Going Native-
If only a person's air plane ticket showed the reason for travel. A prestigious job offer? Higher pay? Chance to see the world? Learn about one's inner soul?
For Joel Dunand, at the ripe age of 26, the reason for travel was an exploration and discovery of the land of India. After finishing a degree in Information and Communication Management Joel wished to do an internship. With China and India as his two destination options, India won. "India seemed to be exciting with a very special culture and a clear connections to the western world," Joel recalls. What kept him here was something different.
After all his internship applications were rejected, Joel purchased a ticket to Indian anyway.
Chennai was his city of choice, for the mere reason Joel had heard it was the "new Bengaluroo." As Joel arrived to Chennai, without knowing anyone, I got stung by a very liberating feeling that this was a step into a New World."
It was through his own experience of apartment hunting that Joel found his place in the city. "On my arrival to Chennai I thought I was going to need only one night at a hotel before finding my own place, however, the comparison between what I was promised and the truth about the flats I was showed was dreadful."
Finding the best ad from the Hindu, Joel negotiated the deposit down to 3 months, and signed a contract for 6 months. Celebrating for his first deal was with his landlord from Kerala, a local Real Estate broker in desperate need for a web designer. Joel's was able to assisted. "The website was ready 10 days later and my friend Martin Osterloh, myself and our landlord Mr. Nambiar decided to be business partners."
After just two months of hard work the first customer found a flat. Interestingly enough, the customer was a Norwegian by whom Joel had earlier applied for an internship with. "He still had my CVs on his desk." What Joel quickly realized that he could accomplish anything with sweat, tears and staying power in this country.
As Joel now finds himself as more than a new edition to Chennai he notices deep beliefs in religions, ongoing festivals, and an interest in everything which is new. "What I found very important is the deep intelligence of the Indian people." Joel most respects Indian's immense interest in other cultures: interested in how it is to live in other countries and their constant openness for the opposite opinion.
This years Diwali festival was very special for Joel. Calling his local network of friends from countries such as France, Germany, India and USA, they all came together and cooked their native meals and shared it around a big table. A firecracker show for dessert. "I believe that, as a non-Indian, you have to find your own way of celebrating the Indian festivals."
When comparing Germany to India, Joel expresses that Germany is saturated and does not hold many doors open for new things. "India on the other hand is developing and this is the place where I can realize my dreams. The magic of India is that somehow everything works. At times you need to be patient and wait for quite some time but as long as you are open and honest an Indian will never forget about you. Help is always around the corner." Joel now realizes that unlike the western world, criticism is scarce in India. The ears are instead wide open and when one has any new ideas there are always many business people who say that it would be exciting to jump on board.
"India is currently the place to be. India is electronized. India manages to change between tradition and modernism and is open for new influences and ideas."
When asked how he would answer the posed question, " Why are you in India?" he would answer, "Why the hell are you not here?"
Joel realizes that business is done differently in India. His first observation was that in India everything is dealt with on a very personal level and that it is unbelievably important to meet partners and customers face to face and to establish a good relationship. "I like this kind of business culture, and we have forgotten about the existence of it in Europe." Joel explains that "in Europe we endeavor efficiency but I believe that we often miss out on opportunities since we do not sit down to discuss plans together." Many of Joel's ideas have emerged through conversations and discussions and many of his problems have been solved when seeing a business partner, who many times has had the same problem before.
The key to his success is the ability to communicate and understand the local people of Chennai. It would be impossible to penetrate the cities tightly nit real estate industry without making solid friend and associates.
Today Mr. Swaminathan, CEO of the Swathi Group, is Joel's new business partner. With his 40 years in business he perfectly advises and supports Joel. Today the business is called IGEPS Consultancy and works with an international clientèle with in the local Chennai Real Estate market.
Me
Monday, December 3, 2007
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Page and Me in Jaisalmer.... it went wrong
FIFU GUESTOSE MOTTO……..Hospitality With Honesty
”In the heart of the Thar Desert is the amazing city of Jaisalmer; we welcome you to our part of the world, NAMASTE!”
FiFu Guesthouse.
Being a tourist in India has its ups and downs. The lowest I have experienced was the complete disrespect that I experienced my last two days at FiFu guesthouse. After living in India for going on 7 months now I experienced a different side of the Indian culture. While some will read this that have visited this country and may use it as a case and point for their experience here, I have never had this type of interaction.
Set the scene:
- Two American girls check in on a Monday afternoon, 2 hours late from the train station after a fourteen hour ride. They are first questioned about there reservation which was book 3 weeks prior by my pseudo mother and travel agent in Chennai, who sent an advancement of 8,000 rupees. (the contact they made through out travel agency is the first from Chennai) Finally a phone call is made and was shown to our room. The room was exactly the same as an image of what was sent earlier via email to the travel agent. Pleasantly content with the environment set by the room we ventured to the roof top restaurant. There we are approached by the brother of the owner and asked about our stay duration and what we wanted to do while in the city. Expressing some reservations about the over night camel safari that we had booked we were bombarded with the lines such as, “Its okay you can trust me, we have been doing this for 11 years, I spoke to you agent and she also seemed to think that it will be okay. Even if it is just the two of you, you will have myself and another male guide to take you out there and bring you back safely, just please trust me.” After speaking to the man for twenty minutes, after only knowing him for 40 mins we decided that we would only do the day safari and that was conditional on the fact that we would be occupied by other guest of the guesthouse. Receiving the responses of “I guess we will see tomorrow,” with no guarantee that we would be able to do the safari we continued with our lunch.
- Next morning we awoke and were approached again and told that the nice Indian couple also staying at the hotel was interested in the safari and with that we agreed to go. We hen saw the city for the day and prepared for the day of desert fun for the following day.
Safari Day
- With the morning upon us we were now part of a group of eight people, including one British “bloc”, Will, who had been on our train and we had enlisted to also join us for company. The safari day was a blast split up into a morning of sightsee and then lunch after which the brother of the guesthouse owner decided to take a 1.5 hour nap and then set us on the camels and watch us ride of with 10 year old as our guides. When we reached to camel safari departure area we were greeted by a group of boys ranging from 8 to 20 years of ages, mine being the youngest (in 3rd standard). We then take off in to the desert and ride for an hour out to what seems a deserted village that at this time in the day only inhabited by 30 children and 4 mothers. We arrive and the children swarm us like bees to honey, which in another circumstance would be fine. However with no formal guide and following an 8 year old standing 4 feet high to his family home where there are no adults in sight we all got a little apprehensive and I myself saddened for the children. Once we reach one hut in the back of the village we stood around and were basically talking to ourselves. Finally the children were too much after one blatantly smacked Page’s ass. She was surrounded my children and suddenly I hear “NO” in her voice and look back and see all the children scattering. “That little boy just smacked my ass and put his hand into my butt crack.” With this we all left the village with children begging for school pens and money for the picture we had taken of them. It was a sad sight and with not formal guide to come with us and explain their life or their culture I had no interest in staying. To give a pen or anything our of my purse to those children would be showing them that the behavior they were exhibiting was correct and would allow them to receive something for nothing. I had nothing to give.
We then got back on the camels to take off into the dunes. I had to note that the time spent on the camels was amazing and I fully enjoyed to company of my guide. He allowed me to hold the rains as long as I fed him bubble gum and taught him American songs and how to say hello in a polite manager so that he would be able to get the attention of people far better than the hassle hello that this children of the village were taught. After watching the sunset we were taken to a lovely picnic dinner, were we finally meet our guide again with much frustration about his business logic on the sand dunes and then taken back in the jeep to the guesthouse at 10pm, to pass out.
We awoke the next day and I had ask to be take to a wholesale shop that I had read about where you can buy from the local makers. It is attempt buy the local community to take out the middle ma when selling to tourist. We were taken by the same guide (should of known better). We arrive at what is his “brothers” shop. A three story shop in the middle of the city, a larger rendition of all the other shops that are scattered around the city and take over the Jaisalmer Fort, the main tourist attraction. We arrive and I tell the people we are with to be careful of what they buy. One of the British guys we are with enquires to ask the price of a simple box made out of camel bone. He is told that the price of the box is 3000.00 rupees. We all do our conversion and start to laugh. Him taking us to this type store is a common tactic that is used by auto and taxi drivers a like but ever expected from the owner of your guesthouse.
