Quick update

Someone asked if I was ok, since I had not updated the blog recently.

Yes, I am perfectly fine. My wife (who wishes to remain unnamed in a public space, but you know who I mean) arrived a week ago with no
problems and we have been enjoyed ourselves around Bangalore for the
long holiday weekend (Deepawali Friday-Monday, Eid Tuesday). I've been
working Wed-Friday and she has been walking and otherwise finding
interesting places to go.

When I get back to the blog, there will be more cool pictures, as well
as the usual pithy comments :-)

Burns

Despite Diwali being the "festival of lights" there are also plenty of flowers around. Marigolds are especially auspicious and appear all over the place. By the way, the Indian currency is the Rupee (about $.02). A lakh is number meaning 100,000. A crore is 100 lakhs or 10 million. So in the context you see here 100 crores really means 100*10,000,000 Rupees. You do see this words applied to other things than money too (like population etc). I'm not sure just what this is advertising. It says "100 Crores of Prizes and Offers", and "Lucky Lakshmi, India's Jewellery Festival Participant". Lakshmi, by the way, is the goddess of wealth, wisdom, and fortune.

Blogs, Power and Holidays

I should put in a plug for my daughter's blog. She is a PhD student in
Anthropology and is currently in Nicaragua (for nearly a year) doing
research for her dissertation. She is keeping a blog at
http://carolynffisher.blogspot.com . It's really great, and I'm not in
the slightest prejudiced.

Anyway we both keep noticing the occasional similarities in our
experiences in "developing" countries, although India is, by
conventional measure, more "developed" I think.

For example, power: We are both living in cities (although she make
trips out to El Campo (the countryside...not an implication of a
vacation, but rather small rural villages). We both see the power
disappearing frequently. The difference ends there because my apartment
has standby power, as does my work. What happens at the apartment is
that the lights go out, the internet dies if you happen to be doing that
and suddenly there is this roaring all around. The standby generators
have kicked on. After maybe 10 seconds for the generators to stabilize,
the power comes back on. At work, it is an uninterruptible power supply
of some sort. The lights blinked once, but the computers kept running
fine. But back to the apartment: This roaring goes on for a time.
Sometimes it is 5 minutes. Sometimes it is an hour or so. It seems
that when the municiple power comes back on there is some sort of loud
chime. It seems to be coming from my kitchen, but I guess it could be
right outside the window. Sometimes, but not always, the generator
shuts down a few seconds later. I hypothesize that when the power comes
back on they somehow get some idea whether it is on "for good" or if it
is likely to be off again soon. If the later, they keep the generator
running.

It's pretty odd when the power goes out while you're walking the street
at night. The street lights don't have any backup, so you have to be
careful where you walk. Being able to see is a very good thing when
walking due to the many obstacles all the way from stray dogs (M.M.Kaye
calls them "pariah dogs" in The Far Pavilions, a fabulous book to read
while you are in India, BTW, despite it being set in Victorian times and
the British Raj) to uneven paving to speed bumps to cars.

Funny story about power: Some of my Indian friends were in the US at work when there was a momentary power failure. Realize that this happens only a few times a year, but I think that there was a thunderstorm or something. All the computers in the lab went down, as did the A/C and a bunch of other stuff. It was a Friday afternoon so I told them they might as well go start their weekend trip early. Things were not going to be back until evening (the A/C has to be restarted, machines rebooted, etc etc, and the physical plant folks are doing this all over the building.) I found out later that they were totally amazed that such a thing could happen. They loose municipal power much more often than we do, so they have a backup. That means that they almost never actually loose power in the lab. The fact that we did not have a backup seemed pretty primitive to them!

======================================================

This is the beginning of Deepavali or Diwali (usually transliterated the
former way, although the pronunciation is more like the latter). This
is the biggest holiday of the year for Hindus. It is also celebrated by
Jains, Telugu, and Sikhs. It is also called "The Festival of Lights".
Oddly, it seems that one of the most stunning decorative displays in
Orchard Street in Singapore, but there are surely a lot of lights. (And
no, they did not go up in July. It was just yesterday!) The festival
is 5 days long, but Saturday is the biggest day (I think day #3). We
have today (Friday) off from work. Then Tuesday is Eid, the end of
the Muslim Holy Month of Ramadan. That day is also off. You can
imagine that most people take Monday as a vacation day so that they have
a nice long weekend to go spend time with their families.

Nov 1 is also a holiday. That is the founding of the state of
Karnataka (in 1957 I think...they re-arranged the state boundaries
then). And I may have mentioned that on that day, the city of Bangalore
will be officially renamed to Bengaluru (I think they are still debating
the official transliteration; there might be a double-o in place of the
first u). It's an exciting time to be here!

Dress and People Watching

I've been watching how people dress and thought I would report...

