India Chronicles (1st Anniversary) Episode VII

Some changes to my blog:

I will be posting in parts. Often I have collected huge amount of information and a lot of time passes by between my collection/ assimilation and expansion of those topics. I tend to forget the finer points that I wanted to write about, so, I will be posting one or two paragraphs as and when I've written them. Secondly, if you are reading this, please register yourself for a notification for when the blog is updated. That way I don’t have to spam your account with notifications every now and then.

Thank you

Keep the comments coming

Me, then & now (a year on)

28th July marks my one full year of return to India. My vital signs are the same. I had gained a couple of lbs over the course of the year and shed a few as well. As a self analysis, I would say I have become angry and bitter also happier at the same time in a strange way. I am angry at the gross inefficiencies, superstition & the government that exist here and happier to be back home close to friends and family (Ironically most of my friends are in the US). The other day I took some time to reflect on the first year of return and had no regrets about the relocation. I also realized that with the Americanization of Indian metro's it is easier for people to relocate and it gets easier with every passing year. I would have been devastated if I'd returned a few years earlier or mostly the time when high speed internet did not exist here :) since my wife has concluded that that's all I need to survive more than food and water. Time has passed by very quickly almost too quickly for my comfort. I work six days a week since the Indian private sector doesn’t afford a five day week even though very little ever gets done on Saturdays. I have gotten incredibly busy mostly learning things about the Chemical Industry and revisiting some of the fundamentals of Chemistry after being out of touch for so long. Some of the values I bring to the table right off the bat are discipline, persistence and to some level professionalism in communication and the marketing façade to the customer. I have found that most western customers of ours have found it very comforting that an ‘American’ is talking to them. Not to draw racist connotations to this truth, it is usually perceived that an American person can be related to easily with than a non-American one. I have often been on marketing calls to Europe and the US where they have felt like I was lying in telling them that I was calling from a company in Bombay.

Getting back on track (blasts)

A ton of you asked for my wellness through the terrible blasts on the tracks in Mumbai. I think I've responded to each and every one of you. Thank you for your concern. The blasts came home when a friend of my wife was directly affected by it. She was listening to music on her ipod when a deafening noise came about. She was in the first class 'ladies only' car when this occured. The first class unisex car is the one next to it. Suddenly, a spew of metal and blood was everywhere as they were getting pushed out of the running train. The train screamed to a halt with the emergency brakes as she fell on the adjacent tracks with panicing people trying to run away from the train. She managed to escape an oncoming train that was about to run these people over and into the safety of a street. The tremors of this incident were so graphic and long lasting that she fell ill and still has haunting memories of the bodies that she saw. Another person, a friend of the family was not as fortunate as his friends identified his hand (bracelet & watch) since it was all they could find.

Terrorism struck another blow on the people that least deserved it, the poorest of the poor taking the trains to their livelihood. Ironically, the trains were back on schedule 4 hours later and the spirit of Mumbai getting back on tracks was elaborately discussed across talk shows. The underlying aspect of 'no choice' was not discussed by anyone. For many a people that reside in suburbia, the train is the only way to livelihood. Even if attacks like these were to frequent, these people would take the trains since there's no other choice. Today, the people have shrugged these acts as though nothing has happened. A few CCTV camera's have been installed at places, but, people still commute with the scare that it was really easy for the terrorists to plant these bombs and it probably will be again. Millitancy has a long history in India and it goes deep into how divided our borders are.
In a chapter next week I will be writing on many perspectives on terrorism and how it has affected the Indian people.

Kaalnirnay calendar

Everybody loves calendars especially when they come around the holidays & new year and when they are free. The Hindu calendar is a lunar calendar. After being ruled by the English, the solar calendar has set itself into our culture here. So, this begs the question of how we preserve these old customary and traditional holidays and days of observance whilst not losing track of the modern day schedule. The answer, Kaalnirnay. A kaalnirnay is the single greatest example of scope creep. This is one confusing document as to start with as it superimposes the lunar calendar on a solar one. To add to this confusion, India, being a secular state has to observe all religious holidays. As a result, to remain appealing to all faiths, this calendar incorporates the religious and other holidays of people of other faiths as well. So, a typical Kaalnirnay calendar will have the hindu lunar calendar superimposed on the solar one with sikh, zoorastrian, islamic, christian, jewish, buddist and jain holidays in it. Since holidays are marked in red, every month is splattered by red. It feels like the whole month is a holiday. Every one of these faiths seem to have their own new year, none of which coincide with Jan 1st !! So, now, you have 7 or 8 types of new years every year, each one being a national holiday. You may ask how many holidays do we have in general then? The answer is simple and the different for the private and public sector. The private sector is required to allocate the standard 13-14 national holidays, however, the government institutions cannot legally give preference to one religion over the other. As a result, through a consensus a few years ago, the government has instituted 65 national holidays a year. That in addition to the personal and sick leave that one gets. As a result, one could work about 200 days a year if you add saturdays and sundays in the mix. No wonder the efficiency of our public sector is unaddressed. You can check out this phenomenon at http://www.kalnirnay.com

The 3 R's (Reading Running and Recreation)


I enjoy the routine of exercise. I have gotten into the habit of running in the mornings and manage to squeeze in a workout every now and then as well. As a result, I think, I am in the best shape of my life in years. I do manage to read a book every now and then and that is besides the enormous amount of news and information I get from my daily browsing on the internet. We also take recreational trips to local places and sights on occasion. I have realized that these are the three fundamental ‘R’s ‘that virtually no one in India does. In any random crowd in the US you are bound to find at least one person who has run a marathon, hiked a peak, camped, read a book in the last month or one that exercises frequently. In India, that isn’t the case. Camping and outdoor activities are out of the question. When I run, I run alone, be it outside or on the treadmill in the gymnasium of my apartment complex. The gym lay sadly deserted most of the time. None of the people I meet ever carry a book around and virtually no one reads on public transit either. And Sidney Sheldon novels are not reading in my dictionary. The general life expectancy of the population is about 62 years for men and 65 for women which is miraculous considering the obnoxiously imbalanced diet that the affluent class consumes. Rich deep fried frankies (wraps) and sugary balls dipped in syrups of sugar are staple diets for many a people. It’s actually frightening to observe how significantly these people depend on their genes to survive. Sedentary lifestyles will result in a breakdown of this notion of genetic immunity as heart disease will emerge over the next few years. What’s scarier is the fact that nearly a fifth of the world’s population is not getting enough physical and mental stimulation to be better citizens of tomorrow.