We walk out while the guide is trying to explain to me that the sore is not the same as all the rest and goes into the villages and tells the local to make certain thing and then re sales them. I tried to explain to him that this is the definition of a middle man. He then is the confused one. It then ask to be taken to a man shop that we had meet earlier that makes his own jewelry and comes the Smithsonian every year to teach people about the jewelry of India. He takes as there while still trying the convince me otherwise about the pervious store and introducing me to random man on the street, trying to explain their life story to my. I get so upset that I walk away from him and follow the group. Once we arrive to the man’s house the guide leaves. I say nothing and walk into the house.
Check out time
- Once we arrive back to the guesthouse, it was time to pack and get ready to depart from the city by train. We are approached by the owner of the guesthouse FiFu, he seems ‘concerned.’ He is asking us why we are checking out a day earlier. We explain to him, as we had him brother before, that are booking was wrong and that we are checking out today and not stay the last night. We then ask to have the financial break down of our stay. This being the normal procedures of the hotel check out. He then tried to explain the break down, not using numbers just the number of night stays, to us in the hallway of the guesthouse. He uses statements such as “I don’t want you relationship with you travel agent to get messed up, “please don’t be concerned or confused,” and “all is paid up.”
- We finally decided to get out a pen and paper and ask him to take the conversation to the porch next to our room. There we have him write down the price of the room according the dates that we stayed. He also tells us that we had received a discount on our room because we booked through a travel agent. “The original price of the room was 1800.00 and you received it at 1550.00.” Which is a lie because or British friends down the hall were paying 1500.00 a night for their room and they booked it by themselves via email.
- Once all the number had been presented we figure out that from the 8000.00 that we had paid up front we had been ripped of 2400.00 rupees in total.
o 2000.00 from the room rate because we were charged the night in the desert that we didn’t do, because we didn’t feel safe doing so. Also night’s stay that we had had instead of the night in the desert. Along with a night stay that we did have because we felt early.
o 400.00 for the price of the day safari that we had been a part of.
- With this discovery we expressed that we felt “cheated” and explained to him through our experienced this is not how business is done. No voice had been raised till we had made that comment.
With this he got extremely upset and began yelling at us for being American.
FiFu: You are just thinking like an American
Page: Did you just insult my country?
FiFu: You deserve this because you are an American. You are only acting like an American.
Kelly: That is because I am an America
With that we went into our room and slammed the room. With in minutes our friend down the hall came in and asked what happened.
With a ride to the train station out of the question we packed up our bags and lugged them down the four flights of stair and walked out. (Strong American women) As we walked in the middle of the desert down the dusty road to the main road which was ½ mile away. Page with her huge bag on her back and her small bag on the back my wheeling bag, we walked. We were then approached by two men on a motorcycle. FiFu was on the back. He was yelling at us to pay for our two dinners that we had eaten that came to a total of 825.00 rupees.
Kelly: “Take it out of the 2000.00 rupees that you ripped us off from. Also I know that we got no discount deal on the room and were paying the full price.”
Page: “You insulted my country, forget it”
FiFu then threatens us and says “see you at the train station in 30 mins with the cops” with that he gets back on the motorcycle and his subordinate drives him back to the guesthouse.
We finally reach the main road and call an auto. On our way to the train station we decided that instead of taking the chance of a police confrontation and also wanting to be the honest ones that did pay for what we had, we turned the auto around and headed back to pay our dinner bill.
We arrived back to the guesthouse. I got out of the auto and asked him to wait. I stood out side the entrance and was greeted by the cleaning boy. I asked him to get FiFu for me. He went in side and came out saying that I need to go upstairs and pay my bill. I said no and that he needed to come down. Then a man from the rooftop restaurant popped his head out and looks down at me and asked me to pay the bill. I said no and said the bill need to come to me. Then another man, I had never seen before came down and said I need to go up to speak to FiFu. I said no and if the bill was to get paid I needed there outside were I was. Finally FiFu presented himself and the bill.
FiFu: Do you want to pay your bill?
Kelly: Yes so that I am not the cheater
I gave him the money and he presented me with the exact change that he had in his hand already.
Kelly: Thank you
I got back into the auto and he storms to the auto and is standing next to page sitting inside.
FiFu: You deserve this
Page: You insult my country and us personally and don’t know how to run an international hotel business.
I asked the auto man to go as we are yelling at him and the auto man drive as away. Best 40 rupees I have spent for a ride.
We are writing this explanation of our experience so that other tourist with not become prey to FiFu guesthouse policy and service in Jaisalmer. It was a horrible experience and that no one else will have to go through it, especially for two young women traveling alone through India. We had travel for 18 days in over 6 hotels, and this was the first experience of this kind.
”In the heart of the Thar Desert is the amazing city of Jaisalmer; we welcome you to our part of the world, NAMASTE!”
FiFu Guesthouse.
Being a tourist in India has its ups and downs. The lowest I have experienced was the complete disrespect that I experienced my last two days at FiFu guesthouse. After living in India for going on 7 months now I experienced a different side of the Indian culture. While some will read this that have visited this country and may use it as a case and point for their experience here, I have never had this type of interaction.
Set the scene:
- Two American girls check in on a Monday afternoon, 2 hours late from the train station after a fourteen hour ride. They are first questioned about there reservation which was book 3 weeks prior by my pseudo mother and travel agent in Chennai, who sent an advancement of 8,000 rupees. (the contact they made through out travel agency is the first from Chennai) Finally a phone call is made and was shown to our room. The room was exactly the same as an image of what was sent earlier via email to the travel agent. Pleasantly content with the environment set by the room we ventured to the roof top restaurant. There we are approached by the brother of the owner and asked about our stay duration and what we wanted to do while in the city. Expressing some reservations about the over night camel safari that we had booked we were bombarded with the lines such as, “Its okay you can trust me, we have been doing this for 11 years, I spoke to you agent and she also seemed to think that it will be okay. Even if it is just the two of you, you will have myself and another male guide to take you out there and bring you back safely, just please trust me.” After speaking to the man for twenty minutes, after only knowing him for 40 mins we decided that we would only do the day safari and that was conditional on the fact that we would be occupied by other guest of the guesthouse. Receiving the responses of “I guess we will see tomorrow,” with no guarantee that we would be able to do the safari we continued with our lunch.
- Next morning we awoke and were approached again and told that the nice Indian couple also staying at the hotel was interested in the safari and with that we agreed to go. We hen saw the city for the day and prepared for the day of desert fun for the following day.
Safari Day
- With the morning upon us we were now part of a group of eight people, including one British “bloc”, Will, who had been on our train and we had enlisted to also join us for company. The safari day was a blast split up into a morning of sightsee and then lunch after which the brother of the guesthouse owner decided to take a 1.5 hour nap and then set us on the camels and watch us ride of with 10 year old as our guides. When we reached to camel safari departure area we were greeted by a group of boys ranging from 8 to 20 years of ages, mine being the youngest (in 3rd standard). We then take off in to the desert and ride for an hour out to what seems a deserted village that at this time in the day only inhabited by 30 children and 4 mothers. We arrive and the children swarm us like bees to honey, which in another circumstance would be fine. However with no formal guide and following an 8 year old standing 4 feet high to his family home where there are no adults in sight we all got a little apprehensive and I myself saddened for the children. Once we reach one hut in the back of the village we stood around and were basically talking to ourselves. Finally the children were too much after one blatantly smacked Page’s ass. She was surrounded my children and suddenly I hear “NO” in her voice and look back and see all the children scattering. “That little boy just smacked my ass and put his hand into my butt crack.” With this we all left the village with children begging for school pens and money for the picture we had taken of them. It was a sad sight and with not formal guide to come with us and explain their life or their culture I had no interest in staying. To give a pen or anything our of my purse to those children would be showing them that the behavior they were exhibiting was correct and would allow them to receive something for nothing. I had nothing to give.
We then got back on the camels to take off into the dunes. I had to note that the time spent on the camels was amazing and I fully enjoyed to company of my guide. He allowed me to hold the rains as long as I fed him bubble gum and taught him American songs and how to say hello in a polite manager so that he would be able to get the attention of people far better than the hassle hello that this children of the village were taught. After watching the sunset we were taken to a lovely picnic dinner, were we finally meet our guide again with much frustration about his business logic on the sand dunes and then taken back in the jeep to the guesthouse at 10pm, to pass out.
We awoke the next day and I had ask to be take to a wholesale shop that I had read about where you can buy from the local makers. It is attempt buy the local community to take out the middle ma when selling to tourist. We were taken by the same guide (should of known better). We arrive at what is his “brothers” shop. A three story shop in the middle of the city, a larger rendition of all the other shops that are scattered around the city and take over the Jaisalmer Fort, the main tourist attraction. We arrive and I tell the people we are with to be careful of what they buy. One of the British guys we are with enquires to ask the price of a simple box made out of camel bone. He is told that the price of the box is 3000.00 rupees. We all do our conversion and start to laugh. Him taking us to this type store is a common tactic that is used by auto and taxi drivers a like but ever expected from the owner of your guesthouse.