Shoes: I would say 60% of people wear some sort of sandals. A few
"flip-flops", the rubber pad with a rubber stake coming between two toes
like we wear to the beach. Mostly much more substantial things. And if
60% of all people wear sandals, I'd say that 95% of all women do so.
Men not wearing sandals will be wearing what appear to be leather shoes
(though they are probably not) with a few sneakers (trainers) mixed in.
I don't think I have seen any completely bare feet.

Probably 95% of women wear some sort of non-western-looking dress.
There are a few burkas (or chador?...I don't know if that is what they
are called here; I mean the Muslim full-body-including-head cover).
Most women wear either a sari or salwar kameez. Both are very very
colorful clothes. The sari (or saree) is a long length of cloth wrapped
around the body (over a bodice called a choli and probably some other
stuff). The salwar kameez is more like a pant suit...colorful pants
with matching jacket-like piece. In either case, there is frequently a
length of shimmering cloth draping off one shoulder or loosely around
the neck. In many ways these day-to-day outfits have some of the
characteristics of a ball gown, but without the slightest bit of
immodesty (i.e. everything is covered up thoroughly). The interesting
thing to me about these long sarees and s-k's is that they don't seem to
be restrictive. The cleaning woman at work here, who regularly cleans
the pantry floor on her hands and knees wears a sari. I've seen women
walking through muddy streets in a sari and they don't seem to get
dirty! By the way, the other 5% of women would be wearing pants/jeans
and a shirt. I don't think I have seen any western dresses except on
westerners.

Maybe 90% of men wear something that could be called western-seeming.
I.e. pants and a shirt, often long-sleeved. They are generally NOT
bright colored. You very seldom (but not never) see t-shirts. Those
who do not wear pants/shirt wear a dhotti, kind of a length of light
cloth wrapped around the waist and upper legs. Lower legs bare. These
seem to be more often on older men. And finally there is kind of shirt
that does not stand out, but I think is not western. It is a
long-sleeved and very straight sided button up that is worn outside of
the pants. There is something about the cut or the material or
something that makes it stand out as being unfamiliar.

Few people wear anything on their heads except when travelling by
motorbike. Sari's have enough cloth to cover the head when necessary
(entering a temple etc, it says in Wikipedia). There are a few Sikh men
around who wear their uncut hair in turbans. And the traffic police
uniform includes a Texas-ranger-type hat (not the ball-team, the
troopers!)

============================

Peoples behavior: There seem to be far more cell phones in use here
than in any city in the US. Not surprising...they are inexpensive!
Call anywhere in India for Rs.1 per minute (i.e. 2 cents). A large
number of people have them and use them while out on the street. People
are not *friendly* to strangers (like the US South), but they are not
hostile by any means. Pretty neutral. There are no PDAs (not Personal
Digital Assistant...Public Displays of Affection) between men and women.
No holding hands; certainly no kissing to be seen. The interesting
thing is that is common for male friends to hold hands or drape a
hand/arm over their friend's shoulder etc. Women don't seem to do this.
And yet for all this modesty, it was perfectly ok for me to walk around
and have dinner with a woman friend who was showing me the city.

Begging and hawking: This is one of the things that I think well-off
westerners have the hardest time getting used to. There is no big issue
in the residential section where I live. However, as you approach M.G.
Road, the big commercial area nearby, you see more and more people
sitting on the side of the road looking for alms. What I find difficult
is the desire to help, while still understanding that some (many?) are
sent out to beg on behalf of someone else who collects the money (at
least that is what I have heard). Plus the question of when to stop
giving if you start. I have been ignoring them. They have generally
not been aggressive, although they might follow along a few steps or
touch your clothes. Heartstrings are definitely pulled here.

Hawkers are another thing altogether. They have not been terribly
aggressive but more so than the beggers. One guy took up step with me
and started a pleasant conversation telling me that the stores were not
open yet, which led to the fact that he was drives a tuk-tuk (as he
said...means a rickshaw) and for Rs 20 would take me anywhere, take me
sight-seeing, to an area where stores were open, anything! I guess I'm
old enough to find this amusing rather than intimidating. I said no.
He said, "no maybe or really no"? Really no. (In this society No is
sometimes the start of a negotiation, as is walking away. Best not to
get involved in what the other person may see as a possible transaction
if possible.) In this case it was not clear what was going on until a
few words into the conversation.

==================================

Although it took a long time, and a hospitalization, I am finally
feeling very comfortable walking around, and able to appreciate this
place better than when I first came a couple weeks ago. Finding my way
to the park and the grocery store last week was really the turning
point, I guess. I am really starting to remember the mixture of
familiarity, strangeness, and excitement that I found so attractive when
I was here (well a lot north of here) 20 years ago.

Meal

I went out for dinner for the first time since being sick. There is a
place nearby called "Desmonds". Next to it is "The Rice Bowl" as well
as a very fancy looking place with several restaurants and a doorman in
fancy Rajastani-looking (to me) turban. Desmonds is unimposing from the
outside, but inside is is pretty nice. They have a variety of
"cuisines" including "Continental", Korean, and Indian.