Divine Intervention (Pictures of God everywhere)


In lieu of the forthcoming Olympics, China has levied a stern notice to all the spitters in town (Beijing). If you are caught spitting in public, you will be fined and could be arrested. It’s one of China’s stern measures to make the city look beautiful for the thousands of tourists that will visit during the Olympics. They have also set up spittoons to be reasonable with the masses. In India, the habit is very ugly and perhaps as ugly as in China. In China, the overwhelming amount of spit might come from tobacco consumption, but, in India there are several variants of it. Tobacco is consumed through modes other than direct consumption and these are in the form of flavored nuts, beetle leaf mixtures (popularly known as paan) and other mixtures of fennel seeds or tobacco coated consumables. These little shampoo sachet sized packets contain a single dose of tobacco that’s supposed to keep the consumer high for a while. Mostly, the socially and economically backward strata of society consume these things. This strata of society also uses a lot of public infrastructure like public transit etc etc and hence the spit from these people lands up in the public domain. Everywhere you look there are streak marks of spit. In offices, on the street, in trains, in parks almost everywhere. It is the single most disgusting and disturbing sight of a third world nation. The civic corporations wouldn’t install spittoons because they would get stolen overnight. They had imposed some toothless measures to curb this habit, but, all of them bowed to the political pressure exerted from the manufacturers of these tobacco products and failed. Finally, when humans couldn’t do it, GOD had to intervene. Some smartass came up with the idea of manufacturing floor and wall tiles that had images of one of the three million gods on them. These tiles were put on the walls where there was maximum likelihood of a person spitting. Lo!! They worked like magic! Soon, pictures of Jesus, the Mecca, The Buddha also sprang up on tiles. No one wanted to spit on god!! At least the privatized spaces would remain spit free. This was the only occasion in my life when I was seriously thinking of quitting atheism.

Rain water harvesting (That's water you fools)

The security guard in my building told me this morning to fill up water containers at home since there would be no water from the municipal water supply through the day. This was not due to any planned maintenance outage or some sort of mishap on the water lines, there just wasnt enough water. When I took a peek outside, rain was gushing down from the skies like there was no tomorrow. wait wait wait a minute..... let me type that again 'rain was gushing down the skies like there was no tomorrow'. Yes, its true, I would hold a glass of water with a funnel made out of magazine covers and I could have a tumbler full of pure drinking water in five minutes. But wait.... is it ok to drink rain water? Arent there birds that poop from the sky?? This is a true story. There is an acute water shortage throughout the year across the metro of Mumbai as across other metro's too. This shortage can be attributed to lack of futuristic civic planning, out of control population growth and an uncontrolled influx into the cities. The water system designed to feed a million people is now feeding twelve million instead. It is bound to fail. Recently, a specialist in rain water harvesting was sought after by the local municipal corporation to present proposals on how this water scarcity can be nullified at least during the rainy season. There were no takers!!

In the meantime I found another similar absurdity as I took a road trip to nearby Gujarat. Along the sidewalk there were women and children walking with finely balanced water containers stacked over their heads. They would stack four to five of them on their heads and walk for miles to bring home precious potable water. Ironically, they were walking in what would be about 1 inch of rain in a day that was pouring down around them. When questioned, they told me that they had to walk to the nearby village 5 miles to get drinking water from a well that the government had dug. When asked as to why they were not storing rain water, they said they had no way to store it!!! My argument that the average intelligence of any society is a constant and is the same as any other society held good here. I’ve seen the smartest programmers & intellectuals in the cities and then there were these people at the other end of the spectrum. I would think the average of their intelligence would be where our country stands.

Kinds of Voicemails

The concept of voicemails is very limited to a few metro areas. Although India's population is expanding wider than the smile on TO's face, only 7% of the total population is connected by the phone line (of any form). Those connected in the cities are heavily connected as well. So, in a land with such little telephone culture, the concept of voicemails has not sunk in yet. Hardly anyone uses the available voicemail facility from their service providers and setting one up is not the easiest job since you have to get transferred to the one guy that works in the entire phone company that knows anything about setting one up. Immediately upon procuring a phone connection, I natually set up voicemail on all the mobile and land lines. About 1/2 the people that called us on any phone line knew what an answering machine was and the rest left curious voicemails. Here is a typical voicemail

Answering Machine: Hello you have reached..... pls leave message after the beep. BEEP

Caller: Hello, hello heeellllloooooooooooo, heeellllllloooooooowwwwwwwww

Caller: kya chal raha hein (what's going on)

Caller: (to a person next to them): abhi abhi baat kar raha tha (sounded like he was talking)

Caller: Lagta hein kaat diya (looks like he disconnected it)

Caller: sunai nahi de raha hein lagta hein (I think he cannot hear me)

Caller: heeelllloooooooooooooo, are you there? Why aren’t you speaking

It is amazing to note how many such messages are on my machine that is almost identical to one another. Another breed of people calling us is the technology handicapped senior citizens and their voicemails are like:

Caller: hello hello hello, I hate this

Caller: These kids from today have no discipline

Caller: They are never at home and then this stupid machine comes up

Caller: What do I say eerrrr ummmmm aaahhhhh psssss ummmmm ummmmm

Caller: Call me, I’m your uncle from Indore call me that’s it SLAM

India Chronicles Episode VI

First, I want to thank all the readers and those that have provided me feedback on my posts. I want to inform those that have asked questions on the posts anonymously that I cannot respond to the email address that they come from. Please email me separately at bandodkar@gmail.com in order for me to be able to respond to your questions.