We walk out while the guide is trying to explain to me that the sore is not the same as all the rest and goes into the villages and tells the local to make certain thing and then re sales them. I tried to explain to him that this is the definition of a middle man. He then is the confused one. It then ask to be taken to a man shop that we had meet earlier that makes his own jewelry and comes the Smithsonian every year to teach people about the jewelry of India. He takes as there while still trying the convince me otherwise about the pervious store and introducing me to random man on the street, trying to explain their life story to my. I get so upset that I walk away from him and follow the group. Once we arrive to the man’s house the guide leaves. I say nothing and walk into the house.
Check out time
- Once we arrive back to the guesthouse, it was time to pack and get ready to depart from the city by train. We are approached by the owner of the guesthouse FiFu, he seems ‘concerned.’ He is asking us why we are checking out a day earlier. We explain to him, as we had him brother before, that are booking was wrong and that we are checking out today and not stay the last night. We then ask to have the financial break down of our stay. This being the normal procedures of the hotel check out. He then tried to explain the break down, not using numbers just the number of night stays, to us in the hallway of the guesthouse. He uses statements such as “I don’t want you relationship with you travel agent to get messed up, “please don’t be concerned or confused,” and “all is paid up.”
- We finally decided to get out a pen and paper and ask him to take the conversation to the porch next to our room. There we have him write down the price of the room according the dates that we stayed. He also tells us that we had received a discount on our room because we booked through a travel agent. “The original price of the room was 1800.00 and you received it at 1550.00.” Which is a lie because or British friends down the hall were paying 1500.00 a night for their room and they booked it by themselves via email.
- Once all the number had been presented we figure out that from the 8000.00 that we had paid up front we had been ripped of 2400.00 rupees in total.
o 2000.00 from the room rate because we were charged the night in the desert that we didn’t do, because we didn’t feel safe doing so. Also night’s stay that we had had instead of the night in the desert. Along with a night stay that we did have because we felt early.
o 400.00 for the price of the day safari that we had been a part of.
- With this discovery we expressed that we felt “cheated” and explained to him through our experienced this is not how business is done. No voice had been raised till we had made that comment.
With this he got extremely upset and began yelling at us for being American.
FiFu: You are just thinking like an American
Page: Did you just insult my country?
FiFu: You deserve this because you are an American. You are only acting like an American.
Kelly: That is because I am an America
With that we went into our room and slammed the room. With in minutes our friend down the hall came in and asked what happened.
With a ride to the train station out of the question we packed up our bags and lugged them down the four flights of stair and walked out. (Strong American women) As we walked in the middle of the desert down the dusty road to the main road which was ½ mile away. Page with her huge bag on her back and her small bag on the back my wheeling bag, we walked. We were then approached by two men on a motorcycle. FiFu was on the back. He was yelling at us to pay for our two dinners that we had eaten that came to a total of 825.00 rupees.
Kelly: “Take it out of the 2000.00 rupees that you ripped us off from. Also I know that we got no discount deal on the room and were paying the full price.”
Page: “You insulted my country, forget it”
FiFu then threatens us and says “see you at the train station in 30 mins with the cops” with that he gets back on the motorcycle and his subordinate drives him back to the guesthouse.
We finally reach the main road and call an auto. On our way to the train station we decided that instead of taking the chance of a police confrontation and also wanting to be the honest ones that did pay for what we had, we turned the auto around and headed back to pay our dinner bill.
We arrived back to the guesthouse. I got out of the auto and asked him to wait. I stood out side the entrance and was greeted by the cleaning boy. I asked him to get FiFu for me. He went in side and came out saying that I need to go upstairs and pay my bill. I said no and that he needed to come down. Then a man from the rooftop restaurant popped his head out and looks down at me and asked me to pay the bill. I said no and said the bill need to come to me. Then another man, I had never seen before came down and said I need to go up to speak to FiFu. I said no and if the bill was to get paid I needed there outside were I was. Finally FiFu presented himself and the bill.
FiFu: Do you want to pay your bill?
Kelly: Yes so that I am not the cheater
I gave him the money and he presented me with the exact change that he had in his hand already.
Kelly: Thank you
I got back into the auto and he storms to the auto and is standing next to page sitting inside.
FiFu: You deserve this
Page: You insult my country and us personally and don’t know how to run an international hotel business.
I asked the auto man to go as we are yelling at him and the auto man drive as away. Best 40 rupees I have spent for a ride.
We are writing this explanation of our experience so that other tourist with not become prey to FiFu guesthouse policy and service in Jaisalmer. It was a horrible experience and that no one else will have to go through it, especially for two young women traveling alone through India. We had travel for 18 days in over 6 hotels, and this was the first experience of this kind.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
I'm a tourist
Things have changed. I’m a tourist in India and this is change. Living in Chennai I was not a local and not a tourist and not an expat. Even though I have an inability to explain what I was I know what I am coming out of South India and walking down the street in Jaipur. A tourist and it’s a weird feeling in a country where I know the basic customs but not the local language or attitudes. Jaipur is my first city of complete old India. More cycle rickshaws than Honda city’s and more temples then malls… with loads of forts and palaces. Rajasthan is supposed to be the palace capital in India and seeing as though the capital has ten main one I think this is a fair description. My experience here is more than seeing a new city it is about seeing how the majority of the northern India person lives and it will become even clearer in Jaislmer. India has been so good to me that when I get into situations that would be hard for other tourist I have an innate feeling that thing and people are going to move in a positive a safe direction. Day to day Indians (those that you interact with on the street) with good Hindu hearts that at the worsted charge you ten more rupees than they should and tell you that they wish you namaste. These are usually men for they are the shopkeepers and auto drivers, not the same as the account executives and marketing manager that I was working with day to day in Chennai.
To be a tourist I am approached more for a tour guide and a driver and hollered at more by the local jobless characters on the right of me as a walk down the street. Yes, I am going to see more tourist destinations, but still I have a different sign on my head and this is blinking with neon colored bulbs. Page and I are a walking riot and page with her blonde hair is a crowd pleaser. We seem to get to the great places thought, sometimes without even trying. This occurred yesterday when we were walking out of city palace in Jaipur and I stuck up a conversation with an auto driver I slipped a Tamil word and he asked where I was from while telling me he was from Chennai. I said I had lived in Chennai and smiled. We eventually decided to take a ride on his cycle rickshaw and he was our guide for 2 hours… He stopped at the best known temple and the old pink city… two places on our hotel to-do list on the way to our proper destination of the Wind Temple. We agreed to go to a jewelry shop of his friends but ended up not buying a thing. I did tip him though for the information and safe travel that he provided to us. When asked what we owed him at the end of the journey he said “what do you want to give” this is when I was sure that he was a good soul. Even after we had left the care of his auto he came back knowing that we were still figuring out where we wanted to go to next and pointed out a movie theater across the road. I laughed and said thank you… typical India thinking that a movie was the perfect curb to our time management.
Jaipur is great and I’ll be excited to return in four days for a night stay and then head to Agra.
Tourist are a walking excitement for local that wonder…..
These are the typical question you receive:
1. Where you from?
2. Why you here?
3. Where you have you been?
4. Where are you going next?
5. How long have you been in India and until when?
6. What do you do in your home country?
7. What languages do you speak?
But the real question is…. How many questions can I ask before you get annoyed and want to walk away?
My only purchase today outside the hotel was form a small boy wearing a red t-shirt and black pants walking into the Amber Fort.
He approached the typical way. First not saying a thing and shadowing you. Then saying “hello Madame, 100 rupees for all.”
Page then cut in a said “no hablo engles.” With that the boy started speaking in proper Spanish. Describing what he was selling, for how much and I started to listen. “You speak Spanish?” I asked. He responded again in Spanish. I was so impressed I bought the one thing he was holding for 100 rupees. Which included 6 pill boxes wrapped in plastic sitting on a random picture of two old men asian men sitting on a elephant getting a ride up to the fort in 1989. I told him I was so impressed and to keep learning Spanish and was on my way.
Tonight we get on a train at 12am and reach Jaislmer at 1030am….. I’m sure a story will come.