It's funny but the crowd seems to be young and the staff seems somewhat
older and curmudgionly. It reminds me of a British comedy. Tonight,
they have a big family party with about 6 or 7 kids. The whole thing
was quite noisy. I good almost see a John Cleese dialog going on among
the staff and between the staff and the party (a la Fawlty Towers).

Anyway, it was really delicious. I hope I don't regret it. It's the
first time I have not felt hungry since I came home from hospital. (I
know, it builds character and burns fat...)

I must admit that I had Spaghetti Bolognaise. That would be spaghetti
with meat sauce. I suspect beef. Maybe these guys are Muslim. I did
not see any pork on the menu, but OTOH they serve alcohol. A good
reminder that you can't drop everyone into neat, pre-existing
categories.

Gated Community

There are three entrances to my "apartment complex" and this is the only one with a gate. The sign on the gate says "Parking only for residents of Casa Lavelle" the latter being the name of one of the apartments. Why Spanish? I guess it just has a certain je ne sais quoi about it. Anyway, notice the guy on the right. He has just opened the gate by releasing the rope that holds it down, in order for a motorbike to come in.

Interesting sights ...

Comments

The thing that allows comments seems to have disappeared from a few postings. A wayward setting aparently. Anyway, if you want to comment on any of those postings that do not have the "comments" link, you can use this one.

I'm afraid some of the comments on previous mosts may also have been lost. Maybe they are in the guts of the system somewhere and will mysteriously appear at a later date. My apologies if yours was lost.

Or of course I'm happy to get mail directly too! firstname.lastname at hp dot com

My walk, guards and labor

This morning, I took a walk in Cubbon park which about 5 minutes plus
one terrifying street crossing from my apartment. It was a wonderful
thing to do. Once you get in deep enough, you find mostly sounds of
nature, not of cars. No exhaust. I've posted pictures at
http://burnsfisher.com/India2006/CubbonPark .

There is a statue of Queen Victoria at the entrance. Apparently they
erected it shortly after her death "by public subscription". Yeah, I'm
sure all the Indians in Bangalore gave plenty to honour their formor
Empress (her title something like 'Queen of England and Ireland and
Empress of India'). Well maybe the English here did.

There are also some interesting birds to be spotted in the park. One
was a large raptor that looked like a bald-headed eagle but it's body
was more of a reddish brown than a chocolate brown like the American
Bald-Headed has. Plus all kinds of ease to see but common birds like
crows, magpies, and so on.

----------------------------------

But I was going to write about labor. It is obvious everywhere you look
that unskilled labor is cheap and plentiful. Essentially every
residence and even slightly-large business has one or more guards. I
don't know if they are prepared to deal with any sort of actual crime,
but they serve all kinds of functions like preventing people from
parking in front of the driveway, ensuring people don't loiter, helping
drivers (or at least THEIR drivers) back in and out in the narrow
driveways and streets.

People own and drive their own motorscooters but if they use a taxi,
they hire the taxi not for just a trip but for 4 hours or for the day or
whatever. The driver just hangs around somewhere at your beck and call
(via cell phone) during that time.

Construction is largely done by hand (and continually around the clock
in many cases). Sand is screened manually, concrete is mixed and
carried manually, heights are reached via bamboo scaffolding.

And the oddest thing of all to me is that guard from your particular
building salutes as you go out, generally with "Good morning, sah". I
generally wave and say "hi". I have read that saying "Good morning"
puts you at equal status with the guard, which would be ok by me, but
not by him. BTW, if, in fact, I have convinced blogger to post a
picture, it will be of a residential street near my apartment. I'm not
sure if you can see the guards, but they are at each driveway.

My point about this whole thing is that it evolves from the labor
market. It's not that, say, "India is too backwards to have burglar
alarms and contruction equipment" Good grief, they can launch
satellites, they could do this other stuff if it were a priority. But
it's not. It is (1) traditional and (2) a rational response to
conditions. I also understand that I am saying this as a person of
privilege. How these unskilled workers would react to what I'm saying
is a different question.

Update on plugs

I think I was not quite right. I have a new hypothesis.

(Some of) the sockets are designed to take european plugs. In fact
2-prong plugs here seem to look like european. The same socket that
takes the big honky 3-prong plugs also takes the euro-sized plugs. The
trick is that you have to push harder than you expect. Apparently the
things that look like shutters are at last partly there to make a
tighter connection with the skinnier two-prongers. The trouble is, they
don't all have these tighter connections.

But a european thing might work or might not. Depends.

John R. said that he had a swis-army-knive like adaptor from Staples
that worked well in India last year.

Blogging in Sickness and in Health

Ok, I know some of your are going to say "I told you so". Say
away...I've been sick. Not just a little nauseaus sick. I'm talking
fever, chills, weakness, etc. I kept thinking I was getting better
(despite it seeming to be a monumental effort to stand up), but
eventually there was no denying it. My friend Nil had suggested calling
a doctor which I rejected for a while, but I finally asked him to do so.

