Rain, rain, don't go away.

The monsoon is here 10 days early, which means the rains have started!
That's wonderful news. It rained big about 10 days ago and cooled
everything down but I think it was a local thunderstorm. It got hot
again and last Sunday was the presumably the first big rain of the
monsoons. It was a massive downpour, accompanied by hail. The
temperatures dropped by about 10 C (20 F). It got so cold that the
next morning I hesitated to shower in the cold tap water. (Note to my
real estate agent who looked at me like I was an idiot for buying a
water heater in the summer - Who's the idiot now?)

The smell of Indian soil when it rains is the best in the world. I'd
give up TV for a week just for one whiff of that smell. Heck, I'd give
up one or upto two meals for that smell. It's terrific. I'm still
waiting for that dull rain, where it slides in slowly, starts, hits a
peak, and just plateau's out at decent pace and stays that way for a
couple of hours, stopping rarely. Now that's some good rain.

A rose by any other name

You know how I'm the king of all movie trivia? Yeah, you know it, I
don't need to say it. But I recently lost a movie bet. Yeah, I'm
shocked too.

I was having lunch with some guys from work, the IT guys. We were just
talking about some random topics and somehow the topic of dogs came up
and someone said, "You know I saw this movie recently, with his guy
who's raised as a dog and he has a leash and there's this black guy
too." And I immediately knew what movie they were talking about.
I asked him, "Are you talking about Jet Li?"
"Yes!"
"And Morgan Freeman?"
"Yes, that's the guy."
"Yeah, the name of the movie is 'Unleashed'."
"No dude, it's called Danny something ... got it, it's 'Danny the Dog'."
"That's ridiculous, Danny the Dog sounds like a Disney movie. I'm sure
it's Unleashed."
"Wanna bet?"
"Sure, how about pizza and coke."

We went to check Wikipedia (since IMDB is blocked at work) and I was
shocked to learn that the movie I've known all this while as
Unleashed, was released as Danny the Dog in India (and maybe some
other Asian countries). That's bizzare! As I looked up more stuff, I
realized that this is a very common concept. For eg, "Fast and
Furious" was released as "The Fast and The Furious: Part 4". One of
the movies in the Species series (part 3 I think) was released as
"Species Unleashed", so I guess there is no ban on the word
"Unleashed" itself. Of course, there's the famous story of how "From
Russia with Love" was released as "From Bond with Love" since India
didn't want to piss off USA and UK by giving them the wrong idea. (I
don't know where to begin correcting the flaws in THAT logic.) All of
this dual name business is throwing me off my game. Not cool.

(Regarding the bet itself, I explained that both of us were right, but
the guy insisted that I was wrong since I bet that the "movie's name
is NOT Danny the Dog". I didn't mind paying up since it wasn't a big
deal but I got mad when the guy asked me to pay for a big pizza order,
including two cokes and breadsticks that he ordered. He was trying to
treat his entire team to pizza at my expense. I refused to pay up and
told him that what he was doing wasn't fair. He kept insisting that it
was a normal pizza order, but I stuck to my ground. Not a great start
to a relationship but while this won't make me his best friend, I just
hope he doesn't screw me over on IT work!)

A few pictures

This is the exhaust fan at my office. Since this is a very new building, most of the fixtures weren't ready by the time we had moved in. Things like desks, lunch tables and exhaust fans for the bathrooms were placed on a "per request" basis. And I was begging them for an exhaust fan by the time it arrived. Only, the genius who installed it, forgot to remove the glass pane in front of it! So we have a fan that just recirculates the wonderful aroma of the bathroom. I guess this is much better than the bathroom downstairs which didn't have an exhaust fan either, except their bathroom could only be accessed through the kitchen! So not only could neither room be used comfortably the other was occupied, after using the bathroom, the odors had only the kitchen to escape to. Just a very pleasant dining experience for everyone.

This is the adapter for my wireless router. I left it turned on all day long as I went to work and in the Chandigarh heat it melted. But best part of all is that it still works. I just have to be careful not to leave it turned on again or I might not have an apartment to go back to.

This is a carpet I saw being sold on the street here. In case you don't recognize that logo, that's the logo of the University of Alabama Crimson Tide. Either there is a huge demand for Crimson Tide memorabilia from a hidden population of Crimson Tide alumni here, or the tendency to steal logos and print them on random items has gone a step too far. I mean, I can understand finding Yankees and Bulls hats here, but this is too much!

Sometimes, when I go into an anti-North Indian rant, people look at me like I'm a bigot. I'm really not, I don't hate all North Indians without discrimination. I pick and choose the ones to hate. Like the guy who made this sign. He clearly thinks that South India and China are neighboring countries of India. Thank you so much for helping me make my point. (In case anyone is wondering - Yes, we do have signs that advertise North Indian food in the South, but those restaurants don't contrast that with South Indian food by calling it "Indian food".)