To be a tourist I am approached more for a tour guide and a driver and hollered at more by the local jobless characters on the right of me as a walk down the street. Yes, I am going to see more tourist destinations, but still I have a different sign on my head and this is blinking with neon colored bulbs. Page and I are a walking riot and page with her blonde hair is a crowd pleaser. We seem to get to the great places thought, sometimes without even trying. This occurred yesterday when we were walking out of city palace in Jaipur and I stuck up a conversation with an auto driver I slipped a Tamil word and he asked where I was from while telling me he was from Chennai. I said I had lived in Chennai and smiled. We eventually decided to take a ride on his cycle rickshaw and he was our guide for 2 hours… He stopped at the best known temple and the old pink city… two places on our hotel to-do list on the way to our proper destination of the Wind Temple. We agreed to go to a jewelry shop of his friends but ended up not buying a thing. I did tip him though for the information and safe travel that he provided to us. When asked what we owed him at the end of the journey he said “what do you want to give” this is when I was sure that he was a good soul. Even after we had left the care of his auto he came back knowing that we were still figuring out where we wanted to go to next and pointed out a movie theater across the road. I laughed and said thank you… typical India thinking that a movie was the perfect curb to our time management.
Jaipur is great and I’ll be excited to return in four days for a night stay and then head to Agra.
Tourist are a walking excitement for local that wonder…..
These are the typical question you receive:
1. Where you from?
2. Why you here?
3. Where you have you been?
4. Where are you going next?
5. How long have you been in India and until when?
6. What do you do in your home country?
7. What languages do you speak?
But the real question is…. How many questions can I ask before you get annoyed and want to walk away?
My only purchase today outside the hotel was form a small boy wearing a red t-shirt and black pants walking into the Amber Fort.
He approached the typical way. First not saying a thing and shadowing you. Then saying “hello Madame, 100 rupees for all.”
Page then cut in a said “no hablo engles.” With that the boy started speaking in proper Spanish. Describing what he was selling, for how much and I started to listen. “You speak Spanish?” I asked. He responded again in Spanish. I was so impressed I bought the one thing he was holding for 100 rupees. Which included 6 pill boxes wrapped in plastic sitting on a random picture of two old men asian men sitting on a elephant getting a ride up to the fort in 1989. I told him I was so impressed and to keep learning Spanish and was on my way.
Tonight we get on a train at 12am and reach Jaislmer at 1030am….. I’m sure a story will come.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Cops Take Aim.... at ME!!
Well.... i think i shared with most that I had the great chance to go the Areosmith concert last weekend, but I was unable to tell most (for fear that most would freak out) was that I was hit by a cop..... the story is as follows....
The concert had begun. I had heard from past concert goers that usually the barrier between the two main section was broken down about 30 mins into the concert. So, 20 mins and counting I noticed that the right portion of the crowd had began to hassle the cops to break down the barrier. Being the Women Warrior that I am (this is the meaning of the name "Kelly") I walked over to the rallying crowd and decided to position myself dead in the front, with the adhoc sheet metal wall touching my right shoulder. Suddenly the situation turned for the worse……(After about 30 mins of haggling).
Suddenly the bottom portion of the wall was torn off. In its place were inserted two cops with the sticks in hand blindly hitting at the crowd. I wearing jeans was indecisive from the rest of the crowd (all male) and so with one clean blow my shine exploded with pain. I which point I jumped back scream the first obscenity that came to mind. Everyone in the crowd realized what had happened and began to scream as well. I took this opportunity to exist and literally run for the open area behind the crowd.
Waking up the next morning was the reality check that I had been literally hit by a cop and had the proof to show for it!
Returning to office brought the inevitable sharing of the story. By end of day the story had gained a new form: American Intern was assaulted by the cops at crazy and out of control rock concert. American Embassy has decided to take action and press conference will be held this afternoon..... Just kidding only got as far as Kelly got beat up by the cops.... poor thing... let me see that burse again!
Please see my lovely proof below.....
The concert had begun. I had heard from past concert goers that usually the barrier between the two main section was broken down about 30 mins into the concert. So, 20 mins and counting I noticed that the right portion of the crowd had began to hassle the cops to break down the barrier. Being the Women Warrior that I am (this is the meaning of the name "Kelly") I walked over to the rallying crowd and decided to position myself dead in the front, with the adhoc sheet metal wall touching my right shoulder. Suddenly the situation turned for the worse……(After about 30 mins of haggling).
Suddenly the bottom portion of the wall was torn off. In its place were inserted two cops with the sticks in hand blindly hitting at the crowd. I wearing jeans was indecisive from the rest of the crowd (all male) and so with one clean blow my shine exploded with pain. I which point I jumped back scream the first obscenity that came to mind. Everyone in the crowd realized what had happened and began to scream as well. I took this opportunity to exist and literally run for the open area behind the crowd.
Waking up the next morning was the reality check that I had been literally hit by a cop and had the proof to show for it!
Returning to office brought the inevitable sharing of the story. By end of day the story had gained a new form: American Intern was assaulted by the cops at crazy and out of control rock concert. American Embassy has decided to take action and press conference will be held this afternoon..... Just kidding only got as far as Kelly got beat up by the cops.... poor thing... let me see that burse again!
Please see my lovely proof below.....
Thursday, June 7, 2007
No Thanks India
Through my friendships here in Chennai I have learned the well known tradition of never saying thank you.
Thank you is saved for the highly respected person in ones life.
It is to them that you give the courteousy of thank you to.
No Thank you. No Thanks. No Thanx. No you are so kind. No many thanks.
That’s it folks and you know what this brings? An idea that you are giving just to give and no thank you or exchange is expected. What a concept that really needs to be implemented all over the globe. This is just one of many concepts that India has to offer the world.
Please see below some IM chats I have had on the subject:
sureshsperumal@gmail.com: thanks.. should be used only wit formaly related people..]
me: okay no thank EVER
me: thanks!
so sweet....:)
sureshsperumal@gmail.com: huh
save ur thanks
me: oh that right... its just habbit
you indian are crazy...
me: hi vinu
kavitha had mentioned that the cd with the images on it were to reach our office by end of day
is there any way to find out how long until it will reach
?
Sent at 5:05 PM on Thursday
Vinu: We have sent it through our office boy
me: okay
Vinu: he shd be reaching there anytime
me: okay kool
thank you
Vinu: he has left ramco already
okay
Pl do not mention
me: mention what?
Vinu: Thank you
me: oh okay... that is a thing here isn't it?
not saying thank you... i mean
Vinu: generally plp dont be so formal if they know eachother very well
me: oh okay i see
Vinu: yea so i think i know you pretty well and can avoid all these formal words
me: kool kool i agree
Thank you is saved for the highly respected person in ones life.
It is to them that you give the courteousy of thank you to.
No Thank you. No Thanks. No Thanx. No you are so kind. No many thanks.
That’s it folks and you know what this brings? An idea that you are giving just to give and no thank you or exchange is expected. What a concept that really needs to be implemented all over the globe. This is just one of many concepts that India has to offer the world.
Please see below some IM chats I have had on the subject:
sureshsperumal@gmail.com: thanks.. should be used only wit formaly related people..]
me: okay no thank EVER
me: thanks!
so sweet....:)
sureshsperumal@gmail.com: huh
save ur thanks
me: oh that right... its just habbit
you indian are crazy...
me: hi vinu
kavitha had mentioned that the cd with the images on it were to reach our office by end of day
is there any way to find out how long until it will reach
?
Sent at 5:05 PM on Thursday
Vinu: We have sent it through our office boy
me: okay
Vinu: he shd be reaching there anytime
me: okay kool
thank you
Vinu: he has left ramco already
okay
Pl do not mention
me: mention what?
Vinu: Thank you
me: oh okay... that is a thing here isn't it?
not saying thank you... i mean
Vinu: generally plp dont be so formal if they know eachother very well
me: oh okay i see
Vinu: yea so i think i know you pretty well and can avoid all these formal words
me: kool kool i agree
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
PICTURES!!!
I took a trip to Bagalore for the Areosmith concert.... here are some pics of the lands in between Chennai and Bangalore (who name is now changing to Bangalooru)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mckaysavage/sets/72157600307628273/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mckaysavage/sets/72157600307628273/
DID YOU KNOW? (Cami... hehe)
DID YOU KNOW?
• India is the world's fourth-largest economy.
• By 2034, India will be the most populous country on Earth, with 1.6 billion people.
• India's middle class is already larger than the entire population of the United States.
• One out of three of the world's malnourished children live in India.
• India is home to the biggest youth population on earth: 600 million people are under the age of 25.