Nil came to the apartment to lead me out to a van and driver which
carried me to see a doctor at one of the most prestigous heart hospitals
in Asia. Luckily they treat gastroenteritis as well. I was in to see a
doctor within about 10 minutes of walking up the steps. Can you believe
that? He was very nice and quite thorough. Told me the problem, that I
would get better with antibiotics and that he thought I should stay
overnight in the hospital. Not required, of course, it will just help
you be better sooner because we can re-hydrate you. Ok...I don't want
to stay like this for long, that's for sure. (Can you believe they were
WILLING to have me stay overnight for a relatively minor problem?)

Sure enough I was quickly feeling a lot better. The hospital stay was
no more nor less pleasant than any I have had (let's see, that would be
1 other time when I had my tonsils out at 11. Actually maybe the food
was worse here. I seem to remember ice cream for the tonsilectomy).
The doctor showed up in the morning, asked about how I felt, poked and
prodded and told me I could stay another day or 2 if I wanted to but I
could also leave at noon. I'll leave, I said. My friends checked with
the payment folks. No, they won't take my insurance card directly. Ok,
I figured I'd pay them with a credit card and fight with the HMO when I
get home. How much is it? Answer, about $100. And you wonder why they
have actual US and European patients coming to India specifically for
some sort of surgery. Wow! Maybe I won't fight with the HMO.

So I am just about 100% now and I can sit back and philosophize. The
first paragraph refers to some of my friends who, last year, seemed (to
me) overly anxious about personal sanitation issues here. My philosophy
both then and now has been "careful but not paranoid". Obviously I was
insufficiently paranoid this time.

Here are the issues: The ground water is fairly contaminated and the
public water supply is not to be drunk directly since it contains
microorganisms (a not uncommon situation in the world, sadly). Local
people don't generally drink it either. OTOH, bottled water is readily
available and many apartments, including mine, has a water purifier
using filters, UV light, etc. On top of that I boil my purified water.
That ought to do it. Yeah, but that's the easy part. There is water on
lots of things. The general guideline is no raw vegetables, fruits,
greens, etc unless it is something you can thoroughly and completely
peel. Ok, so how far do I take this with, say, a banana? It is
difficult to peel a banana without touching the fruit inside. But I
just touched the peel so my hands are contaminated! Use hand sanitizer.
But then I need to touch the peel again. Etc.

Well, I'll surely be a lot more careful of what I choose to eat. I
don't think I'll go into total sterility mode, though. I have some
suspicions of where my problem originated, so I'll try to avoid that
particular place, but you can never tell for sure. I guess I'll just try
small portions of novelty at a time, and back off if things start getting out of
hand.

Plugs

I know that some who are reading this are coming to India soon. I just thought I would tell you that the electrical plugs here are unique. The standard Radio Shack package does not include them. The picture (you may have to click on the little X rather than seeing it in-line with the text) shows the two Indian plugs (I suspect different amount of current) and a European adaptor. The center, and more common, plug has the same spacing as the European, but the prongs are bigger. In addition, the Indian plugs all have little shutters over the socket holes so that if the big 3rd ground pin does not go in, the other prongs are blocked. I don't know if Amazon or someone will have the appropriate adaptor. I made do with the European one for a couple days, (poking and prodding to open the shutters....not good) but they found be real Indian adaptor at work. I don't know how common they are.

(Note from 2009:  The plugs in India are mostly not as odd as I described.  In fact most are European standard.  I just had an odd set in my 2006 apartment.  The odd shape/size one is, I think, for high-current appliances)

I have a hypothesis that you can tell what technologically-adept country another country was friends with (or occupied by) during their technological development by looking at their electrical system. E.g. Hong Kong, Singapore, etc all have British-style plugs and power. India's plug actually is similar to what the UK used to have. South Korea has US-style. I wonder what Viet Nam has (European, i.e. French?) How about the Philipeans (US?). If anyone knows, I'd be interested. I think Nicaragua has US-sized prongs, but set at 45-degrees. I don't know where those originated. 

Geyser

Here is the "Geyser" (water heater) that I mentioned in a previous entry. Note that it is mounted on the wall beside the shower (and over the toilet, but I did not include that). If the picture does not work, I will get it fixed eventually. 

Pictures!

Sunday, 9:30AM. I've posted some pictures of my apartment. You can see the link off to the right of the first blog entry. I'll add more such links as time goes on. If you can't find it, the link is

http://burnsfisher.com/India2006/MyApartment

The next installment: Geysers, restaurants, and money

Before the break for an essay on pollution (note: If you ever want to
see a successful US government program, look at the Clean Air Act), I
had described my first day (when I was not very acclimated) and the
second day (when I dutifully stayed in the apartment due to the Bundh).
It is now Sunday morning and I have been to work for three days and had
a few more adventures.