Another "Daftar" gem

We have a water cooler in our office, the kind that takes in one of
those 20-liter bottles. In the morning, I was filling up my water
bottle with water as he stood behind me. I finished filling mine and
he filled him, and then took a sip of water from his bottle. "It's not
cold. I don't think the cooler is working." "No," I explained, "I just
filled my bottle so all the cold water is probably gone. It'll take a
while for it to cool some more water." "No, no, I don't think it's
working." He'd drawn a conclusion from his data and he wasn't going to
be corrected. I wanted to give him my bottle to show him that the
cooler was working, but I didn't want his brain to blow a fuse from
the contradiction.

Another episode of "The Daftar"

(Title suggested by a very smart chap from Austin. "Daftar" is Hindi for "Office".)

The office has two clocks, one of them has a piece of paper with the word "Houston" being held against it. The clocks were just set up by the manager, who set the Houston clock to IST minus ten hours (when it should actually be IST minus ten and a half hours) and turns to us with a very proud look on his face and clears his throat to draw attention to the clock. He has taken a printout of the word "Houston" in a large font and is holding it up against the clock. "See, now we can tell the time in Houston."

Me (not impressed): Actually the time in Houston should be 30 minutes less than what you have there.

Manager spends another 3 three minutes changing the minutes field, which he isn't sure how to do. By the time he gets it right, I have to point out to him that he needs to add another 3 minutes to make up for the time elapsed.

Scene commences about 20 minutes or so after the clocks were set.

Time: 5:18pm IST (6:48 am CST).

Colleague (fellow engineer, very young): So our meeting with the Houston office is at 8am CST?
Manager (senior ... well, the less said the better): Yes.
C (not sure of himself): So, that will be another ...?
M: Another hour and a half, man.
(a beat, while the manager turns his head to look at the clock and mentally tries to calculate the difference between 8am and 6:48am)
M: Actually it's in another hour, man.
(another beat while he looks at the clock again)
M: Actually an hour and 10 minutes, isn't it?
Me (putting gun in mouth): Please, just pull the trigger.

Too hot to function

It was going to be hot here. That much I knew. But I wasn't prepared for the intensity. I've never been exposed to consecutive days of temperatures above 100F. Days get that hot in the US, in the Austin/Houston areas but we always have the luxury of air conditioning. None of that for me here. Just my trusty air-cooler (swamp cooler), which does a decent job upto 100F, but beyond that it is basically helpless.

I am running into odd problems with this heat. Almost all the appliances in the apt heat up. One in particular is the voltage converter for my wireless router, and the router itself. So my internet will stop working suddenly. The laptop itself heats up if I put it on the bed so I have to balance the laptop at the end of the bed (or table) so the processor can "breathe".

For cooling water, I use an earthen pot. It's fantastic. It doesn't give ice cold water but it's cool enough to drink when I return home.

I would complain more but it rained yesterday - a thunderstorm with hail that went on for a couple of hours - and I am now very placated. It's cool.

Need to learn to count in Hindi

I really need to learn the Hindi numbers fast. Pune was OK because you could manage with English number a lot. But here, you need to pretty much be able to deal with Hindi for the numbers. The thing is, with Tamil numbers, they are similar to Telugu numbers in terms of how the words are formed, both of which are similar to English numbers as well. For eg: 42 is forty-two, you say the word for "forty" then the word for "two" and just put them together with some "glue" sound. But in Hindi, you say the numbers as "two and forty". And that's just the beginning. The words for 29, 39 etc are "one less than thirty" and "one less than forty" etc.

BTW, all this is new to me. I only learned this much after some extensive googling. When someone says a number I have to translate that in my head like a code and then when I need to say a number back I need to form the code in my head and spit it out. You can imagine how frustrating it is when I need to bargain with someone! Usually I pretend I didn't hear the number the first time, or pretend to be examining the fruit or thinking about something when I have to bargain. I swear, on atleast one occasion when the vendor asked for a certain price (I think Rs. 20) I tried to bargain by offering him a greater amount (Rs. 40). Luckily he thought I was being rude and just walked away instead of taking me for a ride.

A matter of geography (or, "Washington America lo vundi kada babu?")

Before I narrate a recent phone conversation I had, you should know some basics. I live in a city called Panchkula, which is in the state of Haryana. Panchkula and Mohali are adjacent cities to Chandigarh and this whole area with these three cities is called the "Tri-City" area. (They're not IN Chandigarh.) Chandigarh is not in any state, it's a seperate Union Territory (sort of like special territories in the US). Chandigarh is sometimes referred to as a city, which is acceptable. It's the capital of both Punjab and Haryana, but isn't in either state, because, like I just said, it's a Union Territory by itself. Just like Delhi isn't in any city but is a Union Territory.