• 72,000,000 cell phones will be sold in India in 2007.
• India just edged past the United States to become the second-most-preferred destination for foreign direct investment after China.
• In 1991, Indians purchased 150,000 automobiles; in 2007, they are expected to purchase 10 million.
• By 2008, India's total pool of qualified graduates will be more than twice as large as China's.
• By 2015, an estimated 3.5 million white-collar U.S. jobs will be offshored.
• India is the largest arms importer in the developing world.
• American corporations expect to earn $20 to $40 billion from the civilian nuclear agreement with India.
• In 2007, there are 2.2 million Indian Americans, a number expected to double every decade.
• Twenty-nine percent of India's population speaks English -- that's 350 million people.
Two Great Books on India
There are two amazing booking out there that anyone who wants to really know what is going on in India should read!
The first is one that I am presently reading and am lovin it:
In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India
By Edward Luce
Description:
Edward Luce tackles the challenges and reality of the world's largest democracy with insight and balance in this stimulating portrait of a nation in transition. Luce, Delhi-based Financial Times's South Asia bureau chief from 2001-2005, married to his college sweetheart who is Indian, considers India his second home. He knows from which he writes.
Planet India : How the Fastest Growing Democracy Is Transforming America and the World
By Mira Kamdar
Description
India is everywhere: on magazine covers and cinema marquees, at the gym and in the kitchen, in corporate boardrooms and on Capitol Hill. Through incisive reportage and illuminating analysis, Mira Kamdar explores India's astonishing transformation from a developing country into a global powerhouse. She takes us inside India, reporting on the people, companies, and policies defining the new India and revealing how it will profoundly affect our future -- financially, culturally, politically.
The world's fastest-growing democracy, India has the youngest population on the planet, and a middle class as big as the population of the entire United States. Its market has the potential to become the world's largest. As one film producer told Kamdar when they met in New York, "Who needs the American audience? There are only 300 million people here." Not only is India the ideal market for the next new thing, but with a highly skilled English-speaking workforce, elite educational institutions, and growing foreign investment, India is emerging as an innovator of the technology that is driving the next phase of the global economy.
While India is celebrating its meteoric rise, it is also racing against time to bring the benefits of the twenty-first century to the 800 million Indians who live on less than two dollars per day, to find the sustainable energy to fuel its explosive economic growth, and to navigate international and domestic politics to ensure India's security and its status as a global power. India is the world in microcosm: the challenges it faces are universal -- from combating terrorism, poverty, and disease to protecting the environment and creating jobs. The urgency of these challenges for India is spurring innovative solutions, which will catapult it to the top of the new world order. If India succeeds, it will not only save itself, it will save us all. If it fails, we will all suffer. As goes India, so goes the world.
Mira Kamdar tells the dramatic story of a nation in the midst of redefining itself and our world. Provocative, timely, and essential, Planet India is the groundbreaking book that will convince Americans just how high the stakes are -- what there is to lose, and what there is to gain from India's meteoric rise.
The first is one that I am presently reading and am lovin it:
In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India
By Edward Luce
Description:
Edward Luce tackles the challenges and reality of the world's largest democracy with insight and balance in this stimulating portrait of a nation in transition. Luce, Delhi-based Financial Times's South Asia bureau chief from 2001-2005, married to his college sweetheart who is Indian, considers India his second home. He knows from which he writes.
Planet India : How the Fastest Growing Democracy Is Transforming America and the World
By Mira Kamdar
Description
India is everywhere: on magazine covers and cinema marquees, at the gym and in the kitchen, in corporate boardrooms and on Capitol Hill. Through incisive reportage and illuminating analysis, Mira Kamdar explores India's astonishing transformation from a developing country into a global powerhouse. She takes us inside India, reporting on the people, companies, and policies defining the new India and revealing how it will profoundly affect our future -- financially, culturally, politically.
The world's fastest-growing democracy, India has the youngest population on the planet, and a middle class as big as the population of the entire United States. Its market has the potential to become the world's largest. As one film producer told Kamdar when they met in New York, "Who needs the American audience? There are only 300 million people here." Not only is India the ideal market for the next new thing, but with a highly skilled English-speaking workforce, elite educational institutions, and growing foreign investment, India is emerging as an innovator of the technology that is driving the next phase of the global economy.
While India is celebrating its meteoric rise, it is also racing against time to bring the benefits of the twenty-first century to the 800 million Indians who live on less than two dollars per day, to find the sustainable energy to fuel its explosive economic growth, and to navigate international and domestic politics to ensure India's security and its status as a global power. India is the world in microcosm: the challenges it faces are universal -- from combating terrorism, poverty, and disease to protecting the environment and creating jobs. The urgency of these challenges for India is spurring innovative solutions, which will catapult it to the top of the new world order. If India succeeds, it will not only save itself, it will save us all. If it fails, we will all suffer. As goes India, so goes the world.
Mira Kamdar tells the dramatic story of a nation in the midst of redefining itself and our world. Provocative, timely, and essential, Planet India is the groundbreaking book that will convince Americans just how high the stakes are -- what there is to lose, and what there is to gain from India's meteoric rise.
Monday, June 4, 2007
NY Time Looks at the Indian Construction Boom
In a New India, an Old Industry Buoys Peasants
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
Published: June 3, 2007
MORBI, India — Meet the men and women building the new India.
Chakubhai Khabhu, old and lean, smoking a thin, hand-rolled cigarette, stands on top of a pile of bricks his children have made with their hands. His daughter, Vanita, 20, tosses bricks to her brothers, two by two, in a seamless human chain. One of his sons’ wives takes a break to breastfeed her 2-year-old near a pile of black clay.
For every thousand bricks, they earn a bit less than $5.50. The family, with five adult laborers, pockets on average a little more than $2 a day.
This is the life behind the great Indian construction boom, propelled by an economy still growing at 9 percent a year.
The lure of steady work is drawing more and more migrants like the Khabhus, who come to brickyards like this one around the country because they can no longer sustain themselves by farming.
The success of the brick business, in other words, is as much a portrait of a growing industry as it is a testament to the dismal state of the Indian peasantry.
Construction and its ancillary trades, most of them involving unorganized and unregulated jobs, employ 30 million people, according to the Planning Commission of India. That compares with roughly two million in, say, the software business.
With construction expanding, so, too, apparently is the demand for bricks. Chandu Bhalsod, president of an association of brick makers in Morbi, said his production had doubled in the last year alone, and would probably double again next year. The demand has grown so fast, Mr. Bhalsod said, that he is now facing a labor shortage. He said he planned to scout for workers this year in a hungry forest belt hundreds of miles away.
Much of that work is done by migrant labor families like the Khabhus, who trek from their home villages near and far to brickyards for eight months of the year, except during the monsoon season, when rains halt production.
The Khabhus said they gave up when seawater from the nearby Gulf of Kutch crept in and killed their fields. Since Vanita was a child, the family has roamed the country in search of work — in construction and road-building, and finally, here to this brickyard.
The Khabhus’ home, in a village about 30 miles west of here called Manomara, is locked up for the season. A thorny bundle of dead brush blocks their front door. It is a billboard announcing that they will be back only when the rains come and the brickyards close. Nearly half of the homes in Manomara’s low-caste Dalit quarter are locked.
Of all the backbreaking work available to the poorest Indian peasant, making bricks offers some of the best earnings. It pays better than making salt, or working in the roof-tile factories. It can allow families to build a proper house, pay for a wedding or buy a goat or a television.
But the work is hazardous, especially at kilns like this one. Smoke spills out everywhere. Within minutes it chokes a novice hovering nearby. It is so laden with heavy soot that it blackens nearby mango blossoms, to say nothing of the lungs of the people like the Khabhus, who live and breathe bricks. Home is a small room made of bricks, on the edge of the kiln. They sleep on cots outside.
On most days, they work 14 hours, breaking for meals and sleep during the hottest part of the afternoon, when temperatures climb to more than 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and that is not counting the heat that rises from the kilns day and night.
At night, when the air is cool, work goes on under the glow of thin, white tube lights. Music screeches from cheap home stereos to keep the workers awake. They mix clay and water by hand, mold the bricks by hand, stack them high between layers of coal, and when they are cooked, after a couple of weeks, load them onto trucks that ferry them to construction sites.
Brick-making work not much different from this has dominated construction in India since antiquity. Today it dominates the countryside. It is impossible to drive through any stretch of rural highway here without seeing — and smelling — brick kilns burning.
