every other culture. Most of the front pages in newspapers are filled with glowing stories how well the country is doing. There will be few meaningful articles, but they are usually hidden in the middle pages and probably people brush them aside. Like the one on the Scarlette Keeling murder case in Goa by Brinda Karat, a Member of Parliament titled Don't punish the victim.

Scarlette Keeling was a 15 year old British tourist who was brutally raped and murdered in Goa. Initially, there was a cover up. But after her mother demanded another autopsy it was confirmed that she was indeed raped and murdered. Then all hell broke loose. People started blaming the mother for letting this happen. The Goa government threatened to charge the mother with neglect and put her in jail if she did not disappear. There was this nice discussion in parliament where a Congress MP blamed the mother and his esteemed colleague, the tourism minister who also happens to be a woman said "He has a point".

For the uninitiated and those without any values and lack of culture trying to make sense, here is the logic. The mom gave her daughter freedom. The daughter got drunk and may have had consensual sex and may have had drugs. This caused her to be raped and murdered as expected. Now imagine the gall of the mother to question this.

In India Two wrongs make a right, most of times during discussions. For example I might bring up the condition of the roads in Mumbai and the person I would be discussing this would criticize Condi Rice. I would ask him to forget Condi and steer the topic back to the roads. Then it would get personal and he would ask me if I had a Green Card. I would say yes. Then the person would say I had no business talking about roads in India as I am American. I remember this heated argument I had about former Indian president Abdul Kalam when this person suddenly asked rather loudly "Excuse me but what about your Bush?". My response was an equally angry "Pardon me". It took a couple of seconds to figure out he was talking about "my" president.

Bombay, Bollywood and Billionaires

My hometown Bombay, renamed Mumbai is India’s commercial capital. India’s main stock market is the BSE or Bombay Stock Exchange. It is home to Bollywood, a cartel which exports “Indian” culture and values in the form of films. It is also home to many of the billionaires in the Forbes list that was released recently. So it is like New York and LA rolled into one.

Bombayites or Mumbaikars are very proud of their city. They consider it India’s #1 city. The Times of India, one of India’s oldest newspapers is based in Mumbai. It too continues to hype the city in its front pages. There are articles about how commercial real estate is more expensive than NYC.

Recently, Forbes also released a list of the “Worst Cities in the world”. Mumbai was ranked 7th in a list headed by cities like Baku, Azerbaijan. Cities like Maputo, Mozambique and Luanda, Angola were rated to be better than Mumbai. This piece of news was on page 16 of the Times of India. Page 20 also had an editorial about how the American billionaires like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates were giving away all their fortune to charitable causes. It also questioned the philanthropic endeavors of the Indian billionaires who indulge in garish displays of their wealth during parties and weddings.

The Times of India also produces movies and carries reviews of the movies it makes. Conflict of interest is an alien concept in most of South Asia. It carries vital information like how Amitabh Bachan received a Rolls Royce as a gift from a movie producer. His son received a Bentley as a gift from a politician. India’s famous cricketer, Sachin Tendular received a Ferrari as a gift, presented by former F1 great Michael Schumacher no less.

I am curious as to how and where these people drive these cars in Mumbai. Does it even prick their conscience when they consider the infrastructure of their “home” town? Instead of being part of propaganda, why not even a single person rises up and tells the truth as it is and demands something better for the people of their home-town. These are people who are considered role-models. These are people with connections. These are people who could initiate change. These are people who love Mumbai, or at least they proclaim it in the pages of the Times of India.

Slum Tourism

The ultimate virgin, Sir Richard Branson was in Mumbai recently. He was pitching among other things Space Tourism. There was a huge supplement in today’s paper about its future. Tucked in the middle pages of today’s paper was a debate about Slum Tourism. It apparently is the next big offering in India for foreigners.

