There are two of these guys on our block. They set up their carts in the morning and work until dusk, using coal-heated irons.
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These “iron men” are very nice, and though we have not yet brought them any work, we will very soon :)
Feb
26
2009
Street Irony
Feb
23
2009
Congratulations Slumdog Millionaire!!!
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WARNING: This piece is not funny. If you are expecting something funny you will be disappointed. Even I have to take my tongue out of my cheek sometime ; )
We saw Slumdog Millionaire around Xmas time in Sonoma and I admit to bursting into tears halfway into the film. This is truly an amazing piece of cinema with fantastic characters, a great structure and awesome storyline – but that had nothing to do with why I was crying. While watching the sweeping scenes of radically poor slums, intimidating train stations, and scarred beggar children, I couldn’t help being flooded with a feeling of, “Oh my God, that is where we’re going to live?”
The India I’ve met this past month is the Slumdog India we are all becoming familiar with, but it is also so, so much more. I’ve visited houses built out of dung, and been mobbed by children trying to snatch candy out of my hands, seen people sleeping in alleyways and cows eating garbage, but even with these difficult attributes, to call India a third world country really doesn’t do it justice. They also have houses, and grocery stores, and highly functioning railway systems, beauty salons and educations. As a whole, people here hardly drink, and drug use seems to be an anomaly. They are dedicated to their family and their gods. They work six days a week. There is horrendous traffic but they seem to never let it get the better of them.
India is as young and curious, as it is ancient and wise. Sure, they don’t seem to know what to do with their trash, and the outlawed caste system still serves to keep people from equal upward mobility, and the water is lethal and there is sewage in some of the streets – but nowhere is perfect. I’ve seen more homeless people in San Francisco than I have in Bangalore, and I’ve felt more anxious walking to my car in the Mission District than I have walking through a crowded market in Delhi, where Phil and I were the only white skinned people we’d seen all day.
I’m not saying that bad things don’t happen here, but I am saying that good things happen too. I get the sense that the Indian people are well aware of their emerging status in the world, and that collectively they will work to protect not only their status, but their visitors as well. I hope this Oscar win makes it easier for India to take its place at the table.
Feb
21
2009
Panduranganagar !
After a little looking and a lot of luck, we have just struck a deal for our home in Bangalore for the year. It’s a gorgeous place, designed and built by the owner, who has taken a year-plus long post in Singapore. The neighborhood of Panduranganagar is nice, as nice as India gets anyway, and it’s close to other nice ‘hoods like Jayanagar and J P Nagar. Rent is just a bit less than we were paying in Napa, but the house is unbelievable. Four floors, split levels everywhere, an indoor pool, jacuzzi, rock climbing wall, master walk-in closet the size of, well, a house, a media room, and so much more… but the best part? It comes with a dog (not shown).
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So you all need to come for a visit, ya hear?
Feb
21
2009
Would You Like Buttermilk With That Order?
Food is the big problem. It’s not Indian food in general, it’s the specific meals. Breakfast is served at our sort-of hotel. Every day there are new horrors under the promising stainless steel domes. One day there are bright yellow pancakes, watermelon, and vegetable stew. The next day there is yellow dal, puffy white things, and something they call French toast. I’m learning to like it.
At work, Phil’s lunchtime choices at the Adobe cafeteria are limited to “pots of mush,” while mine involve roaming the streets until I find something I recognize as food and pray to the 330,000 Hindu gods that it won’t make me sick.
Tonight we decided to call out for food so we could hide from the world and watch bad movies like good little Americans. It took me half an hour and two trips down to reception to figure out how to dial the phone. When the restaurant finally answered things only got worse.
Everyone in India speaks English. We heard this over and over while preparing for our trip. Everyone here does NOT speak English. No. Not at all.
There are 1652 different languages in India, and 350 of those are considered major languages. English and Hindi are the official languages, and how they communicate with each other. The accents are thick, and the words sound like rubber balls bouncing down stairs. Our communication barrier is compounded by the fact that these other languages are written in the squiggly alphabet, making it impossible to take an educated stab at pronunciation.
After resorting to a fake Indian accent by putting the em-PHA-sis on awkward syl-LA-bles and popping my P’s and T’s, I managed to give our address, phone number and place our order, I hoped.
Time ticked by and no food arrived. Since beginning work in India, Phil has been going in to an office every day; for the past ten years or more he has worked mostly from home. This is a big shift; by Friday evening he hates everybody and everything. He is hungry. He wants food and a Coke – not too much to ask.
Eventually the food arrives, but there is no Coke, and the order had somehow mutated from butter chicken and butter naan, to butter chicken and buttermilk. “WTF… who orders buttermilk with their chicken?” Phil railed.
I am determined to find it impossible to be frustrated with people for not speaking my language, when I am in their country making no attempt to speak theirs. Phil is too hungry to refuse not to get upset. I dump the buttermilk in the sink, have a few bites of butter chicken and wait for breakfast.
Feb
21
2009
Triangulicious !
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Triangle bread. How perfect is this? Think about it: a slice of bread with only two edges is a one-dimensional object, or in scientific terms, “crust” – and in light of the perfect economy of the three-sided bread seen here, the two-dimensional, four-sided bread we are all accustomed to is just wasteful. PLUS, no more lost energy slicing sandwiches or French toast. How did this brilliant idea pass us by?
Feb
19
2009
No Learning. No Enlightenment.
We embarked on this trip chanting the mantra, “No learning, no enlightenment,” but in spite of this, in the past couple of weeks, there are several things that I have learned:
1. Indian traffic proves a point I’ve spent most of my life trying to make: there don’t need to be rules to for there to be harmony. Traffic here is insane, but what is crazier still is that no-one gets angry. No-one raises their voice. When a tuk-tuk pulls out in front of a car, the car slides around it; when you launch yourself into traffic as a pedestrian, the traffic moves around you like water, not stopping to question, just going with the flow.
2. It is possible to move a twenty-foot length of metal pipe on a bicycle at rush hour.
3. In India it is always rush hour.
4. Decoding the Indian wobble-head thing is impossible. It can mean yes, no, maybe, I don’t care, I am bored, etc., which in my book means that it actually means nothing. It does, however, make Westerners want to eat their own heads.
5. Even monks shop for DVDs and talk on cell phones.
6. Eating dal for breakfast ensures that you won’t get hungry until 4pm.