To read more go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/world/asia/03brick.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5087%0A&em&en=36f1eedccb6a388f&ex=1181102400
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
Published: June 3, 2007
MORBI, India — Meet the men and women building the new India.
Chakubhai Khabhu, old and lean, smoking a thin, hand-rolled cigarette, stands on top of a pile of bricks his children have made with their hands. His daughter, Vanita, 20, tosses bricks to her brothers, two by two, in a seamless human chain. One of his sons’ wives takes a break to breastfeed her 2-year-old near a pile of black clay.
For every thousand bricks, they earn a bit less than $5.50. The family, with five adult laborers, pockets on average a little more than $2 a day.
This is the life behind the great Indian construction boom, propelled by an economy still growing at 9 percent a year.
The lure of steady work is drawing more and more migrants like the Khabhus, who come to brickyards like this one around the country because they can no longer sustain themselves by farming.
The success of the brick business, in other words, is as much a portrait of a growing industry as it is a testament to the dismal state of the Indian peasantry.
Construction and its ancillary trades, most of them involving unorganized and unregulated jobs, employ 30 million people, according to the Planning Commission of India. That compares with roughly two million in, say, the software business.
With construction expanding, so, too, apparently is the demand for bricks. Chandu Bhalsod, president of an association of brick makers in Morbi, said his production had doubled in the last year alone, and would probably double again next year. The demand has grown so fast, Mr. Bhalsod said, that he is now facing a labor shortage. He said he planned to scout for workers this year in a hungry forest belt hundreds of miles away.
Much of that work is done by migrant labor families like the Khabhus, who trek from their home villages near and far to brickyards for eight months of the year, except during the monsoon season, when rains halt production.
The Khabhus said they gave up when seawater from the nearby Gulf of Kutch crept in and killed their fields. Since Vanita was a child, the family has roamed the country in search of work — in construction and road-building, and finally, here to this brickyard.
The Khabhus’ home, in a village about 30 miles west of here called Manomara, is locked up for the season. A thorny bundle of dead brush blocks their front door. It is a billboard announcing that they will be back only when the rains come and the brickyards close. Nearly half of the homes in Manomara’s low-caste Dalit quarter are locked.
Of all the backbreaking work available to the poorest Indian peasant, making bricks offers some of the best earnings. It pays better than making salt, or working in the roof-tile factories. It can allow families to build a proper house, pay for a wedding or buy a goat or a television.
But the work is hazardous, especially at kilns like this one. Smoke spills out everywhere. Within minutes it chokes a novice hovering nearby. It is so laden with heavy soot that it blackens nearby mango blossoms, to say nothing of the lungs of the people like the Khabhus, who live and breathe bricks. Home is a small room made of bricks, on the edge of the kiln. They sleep on cots outside.
On most days, they work 14 hours, breaking for meals and sleep during the hottest part of the afternoon, when temperatures climb to more than 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and that is not counting the heat that rises from the kilns day and night.
At night, when the air is cool, work goes on under the glow of thin, white tube lights. Music screeches from cheap home stereos to keep the workers awake. They mix clay and water by hand, mold the bricks by hand, stack them high between layers of coal, and when they are cooked, after a couple of weeks, load them onto trucks that ferry them to construction sites.
Brick-making work not much different from this has dominated construction in India since antiquity. Today it dominates the countryside. It is impossible to drive through any stretch of rural highway here without seeing — and smelling — brick kilns burning.
To read more go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/world/asia/03brick.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5087%0A&em&en=36f1eedccb6a388f&ex=1181102400
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
NEWS OUT OF INDIA
Sleepy pilot leads to 13-hour flight delayReuters Tuesday, 17 April 2007
Passengers on a British Airways flight from New Delhi to London faced a 13-hour delay as the pilot felt he was too sleepy after a noisy night in a New Delhi hotel, newspapers reported.
Angry passengers were offloaded from the plane early yesterday morning after the pilot refused to fly until he caught up with his sleep.
"The crew hadn't had enough rest ... the entire crew had a disturbed night," Radhika Raikhy, spokeswoman for BA, was quoted in the Hindustan Times as saying, adding that the airline's safety rules did not allow its crew to operate in such conditions.
The Times of India said the flight and cabin crew complained of not getting enough rest as their hotel was too noisy.
The flight, BA 142, finally took off 13 hours later to the fury of passengers who were sent to city hotels to wait out the delay as the crew rested, newspapers reported.
"It was very chaotic," Sunil Thapar, a passenger, said.
"Due to a shortage of rooms, some people, including me, had to share rooms with strangers," he was quoted in The Times of India as saying.
Passengers on a British Airways flight from New Delhi to London faced a 13-hour delay as the pilot felt he was too sleepy after a noisy night in a New Delhi hotel, newspapers reported.
Angry passengers were offloaded from the plane early yesterday morning after the pilot refused to fly until he caught up with his sleep.
"The crew hadn't had enough rest ... the entire crew had a disturbed night," Radhika Raikhy, spokeswoman for BA, was quoted in the Hindustan Times as saying, adding that the airline's safety rules did not allow its crew to operate in such conditions.
The Times of India said the flight and cabin crew complained of not getting enough rest as their hotel was too noisy.
The flight, BA 142, finally took off 13 hours later to the fury of passengers who were sent to city hotels to wait out the delay as the crew rested, newspapers reported.
"It was very chaotic," Sunil Thapar, a passenger, said.
"Due to a shortage of rooms, some people, including me, had to share rooms with strangers," he was quoted in The Times of India as saying.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
How to answer the usual questions asked to Indians........
I hope no one takes offense... :)
How to answer the usual questions asked to Indians........ Here are the proper answers to awkward questions asked everyday :
Are all Indians vegetarian?
Yes. Even tigers are vegetarian in India.
Does India have cars?
No. We ride elephants to work. The government is trying to encourage ride-sharing schemes.
What does that red dot on women's forehead mean?
Well, in ancient times, Indian men used to practice archery skills by target practicing by aiming at their wife's red dot. In fact, that is one of the reasons why they had many wives. You see, once they mastered the art of archery and hit the target....
Does India have TV?
No. We only have cable.
Are you a Hindi?
Yes. I am spoken everyday in Northern India.
Do you speak Hindu?
Yes, I also speak Jewish, Islam and Christianity.
Is it true that everyone there is very corrupt?
Yes, in fact, I had to bribe my parents so that they would let me go to school.
India is very hot, isn't it?
It is so hot there that all the water boils spontaneously. That is why tea is such a popular drink in India.
Indians cannot eat beef, huh?
Cows provide milk which is a very essential part of Indian diet. So eating cows is forbidden. However in order to decrease the population of the country, the government is trying to encourage everyone to eat human meat.
Why do you sometimes wear Indian clothes to work?
I prefer it to coming naked.
How to answer the usual questions asked to Indians........ Here are the proper answers to awkward questions asked everyday :
Are all Indians vegetarian?
Yes. Even tigers are vegetarian in India.
Does India have cars?
No. We ride elephants to work. The government is trying to encourage ride-sharing schemes.
What does that red dot on women's forehead mean?
Well, in ancient times, Indian men used to practice archery skills by target practicing by aiming at their wife's red dot. In fact, that is one of the reasons why they had many wives. You see, once they mastered the art of archery and hit the target....
Does India have TV?
No. We only have cable.
Are you a Hindi?
Yes. I am spoken everyday in Northern India.
Do you speak Hindu?
Yes, I also speak Jewish, Islam and Christianity.
Is it true that everyone there is very corrupt?
Yes, in fact, I had to bribe my parents so that they would let me go to school.
India is very hot, isn't it?
It is so hot there that all the water boils spontaneously. That is why tea is such a popular drink in India.
Indians cannot eat beef, huh?
Cows provide milk which is a very essential part of Indian diet. So eating cows is forbidden. However in order to decrease the population of the country, the government is trying to encourage everyone to eat human meat.
Why do you sometimes wear Indian clothes to work?
I prefer it to coming naked.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Love
"Everyone who comes here falls in love- most of us fall in love many times over. And the Indians, they most of all. Your little friend may be beginning to love you. There is nothing strange in this. It happens often, and easily, for the Indians. This is how they mange to live together, a billion of them, in a reasonable peace. They are not perfect of course. They know how to fight and lie and cheat each other and all of they thing that all of us do. But more than any people in the world, the Indians know how to love one another."