I got a call from my internet provider wanting to check up on my status and ask if the service was good etc. After a few questions he came to the part about my address check:

"So sir, your address is Flat #300, Society no. 20, Mansa Devi Complex, Sector-5, Panchkula, Chandigarh, Punjab, PIN code ... "
"Wait, Panchkula isn't in Chandigarh, it's in Haryana."
"Ok sir, so blah blah blah, Sector-5, Panchkula, Haryana, Punjab, PIN code ..."
(At this point I was laughing so hard I could barely speak)
"No, Haryana is a different state, it's not in Punjab, which is another state entirely."
"Ok sir, so are you in Chandigarh?"
"No, I'm in Panchkula, which is in Haryana."
"Ok sir, so what do you want me to remove from this address?"
"Just replace Chandigarh, Punjab with Haryana."

I get it that not a lot of people are familiar with a small town like Panchkula but come on, you gotta know that Haryana and Punjab are different states, right?

South Indian food and books!

Two things I was sorely missing. When I woke up I wasn't sure I'd have the energy to travel to Chandigarh, due to my upset stomach which had been rejecting everything I had been putting into it for almost a whole week. By noon I decided that I would go find a S. Indian restaurant even if it killed me. (And it nearly did.) Upon advice from my flatmates I picked the closest restaurant, called Sundarams. To be fair, it was an fullblown S. Indian restaurant. I was so weak, tired and hungry by the time I sat down that I didn't even really study the menu, I just ordered a Thali. The food was good, everything rated as "sufficiently S. Indian" but falled short of "really authentic". They had really small glasses and in my dehydrated state I kept emptying the glasses regularly but the waiter didn't refill them as often as I'd like. Normally this is a serious offense with me, but being as this is the only S. Indian restaurant I've seen so far, I didn't want to pick a fight with anyone there in case I had to eat there again.

I took an rickshaw to the bank to withdraw some money. The driver regaled me with tales of the elections, whose results were coming in just then. Apparently there were going to be celebrations in the city that evening, which I'd have loved to attend if I was feeling better. His Hindi sounded much better than the Hindi I was used to hearing in Chandigarh, and he told me that he was UP, from the very same city that the waitress' son is contesting now - Amethi. We talked about who was winning and who lost their seats etc.

After the bank I got details about a few bookstores from the British Library over there. Browsers is a library/bookstore. They sell used books, but only at a 25% discount (I miss Half-price books). It was here, while was browsing through the store, that I realized how weak I felt. I was sitting in a chair and actually considered just falling down and subsequently be carried to a hospital for an IV drip. It didn't seem very cool to do that so I took a nap instead. That brought back some energy and I purchased a couple of books before walking out. I wanted to check out the other stores in that area but I thought it would be better if I took some rest at home. After all, I do need to save some for the next visit to the city. Next trip - more book stores and a restaurant called "Barbeque nation" which seems like a grilled version of "Melting Pot". All I need now is a date :)

Food over here

Recently some idiot wrote a blog post about how the food in Pune was subpar and he was glad to be leaving Pune. Well, shoot him if you see him, will you? I'd switch the food over here with Pune food in about 0.002 seconds. Before you wonder, no, the food here isn't bad. It's very tasty, infact, it's the type of food I used to crave when I was young. As a S. Indian, going out to eat N. Indian food was a special treat. So I could never get enough of it when I was younger. But eating it daily? It's terrible. It's like only having Pizza to eat, morning, noon and night. And I'm not even talking about how unhealthy all this oily food is.

The lucky break was in finding a tiffin box delivery guy. It's pretty cheap and he makes his food with considerably less oil than the restaurants - which is still 10 times the oil I used to cook with. But even his breakfast is hard to eat - he delivers two alu parathas which are very tasty, but way too oily to eat first thing in the morning. I had him stop delivering it, expecting to eat my own breakfast every morning. Problem is that the restaurants here don't open till 9:30am - even the ones that claim to serve breakfast! Who eats breakfast at 9:30am on a weekday??? So now I've been starving each morning and that has given me major stomach aches all week long.

So now I am trying some bread/jam/PBJ for breakfast (yeah, you can get PBJ here, but no sambar!) but I dunno how long that'll last without a fridge. I never thought I'd say this but I really miss Pune food. :(

Amritsar Trip: Interesting people on the way (including a thief)

Here are some characters I met on my trip:

1) The guy on the auto: This is the guy that got on the auto with me as I was heading to the bus stop. He was very nice in offering to show me the way and just stopped short of actually helping me get on the bus. Nice guy. Except for one thing. He asked me about what I do and I said I was an engineer. He asked me if I didn't want to do an MBA. First off, that was an odd remark. But it later turned out that he was trying to get an MBA so that explained a little, but he still talked as though every engineer was supposed to get an MBA! And then he asked me what my salary was! Amazing how dense some people in India get. I had to politely tell him that I didn't want to share that information. He just stared at me.