It is a guided tour where a group of people gets a chance to get a firsthand look at the pathetic living conditions of fellow human beings. Mumbai is like a big slum and every day I get this tour during my drive to and from work. You see these people defecating and showering and getting ready to work. You see them cooking and their semi-naked children playing. All that is left is like 50 square feet of space with a roof rigged with tin, tarp or newspapers with a little of their belongings. Apparently these human beings do not deserve that one last shred of dignity and privacy. People can barge in unannounced and take photographs and videos. This further demonizes the white foreigner who is presumed to be American.

Apparently these tours are organized by NGOs and there are “guidelines”. But who ensures that the guidelines are being followed? Something needs to be done to address this issue. But it is not that simple. I remember a few years back, the government gave them free housing. But it was located far from where these people work. So they rented out their homes and moved back to the slums as it was a more convenient arrangement and they made some extra cash from the rent.

Personally, I still cannot believe that people would be willing to pay to go and see the squalid living conditions of others, whatever their intent may be. I guess there are no limits to voyeurism these days and I shudder to think what will be next.

Finally, some good Indian pulp fiction

I finished reading “One night @ the Call Center” last night. I enjoyed it a lot as it was a very easy read and mostly entertaining. Calling it a novel maybe a stretch, but I was happy to read a something by an Indian author that will not be nominated for the Booker Prize.

I usually lament with a couple of my Indian born friends who are also avid readers about the lack of mindless Indian novels. Most books by “Indian” authors are dense. It is a saga about this lady who misses the river and the mango tree and her grandmother’s chutney while walking down the streets of New York to meet her daughter and her white boyfriend at Columbia University. Again, they romanticize and celebrate India similar to Bollywood movies. They have titles like “Inheritance of loss” or “Interpreter of Maladies” or “The God of small things”. I have enjoyed each of the books mentioned here. And they have either won or have been nominated for the Booker or the Pulitzer.

I have read books by Salman Rushdie, who I think deserves the Nobel Prize for literature. But, say there is a situation in his book, where a boy wants to go out with a girl. Rushdie can go on and on, bringing up the Mahabharata and the Iliad and Sigmund Freud and 20 pages later you are confused as to what you were reading about.

It took me just a couple of nights to finish “One night @ the Call Center”. It was funny and contemporary with well developed characters. It tries to delve into some of the aspects of this new generation of Indians. They make money working odd hours using a different name, rather a different persona. They put up with the abuse dished out by the “stupid fat Americans” while saving a lot of money for the companies. The author does tend to go a little overboard with his criticism of America and Americans. An “Easter egg” in Microsoft Word has an important role, but is incorrectly referred to as a “bug”. The end is a bit cheesy like a Bollywood movie. Incidentally it is being made into one, with 45 year old Salman Khan, fresh from another hair transplant, playing the main 25 year old character.

Dyslexia and Bollywood

I started noticing a spate of articles on Dyslexia in various publications during this stay. I was pleasantly surprised and happy that it is being acknowledged as a problem in India. Most of the articles were rational and compassionate. This, in a nation where a few years back the Minister of Health said that AIDS was not a problem in India as we had better morals. It is now accepted that AIDS is an “epidemic” here.

This education on Dyslexia began with the hit Bollywood movie from last year called Taare Zameen Par (Stars on Earth). It is directed by Amir Khan, one of the few people in Bollywood who actually likes and understands the medium of cinema. I have not seen this movie yet, but there are special screenings almost every day with more people getting curious about this issue.

This has been one of my pet peeves when it comes to Bollywood. Its power and reach is something that could be put to good use from time to time. The Bollywood community is mostly a tightly knit, in-bred group which leads a life style that is vastly different from the values portrayed in the movies. There are divorces, couples living together before marriage, single moms and even bigamy. Most spend a lot of time living abroad while making movies frowning upon the heathen western lifestyle. It has become a propaganda machine for Indian values and this false propaganda is perpetuated by those who do not believe or practice it.

Cinema is primarily entertainment and most of the Bollywood movies supposedly offer an escape for the masses. But it is also arrogant to assume that your audience is stupid and just wants to see song and dance sequences and the same story line over and over again. Most of the Bollywood movies bomb and these geniuses are still trying to figure out why. I hope since a movie about dyslexia was a hit, more movies covering other issues are made from time to time in Bollywood.