I awoke yesterday, after a long night, wide-awake and ready to prepare for work. There was something different in my demeanor, for I had a split realization that hey, I was living in India, and loving it. I had found my niche and knew that my comfort level had been raised. As I stood in my wet bathroom with my daily shower of cold water pouring down, I grinned. I felt the grin sustain as I dressed for work and listened to the voices of BBC World News projecting from my TV. With the door to my enclosed porch open and the sound of the city growing louder, I went to see what time my cell phone announced. It was time to eat quickly and begin my workday. When ready, I walked to the elevator and descended to the street level. As I walked out of the lobby I noticed the grin again, and I spotted the usual group of men standing outside on the street like so many other corners of Chennai. The love factor in India is nothing that I have felt before. Maybe it is because of the immense amount of people that project this true form of love and compassion. However, I still find that each person I meet is just oozing out love. The friends that I have made here are the key to my happiness. With some many people roaming the streets and ridding their two wheelers, one could become very lonely. They say those surround by many are just that much lonelier. My understanding of this love began as soon as I arrived in Chennai and met my "boss" Krishna. He is unlike any boss I have encountered. If I am to come to him to say a quick hello, the first thing out of his mouth is "is everything okay, is something wrong?" I laugh and say "no, everything is wonderful" and then a smiles of the most loving smiles comes from the deepest portion of his heart as if he been fishing for it for days and finally it was found and presented to me only. My next encounter came when I meet Geetha and her daughter Pretika and her grandmother. These are three exceptional women who inhabit the flat down the hall from my haven. Geetha was a classmate of Krishna and has become my sergeant mother. She cleaned my flat before she even meet me and even when presenting it to me said, "I could clean more for you if would like. I can also bring you a fresh bucket of water twice a day if you would like." Let me specify, that she is no way the landlord or manager. Just my neighbor that loved me before we even exchanged eyes. She has included me in her family, their movie outings, their meals and their hearts. "I haven't seen you in three days, my heart was sad. You are not to do that again," her grandmother says. Her love comes from the food which she presents to me. "More, more, you want more, come, come." There is no question in this just the statement. With their own problems of escaping that they are dealing with they bring none of that to me and just love me. Never asking for something in return. Never. If I am to do something for them they are gracious, but never make it seem needed. My next encounter of love came from Christabella, a woman who works in my office. We met on the company bus on our way to a volunteer retrench at an orphanage. I had just met 10 new people but had lost them and had nowhere to sit. But before I could get sad I look down at an open seat, and looking up I saw Chris's smiling faces, with no question floating in my head I asked to sit. We talked nonstop for the 2-hour ride. I began to ask her about the demographics of India as the landscape flew by. The bus proceeded trough the city first and then we were transported to any other world of shakes and even more people on the roads, on foot mostly. She explained the high literacy rate and the need for better infrastructure and jobs, and most of all space. We talked marketing and human life and family stiff. This was the beginning of our bond. Even with me realizing that she was considered one of the two vice president of the office we spoke candidly as two girls at a slumber party masked by the dark night. Over the last two weeks she as also included me in her family, introducing me to her mother, father, and brother. "You will come home for lunch to day," she says, already treating as one of the children. While this was amazing feeling, I remember that this is just the Indian way. "I want to see you stroll in her one day and ask to be fed, with no warning," he father announces after lunch was done and we all had a glass of wine. Love, can be seen in so many lights. The best for of it is that which is brought to you as a gift with no wrapping and with no need for a thanking. One that roles off the fingers and is placed in the care of those who needs it. No love is pushed upon you or brought with an ultimatum. The concept of true giving is hard to define, however my best attempt is to say that giving is the act to love with no desire for gratification or reimbursement. It is hard to find it in our world, but Indians has capitalized, franchised it and still presents genuinely.
I awoke yesterday, after a long night, wide-awake and ready to prepare for work. There was something different in my demeanor, for I had a split realization that hey, I was living in India, and loving it. I had found my niche and knew that my comfort level had been raised. As I stood in my wet bathroom with my daily shower of cold water pouring down, I grinned. I felt the grin sustain as I dressed for work and listened to the voices of BBC World News projecting from my TV. With the door to my enclosed porch open and the sound of the city growing louder, I went to see what time my cell phone announced. It was time to eat quickly and begin my workday. When ready, I walked to the elevator and descended to the street level. As I walked out of the lobby I noticed the grin again, and I spotted the usual group of men standing outside on the street like so many other corners of Chennai. The love factor in India is nothing that I have felt before. Maybe it is because of the immense amount of people that project this true form of love and compassion. However, I still find that each person I meet is just oozing out love. The friends that I have made here are the key to my happiness. With some many people roaming the streets and ridding their two wheelers, one could become very lonely. They say those surround by many are just that much lonelier. My understanding of this love began as soon as I arrived in Chennai and met my "boss" Krishna. He is unlike any boss I have encountered. If I am to come to him to say a quick hello, the first thing out of his mouth is "is everything okay, is something wrong?" I laugh and say "no, everything is wonderful" and then a smiles of the most loving smiles comes from the deepest portion of his heart as if he been fishing for it for days and finally it was found and presented to me only. My next encounter came when I meet Geetha and her daughter Pretika and her grandmother. These are three exceptional women who inhabit the flat down the hall from my haven. Geetha was a classmate of Krishna and has become my sergeant mother. She cleaned my flat before she even meet me and even when presenting it to me said, "I could clean more for you if would like. I can also bring you a fresh bucket of water twice a day if you would like." Let me specify, that she is no way the landlord or manager. Just my neighbor that loved me before we even exchanged eyes. She has included me in her family, their movie outings, their meals and their hearts. "I haven't seen you in three days, my heart was sad. You are not to do that again," her grandmother says. Her love comes from the food which she presents to me. "More, more, you want more, come, come." There is no question in this just the statement. With their own problems of escaping that they are dealing with they bring none of that to me and just love me. Never asking for something in return. Never. If I am to do something for them they are gracious, but never make it seem needed. My next encounter of love came from Christabella, a woman who works in my office. We met on the company bus on our way to a volunteer retrench at an orphanage. I had just met 10 new people but had lost them and had nowhere to sit. But before I could get sad I look down at an open seat, and looking up I saw Chris's smiling faces, with no question floating in my head I asked to sit. We talked nonstop for the 2-hour ride. I began to ask her about the demographics of India as the landscape flew by. The bus proceeded trough the city first and then we were transported to any other world of shakes and even more people on the roads, on foot mostly. She explained the high literacy rate and the need for better infrastructure and jobs, and most of all space. We talked marketing and human life and family stiff. This was the beginning of our bond. Even with me realizing that she was considered one of the two vice president of the office we spoke candidly as two girls at a slumber party masked by the dark night. Over the last two weeks she as also included me in her family, introducing me to her mother, father, and brother. "You will come home for lunch to day," she says, already treating as one of the children. While this was amazing feeling, I remember that this is just the Indian way. "I want to see you stroll in her one day and ask to be fed, with no warning," he father announces after lunch was done and we all had a glass of wine. Love, can be seen in so many lights. The best for of it is that which is brought to you as a gift with no wrapping and with no need for a thanking. One that roles off the fingers and is placed in the care of those who needs it. No love is pushed upon you or brought with an ultimatum. The concept of true giving is hard to define, however my best attempt is to say that giving is the act to love with no desire for gratification or reimbursement. It is hard to find it in our world, but Indians has capitalized, franchised it and still presents genuinely.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
The streets around me
PICTURES OF MY FLAT BELOW!!
Viacom. (Hello)
Sugama? (how are you?)
Suga? (happy?)
Sari... (Okay...)
I think I have decided how I will go about my blog entries. I am reading the most exhilarating novel, “Shantaram” by Gregory David Roberts. This novel follows a fugitive felon who has escaped from an Australian prison and made his way to Bombay. Only to find himself pushed back into illegal activities, but not without also doing amazing good for the people of India by opening a free clinic in the slums. It is the transformation of his perception of India that is so enlightening. He starts out with the foreigner’s eyes of guilt and excitement, something I am experiencing now. Through the month then years he stays in India he comes to know the people of India and begins to understand who they live together with the traditions they share.
And so my thought is to start each blog entry with one of my favorite lines. While there are so many, I will choose the ones that I have underlined. I am only on page 300 of 1,000 so I think that I can go about this for a while. I do this so that I can not only remember of these lines for years to come, but also so that I can share them with you. This practice will also bring a theme to each blog entry, making for a better read. Knowing me I may add at the end some silly facts I have learned, we will see.