First, the apartment: The first day or two I took a shower with very
good results. The water is hot, the pressure is adequate, etc. The
third day I turned on the hot water and it was...warm. And it did not
get warmer. Figuring something had gotten messed up, I finished up
pretty quickly and hopped out before things got too cold. After a while
I found out what the problem was:

Scattered all over the apartment are electrical switches. In many ways
they do not make sense to me, and the fact that (1) the switches work
backwards from US switches (up is off; that is actually more common in
the world) and (2) not all the lights work in the first place makes it
difficult to figure out what is what. You CAN always tell a three-way
switch. They have little dots on them. However, not all of them run
lights. In the bathroom, for example, there is a switch outside and
inside to control the fan. So I did a lot of turning switches on and
being sure to leave them off if I could not figure out what they were.
One bathroom switch in particular had a red pilot light on it. Oh-oh.
Some kind of heat lamp, or heated towel-rack or floor or radiator
or...??? Nope. It controls the hot water heater. You can guess the
rest. I actually found a sheet of paper admonishing guests to turn off
the "Geyser" when they leave. I think a Geyser is the hot water heater.
Actually there is one Geyser in each bathroom (why do I need two
bathrooms, you ask? Answer: I don't. That's what they gave me.) There
is no hot water piped from them to anywhere but the shower. Again, I
have seen it in other places that there is only cold water in sinks and
stuff. This was obviously planned that way.

The first couple of days I cooked my own dinners. It was pretty
pathetic till last night, when I whipped up a pretty good fried rice.
What a pain though! All those stupid little cloves of garlic to peel
and they keep skidding out of your fingers! At least I can deal with
onions and carrots and beans and rice pretty well. And I bought oil so
I was able to stir fry. Yay!

Finally Friday night I was tired of cooking and energitic enough to walk
around a bit. I went by several places that were just windows onto the
street. I did not know how to deal with them, and was not sure about
the safety, and besides I wanted to sit down and be waited on. I was
limited in where I was willing to search because it was dark and I
really did not want to get lost. There are no street signs! So I was
only willing to keep turning the same direction. (That's a simple AI
stragegy for getting a robot through a maze and it was moderately
effective for me. I think it is guaranteed correct but not optimal or
something like that). Anyway, one place I came too was very fancy
looking. I went inside the lobby and there were apparently several
restaurants inside, but there was not a soul around other than the guard
outside. (Every building has a guard, btw.) I went on. The next place
was called "Desmond's". I went in and it too was empty (we're talking
about 7:30PM now...) but the staff was there to greet me. This was
actually quite fun. The maitre d' was happy to talk to me about the
menu and about the lack of crowdedness for a Friday evening (the bar
crowd comes in later). They have BEEF steak as well as Indian, Chinese,
Italian, and maybe Korean food. Sorry, I refuse to eat beef in India.
It just seems wrong, not to mention wildly insensitive to the
predominant culture. I got Indian food...some Tandoori-cooked chicken
as a starter, a delicious curry dish, and garlic nan. (No, not NaN or
NaT. Sorry, in joke with some of my co-workers). And I got
**LEFTOVERS** to put in the fridge. Maybe I'll have that tonight,
depending on what else happens.

Speaking of food etc, very close to my apartment is a coffee shop called
"92 Degrees C", with the slogan "We Know Coffee". I suspect that 92C is
what they consider the ideal brewing temperature for coffee. I did stop
and get a cup of cappucino which was good. That brings up two
additional topics:

1) Coffee. The office has a "pantry" with powered coffee, cocoa, and
some other flavor to put in beverages. They also have a dispensor with
spigots for hot water and hot milk. This is pretty neat. Essentially
all the coffee I have had in India so far (except the cappuchino) is
instant. That's really more because I have not tried very hard to do
anything else, though. Brewed-from-grounds is available, just not
universally. But I have to say the instant is not nearly as bad as I
remember instant being.

2) Money. The unit of currency here is the rupee. There are 1, 2, and
5 rupee coins and 10, 20, 50, 100, and 500 notes. There may be more,
but that's what I have seen. The conversion factor is easy. A rupee is
about 2+ cents (exchange rate, not compared to how average salaries), so
you move the decimal left by 2 and then multiply by two. So 500 rupees
is 5.00*2 or 10 dollars. The interesting thing (and my friend Jeff who
was here for 3 weeks a few months ago warned me about this) is that many
small vendors will not accept larger bills. For example, at the coffee
shop, my cappuchino was Rs 40. He could not (or would not) take Rs100.
Luckily, I had a 50. People also typically round and/or play games with
change. I don't think it is thought of as cheating or stealing. It's
just normal. The coffee guy was very up front about it. I gave him the
fifty and he said the cappuchino cost 40, so the change was 10. How
about 5 for me and 5 for you? I think he may have been unusually
straightforward from what Jeff told me. I have been careful to
explicitly ask for change.

You know the thing is about the change, I don't care. The guy takes 10
cents and I'm going to be upset? But yet I also don't like giving the
impression that I'm an easy mark; I'd do things the way everyone else
does. But if you don't know...