Enjoy



The Compounder:

Most educated households in India have a doctor within the family. As a result, going to a physician is a rarity unless you have to visit a specialist. I have hardly ever had to visit the doctors office in this country. Aside from the fact that there is no health care let alone managed health care, doctors aplenty open shop on every corner treating a variety of illnesses. The definition of health care is how well you yourself care for your health with your own money. In other words, some health insurance instruments do exist, but, they cover too little and pay too little when it comes to covering for health costs. The concept of a doctors visit is very different here as against the US. Medication is based on diagnosis and interaction with the patient as against tests. I remember my first doctors appointment in the US when a ton of blood was sucked out of me and chemical tests were run on it as I was dressed in a funny gown. No one talked to me or bothered to ask me if anything was wrong with me. Everything had to be written in a multiple choice questionnaire, most of whose answers were very binary (yes & no types). It was as though I was in a carwash and all I needed to do was specify the car I was driving, roll in the radio antenna and select the type of carwash before entering. In India, diagnosis is done by interacting with the patients. The doctor here at times yells at you for being overweight or being clumpsy with your health. I was sternly and firmly warned to not stay up at night watching TV. Diagnosis is the essence of medicinal treatment and it has been completely replced by mechanization in a letigious society like the US where all doctors are worried they would get sued for wrongly treating the patient. Mis-diagnosis occurs and occurs frequently, but, there is something about the human element when the doctor tells you in person with a pat on your shoulder "everything is ok with you, just take these 3 times a day".

What I actually wanted to relate was the spate of a set of species called the compounders. Over the years, the Indian drug industry has matured. Back in the good old days, there were no tablets and if there were, there were compounders that would prepare mixtures, slurries etc for the patients to consume. The compounder was a semi-qualified intelligent college grad that could understand the preparation of mixtures in proportions. The modern day version of this person in the US is the pharmacist. Every physician had a compounder and it was important that you had a good relationship with this dude if you wanted to get your meds on time. The compounders scheduled appointments with the doctor and acted as the receptionist and a telephone operator. Since drugs started pouring into the market all packaged and labelled and even emulsified when needed, the compounder became nothing more than a receptionist and for the doctor, a cost center, a liability. Within a span of a few years, a ton of compounders were laid off filling the job market with these supposedly experience, unqualified semi-professionals. They could not land jobs because they didnt have a degree in medicine and most could not transition to an equal paying job and resorted to becoming receptionists and other low profile positions. Some rebels however took a novel approach. They relocated to villages and became quacks or should I say 'half quacks'. They saw an opportunity in the fact that doctors often over charge for treatment on common ailments like cough, cold, flu and some minor infectious diseases. They started undercutting into the doctors market. This still happens illegally as these semi-quacks prescribe medication to poor people who cannot afford a visit to the doctor. It works most of the time when it's the equivalent of OTC self druggable illness, but, at times as in the case of a security guard at my friends place, it has drastic effects. This person took medication from one such quack and had a bad allergy and had to be admitted to the hospital. In the end, he landed up paying way much more than a doctors visit. These risks are known to everyone that goes to these semi-quacks and the risk is assumed by the patient.



Time(pass): keeping watches fast or slow:



One of the wierdest practises that comes from not having much respect for time, is the habit of keeping your watch fast or slow. No one on the street here will tell you the accurate time without telling you what time it really is. I think the habit emanates from a need for tardiness that people lack. Most people tend to keep their watches ahead of actual time and psychologically convince themselves that that new time is the actual time. So, at exactly 4:00 PM, they will set their watches at 4:10 PM. If you ask people the time, they will usually respond after a long pause. This pause is for recollecting how much ahead of 'actual' time they have set up their watches and then subtracting that from the time that the watch shows. Extreme cases of this phenomenon are people like my aunt who have absolutely no regard for time whatsoever. She usually tends to keep her watch and clocks about 20-25 min ahead of time in order to make it in time for some appointment. I almost freaked out seeing her clock one day for I thought I was going to be miserably late for a meeting.

The other side of this story is of those people that keep their watches running behind actual time. I have never understood this breed of people and the logic behind keeping watches behind actual time. In these cases, the best case scenario would be that you would run late to your appointments every single time. I guess the fact that they have to hurry up for every appointment gives them an adrenalin rush or they are just comfortable with the reputation of being fashionably late everywhere.



An interesting variation of this concept is what I call the 'catch up time'. See this is far more complicated than adjusting time ahead or behind accurate time. The catch up time goes something like this. If you have a clock or watch (which many people do here) that falls behind in time, then you have three options: 1. Replace it (expensive option), 2. Repair it (usually no warranty, so may not be viable) or 3. Adjust it to catch up time. What these people do is they adjust the watch/ clock to run 15 min ahead of time and follow the rate at which the watch falls behind over a course of time. So, for example, if I set such a clock at 9:15 AM when the actual time is 9:00 AM, I have set it to run 15 min ahead of real time. Then, I observe it every hour or two hours and compare it with the reference of a properly functional time instrument. I then start to memorize the rate at which it falls behind and get used to the calculation. Within days I become an expert at telling the time using this method. The downside is that you have to readjust this clock/watch to run 15 min every day at a fixed time of reference, 9:00 AM being it in this case.





Daytime running lights



I tried this for a few days with showers looming over Mumbai and I think Im going to give it up. My vehicles in the US did not have compulsory daytime running lights, but, If I did and if I'd imported them here, I would be going crazy. The concept of keeping your car lights running in daylight is incomprehensible to people here. My father thought I was retarded when I told him that I was keeping them on on purpose. Anyway, everywhere you go with daytime running lights, there is a code for your fellow passengers to inform you of the folly. At times, the on coming traffic will flash their high beam at you as an indication and on other occassions they will make a hand sign. This hand sign looks like you are trying to desperately open a large door knob and it isnt opening. The fingers twril around repeatedly around the knob indicating that your lights are on. On other occassions, they just point a finger at your headlamps assuming that you will get it. Nooooooooooooo people, I want to keep my lights on during the day.... please leave me alone. I think I am getting better at ignoring these people now.