Women's Day: What about those poor boys?

Today, March 8, 2008, is International Women’s Day. There has been so much hype surrounding this in India. In fact, they have managed to turn this into Women’s week. There are sales, events, editorials and TV programs.

There were special supplements in most newspapers where there was coverage on both sides of the issue. The progress that has been made and also the plight of women in rural India. As usual there are numbers thrown around about the male-female ratio, infanticide etc.

An aspect that seems to have been missed or dismissed, when bringing up the issue of the plight of girls and women in rural India. My driver is from a village in Jharkand. He has an elder son and a daughter. He wants his son to move to Mumbai as soon as he is 18, so that he too can start earning. That way they can start saving for the wedding of his daughter. What about the boy's future?

Why does he want his daughter married off? He is worried about her safety among other things. There are articles written about how the son gets first dibs at dinner and the women eat what is left. Well, for this boy who is 14, it is not going to last long. In a few years, he will move out to Mumbai and start earning. He has a tough life ahead as he toils away and probably gets married and lives a similar life, like his father. But, for now he gets to call his dad while he is driving around Mumbai, asking him to send him a shirt for his Birthday. His dad could not do that.

The plight of women is important and still remains an issue in any society: Indian or American. But when you throw in poverty, it becomes more of a child issue and maybe not a boy or a girl issue.

India #1: What do Karan Johar and Amaratya Sen have in common?

As I mentioned I have been reading books by so called Indian born intellectuals touting India. I stopped watching Bollywood flicks that tout Indian values and Indian culture some time back.

For those fortunate enough to have not watched the Bollywood blockbusters, here is how it works. A typical movie would be set in London where there is this Ferrari driving kid of Indian origin whose dad had humble origins. He loves India and anything Indian. So he decides to travel around Europe. Women fall on him and there are songs that show skimpy women gyrating to some Bhangra/hip-hop beats. He dances with them but remains an “Indian” at heart. He meets this Indian girl who works for the Sydney Symphony. She too is in Europe because she loves India. A couple of songs follow, one set in Sydney and the other in Amsterdam. They might even discuss the utter lack of morals in the west and how they love India. Anyway, after a lot of twists and turns, they have a lavish wedding in Paris and settle down in Geneva. He is now a banker and since she wanting to do something for the kids on the streets of India, decides to teach ballet to kids of wealthy Swiss bankers. This is usually referred to as a “script” in Bollywood parlance. This refreshingly new script could have been developed by India Lover Karan Johar who spends most of his time outside India since he loves India so much and is a patriot. The name of the movie could be India #1.

Now, for those of you who have been lucky to not lay your hands on Nobel Prize winning economist Amratya Sen’s rant titled “The Argumentative Indian”. This usually involves an Indian with multiple degrees preferably one each from Oxford and Harvard, or Cambridge and Yale or any other combination. He has spent around 30-40 years in the West either as a successful executive, but mostly as a tenured professor. He then decides to get a gig in India and gets a bungalow and a chauffeured A/C car. He gets a hefty pay and keeps travelling to conferences abroad. He may even be on the chair of a couple of NGOs and may have an opinion column in a leading newspaper. He will spew some jargon which is a mix of his take on some archaic ancient Indian texts and the current GDP of India, similar to what is in his bestselling book. He will somehow make a connection between the two in a column and fill it with other meaningless numbers and figures, more of which you could read in his aptly titled book, "India #1".

As for me, I have spent more than a month here. I do have a chauffeured A/C car at my disposal. The driver earns Rs 4000 a month (around $100). He lives with 4 more drivers in a room. Their families are in their native villages as he says they would have to move to a slum if they bring them to Mumbai. I get to read my newspaper during the hour or so it takes to travel 5 miles in Mumbai these days. I am still trying to figure out if I got a little lucky or everything is so great here that India is indeed #1.

How many Indians do you need to repair an air-conditioning unit?

