God, beer me some strength!

Minor glitches but totally ruined my weekend.

I had it all planned out. A haircut, cleaning my apt, setting up my Internet, applying for a "wireless landline", all centered around watching cricket at home. Well, apparently I don't get cricket on the channel I thought I'd get, I suddenly have a payment I have to make for my cable TV and the phone office is closed! Oh and I am getting a small electric shock when I try to turn on my tap during certain times of the day. Aargh. I lost all motivation to do the rest. So I just came home to watch a few episodes of TV shows - Office, Heroes etc.

On the bright side I do have Internet at home, although it's slower than I'd imagined. (My educated guess is that it's because I'm using Vista instead of XP) No worries, I can check my email and read the news in the morning, so that's good. I did get Skype, so if you are already on Skype, please add me. There's always Google Talk as well.

Ok, time to finish watching "TV" and then head out to shop for an armchair and a more solid bed than the one I have right now. What the hell, we're down four wickets, no point watching anyway.

Traditional wear day at work

It was announced yesterday that today (Friday) would be Traditional Wear day at work. There was going to be a prize for the best dressed person. I would have loved to have worn my lungi with a transparent shirt with a "baniyan" on the inside. All I had was a silk kurta and pajama. Even that could have been jazzed up with a small string of flowers wrapped around my wrist and a gold necklace and shades, but I couldn't find a gold necklace at the last minute.

I did feel a little ridiculous coming to work in a kurta even if I was in India. 20 years ago or so, when I went to visit my dad at his work, there was plenty of evidence that were we in India - the agarbatti, garlanded picture frames of Gods and even the occasional lungis. But now in this company, being a big international one, it felt very much out of place to come to work in slippers. (I brought a pair of shoes just in case they made a fuss about lab safety.)

As I stepped into the office I was worried I was going to be the only one dressed up but my team lead wore a lungi and more than half the women came all dressed up. The office looks really nice and colorful.

(For some reason, all day long, my mind kept going to "Diversity Day" episode of The Office.)

After lunch, the judging team walked around the office asking everyone where they were from and what their dress was supposed to represent. Apparently (and I think this they were making up as they went) you don't necessarily have to represent your region/tradition, but whichever tradition you claim to be representing, you have to present it properly. I staked my claim to the prize by stating that the silk kurta/pajama represents the clothes worn by the wealthy Andhra villagers. (It is indeed a sort of "pimp" gear!)

Finally there was a giant gathering of everyone in the office at 3:30pm and the judges announced the three finalists and winners - one each from the men and women. The best costume among men was our Engineering team leader, Sriram, for his traditional Tamil dress consisting of a silk veshti and shirt. From women, it a lady from admin who wore a Kerala silk sari. (Lots of silk at work today!) The winners won coupons for Rs. 501 each.

(Apparently I wasn't the only one who wondered if the whole thing was a prank. That was cited as the biggest reason why a lot of people didn't dress up.)

Vertical vs. horizontal

In the US, we drive in lanes. You "own" the lane space in front of you and behind you in the sense that anyone shifting over to your lane in your vicinity has to (in theory) defer to you. If he is ahead of you, he has to check for your speed and position before he can shift over. If you don't "give way", then he has to wait (I'm going to assume a male driver) till you move back or ahead. In that sense, driving is a "vertical" system here, you dictate the traffic depending on which lane you occupy.

In India however, I am realizing that it's a "horizontal" system. You dictate the traffic based on how much ahead you are. Once you're ahead, you can cut left and right with impunity. Especially if you're on a two-wheeler. Did a gap just open up in front of me? Doesn't matter, because the guy to my left but a few inches ahead of me feels entitled to that spot and will take it. You don't really have a choice. So as a response I now try to position myself a little ahead of the guy driving next to me, particularly in traffic jams. It feels very barbaric to my American sensibilities but worse, I am worried about driving like that when it's time to drive in the US again.

The Super Bowl of Cricket

If you go by hype and expectations, the India-Australia series is clearly the Super Bowl of Cricket. The two teams bring out the best in each other and there is a lot of bad blood to go with it. The best comparison is the Red River Rivalry. Texas and A&M is passe, just like India-Pak. Texas-OU is the new big thing, just like India-Aus.

Unless I screwed up really bad in setting up my satellite dish selections, I should be able to watch the two full days of the match on Saturday and Sunday. And if I get really lucky, get a viewing of Texas beating up OU Sat night.

I've found it really ironic that when in 2007 I was finally in India during the World Cup, the World Cup itself was being held in West Indies - so we had to stay up late to watch the matches anyway. Similarly, now that the Ind-Aus matches are happening in my time zone, I will be at work and not able to watch as much action as I'd like. But I do suppose I'll atleast get to watch the score live. My prediction, India wins the series 4-1.