The Bell rings:



I dont want to stake claim as being a pampered pricess, but, cheap labor has it's spoils in India. The downside of this is that these laborers are constantly coming to your place to do something. Here is a sequence of events every day that make our door bell ring

Ring 1: Newspaper dropped

Ring 2: Cook for breakfast

Ring 3: Car keys for cleaning

Ring 4: Cleaning lady

RIng 5: Milk delivery

Ring 6: Car key return after cleaning

Ring 7: Maid for children

Ring 8: Driver for car keys

Ring 9: School bus

Ring 10: Trash collection



Aside from these routine rings, there are courier, TV cable bill, Credit card bill delivery, pizza, the cleaning lady for phase II of cleaning., water bills, electricity bills, society circulars, activity circulars, notices, pest control, home delivery of shopping etc etc etc



Kite flying:



This is a chapter that I intended on completing in fall, but, accidentally left out. The kite flying culture of India is unique. It is recreational to start with, but, mostly fiercely competitive once you know how to fly one. According to legend, the kite flying tradition came with the Islamic rule from Persia & Mughal invaders of the early part of the last millenium. A lot of the kite making industry is thus owned and operated by Muslim people. The kites are simple in design. Actually, there is just one design, the conventional kite, the one shaped like, well.... a kite (diamond). Fundamentally, a kite is made of two sticks and a diamond shaped paper with the sticks intersecting at the middle of the square. They do not produce well balanced kites here, so, skill lies in controlling the kite and making it fly high. At times, the kite is so miserably imbalanced, that one has to attach a clip on one side for it to even fly. The procedure of flying the kite is the same as anywhere. Someone takes the kite with the string away from the flier and then just tosses it up in the air. The wind does the rest.

As for the competition part, that is where things get interesting. A normal or novice kite flier usually stays around the sub 100 foot altitude level. There is no point in a novice competing with the big guns for air space. The big guns or the 'kite gurus' can fly higher. These gurus are involved in what is called 'kite killing'. The rabbit hole gets deeper as you enter the competition. In a competition, the objective is to entangle your kite's string and cut the competitiors string keeping yours intact. Now there are several factors to consider when engaging in such kite-combat. You need good sharp & strong string. You need to make sure, you are in control of the situation. You need to avoid ambush and in case you get ambushed, you need to be prepared. The key is to be in a strategic position so that once the strings are crossed, you quickly release your kite and let it drift further in the process creating enough abraison on the other string to cut it. I have noted that the other alternative of pulling the string usually results in your string getting cut. A lost kite is public property. After a brief pause for celebration once your opponents kite is cut, begins a frenzy to recover the lost kite. Most of the time, a lost kite is never recovered by the owner. It is a unique thrill to anticipate where a freely flying owner-less kite will land and grab it. In my lifetime, I havent been responsible for many such acquisitions, but, those that I have been successful at have given me memories to cherish.



 

Space? :



Almost at every juncture in time, you are bound to run into the chaos caused by a billion people. Yes, the right handed slap of the population virus is evident from the time you step out of the house to the time you hit the movie theatre. Almost every venture, be it a park or a street corner vendor will be swamped with people the minute it is launched. This is one of the major cultural differences that one has to adjust to in India. Courtsey and chivalry are slaves to urgency and competition. The disease of overpopulation causes some interesting altercations in human behavior. For instance, almost never will you see a line being formed outside a place of work. People mostly form swarms in front of a gate as though they are protesting rather than lining up to enter the arena. If a queue is formed somewhere, there will be entrepreneurs that will start their own queue and then diversify into forming a disoragnized swarm. You see this happen at all places where there is no control over the crowds and where first come first served is the rule. The US Embassy had similar scenes a few years ago. Since, they would not accept a swarm of people, everyone was forced to form a line. In this case, people would come as early at 3 AM to sit on the pavement and form a line for the next day. After 9-11 however, that practise stopped and they accept people only by appointment. The same behavior is reflected in driving. Driving is almost a game of football, where you are the running back and if there is an opening millimeters wider than the width of your car, run through it. In this age of walking with your toes hitting the heels of the person in front, there is no room for space. People have evolved socially to live in cooperation with one another. No one respects the others need for space and 'alone time'. Thus there are few people that live a solitary life. Interestingly, the first time that I walked on one of the busiest streets in mumbai at night, I realized that you could see the ocean from a point on the sidewalk !!! Before that time, I had never realized it in my entire life as the street is almost always guzzling with people sticking their noses in your ears as the double decker buses try to run you over.



Stinking Indians:



There is a common stereotype about Indian’s being smelly and for the most part I agree with it. Most Americans have an oversensitive nose that picks up any odors that trespass a sterile environment. However, the stereotype has a lot of strange explanations that blend with it. Some think that the smell is due to the curry that is consumed by the Indian’s, as though, it leaks from the sweat glands selectively, while the chicken is retained in the body. Yes, Indian’s do smell a lot and that is mostly due to poverty. I am talking Indian Indians. Interestingly, there is a new breed of people in the cities that have been introduced to this stereotype. They have suddenly raised their level of consciousness and have ventured out to shop for body sprays and deodorants. As a result, many a retail stores and television & radio airtimes are being consumed by these fragrance producing companies. Every step of the way, there are advertisements for how a deodorant or spray doesn’t just alter your body odor, it even gets you amongst great looking women in bikinis. Such is the perception that somewhere in the strata of society, there has to be overkill and there is. A section of the society has now believed that drenching themselves in a fragrance is the only way out. These are clearly overcompensating for the lack of something. So, we have moved from a society of stinker’s to a society of stinkers that smell of obnoxious perfume. I notice it every time I step into a cab or some office. If there is a young person around, he or she usually smells of some citrus fruit that gets on your nerves if you are around them for a while. I even had to toss the orange blossom air freshener out of the window after my chauffeur stuck it in my car. I could not eat any oranges this season. I need to tone down my sensitive American nose to survive.