2) The Punjabi old lady in the temple: At the Durgiana temple, I was just strolling around the compound when this nice old lady asked me for the time. Or rather, I just heard the word "time" and some hindi-ish words and I responded with the time. Then she noticed the camera around my neck and said "Take a picture of me" and I smiled and was actually about to ask her to pose but she continued talking. And at this point I realized that she wasn't talking in Hindi, but in Punjabi! They sound alike to a certain point but beyond generalities like we just exchanged it gets harder to decipher. But I could guess in a broad sense what she was saying - she was narrating a funny anecdote. Something about her daughter and rice and presumably something to do with a camera, since the camera triggered her monologue. I didn't want to interrupt her and tell her I wasn't following, so I just played along, laughing at the right moments (it's not hard to take your cues from the other person about that) and at some point she got serious in her narration and I soberly nodded my head. I was hoping she wouldn't ask any follow up questions and luckily she didn't. She finished her anecdote on a big flourish and walked away just as she delivered the punchline. I just laughed with her and walked away shaking my head at the whole incident.

3) The thief at the hotel: To be clear, this was actually the manager of the hotel. When I landed in Amritsar, I just walked into the first hotel that said "A/C rooms" and asked the manager for the price, he said "Rs. 550" and I agreed to check in. I checked out before noon and after my sightseeing, I checked back into the same hotel since the other hotels were either full or were too expensive. On the third day, as I was getting ready to leave, the manager calls me aside and tells me, "If the owner of the hotel sees you, tell him that you're paying Rs. 450 for the room." "What the hell?" I asked, "You've been overcharging me and pocketing the rest?" "Yes," he tells me with a smile. I was too shocked to get outraged. And tired. And a little amused actually. So I told him that I will keep quiet if he pays me half of what he overcharged me. (In retrospect, I should asked for all the money back but like I said, I wasn't thinking straight from all the heat and exhaustion.) He gave me Rs. 30! I let it go. But after I reached home, I realized that I accidentally took the remote control from the room with me. Evens out?

4) The cab driver: This was the cab driver who took me to the Wagah border. The entire trip I was worried that at some point he would just pull over and rob me, and either leave me stranded or just kill me. Luckily neither happened. Instead he shared lots of tales about politics in Amritsar. (Did you know former Cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu is contesting from there?)  He also explained those fires I saw on the fields (turns out they burn the stalks after the harvest to avoid having to uproot them individually). He was a farmer so that was he knew a lot about this. Shrewd guy though. I bargained him down from Rs. 700 to Rs. 650, but he took the Rs. 50 from me anyway, calling it "Parking fees". I didn't want to make a big deal since I had a good time.

Amritsar Trip: The Golden Temple

I took a rickshaw to get to the Golden Temple on Saturday morning. The first surprise of the whole trip was when the rickshaw didn't know where the Golden Temple was. I estimated he was cycling in a north-westerly direction (based on the Sun) and I knew that the temple was in a south-easterly direction from the hotel. So after a few minutes I asked him if he knew where he was going and at that point he started asking people for directions. It was bizzare, sort of like going to Agra and meeting a native who didn't know where the Taj Mahal was. (Later I was told that this might be a ploy to get more money out of me, he did charge Rs. 20 while usually they charge only Rs. 10 to go there.)

And there it was, in all its shining glory. My first impression was that it was a nice combination of devout pilgrims and casual tourists with cameras, with neither bothering the other too much. I loved it. It radiated a certain peaceful atmosphere, with devotional songs being played over the speakers. There were pilgrims taking dips inside the holy pond.

(I read somewhere that the GT was the most visited shrine in India - it's not even close. I finished my "darshan" in about 30 minutes, and even considered going a second time. I dare anyone to even think of doing two darshans in a day in Tirupathi.)

One thing I was repeatedly reminded of was to cover my head the entire time I was in the Temple. And while I had my own kerchief to tie around my head, there were bucketfuls of pieces of cloth to pick for those without. I was very nervous heading inside, since, as with any religious establishment you have to be sensitive to the traditions and rules over there. For one, I didn't know if I could take pictures in there. So I asked a person who was looked like a palace guard if I could take pictures. With a small smile he told me to take as many pictures as I wanted, and then proceeded to tell me to protect myself from pickpockets etc. It was to be a repeating theme. No one ever strictly forbid me from anything or forced me to do anything during my visit there. The guy in the baggage storage suggested that I might want to leave my bag there since it might inconvenience other pilgrims while going to see the Guru Granth Sahib. The only exception came while sitting at the pool around the temple - I was asked not to sit with my feet in the pool, or even with my feet on the step above the watel level. This is presumably disrespectful to the pool, which is not any random pond after all. But even that was conveyed politely.