The other thing about change is that there is kind of a impossible
situation there: The only way to get small bills/coins is by change, but
if no one can take large bills, and you don't always get all the change,
that's hard. I think the solution is to buy a few things in a large
store like food world.

-----

Today I had tentative plans to go with Ashlesha (one of the Indian
engineers whom I had taken to a baseball game in NH) to an Ashram
outside the city. There was some sort of special thing with music etc
going on. However, she was unable to get tickets, so instead she is
going to show me around the city today. (BTW, an Ashram is a kind of
spiritual retreat place. This one is run by a pretty famous guy; I
think there is one that he runs in Massachusetts too.) Ashesha
explained that you don't have to go there for the religious aspects; you
can also go just for the peace and quiet (an important thing missing in
Bangalore life, I might add).

By the way, I have taken only a few pictures and not many of general
interest. I was trying to show a picture of a rickshaw in the previous
blog entry but that did not seem to work well. After I take something
(maybe today?) I'll post them and let you know the location.

That's about it for now.

Namaste

Burns

Pollution and Traffic

I simply can not describe how polluted the air in the places I have been in Bangalore. It smells ofoil and gas fumes everywhere outside and occasionally inside. I hypothesise that the the reason for the high pollution is multifold. Here are a few reasons:1) A large part of the traffic consists of auto-rickshaws. These things are hard to describe if you have not seen them. They are three-wheeled vehicles with a driver in the front seat and room for two people (maybe 3 if you squeeze) in the back. Driving controls look like a motorcycle in that you have hand brakes and handlebar steering. I don't know about gearshifts, accelerator, etc. But the most important thing about these things is that they have two-cycle engines. Two-cycle engines are lightand cheap, but their big disadvantage is that you mix lubricating oil with the gasoline, and theexhaust thus is somewhat blue and smells of oil. Oh, yes, and the gas mixture does not burn ascompletely as it would in a 4-cycle engine.2) There are lots of diesel trucks. I don't know if they are any worse polluters than diesel trucks in the US, but you can sure smell them.3) There are enormous numbers of cars!4) And thus traffic is slow which means more idling. On top of all this, blowing the horn is a normal part of driving in Bangalore. I don't say that jokingly or with the intent of being facetiously dramatic. Rather than "get out of my way, you jerk" drivers in Bangalore use the horn to mean "be careful, I'm here". Going around a corner? Blow your horn. Going up a ramp? Blow your horn. Changing lanes? You know... So altogether the traffic is very intimidating. You are completely on your own crossing the street as a pedestrian. Try to avoid it. Don't even think about driving. If you follow the rules of driving in the UK or the US, you will be completely out of your league. Just rent a car with a driver; taxis also rent by the hour or day. 

The Bandh/Bundh

I spent the entire day Wednesday in the apartment. That sounds like the prelude to me saying I was sick, right? Nope...I'm perfectly healthy. The reason I stayed inside on Wednesday was because of the Bandh. Or maybe the Bundh. Depends on whose transliteration you use, I guess. I have it written in Hindi on my whiteboard, but I don't think I can put that in the blog. Interesting transliteration fact: The "H" at the end makes the "d" harder. In other words, w/o the H you say band. With the H you say ban-*d* almost a second syllable.

Anyway, bundh literally means "closed"; it was a work stoppage or general strike. Why? Because the central government of India wants to move the town of Belgaum, on the Karnataka/Maharashtra border, from Karnataka state to Maharashtra. Not surprisingly, Karnatakans don't like that idea. (Karnataka is where Bangalore is. Maharashtra is where Mumbai/Bombay is.)

What is all this really about? Not taxes. An important thing to know is that Indian states were set up along lines of cultural differences. Each state has 3 official languages: English, Hindi, and the local language. For example, the local language in Tamil Nadu is Tamil; the local language in Karnataka is Kannada, etc. Originally, Belgaum was part of the "Bombay State". In 1956 things were re-organized and Belgaum was assigned to "Mysore State". Those two states are now
Maharashtra and Karnataka. M. state has been protesting ever since the re-assignment saying that there are more Maharashtrians in Belgaum than K-ians.

A bunch of things happened to lead to a Bandh. A famous movie star (Rajkumar) died last year; he was a big pro-Karnataka supporter. He was very well loved (his death caused riots), and his memory is being invoked in this dispute. In addition the coalition in power in Karnataka is perhaps a bit shaky right now. Some speculate that by showing support for a Bandh they may regain some popularity.

So what happened is that nearly all businesses in the city closed. The hi-tech engineering places closed (but are making it up on Saturday). Call centers transferred calls to other cities. There was little transportation; few shops open, etc. Cable companies turned off all non-Karnataka channels (depriving many of their daily soap opera). There were supposed to be demonstrations, but apparently nothing got out of hand. According to the news, "Government employees' association is supporting the strike and so are auto-drivers' unions, but buses will
ply" I think they actually ply-ed on a holiday schedule.