India Chronicles Episode V

Bush returned after a successful India visit. He enjoyed the place and the reception. Apparently, he was happy with the weather and jokingly thanked the Indians for keeping the great weather when what he didnt know was that it is always like that here. He also met a bunch of farmers and most of them later interviewed on TV were like those that had just had a vision of the Virgin Mary. One farmer was interviewed for five full minutes and all Bush did was picked up a chikoo (a local fruit) from his collection and looked at it for five seconds before placing it back into his basket. The Indians stole some 'nucular' energy deals with America in return for some lucrative defense purchases. Overall, the pendulum has swung heavily in favor of India and away from Pakistan. On his way back to the US, Bush stopped by Pakistan, taunted the General about lack of democrary, almost picked a baseball-esque fight with a bowler (pitcher) in a cricket tryout when the bowler (pitcher) pitched him a perfectly legal pitch called the bouncer that hit him in the head. Bush wasnt wearing a helmet because they were playing with a soft tennis ball and even if he was, the helmet would have been wearing Bush for protection :)) (Sorry had to push in my leftist agenda a little)

The perfect imperfections:

My parents just returned from a trip to the eastern Indian state of Orissa and brought back a quilt wall hanging made of silk and cotton patches. The quilt has a beautiful hand-made design that could easily adore the walls of any home. I looked at it and thought for a while how the tiny imperfections of a hand-made garment add so much beauty to it. Despite its lack of symmetry in design and the not-so-precise workmanship, it was still a marvel to look at. And although you can order a fantastic Klimt or Gaugin off allwall.com, it will never compare to this hand-made original in your living room. Incidentally, it is these imperfections that move us away from the all so certain standardized McDonalds menu mechanized world that add color to life. Such is the imperfect beauty of India where machines dont do the work of people. So, three chaps trying to pull down a shutter of a store looks pretty disorganized, but, they seem to get the job done. It also looks unsexy and uncool as compared to an automated motorized shutter door, but, there is lies the beauty of it. I realized that the man-machine relationship in the US had distanced me from these tiny imperfections in life. Both methods lead to the same end result and yet we prefer the certainty and the clarity of the mechanized world over the human element. Putting aside the reason of cost of labor, we would still like to retain the machine over the man in such cases.

Locking everything & monkey nut:

I want to make a statement... here it is, people in India lock everything. If there is a way that it can be locked, then there is a lock on it. If there is a way that the lock can be locked, then that is done too. This is an observation of my Canadian cousin who asked me years ago, why people in India locked any and everything? To which, I had no answer. It is just a habit I presume that is inherited out of insecurity. When you gain socio-economic advantage over your neighbors and your community, you tend to put their lower economic strata as a benchmark to protect your assets. Thereby, being insecure of your own holdings, as miniscule as they may be, need to be protected in all possible ways. Thus, even on the 20th floor of my apartment building with security guards patrolling 24 hours and massive doors jamming the doorway, all windows and doors are locked. An uncle of mine went one step ahead. He had heard of stories of how thieves break into homes by releasing trained monkeys and making them open the latches from the inside thereby opening the door. Apparently, slightly sophisticated gangs of crooks had trained and domesticated monkeys that could do that. So, as an additional measure of security he created the 'monkey nut'. This is a slightly fancy and rather large nut and bolt assembly that is fixed in conjunction with a lock on the inside, so, if ever a monkey were to jump in, it will be confused out of its wits on how to open it ! I can only picturize a monkey staring at this unique assembly scratching its head in confusion and then loudly yelling and jumping in frustration thereby waking up the residents. So, locking is the rule, every door, window, aperture and even cleavage for that matter is locked and secured. Back in my dorm room days, they had locked the entrance to the terrace for reasons unexplained. We had gotten into the habit of breaking open these safes of fresh air and sneak onto the roof for relaxation. Collectively we broke so many locks that the warden stopped putting one on.

Character profiles:

Shoe polish street urchin in train: From this episode I am going to include a couple of character profiles that give you an idea of the kind of people that live here. My first character profile tells a sad yet real story of the problem of street urchin's/ orphans that parade the dirt filled streets of any major city. These are the rejects of society, the surplus produce that became unwanted the minute they kissed the first breath or became an expensive liability once they grew up. A city like Bombay has a million of these kids aged roughly 3-10 wandering hopelessly at traffic lights and train stations doing odd jobs for a buck to get their dose of bread or sniffing glue whichever they have the urge for. While travelling by train recently I ran into Shamu (name changed for privacy purposes: just kidding) the shoe polish boy. Shamu was about 7 yrs of age and had taken up the profession of polishing shoes in trains. He obviously did not hold a ticket as he carried his tools in a shabby bag filled with dirt amongst other things. Shamu was unbathed probably for weeks and unclean, yet, not really as smelly as anticipated. I figure he has to maintain that otherwise his clients in the train might get repulsed of the odor and drive him away. Shamu's fingers were filled with a blend of shoe polish and dirt. He used his hands to spread the primer and the polish cream onto my shoes before lathering it with this index finger. Then he used a brush that looked like it came from the tomb of a pharaoh to shine them bright. Shamu polished my shoes anticipating the time that my destination station would arrive finishing his job just in time for me to pop my shoes on and alight from the train. Street urchins like him do not make it into the already full orphanages and/ or discarded childrens institutions. Most of their parents use them as a source of income working them hard for hours without having a childhood. Many of them beg or wash cars windshields squeegee mops with the expectation of some cash. As a cruel joke, some drivers have moved the winshield cleaning sprays to point sideways at their faces so they are driven away by spraying at them. These kids barely survive and either grow up doing odd jobs all their lives mostly at construction sites using part of their income to feed a dependent they created in the meantime, part to feed the mafia that controls their earnings and part towards their drug or alcohol habit. Thus, high on their ingested toxic, they fall off to sleep on a sidewalk where they wake up to another morning without a future or the lucky ones get run over by a wayward speeding freight truck or SUV driven by some rich drunk teenager.