Another striking thing I noticed about the GT was the "seva" population. Apparently a lot of people volunteer there, and perform a large number of duties. They man the baggage storage room, they serve water, they even man the shoe storage shed. After I went to retrieve my shoes, I asked them if I needed to pay anything and the lady just folded her arms in a namaste. I was touched. You can buy prasad before you enter the temple and then you can offer it to the temple - either all of it or half, in which case the person in charge of collecting the prasad cuts the prasad (which is sort of like sweet wheat) with a knife (presumably his and dumps half of it in a communal bucket and gives you the rest. I think the devotees are served this prasad after their darshan.

After coming back from Wagah that evening, the cab driver suggested I visit the temple at night again. And I did. It was beautiful, and even more peaceful. I seriously considered just laying down there on the marble surrounding the pool and drifting off into sleep but I was really worried about mosquitoes and didn't want to take a chance. Maybe another time.

Amritsar Trip: Retreat at the Border

After seeing the Golden Temple on Saturday, it was time to go see some terrorists, I mean Pakistanis. The border is about 30 kms from Amritsar and we passed a lot of fields on the way. "People don't build houses here," the driver explained, "They don't know when the next war is going to be." We reached the border about 30 mins after they opened the gates, and while we could have got better seats if we reached earlier, we'd have been roasting in the Sun and bored. I was disappointed to note that we would be rather far away from the border - the closest I got to it was about 30 metres. They split up the men and women on our side, presumably because there's too much jostling and they didn't want any hanky-panky. (On the Pakistani side though they actually seated the men and women on two different sides of the road.) So in increasing order of distance from the border we had VVIP's, VIP's, women and men. One of my biggest disappointments was in noting that the VVIPs and VIPs were mostly White. I thought we got our independence from Whitey a while ago, but apparently we still feel the need to worship Whitey over the common Indians. There was a White chick in a tank top who was jumping up and down as she got to her seat. She forgot to wear a certain garment and was basically falling out of her shirt. And then, during a crucial part of the ceremony where the soldiers gave flags to some girls and ask them to run to the border and back, this White chick ran to join the flag-runner (and again, almost falling out of her shirt). It bothered me a bit to see a non-Indian carry the flag, but I'm learning to live with disappointment.

The atmosphere was charged. There were patriotic songs blaring over the speakers from both sides. You could tell that the other side was doing the same, but you couldn't actually listen to the songs (by design I assume). In fact, the entire ceremony was symmetric from what I could tell, with a few exceptions. After the girls ran to the border and back with the Indian flag (on the Pakistani side there was just one guy dancing and waving the flag), they played some danceable patriotic songs and all the girls gathered there were dancing (only on the Indian side again, apparently Sharia law is already in effect in Pakistan).

Then came the synchronized posturing and sharp movements, kicking the air etc. The guide who was with me told me that these BSF guys, especially who participate in this show, are recruited for their height - they are very tall. What struck me is how well the guys on both sides synced up their movements so for example they'd each walk from their cabin and reach the border at the same time and face off. They even shouted out matching slogans like "Hindustan Zindabad" and "Pakistan Zindabad" in unison so you couldn't hear the other side.

The whole evening was fun, I don't think anyone left feeling more agitated. Everyone knew it was just posturing. I left with mixed feelings. I knew that I still hate that country and everything it represents. But, it also made me think of the Mahabharata because for all the anger and hatred, these are basically my long lost cousins. And I really wish we could be "friends" again. But it's too late for that. They're too brainwashed for that.

Amritsar Trip: The funnest temple ever!!!

One of the places I was told to check out was the "Vaishno Mata" mandir, which was supposed to be related to the Vaishno Devi mandir in Jammu. It was last on my list of priorities but the cab driver to the Wagah border offered to take me there before we headed out to the border, so I went. At glance it looked like a regular temple, with idols in recesses in the walls etc. Then I saw a sign that said, "Way to Vaishno Mata temple" and it led me to stairs. What followed can only be described as a combination of a jungle gym and an obstacle course, with Hindu Idols thrown in! We climbed up ramps, climbed down stairs, crawled through caves and even waded through a small river - all inside the building. Apparently the idea behind the temple was to simulate the trip to see the Vaishno Devi temple in Jammu, so they included all these ramps and caves. I kept thinking to myself as I walked around the temple - if I was a kid, I would insist on coming to this temple everyday! Apart from the fun factor, they included pretty much every deity from all over India - Kanyakumari, Balaji, the 12 Jyotirlingas etc. Very secular, within a Hindu context.

I actually found out that you were allowed to take pictures in this temple very late, toward the end of the "ride". So I came back to this temple a second time, just to take pictures and videos! But I realized why they should ban cameras in temples when I saw some people actually POSING next to the idols to take their pictures with the idols. One guy was doing a "namaste" to the idol, with his eyes on the camera - real classy!

 

Definitely worth checking out for anyone who goes to Amritsar.