In the office where I work, one of the air conditioning units conked off. This was being fixed over the last couple of days. There was a swarm of around 5-6 guys who hung around for nearly 6 hours after which they took off. Another day with 5-6 guys in the hallway jabbering away on their cell phone and voila, the A/C was fixed.

I was reminded of another A/C project I undertook last summer when I was here. My parents were scared to get a unit fixed in the living room. Since I had been out of the country for a while, I naively undertook this project. What followed gives me nightmares to this day. It began innocently enough. My close friend's friend sells electronic goods. I called him and ordered a unit and gave him my Amex card number. My mom pleaded with me, saying I still had a chance to back off. I waved her off, saying this is how the new India worked and we would be eating lunch and watching TV as the A/C was humming along. I think she left for the temple to pray for me.

The installation was sub contracted to this guy who called and said he would be come in at 11:00 am. He showed up around 4:00 pm that evening and said we needed a different kind of plug point. I told him to go ahead and do it. He instructed me to call an electrician get the new plug point ready and then call him. My dad then worked the phones and got an electrician. He came in and said it would take him half an hour to get the plug point done…after it was wired properly…which obviously was done by a wiring guy. He knew a guy who would be in at 9:00 am the next day.

After repeated phone calls to the wiring guy whose response usually was that he was just 5 minutes away, work commenced around 1:00 pm and the plug point was ready by 4:00pm. I promptly called the A/C chap who showed up around 7:00 pm. His next demand was that there needed to be small hole for which we had to take the ventilator to a glass cutter. My dad got it done with great difficulty the next day, and the A/C guy showed up around 1:00 pm and said the curtain rods had to be moved. He stripped them and finally the A/C was up and running. I told him to drill some holes and fix the curtain rod. He did not have a drill and also this supposedly was the work of a carpenter as he did not have the “expertise”. I got a chance to spend a couple of hours in the chill of the living room as I was packing to head back to the US. It had taken 3 days and countless phone calls with real progress being made after I started getting nasty.

The whole experience had taken a toll but I did sleep through my journey in the plane. The curtains are still not fixed and so it gets really bright in the morning. These days, along with the ear plugs, I also use the eye patch that I got during my flight to Mumbai. I don’t know if I have it in me to get them fixed. Most of all I cannot stand the look of fear in my mom’s eyes when I bring this up. So here is a tip for those of you visiting your aging parents in India. If you really love them, do not threaten them by saying you will get something fixed in the house.

The mysterious lady walker with a mobile

In Mumbai, house usually refers to an apartment. My parents live in an apartment in "Arun Building". No, I wish, but do not own the building. If I did, I would be too busy counting money instead of blogging.

Most of the tenants are senior citizens with their kids settled in different parts of America. In addition to his full time job, my dad is also the secretary of the Arun Building Housing Society (or something like that). This job involves chairing monthly meetings and making decisions like, should the night watchman be fired since he sleeps through the night. Since most of the tenants are retired, they stay at home full time and watch the happenings with an eagle eye. If something is not to their liking they may bring it up during the meeting. Usually, an auntie may visit my mom during the afternoon and during a cup of tea; bring up issues that are not properly addressed by my dad. They usually succeed in getting my mom worked up. My mom may call my dad at work when he may be in a meeting to tell him that the bulb in the doorway has not been replaced as per his orders.

The latest incident involves this mysterious lady with a cell phone who despite not being a tenant is seen walking around the compound as it is called here. A few people have complained to my mom about it. A couple of days back when I returned home with my dad from work, this issue came up again. My dad’s response was “Why do we have a watchman?” He should not allow her into the compound. To which my mom retorted that the rascal was no good as he is usually out running errands for somebody in the building. To which my dad’s response was that if people want the watchman running errands such things would happen, anyway he had had a long day and was not in a mood for this. My mom’s response was that she had to answer to a higher power, the aunties and uncles who live in the various apartments. As the wife of the secretary she was in a delicate position on such issues.

The consensus among residents of Arun Building is that it is time my dad quit his job as he is old. That way he would be able to focus more on such pressing issues like confronting this illegal walker with the cell phone. Watch this space for more developments .