I think that this is just one example of what a passionate land India is. We think of ourselves as passionate, I think, but can you imagine people in, say, Berlin NH going on strike for a day to protest the the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard going to Maine rather than NH? Maybe the
difference is that we are talking about real issues of culture here and not "just" economic issues (as in NH vs ME).

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So today the Bundh is over and I am at work in my temporary office. Besides writing this, I am doing my normal work, saying hello to a lot of old and new friends and aquaintences, finding my way around, and getting used to the time zone.

I had cornflakes for breakfast in the apartment, but I went to lunch in the cafeteria here. All Indian food, not surprisingly. We got papaya, banana, rice, and some really delicious sauces; a green pea soup, some dal (lentil soup), yoghurt (aka curds), and some fresh hot chapati (flat
breads; think tortilla) and a nice dessert of some sort...a creamy sauce/pudding of some sort. Yes, we ate with our fingers (although we also had spoons for the pudding and soup; I sort of alternated between using the chapati to dob up stuff and using the spoon). There is a special wash room to wash your hands afterwards (since they are greasy and/or saucy).

That's it for now...

Oops...formatting problems

Sorry about the formatting in the previous blog. I'll try to keep it
more narrow the next time.

Burns

My first day in India

Bangalore, 8:AM Wednesday morning, India Standard Time.

I was picked up by the airport transportation service on Sunday afternoon at about 5:15. They had called ahead to say they would be a bit late due to Boston traffic. It turns out that this was only the first of many such indicidents. For the first time (maybe ever!) I actually had TWO suitcases. I took two pairs of shoes (one a bit dressier...my wife will laugh at me saying this, and one pair of boots for dealing with rain/mud/etc). Shoes take up an enormous amount of space. Plus I need more shirts than usual; T-shirts are my normal attire even at work, but things are are less informal. Even laborers wear shirts. Not really knowing how the laundry would work, I also brought extra pants and stuff.

We got to Logan with no problem. The new International terminal is
pretty nice! Last time I was there, you had to walk around scaffolding,
follow temporary signs, etc. This time you walk in and there you are!
I had not trouble checking in, but that was when I found that my flight
had been delayed from 9:05 to 10:15 or something like that. Luckily
there was not going to be connection problem. I had 4 hours or more in
London. Security was somewhat more stringent than usual, but not really
troublesome since I had not packed any liquids, and I already knew stuff
like separating my computer from the rest of the luggage and taking off
my shoes.

I decided to book aisle seats this time. As much as I love looking out
the window, when flying alone, having some space on one side and the
ability to get up, walk around, and go the the bathroom at will becomes
more important. Plus there is not much to see over the Atlantic. This
was a very good move, especially on the second flight. On this flight,
there was a man with very wide shoulders in the middle seat. It was
difficult to avoid bumping shoulders, but neither of us minded that
much. He probably had more problem than I did, although his wife was at
the window seat, so he should share some of her space.

Two meals, many pages of a new book, and maybe an hour or 2 of sleep
later, we arrived in London. They had made up most of the time! Turns
out we had a helacious tail wind. The screen showed a ground speed of
more than 700MPH sometimes (fast than sound, except it was not because
the air was moving with us) It never ceases to amaze me how such an
ENORMOUS plane as a 747 (-400 in this case for you affectionados) can be
so powerful and gentle. I always get goose bumps when it takes off
thinking about what it looks like from the outside. And the landing was
as gentle as I have ever seen. How can that be?!

London Heathrow has apparently gotten out of crisis mode and into "we
can deal with this" mode after the arrests in August. We did not go
outside of the secure area, but in order to LEAVE LHR, we needed to go
throuh an extra security check. It was again no real problem. My
backpack was well within the size reqirements.

When I got to the gate, I found that <SURPRISE!> the flight was delayed
an hour. When we finally got on, they said they could make up a lot of
the time. But then we sat around for another hour. First the on board
video system was down so after fiddling for a while, they gave the
safety demo by hand. Then they missed their air traffic slot and hand
to wait for another. All in all another hour on the ground. After we
took off, they re-booted the video system and all was well. They did
make up the first hour, but we still ended up one hour late.

It was a bit spooky to see our course on the map. Although we were at
40,000 feet, we were still fairly near if not over Lebanon and either
Iraq or Iran. We may have flown over Afghanistan too...at least we flew
along the west side of Pakistan before finally crossing into India in
the vicinity of Mumbai.

This flight was very nice, actually. I was seated one row behind the
bulkhead, so while I did not have the legroom of a bulkhead seat, I did
have some of the visual space that it affords. It did not feel so
crowded. In addition, the middle seat was unoccupied, so my row
companion and I both used to to put stuff on. The food was surprisingly
good too. My row companion (an woman, probably from India) would
disagree, but I was surprised. Dinner was a choice of chicken or "Asian
Vegetarian". Now I would have though Asian Veg was "oriental". No, it
was Indian. Makes sense, but I suppose they did not want to call it
that since it could also have been Pakistani or any number of other
countries. It was rice with some Dal (lentil soup) on one side and some
sort of okra-based spicy sauce on the other. Very tasty and not too
salty (the biggest problem with Indian food in the US, IMHO). Breakfast
consisted of a samosa (potato in a dough wrapper, deep fried), pakora
(vegetable fritters), and something I could not identify which was the
best of the group. I asked my row companion about it; she said it was
Paneer Cutlet and not a very good example of it. (Paneer is cheese).
She thought all the food was insufficiently hot, crisp, etc by her
standards. I don't disagree, especially with the pakora, but still
thought it was pretty good for airline food.