Amritsar - Getting there

This weekend was a fun trip to Amritsar. As of Friday morning, I wasn't sure if I was going because it seemed a little risky to go without making solid plans for accommodation etc. But I decided that this weekend would be much more comfortable than next weekend since work would pick up by then. So it was now or ... much later. I got on a share auto going to Chandigarh, without knowing how to get to the bus stop. Luckily the guy who on the auto with me was also going there, so I just followed him. At the bus shelter again, I was wondering where I would buy tickets and it turned out that you buy the tickets on the bus itself and there was a bus ready to leave. I even got a window seat because the erstwhile occupant decided to get on a different bus.

We were off. It was a five-hour ride. The big indications that we were leaving Chandigarh and entering Punjab were the green fields on both sides of the road, and a slow but steady increase in Gurumukhi signboards for shops. The bus driver started playing Punjabi songs and lots of folks dozed off after a while - it was a very unique experience to just be there.

At a bus stop on the way I wanted to grab a snack and found what looked like a veggie sandwich - white bread, no crust and some white filling. I thought it was cheese at worst. Oh, it was worse than that - it was some cold slaw type filling, something sweet and tasting like cabbage. And it stunk. I could barely eat a couple of bites.

We reached the city and I began asking the conductor if there were any places to stay. I had been getting a little anxious as we got close to the city, wondering if we'd make it in time to find a good room and some food. Turned out we arrived with plenty of time for both. I walked into the first hotel I saw and found a room for a reasonable rate. (As you might read later, the low price was still too high.)

I was desperate to try the famous Sarson Ka Saag, but I was disappointed to learn that it was only available during winter. So I settled for some regular chapati and curry and slept.

Only to be woken up in the morning by the blasting of the horns of various buses (I was right in front of the bus shelter after all).

Amritsar, a quick note for now

I'm in an Internet cafe about 100 yards from the Golden Temple and about 10 feet away from Jallianwala Bagh. I came in to check my email and the scores of the NBA playoffs. What I find instead is an operating system on the computers that I didn't recognize at first. It looked like Windows XP, but there was a few things different. I thoght maybe it was in fact Windows 95, and I was going to declare this cafe a historical monument. (Not to mention the terible keyboards that are causing so many typos that I think I'll just leave tem in there.) But yeah, turns out it's not XP but Windows ME!!!! ME?? Who do you know who even used ME?? Amazing.

 

Anyway, recap and other news later.

My doctor says and my garage mechanic agrees ...

There's a Simpsons episode where Homer, Bart and Lisa go grocery shopping. Bart and Lisa keep bringing junk food to add to the cart with increasingly ridiculous excuses. Homer, instead of opposing these purchases, joins them. So when Bart says, "I need this candy for school. Candy class.", Homer replies with, "Well, OK, but get five bags in case we eat four on the way home." Eventually Bart and Lisa just stop giving excuses and just keep adding junk food to the cart. At this point Homer picks up a six-pack of beer and starts creating his own excuse, "My doctor says and my garage mechanic agrees ..." when Bart just waves the six-pack through.

My situation at work is a lot similar. It's one thing when I want to leave early or come late to work and I have to explain this to my manager with some flimsy excuse. But my manager himself never shows up on time, takes plenty of days off and tries to justify to us why he's being tardy and lazy. And I have to say, "Yeah, it's OK, you can take time off." Amazing. Reminds me of George Costanza and Kruger at Kruger Industrial smoothing "(We don't care and it shows"), where George ends up being the more responsible one! Geez!

To deposit a cheque

My ghetto company doesn't believe in electronic deposit of salaries, so we get cheques handed to us by hand. We were told, "Don't discuss your salaries with anyone else." with my idiot manager even adding an unnecessary, "Your actual salary doesn't always have a relation to your position." I'm praying that that means he's making less than us. *Please Please Please*

Anyway, that means that for the first time in forever, I have to actually go deposit a salary cheque in an ATM. The closest ATM is about a mile and a half away and I wasn't looking forward to walking all that distance in the heat. I tried to get a cycle-rickshaw to take me there but while bargaining I realized that apparently I am too cheap to pay a man an extra Rs. 5 (on my way to deposit a cheque about 10,000 times that amount) to carry me for that distance. It turned out for the best anyway - as I was walking, I found the best mangoes I've seen this season so far. Pictures of me with mango juice all over face coming up in the next post. (Seriously, I can't put in words how excited I am about getting my hands on these mangoes! But more on those later.)

As I was standing there in the bus stop waiting for another rickshaw or bus to take me to the ATM, a car pulled over to ask me for directions. Now being as I'm new to the city, I figured I wouldn't be able to help that person much but I knew exactly where he needed to go and told him how to get there. Then I asked him if he could take me there since I needed to go there as well. He said, "Sure, hop in." As we were chatting, he mentioned he drove all the way in from Punjab and had to go to a meeting in Sector 10. I told him I was new to the city as well and he asked me where I came from. Hyderabad, I said. "Oh, I'm Telugu too!" he replied. Wonderful! So we chatted a bit more. He asked me about restaurant recommendations and in particular S. Indian restaurtants, and again, I felt comfortable giving him directions. Eventually we reached our destination(s) and said our goodbyes. It was a nice surprise running into a Telugu guy.