Vibra-Don:

This is a unique character profile that I have been wanting to write about for two episodes. From the sound of it it seems like some nasty dildo from a cheapo porn sex toy shop. Virbra-don infact is the name of a stray dog that rules the streets near my parents house. Street dogs or stray dogs are a sad menace in India. Pretty much every neighborhood in the country will have hundreds if not thousands of stray dogs. These live in little hideouts of their own and survive on food from the garbage cans or litter. Often people feed them left overs so they dont die and at times, they adopt themselves into a home. After the tragic cancer related death of my 8 year old great dane Leo, Vibra-don adopted my parents as his owners. Now let me get into this name and why its come about. Vibra-don was born 'Vibrator' as he had a paralytic attack that leaves him shaking on one side of the body. He was aptly named Vibrator as he shakes on one side (twitches) of his body. His is a story of survival where even fit dogs dont make it. Vibrator realized that the secret to his survival is aggression. He assumed power by picking up local fights and increasing his territory to around my parents home. He then skillfully started walking behind my parents around the area as they would take their evening walk showing the other local strays that a human was supporting him. On his way following my parents, vibrator would growl and pick small fights just to tick the others off. With his political influence, he grasped power of the entire neighborhood and thus donned the environment driving away local competitors. He thus became Vibra-don. It is amazing to start thinking what other dogs would be thinking about this feeble aggressive one that shakes like Elvis. Would they find comedy in his disability? or would they fear him? I know for sure that he has now perfected the art of acting meek in front of the humans to get food and then using the strength to overpower local strays. Vibra-don survived the August 2005 flooding by climbing up a tall wall and sleeping there through the rain for three days. As funny as this story may sound, Vibradon should be an inspiration to everyone. One with disability overpowering those without any. Every year thousands of such stray dogs are born in litters across the neighborhoods. Most of them get crushed under vehicles, die of starvation or most commonly of disease. In such circumstances, for a disabled dog to survive and capture a territory is a story worth telling on this blog.

The English Patients

After being ruled by the English for about 300 years directly or indirectly, I must admit, we have, subconsciously become English patients in the real sense. India in its adolesence and puberty had to hold the english hand to overcome the distress of growth and maturation whilst gaining its entry into the modern world. As the British pumped money into infrastructure and civic amenities little did they know that they will be leaving behind a legacy that a former colony will not forget. So, years later, the English divorced cricket for soccer, we are still married to it. The English demolished their bridges and buildings and roads to build new ones, while we are still married to them. It's an irony that springs a lot of debate on whether the English rule was actually more beneficial than harmful to India. As extortionistic and selfish as the English were in their business of India, they were also clever to give back to the society, so that, thoughts of revolt would be supressed easily. The English rule of India and it's eventual demise is a very complex case study that can be considered one of the most intelligently managed colonial rules in the history of mankind. As a result of the 'raaj', we drive on the left side of the roads, have fancy buildings like the Victoria Terminus in Mumbai and have virtually indestructible roads that have survived ages of wear and tear.


Counting currency (Lakh-Crore system)

One of the things that I had to go through in my reverse adaptation to India is the comma separation of currency !! really, here, we dont use millions and billions, we use thousands, lakhs and crores. There is something above that called 'urub' that I have never counted to and dont think will do in this lifetime. Here is the difference
In the US: 10,000 : 1,000,000: 1,000,000,000
In India : 10,000: 1,00,000 (lakh) : 1,00,00,000 (crore)
Now, not only do I have to translate everything into millions, I have to translate that figure back to US $. aaaarrrragggggggggggghhhhhh !!!!!

Dubbing of English movies (WWF):

One of the funniest things to watch on TV are the Hollywood movies dubbed in local languages. Even funnier are the WWF or WWE (whatever the wrestling federation is called now), games dubbed in local languages. Languages like hindi dont have the 'in-the-middle' cuss words like 'deuche bag' or phrases like 'ass kicking' or abberations of real cuss words like 'freakin'. So, trying to translate the trash talk of the WWF wrestlers into hindi presents an unique challenge. These translators have taken inspiration from the local wrestlers by hearing their trash talk and come up with some trash talk phrases like 'sit on my lap will you', 'drink some milk will you little child'. These are not even closely infuriating to the opponent in the real world and are outright funny. The funniest thing I've ever watched on TV though goes to a Jackie Chan movie dubbed in Tamil (sanskrit based southern Indian language). The voice of Jackie Chan sounds like that of a dark complexioned Tamilian (Southern Indian) man just returned from a temple visit with a streak of turmeric on his forehead wearing a white lungi (garment worn in southern India) sipping filtered coffee on a street corner in Madras. That was the single funniest movie I have seen in my life.

Small talk is very very small:

I was asked once in the US as to what our greeting style was in India. I did not have a good answer to that question. I know and everyone else knows that 'Namaste' seems to be the common greeting, but, it doesnt really translate directly into a 'Good morning' or a 'Guten tag' or a 'Bon matin' as the European languages have in them. So, in India, no one will wish you according to time of day. It's usually a very English 'Hello' or a 'hi' or rarely 'namaskar' or 'namaste'. The word 'Namaste' is more of a 'hail' (from Nazi Germany), a salutation of respect like the japansese bow rather than the japanese 'arrigato'. I wonder why we did not get the greeting thing right. Perhaps, the concept of small talk was not in our genetic makeup. Perhaps the population worries have been going on for so long and have been so elaborate that small talking with soo many people will make you end up spending your entire day small talking. Not many people say 'hi' to one another unless you directly know the person or have some work with him/her. Small talk is almost non-existent. You are either in the business of talking to the point or you are not talking. Besides, the cultural differences will very stark and will provoke a strange reaction when you try to straight talk with people. We are a society more obsessed with 'straight' rather than 'small' talk. We are a society that will call you 'fat' in the middle of a party if you have gained weight. I cant help but remember a superbowl budweiser commercial in 2002, where a guy from the country with his cowboy hat walks into an italian bar in NYC and the italians ask him 'how u doin'. No real response is expected of the guy except perhaps a 'how u doin' in a thick NJ italian accent. In exchange, the man from the countryside takes it literally starts explaining in painful detail how he is doing much to the amusement of the italian bar-folk. I believe an Indian will also respond in the same way..