The Istri-walla saga

In India people usually do not iron as they depend on the Iron-walla or the Istri-walla. Since space is at a premium in Mumbai, people usually do not keep an iron at home. So if you have an ironing emergency, which I did have once, you start knocking on the doors of neighbors. Usually you will get strange looks, but by the tenth house you should hit pay dirt.

Like every group in India they are well organized and have territories clearly marked. If your Istri-walla disappears to his village without properly appointing a replacement, you may be out of luck. The Istri-walla who operates a block from your building will refuse to iron your clothes unless he has been properly "designated". So there is this code that no one violates at the expense of the customer. Looks are always deceptive in India. My mom was trying to catch a cab and encountered this Istri-walla, working near a building that looked abandoned. Wondering why anyone would set up shop in this location, she spoke to the guy. He said that a huge apartment complex was coming up and it would bring him lot of business, so he had marked his territory. So when the building came up no he would be the guy ironing clothes for the people living there. Guess, one would need an MBA to figure out what this strategy is called.

I got the idea to write about these Istri-wallas because of a chaotic incident on the night before we were leaving for Bangalore. Our regular guy took the clothes including a couple of my mom's expensive saris and did not return it. It was around 10 pm that my mom panicked and summoned the watchman and asked him to go in search of the Istri-walla. He came back and reported that he had locked up his ironing shack if you could call it that and disappeared. My mom was in a state of panic convinced he had disappeared for good with her saris. Anyway, the day we returned, the guy showed up with the sarees saying he came looking for us the last couple of days and it was business as usual. My mom yelled at him, saying I told you we were heading out of town and you said you would bring the saris within an hour. He said he wanted to but it was getting late. My mom was like then why did you just not return them without ironing for which his response was a guilty look. I guess turning away business is never good...and it is not like my mom has a choice of using another Istri-walla, unless she moves to a different location.

Irrational over-exuberance at India Inc?

Over the last couple of months I read books about India, in part as preparation for my first job in India. I just finished reading The Elephant Paradigm by Gurucharan Das. Before that, I read In spite of the Gods by Edward Luce and also India Unbound by Gurucharan Das. All these books tout the supposedly phenomenal growth rate, the booming middle class, democracy, business process outsourcing (BPO) etc. I came across an article titled Bye Bye NRI written by someone who lives in Washington DC like me. There are reams of writing like this, all based on a core central theme, that the Indian elephant, note, it is not the tiger anymore, cannot be stopped. They sometimes also briefly touch upon on the problems but the overriding theme seems to be India will be a super power to reckon with.

I am not sure if all this writing is based on hope because these authors seem a little carried away and I would add a "Reader Beware" in bold. Before being dismissed as a pessimist, I would like to say I am more of a realist. On the other hand I hope the day comes when 1 rupee will fetch 2 dollars. But I have doubts about whether these authors really tried living and working like the "bright young professionals" who are part of the “India Shining” brigade.

I had to visit Bangalore for a couple of days. The flight to Bangalore was for 7:30 am and I left home around 5:30 am. There is this turn to get into the airport and at 6:00 am on a Friday it was chaotic. The traffic lights were not working and there were no cops and it was surreal. There were cars, cabs buses trying to get into the airport and people walking to the airport. There was also other traffic in different directions held up in the middle and there was this mess with vehicles separated by an inch or two honking and people yelling. This was in Mumbai, India's commercial capital. It took around half an hour with people getting out of cars to direct traffic.

People rushed into the plane, as usual and the door was closed at 7:20 am. Then the same scene was repeated as there was a traffic jam with planes taking off and landing and our plane finally took off at 8:40 am, more than an hour behind schedule. The fun continued in Bangalore, India's Silicon Valley, where it took us 45 minutes to get out of the airport, amidst the wild honking and smoke from the exhaust.

I can go on and on with many such stories, but the point is the infrastructure is crumbling as it was when I left the country. You can get a cell phone in a day, but the number of dropped calls is too many to count. You can walk out with a high speed wireless internet card in 10 minutes, which at times is slower than a 28 kbps modem.