I deposited the check at the ATM, their check deposit machine broke down and I ended up "depositing" my cheque into a weird looking slot. I hope I'll be seeing that money again. On the way back I realized that my chances of getting a cycle rickshaw were even worse, just looking around. So I resigned myself to walking back. Unless, I could get a ride from a motorcyclist. So I stuck my thumb out, not really expecting anyone to respond. But man! I guess it was my lucky day. The very first driver who saw me, stopped, and I got on. He explained that he wasn't going where I was, so I told him to drop me off where our routes split. But as we got talking and he realized that I live in the same neighbourhood as him, he decided to go a little out of the way to drop me off right at my office!

Nice people. And I even took the food out of a poor rickshaw driver, so bonus points for me.

Your city is so old.

How old is your city?

Your city is so old -

1. They actually have rickshaws here! It's a nice throwback. My mom and some of my friends from Hyderabad are really tickled by the fact that we have cycle-rickshaws here because we just don't see them anymore, even in the smaller cities. My American friend felt guilty riding them because he didn't want to sit while someone carried "his fat ass" around. (To be fair, he's not fat, other than the weight of his guilt!) Even I feel guilty, not for riding them but for bargaining. They charge so little in the first place that I feel bad talking them out of Rs. 5. Usually the distances to which the rickshaw takes you are walkable, so they seem pointless. I primarily use them if I need to go to the market at the end of a work day when I'm too tired to walk much.
   
2. They have communal cots where people gather and sit around and chat. Inside the city! This is a scene from a movie about a village or even a documentary. You usually see people squatting in a circle or sitting on a cot and gossiping or whatever. City people do the same but in coffee shops. So it was funny to watch these cots in the city.
3. The wi-fi in the hotel is unsecured and nameless! This was very funny since the hotel was so "posh", I assumed the wireless would be secure. Atleast the router would be named after the hotel right? Nope. In fact when I was trying to check the hotel for wi-fi, I assumed this router was from a neighbouring store or residence and didn't connect to it. I had half a mind to just login to the router and change the name. You know, if I was into that kind of borderline illegal stuff.
4. The only hairdressers are the ones on the streets! I haven't seen a barber shop in my area yet. All I see are lots of barbers with simple set-ups - a chair under a tree and a mirror tied to that tree. Done. If I am convinced that they change the blade in their razors, I might even try this out. They do look like they'd give great scalp massages, so that's a plus. Heck, I might get a scalp massage on a regular basis anyway.
5. The real estate agents and other service people (like lunchbox provider, maid etc) are relatively honest! Relatively is the keyword. The real estate guy that got me my place doesn't work for free, but he does seem atleast marginally interested in making sure I am comfortable, as opposed to the agents in Pune who will sell you your mother and then charge you 10%. The agents here got me furniture etc for my apartment very quickly and for modest prices without hassling me. That's all I can ask for.
   

It's nice living in a city where people have such deep roots.

An evening in Chandigarh

My American colleague R wanted to accompany me again on my trip to Chandigarh, to see the Rock Gardens, and once again he was more than welcome. I had to withdraw some money though, and since I lost my debit card, I had to do it at the bank. I linked the touristy trip with the bank because the only location of the bank is in Chandigarh (and not in Panchkula, where I live). At the bank, the teller gave me a withdrawal slip to fill out. The form had two areas marked "Signature" and "Amount" which I filled out and gave back to the teller. The teller clicks his tongue, shakes his head at me like I'm at idiot and gives me another form telling me "You need to sign here as well", pointing to the region marked "Amount". I just about lost it there! How the hell am I supposed to know that you moron! I told him politely, "Don't you think you need to tell me that beforehand?" The only justification I can think of is that it's common knowledge. But the attitude, that was uncalled for.

We took a shared auto to the rock garden. It was even better than we expected. To think just one person made all of this is incredible. I really don't know what to write about the sculptures themselves. It's an experience walking in and seeing all of them.

At the gardens, I saw a couple of ladies, a middle-aged lady and her mom, taking pictures of each other (with a film camera!). Then I heard them speak and realized they were speaking Telugu! I thought of going and talking to them but didn't want to intrude. A few mins later as the daughter was taking a picture of her mother, the mother suggested that they ask someone to take a picture of the two of them and the daughter said, "Mom, we can't keep asking everyone, they'll get mad. Let it go." At that point I felt I had to offer my help and said "Are you Telugu?" From their reaction you'd think I said "Can I kill you?" They jumped up with wide eyes and stared at me for a second. Then the daughter burst out laughing in embarrassment because she realized that I could understand everything they were saying. Even as I offered to take a picture of the two of them, she continued giggling and slunk away. The mother though was a little braver, she talked about how they were from Tirupathi and that they were visiting her son here etc. "Don't worry about taking our picture, I'm just happy that as a Telugu person, you introduced yourself." she said, as she walked away. As I explained what happened to R, he was rather amused by it all.