Next Episode to the posted soon, I wrote too much this time around.

India Chronicles Episode IV

Welcome to another episode of my observations in India. It's my 6th month here and I feel like I have blended in with the locals pretty well. Every now and then the infamous 'mm/dd/yy' format of date comes up and the reverse conversion of the ruppee to the dollar to value a particular commodity or service also perks up, but, now I must say I am getting the gist of it. I wanted this part of my episodes to focus more on the serious topics of living here, but, I couldnt let go of the humor part, so, I have decided to mix it up a little.

The Grand Slam of Sports:

My dad is obsessed with playing billiards / snooker. So obsessed that he wasnt happy with the time that he was getting at the local club table & he decided to bring the game home. So, he went out and bought a kicka** massive billiards table and kept it in my parents living room. Now, their living room IS the table itself. For those that havent had the privilege of seeing one, it is about 3-4 times the size of the pool table. I feel the need to keep a pair of binoculars to locate the ball when shooting from one end to another. The pockets are smaller and have a sharper angle and that just adds to the misery of a beginner. So, overall, billiards/ snooker is about 100 times tougher to play than pool. The first skill is to make contact.... If you think im kidding, try it. If you are a decent pool player, you will struggle, if you are a beginner, you will embarass yourself silly. Here is a lesson to all single people out there, Never never never ever take your date out to a billiards room. You will appear like such a loser that that will be your final date with the person. Anyway, I have become an intermediate level player now which also implies that I will play pool blindfolded without much trouble. My schedule was running like this. I would wake up in the morning and play a game of badminton at the gym, then play billiards with dad at lunch break followed by table tennis with the pals in the evening and a late night game of cricket under the lights. Thus, I was accomplishing the grand slam of sport every single day. I lost about 5-7 lbs in the process and was living on adrenalin. Alas, all good things come to an end. After we moved into our new place all this ended abruptly.

The Holy Cow

They are everywhere !! Yes, cows wandering freely everywhere. For millenia, for some strangely obscure reason, this guy called Krishna developed affinity towards this animal. Ever since then it has been dogma that protection of this being is the supereme religious duty. As a result, you can see cows walking around doing pretty much what they like without much discipline. In fact, the cow is the most indisciplined animal in India. About 90% of all Indians are vegetarian, which makes it the single largest vegetarian restaurant on earth. You will find more 'strictly vegetarian only' restaurants here than anywhere else in the world. In some places, the sheer mention of beef will be frowned upon. Anyway, for these reasons cows are protected like they are going to be extinct soon. Cows walk around blocking traffic. There are several instances where they are known to sit in the middle of large intersections thereby creating a traffic island. They have also evolved in this practise. They know that when they form such a traffic island that they need to tuck their tails inside and keep their hooves locked in, so, a passer by car doesnt run it over. They have mastered the art of the creation of traffic islands to perfection. Swarms of cattle often walk the streets in cities and villages as they are bound to their feeding grounds or returning from it. Last month I had my first taste of beef in India. It was at a chinese restaurant and let me tell you, the dish was delicious. Of course, now, I am condemned to die by the religious fundamentals becuase I bit into their sacred animal.

Penculiar infatuations:

Last week, I ordered some stationery to be stacked into every cubicle, so, when there was a need for a pen to write something, it was easily accessible. A week later, all the full to the brim pen stands were staring empty at my face. I wondered why? how did this happen. Where did all these pens go? who took them? My questions were all answered when I paid an emergency visit to my friends office to print a form that I had to submit on a Sunday. When I arrived at his office obviously, there were no employees on campus. I started a PC and printed out what I needed to and LO to my surprise, there was not a single pen to be found in sight to sign the damn thing !! I searched and searched till my brain blew out. I went through the personal belongings of about 70 people and finally the guard on duty gave me his pen.... Apparently, Indians are genetically pre-disposed to stealing pens. They preserve them, so, that if the world supply of pens gets over, they will be the next superpower due to their pen-count. They literally believe that in the instance of global war that the 'pen might really be mightier than the sword or the scud missile'. I have failed to understand this absolute obsession with pens. To investigate further, I looked deeper into my own past. Back in school days, we were allotted a set of pens for the semester. Pen manufacture was not very commercialized back then, so, they turned out to be expensive. We could not afford losing or dropping them or leaving them at school. They used to be precious commodities. Now, since the art of pen-making has been widely dispersed and the per unit costs are next to nothing, I must attribute this obsession with pens to the childhood trauma that we faced as kids. As a result of this lesson, I learnt to stack only one or two pens in any pen holder. I also learnt that pen stands often have a retractable harnesses retrieving the pen once it is used. People have invented the pen retainer, just like the one for retaining glasses or sunglasses if you are prone to dropping them. These ropes hold the pen around your neck like a precious commodity. I think it will take a generation to realize that pens arent going anywhere. They are here to stay.

Living with Poverty:

In a nation where the income differential between the 'have's' and the 'have not's' is as steep as the Angel falls, Venezuela, the general masses of have's mix with the have not's in a unique symbiotic way. This symbiosis is a direct result of the creation of unwritten rules that are followed by both concerned parties. For instance, if you hire a maid servant to clean the home every day, she will be paid about $20 a month (tops) in a place like Bombay. She will clean about 5-6 homes a day and will garner about $100-$120 per month in wages. Since, these are all cash wages, there is no tax levied on them. Several such people are employed in the average middle class household. There is a person for cooking, another for cleaning, another for washing, another to play with kids, another to take them to school, driver, ironing person etc etc. The job descriptions are very fragmented and divided to the least count till the subsistence level of the individual is challeneged by the scale of the income earned. So, here comes the situation where multiple people making under $ 150 per month work in the home of a person making $ 50,000 per month (just as an example). For this person, the value of $100 is nothing but loose change. His children wear shoes that are more than $ 100 on occassions. These wages havent inflated much as surplus labor dilutes them in a overpopulated country. So, even as the owner's income doubles, their salaries remain near about the same. This is the unfortunate spate of event leading to dilution of income especially in the lower classes of society. The self propelling problem that accentuates this issue even further is that this dilution occurs in the strata of society that earns the least ! So, poor people keep getting poorer as they have more offspring as a result of being uneducated about the drawbacks of having children. The psychological impact of seeing such poverty is that you cannot lead a normal lifestyle of your choice without guilt. I have borne this guilt for my life and I continue to bear it now. For example, buying a $ 70 trouser at Nordstroms making six figures doesnt feel much when the people standing next to you would be making 5 figures a year at the best, but, buying a $50 shirt in Bombay hurts when you are giving away the monthly salary for a living working individual. Some of my friends give me the counter example by climbing up the food chain. Their argument is that you cannot think of it this way or you will be perpetually unhappy. In a steep income differential curve, you have to employ as many people as possible, so, you feed as many stomachs with your income. That is the only way out of this guilt. I am trying, but, am not getting there as much as I would have liked. Also to think from the employee's point of view, they wander around in an environment that they may perhaps never afford to own. And amongst such conditions, they have to remain honest and hard-working. The question must arise in their mind, why would someone have so much and someone else, so little. As someone said it, Truly, poverty is the worst curse.

Driving me crazy:

Moving onto a more fun topic. I started driving here after about a week of landing in town. They drive on the left side of the road, which, according to an English scientist (from the early 1900's ) is the better side to drive on :). While I dont have comments on his study and his conclusions, driving on the left side just seems better, sorry, minority wins. Driving here is a challenge, just like it would be in any developing nation. I did not import my cars into India because they were left hand drive when I didnt realize that it really doesnt matter here. You could be driving and passing anyone from any side anyhow and anyway you like. The traffic culture in Bombay is probably the most disciplined of all cities in India and that too can be closely described as chaos. The strategy to driving successfully in bombay is to leave your chivalry and courtsey at home and drive like you are taking a very sick person to a hospital. I keep feeling like I am driving a F1 car on the streets as I maneovre the car around. There are no posted speed limits, so, as long as you dont kill anyone, you could drive at the speed of sound without being pulled over. I am pretty sure I heard the sonic bang while driving on a newly built 4 lane expressway here. Interesting incidents of traffic related cultures are evident from other towns where there is really no culture and discipline. In one of the most backward Indian states of Bihar for instance, they dont know what the color red means..... really, so, at traffic lights, there would be two chaps holding the ends of a rope running across the street laying on the street. During a green light, the rope will be left loose and people would drive over it, but, When the light turns red, obviously, people dont want to stop, but, the two strong armed chaps pull up the rope in order to implement the red-ness of the light. Even then, the local goons and his subjects will occassionally, pull the rope and pass their vehicle underneath it. Another absolutely scary aspect of driving in these conditions is the way people let others pass them. I discovered this at a recent long distance trip. Say you are in the passing lane behind a truck and are ready to pass. During daytime, you honk at the truck and he or his helper sways his hand outside the window as an indication that you can pass him. If he sticks it out straight, he wants to get in the passing lane himself and it is not okay to pass him. What's freaky is the version of this that happens at night. If you do the same exercise and honk at the trucker, get this, he will turn the blinker on if it's ok to pass !!!! Nowhere in any road safety manual is this procedure written up as an acceptable method to follow during low light, but, it seems to have been the process evolved out there. So, if you are ever ever driving here and are behind a truck and he suddenly turns the blinker on, he is not turning to the passing lane, he is just asking you to pass him.


Blue is the new white

During my first visit to the US, I'd found a major behavioral anomaly in the way in which things were sold. A 300 ml can of coke was more expensive at the vending machine (at times) than a 2 litre bottle of coke on sale at the super-market !!! As a child, I was amazed at how this economics worked. I'd given up explaining to myself, why this could be possible and just attributed it to abnormal social behavior of the american people. I always asked myself if the large bottle was cheaper, why is there even a market for these small cans. There is one such absolutely inexplicable behavioral anomaly I discovered in India. Fabric whiteners are no longer a developing industry. Pretty much everything associated with effective fabric whitening has been synthesized and created and sold commerically. India however disagrees with the fundamental concept itself. We feel white is not really white.. unless .... well.... it's blue. Yes, people, thats correct. If correctness of subjective statements were to be based on the majority vote, you would be stranded on a lone island calling a white bonded paper well, white !! Commerical fabric whitening solutions like bleaching powder were being sold in the market solid until the day came when a certain ultramarine blue invaded the market place. In short, ultramarine blue is nothing but a light shade of blue color and the damn packaging even says that !!!!. It does nothing but change the color of white clothes to light blue. All of a sudden, people started calling that as fabric whitening. I am not sure why the most sensible people decided to call that color white? and the process fabric whitening? I figure, clothes were so dirty at times that cleaning them with bleach didnt do the job, so, they decided to mask the yellowness with this blue and call it white. This chemical is fondly referred to as 'neel' (~ meaning blue), but, sports the label 'fabric whitener' in front. Other commercial units set up modern plants to make more sophisticated fabric whiteners, but, no, they were late in the game. The people rejected white for blue. Some of the same companies that made ultramarine blue also sold these new whiteneres (actually whiteneing effect), but, had to shut down those units or convert them into ultramarine blue manufacturing facilities to meet increased demand. So, when I'm getting stuff laundered or washed here, I threaten the person 'not to whiten it'. The concept did not stick with just fabric. When I got my apartment painted, I'd insisted on plain white. The demo shade that a wall was painted with looked light blue !!! The painter convinced me that it was white while I kept protesting.... Then I asked for ivory white and that worked out to be whiter than pure white itself. To this day, inner sunmica linings of my furniture drawers etc are blue. They remind me of the fact that I can run from it, but, I will be blue..... someday.

All of your feedback and questions are great, so, keep them coming
And here is wishing you all a Happy new year.... !!