Being late had an advantage...apparently we were the only plane that
landed at that time (about 5:30AM) so the lines were modest. I got
through immigration, got my bags (both arrived...yay!) and got through
customers (green line, no waiting) in record time. I got out into the
more public area and found ... No one that I recognized. Oops. I dug
out the phone number of my contacts (Nil and Prashanth), called, and it
turned out that they had found out the flight was delayed and were
waiting off-site for a bit. They were caught off guard by how quickly I
got out. I just waited in the building by the door until they arrived
in about 10 minutes. No problem. Luckily the mobile phone that they
gave me at work actually worked and I figured out what part of the
number to dial :-)

Nil and Pras took me to my apartment to give me a chance to drop my
suitcases and wash up a bit, and then we went out for breakfast. Did I
want Indian breakfast or cornflakes? Ha ha! Silly question (to me at
least.) When in India... So we went to a restaurant that was serving a
breakfast buffet. However, we ordered off the menu. What an
interesting bunch of stuff. I'm not sure I can remember the names.
However, there were three sauces that we dipped all items in; one was
called chutney (which means "mix of stuff", (my Dave Barry imitation,
but really pretty close to the truth) in this case it was different from
mango chutney that you might have at US Indian restaurant). There was
also a yoghurt sauce, which was NOT raitta; it was minty but also spicy.
The other was a dal-like curry/lentil/other. And what we had to dip in
to it were: 1) Things are like donuts, but not sweet. In fact they
have some peppers in them. 2) Hmmm. I can't remember. 3) I think Pras
said it was poori; however I am familiar with one kind of poori and this
was quite different. Mine was a flat flour-based (fried?) circle maybe
6 or 8 inches in diameter topped with onions. Really wonderful! Pras
and Nil both had versions of the same thing that were a glossy brown and
curled up from cooking and had some sort of filling.

By now it was maybe 8 and they took me back to the apartment to relax
with a promise to come for lunch. I took a shower, set my alarm for 11
("just in case" :-) and lay down on the bed to read and relax. My
thoughts drifted off... :-) Luckily I woke up about noon and realized
that while I had set the alarm (1) it was set for 11PM and (2) I had not
turned it on. Luckily(2) Nil did not come until 12:30 or so. We went
to a Chinese restaurant for a pretty light lunch (wonton soup and some
veg dish on rice. And then went to visit the office where I will be
working.

There is one HP office within 5 minutes walk of the apartment, and there
is a shuttle (they call it a taxi; I had to get clear that it was not a
car-for-hire but rather an HP thing). In fact there are HP buildings
all over the place! Lots of different engineering groups, call centers,
etc besides VMS. The buildings have names (I think this is not internal
HP names, but somehow that is common all over). The nearby office is
"Emerald". The one where I am working is "Embassy Icon". They sound
like military operation names. Anyway, we took the shuttle to Embassy
Icon and went up to the floor. What a neat thing to see. The whole
floor is given over to VMS Engineering. There were signs with familiar
product names hanging all over the place. A lot of celebratory
decorations were still around for the 10th anniversary of VMS in India.
I tell you it just felt SO good to see so many people working on VMS.
There were also a lot of familiar faces around. Of course with 17 (or
is it 27?) currently in Nashua, I did not really see the whole group.

They are giving me an office to use; there is a conference room nearby
for discussions. I got the impression that long conversations in the
cube are frowned on. This makes sense given that many cubes have more
than 1 person and the walls are pretty short.

Then off to the grocery store (Food World; Nil said "Food World feeds
India" somewhat tongue in cheek). I suddenly realized that I was tasked
with getting stuff that I could prepare and eat. A challenge since I
did not know what a lot of things were and I was not entirely
confortable with what would be ok for a western-acclimated digestive
system. (Not to put too fine a point on it, one must be careful of tap
water, raw vegetables, etc etc). I finally got some mini-bananas
(plaintains?) which can be peeled, some bread, cookies, milk (ultra high
temp pasteurized), green beans, rice, yoghurt, noodles, and a clove of
garlic. What I forgot was oil, so the garlic won't be much use yet. I
also need to get some cheese or something at some point. There was no
meat at the grocery that I could see other than canned tuna and some
sort of spam-like thing. That's ok for the moment. Kind of a pathetic
array of food, but I'll figure out more later.

I had had a lot to eat, so I did not really need much dinner. I made
myself some noodles and a plantain (yes I had Ramen noodles!) It was
delicious! By that time I was really ready for bed, so off I went.

More later...