Then we went to the Sukhna Lake which was very pleasant. There was a group putting on a show about getting people to vote. They were wearing t-shirts that said, "If you don't vote, you loose the right to complain." That's right, they spelled it "loose" instead of "lose". I was really tempted to go to them and point it out but I didn't want to be cruel.

After that we had to deal with the wretched auto drivers again but we got a reasonable fare and headed home. (Yeah, auto driver stories coming up soon.)

Of temples and sweet old ladies in them

On Saturday I planned on taking a tour of some of the big (famous) temples in this area. A manager at work, who's visiting from the US asked if he could tag along and I told him he was more than welcome. We started off with a small nondescript temple that's right in front of our office, so we just walked there. Then we went to see the famous Mansa Devi temple, which gives my neighbourhood its name - Mansa Devi Complex or MDC. The deity here is famous for granting boons. Since the rest of our trip was going to be a bit too far to walk, we bargained an auto driver. (I'm now convinced that the Chandigarh auto drivers are lower than the scum that is the Chennai auto drivers but more on that later.)

At the temple we had to take our shoes off and I was going to suggest we leave them in the auto itself, except that the auto driver left to get some tea by the time we had that idea. But as we were walking toward the temple, a bunch of kids swarmed to us, asking us to leave our shoes with them and that it was free. Now, like any other person who believes there's no such thing as a free lunch, I assumed that since these people were practically begging us to avail of a free service, either there were going to be "hidden charges" here or that we were flat out going to get our footwear stolen here. As it turned out, it was neither. The people really do provide a free service that they're eager to perform. Now, they do sell you some prasad which you aren't obligated to buy, but it really was a free service. I was impressed.

But right after we left our footwear behind, we were walking under a 108 F sun, on stone slabs that were bent on burning through our flesh. We managed to get to the shaded part of the temple by a combination of sprints and using various shaded patches. The oddest thing about the temple was its architecture. If I didn't know it was a temple, I'd have assumed it was a mosque, from all the minars and domes. From there we walked to the Patiala temple which is right next door. More hopping, sprinting, burning feet later, we got back into the auto and headed to the Chandi temple.

This is the godess who can claim to "put the Chandi  in Chandigarh". (Also, I'm claiming copyrights to "I put the grrr in Chandigarh, baby!" ) When the city of Chandigarh was being planned, the then President of the nation visited this temple and was so impressed by it not only did he decide to name the new city after the temple,Chandigarh, he even took a stone from the temple to lay the foundation of the new city.

At the temple we met the "pujari" was in reality a sweet old lady. She told us, well me, the story of the temple. Then, as I was about to translate it for my American friend "R", she gave me a booklet and asked me to give it to him, since it contained the story of the temple in English. It was beautiful listening to her talk and even though I was translating it to R, he got the sense that she was rather devout and sincere. Later she invited us to have some water in her house and there she told us about herself. She was born just a few feet from where we were sitting, in her ancestral home where generations after generations (38 generations according to the booklet!) of her family have been taking care of the temple. She talked about her family, her estranged daughter, her granddaughter, her daughter-in-law who wouldn't stop serving us one refreshing cold drink after another. She even offered to serve us lunch but I had to take off since the auto driver was in a hurry to pick up his own kid from school.

It felt nice to have talked to someone that sweet and both us returned to the city with positive energy.

One of the coolest places in Chandigarh

The American who's visiting our office for two weeks, ostensibly to train us, is leaving this weekend. So we all went out for a farewell dinner. Our boss, who's been in Chandigarh a few times before, took us to the Taj in Chandigarh. Hidden inside there is a bar that is decorated in weird 70's psychedelic style. All the furniture was curvy and rather uncomfortable to sit it. But I bet if you got drunk or got high it would be really fun to watch all the furniture. I even remarked out loud that all that was missing was a lava lamp, and I noticed right after that, behind the bar, they had about forty lava lamps!

It was a fun evening, sharing stories about hunting, sports, cricket, movies, books. It's a good group at work, except for our manager who's such a weirdo that he'd probably have ruined the evening if he'd shown up. So I was glad when he didn't. At one point my Kolkuta colleague asked everyone what animal we'd want to be born as in our next life. I picked Eagle. Our American colleague said, "I think I'd love to come back as a woman." That cracked me up.

After that we ate at the Chinese restaurant in the hotel and that was good too. Decent food. My veggie dish was rather inexpensive but the other three were craving sea food and couldn't resist the prawns and what not. I think our bill came to about Rs. 7000. Cha ching! It was a fun night.