I did visit Leela Palace in Bangalore and it was great though the cocktails were close to 25 dollars, due to the weak dollar, oops I mean the “strong rupee”. It was more like the world described by these authors. A world that is very far out of reach for about 99 % of the population. Maybe that number has improved from 99.7% from before. Unfortunately, once you get out of the hotel in your air conditioned, chauffeured car you will enter the life of the rest of the Indians: potholes, traffic jams, honking and the heat and dust which fortunately, the authors and I, do not have to deal with while getting excited about reading an article about the number of cell phones in India exceeding 250 million.

Ear Plugs, Chini Kum and Yes Sir!

On my flight to India from NY to Mumbai, I got ear plugs which came in handy during the flight. I put them in my pocket and forgot about it. After eating some nice dosas with some chutney and piping hot sambhar, I tried to get some sleep around 4:00 am. Since Mumbai is a city that never sleeps, the noise never stops. This is when the ear plugs came in handy and have been using them ever since. In fact these days I can manage up to 6 hours of continuous sleep. All the honking outside is muffled and you should be able to sleep through a few of the doorbell chimes which begin around 6:00 am. I usually manage to sleep through the newspaper guy and the milk guy and sometimes even the guy who delivers flowers for puja. Soon I hope to sleep through the ironing guy and the chappati lady and maybe the daily thrash collection. So remember to buy nice earplugs before booking tickets to India.

In the office where I work, there are always these peons or attenders as they are referred to in this part of the world. This is common in most companies. One of their jobs is to keep asking you if you need coffee or tea. Depending on what you ask for you either get coffee or tea flavored milk with around 5 table (not tea) spoons of sugar. You need to usually say "Chini Kum" (less sugar). One afternoon after a meal with my dad and his colleagues, I needed some caffeine and ordered black coffee to outwit these guys. I got a nice steaming cup of dark coffee and I sipped it and nearly spat it out. Since I was not taking milk, the attender out of concern for me added extra sugar than usual (7 - 8 table spoons?). Diabetes is an epidemic in this country but they are still trying to figure out what the cause could be.

Another bit of advice I received was to never say "No" to any request from bosses. I am here to implement software for a business and while it is not building a space shuttle for NASA it is a pretty intricate system. In my first round of meetings I was asked if things would be up and running in 2 months. Being out of the country for a long time I gave an honest response saying it would not be possible, which was the wrong answer. The correct approach supposedly is to agree and then take your own time to do it (or not do it for that matter). What is more important is to agree to the demands of the higher ups.

So, most of the times you will never get a direct or an honest response. I remember talking to the jeweler a couple of nights before my sister's wedding. I made the mistake of asking him if I could pick up a necklace at 9:00 pm. Obviously his answer was an emphatic yes. I showed up at 9:30 pm ready for pick up. The jeweler informed me it would be 10 minutes. I said OK and sat down. Twenty minutes later he asked me if I wanted coffee or tea or juice perhaps. I said I am fine, just let me have the necklace and go home and sleep and he said...Just 10 more minutes sir, some final polishing. Twenty minutes later I started getting fidgety and asked him if there was any point in me waiting and I started getting angry. He said I could go home and his man would deliver it in an hour. He did deliver it in a couple of hours. The story finally ended when he showed up a week after the wedding. My mom then gave him "wedding" sweets and said Oh I need to pay you for the necklace and the guy was like no way I came to ask about the wedding, not to collect money. After a little bit of coaxing he finally took the money acting as if he was being wronged. I guess you can only shake your head and say "Only in India".

Blogging from India

You keep hearing so much about India these days and finally when I got a chance to get a software project off the ground in my hometown at the company that my dad helped to get off the ground, I jumped at the chance. It has been nearly 14 years since I left Mumbai and like other Indian expats these days, I too hoped to come back one day and spend some extended time back "home". I want to chronicle this trip so that I could refer to this and maybe others who may harbor this romantic notion can get information on what to expect if they land here.