The dust, it's everywhere

So I'm now driving with a helmet on, so my face/head is well-protected from the dust. At first I used to arrive at work tasting a lot of Pune's soil on my lips and finding dust falling from my face if I tried to pass my hand over it. Now it's much better. Now I notice my hands. I can't even step out (meaning drive 1 kilometer) for lunch without finding my hands covered in dust and soot. I have to wash my hands each time I step outside since I am usually munching on something at work. (I'm eating almost nothing for breakfast and dinner, so it's OK.)

It's particularly hard in restaurants, especially the smaller ones. You see, most of them do have washbasins, but not all of them have liquid soaps. Some put out a bar of soap, but when you go to wash your hands, these pieces of soap look so dirty that I wonder if the soap is cleaning me or if I'm actually cleaning the soap. So I have to make do with scrubbing on my own. It's more noticable on my nails. They look really dirty sometimes. So I figured I'd keep my nails really short.

Next it's the apt itself. I was in Hyd for the weekend and when I came back the apt was dusty already. I initially figured I'd get a maid, or atleast sweep on my own every weekend. But even that might not be enough. I am accumulating cleaning supplies slowly. I might need a second broom.

But the overall apt is getting into a decent shape and I'm glad about that.

Aamsutra

Ahem. Katrina Kaif promoting Slice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ka64f41AKk

I think Ross said it best in the Pilot of "Friends" - "I honestly don't know if ..."

Random stuff

After five posts yesterday (but written over four days) I'm a little drained. So some random musings -

• I'm making a conscious effort to "correctly mispronounce" certain words and sounds. It's back to "zed" instead of "zee" - Z. It's "Lee Meridian" and not "Le Meridian". It's still "xerox", not "photocopy", even at work.
  
• I'm getting pretty good at bargaining. It's not really to save money which, honestly, won't be much anyway. It's more like a sport or atleast to avoid getting conned by the shopkeepers. I purchased a set of plastic boxes and saved about Rs. 22 off a total of Rs. 172. A good accomplishment for me.
  
• Have to make a decision about drinking water. 1-liter bottles are running at around Rs. 12, 2-liter at Rs. 20, 5-liter at Rs. 45 and 20-liter at Rs. 170. With the 20-liter, there is a decent system where you pay a deposit of about Rs. 140 and get the water (20 liters) for Rs. 35 or Rs. 50 if delivered. They'll bring you a full bottle everytime you run out of water and charge you the Rs. 50 till you return the bottle. I think I'll try it out atleast for a little while. My only concern is if I can finish the 20-liters before the water goes bad.
  
• This is the first time I'll be paying my bills. These will primarily be rent, electricity, community fees (sort of a maintenance fee). Cable TV was a lump sum amount. Cell phone is pay as you go. (Land line hasn't been installed yet.) When I tried to pay the electricity bill with a photocopy of the bill (long story) the guy didn't take the payment. This is one of the many ways in India where the paper trail is too confining.
  
• Fruits!!! The Seetaphals (Custard apples)  are in season and boy am I glad!! I'm planning to do a couple of dinners of eating nothing but those. I'm almost certain to get a stomachache but it'll be worth it. 
• As I was coming home from Hyderabad on Monday, I got into an auto after I got off the bus. I had one pretty big suitcase with me since I was taking the rest of my clothes etc from Hyderabad. The auto driver took me home and the meter showed a value of "91". This, depending on the time of the day and the driver himself, translates to something between Rs. 80 and Rs. 91. As I waiting for the decision to be pronounced, the guy hit me me "Give me Rs. 100". "How does that translate to Rs. 100?" I asked him. "Luggage extra, Sir," came the reply. I tried to reason, "How does that make sense, if I had two guys in the auto instead of the suitcase, the weight would have been the same. So why should I pay extra?" "Look sir, I don't care if there are four other guys in the auto, luggage is always extra. If you show me an auto driver who won't charge you extra for luggage, I'll forgo my fare amount." I couldn't argue anymore.
  Charging extra for luggage has always been in existence. I just wanted to get a good reason from the driver why that was so. I guess it's the "You need me more than I need you" tax, or the "You're very likely from out of town" tax. 
• I'm hoping this week I'll be done running around for set up stuff like cable TV, phone, bank, electricity bill etc. Starting this weekend I'll hopefully get to explore the city more thoroughly. When my college classmate returns from his sister's wedding, I'll tag along with him to participate in adventure sports that, as he puts it, have atleast a moderate chance you'll get killed.