So to start the tradition I have chosen this line for the basis of the first entry:
" It smells of ten thousand restaurants, five thousand temples, shrines, churches, and 2 thousand mosque, and of hundred bazaars devoted exclusively to perfumes, spices, incense, and freshly cut flowers...each breath was an angry little victory." pg. 4
Chennai is a city of many; many sites, many people, many cars, many two wheelers, and many smiles. This is what is amazing through all the chaos of smells and people and sounds; it is always possible to find a glimmer of life in the purest form. I find it in the face of the many children or the colors of the many saris that contrast the skins they are warn on like egg shells to oil. The smells change in an instant but this does not take away from their potency. As I walk across the bridge to go to the market my nose and mind are over taken by the rancid smell of sewage, but this passes and quickly changes to the air conditioned breeze flowing out a corner store. Then again instantly a change to the smell of curry being cooked under out of a mobile restaurant with a line of people waiting for their share. Another change, quickly to the smell of one of the many small temples, the size of my studio flat. I have self titled them "fast food temples."
As the smells continue I am walking slower now for the heat as turned on me and humidity adds to the war I begin to fight. It has only been a few mins. out doors but I feel my Californian lungs beginning to close up. The heat creeps up on me for I am internally cooled from the lovely fanned room I resided in a few mins. before. As a tag team force the humidity and heat rain down on me and I begin to become conscientiously aware that I need a drink of water or just to slower. I remember this same war needed to be waged in South Africa. However in India you are surround by so many more people, smells, and exhaust, it take just that much more time to get used to it. If I am walking with a colleague I may mention the discomfort, the response I have continually gotten is "summer is coming to us, just you wait my dear, ja." Then with strained eyes I see the smile of comfort and curiosity. Will she make it through? Followed by a laugh that India is so well known for.
The smells and the heat continue along with the sights to see. From the five star hotels and house next to the shake and the shrines. People are in gorgeous saris and starch pressed white lungis along side those who clothes seem to only hang on their body with the glue of sweet and filth. But the faces are the same and the smiles are just as gracious. As a rickshaw passes slowly I see the drive with one foot folded under the other and his bear feet with the 10 years of road on its bottom. He looks up to me in a questioning manner, as I shake my head saying “vena (I don’t want)” and I receive a grin. I interpret it as "Viacom Madame, enjoy your feet. Hope they take you far and I hope one day I will come to you again when you are in need of a ride." I continue to stroll, an American crawl, to the local Nigri's market. No need for an Ipod for there is music blasting out of cars passing by and thumping out of the local stands as I pass by. Finally my feet bring me to the entrance of the market. I enter with curiosity of what I will find today to fill my stomach. The disarray of people allows one to just blend into the rapids and browse for hours.
This ends this entry....hope you have enjoyed...I did make it home that day after the hour walk and an encounter of a crippled on a skateboard yelling "hey Madame, HEY MADAM" as I scurried around the corner, out of rolling reach. (If you have seen the movie “Kids” you have the visual)
Fun Fact: Bollywood actors are expected to sing and dance and act all at once. However, only two actor in the business actually sing, the rest are dubbed over my someone else voices.
Viacom All (bless you goodnight all)
Viacom. (Hello)
Sugama? (how are you?)
Suga? (happy?)
Sari... (Okay...)
I think I have decided how I will go about my blog entries. I am reading the most exhilarating novel, “Shantaram” by Gregory David Roberts. This novel follows a fugitive felon who has escaped from an Australian prison and made his way to Bombay. Only to find himself pushed back into illegal activities, but not without also doing amazing good for the people of India by opening a free clinic in the slums. It is the transformation of his perception of India that is so enlightening. He starts out with the foreigner’s eyes of guilt and excitement, something I am experiencing now. Through the month then years he stays in India he comes to know the people of India and begins to understand who they live together with the traditions they share.
And so my thought is to start each blog entry with one of my favorite lines. While there are so many, I will choose the ones that I have underlined. I am only on page 300 of 1,000 so I think that I can go about this for a while. I do this so that I can not only remember of these lines for years to come, but also so that I can share them with you. This practice will also bring a theme to each blog entry, making for a better read. Knowing me I may add at the end some silly facts I have learned, we will see.
So to start the tradition I have chosen this line for the basis of the first entry:
" It smells of ten thousand restaurants, five thousand temples, shrines, churches, and 2 thousand mosque, and of hundred bazaars devoted exclusively to perfumes, spices, incense, and freshly cut flowers...each breath was an angry little victory." pg. 4
Chennai is a city of many; many sites, many people, many cars, many two wheelers, and many smiles. This is what is amazing through all the chaos of smells and people and sounds; it is always possible to find a glimmer of life in the purest form. I find it in the face of the many children or the colors of the many saris that contrast the skins they are warn on like egg shells to oil. The smells change in an instant but this does not take away from their potency. As I walk across the bridge to go to the market my nose and mind are over taken by the rancid smell of sewage, but this passes and quickly changes to the air conditioned breeze flowing out a corner store. Then again instantly a change to the smell of curry being cooked under out of a mobile restaurant with a line of people waiting for their share. Another change, quickly to the smell of one of the many small temples, the size of my studio flat. I have self titled them "fast food temples."
As the smells continue I am walking slower now for the heat as turned on me and humidity adds to the war I begin to fight. It has only been a few mins. out doors but I feel my Californian lungs beginning to close up. The heat creeps up on me for I am internally cooled from the lovely fanned room I resided in a few mins. before. As a tag team force the humidity and heat rain down on me and I begin to become conscientiously aware that I need a drink of water or just to slower. I remember this same war needed to be waged in South Africa. However in India you are surround by so many more people, smells, and exhaust, it take just that much more time to get used to it. If I am walking with a colleague I may mention the discomfort, the response I have continually gotten is "summer is coming to us, just you wait my dear, ja." Then with strained eyes I see the smile of comfort and curiosity. Will she make it through? Followed by a laugh that India is so well known for.
The smells and the heat continue along with the sights to see. From the five star hotels and house next to the shake and the shrines. People are in gorgeous saris and starch pressed white lungis along side those who clothes seem to only hang on their body with the glue of sweet and filth. But the faces are the same and the smiles are just as gracious. As a rickshaw passes slowly I see the drive with one foot folded under the other and his bear feet with the 10 years of road on its bottom. He looks up to me in a questioning manner, as I shake my head saying “vena (I don’t want)” and I receive a grin. I interpret it as "Viacom Madame, enjoy your feet. Hope they take you far and I hope one day I will come to you again when you are in need of a ride." I continue to stroll, an American crawl, to the local Nigri's market. No need for an Ipod for there is music blasting out of cars passing by and thumping out of the local stands as I pass by. Finally my feet bring me to the entrance of the market. I enter with curiosity of what I will find today to fill my stomach. The disarray of people allows one to just blend into the rapids and browse for hours.
This ends this entry....hope you have enjoyed...I did make it home that day after the hour walk and an encounter of a crippled on a skateboard yelling "hey Madame, HEY MADAM" as I scurried around the corner, out of rolling reach. (If you have seen the movie “Kids” you have the visual)
Fun Fact: Bollywood actors are expected to sing and dance and act all at once. However, only two actor in the business actually sing, the rest are dubbed over my someone else voices.
Viacom All (bless you goodnight all)
Thursday, February 15, 2007
First three days!
OKAY...... So it has been three days in Chennai and I have a lot to tell!
Where I am living: Up until now I am staying with a friend of the bosses grand dad. He is an 80n year old man who looks like Gandhi and has already show me how to meditate, giving me amazing food to eat, read my palm(i will have a long life and a good job, but sometimes job is more important than love, ha), had his Friends over for drinks (a doctor and his accountant), taken about 10 million picture of me and with us together to show his family, i even taught him some things of the computer. it actually really reminds me of living with my grandmother for that summer. He is gone now for the night to go fetch his wife up north and will return soon. However tomorrow i will be moving to my own flat, i get to see it tomorrow to make sure it is okay and then move in. it is five mins walk tot eh office and near where other people my age live.
Work: I went into the office on Thursday and meet some of the people and was only there for 20 mins, then i went to look at flats with one of the guys there that is my age. we went to his friends house to hang out and they invited me to a concert on the 22nd...really excited.
Then today the hole office(80 people) went on a training day outing. we travel 2 hours south and i took some good pictures. we took two huge buses and for the south Africa girls it was just like going on the Zululand trip again. We eat breakfast going there and finally arr rived at an orphanage for mentally disabled children. we spent 2 hours on work things and presentations and at one point each group had to act out a scenario and have a quote for the lesson of the story. my teams involved a bank robbery and i was the robber, with a bandanna around my face and sunglasses on. Then you had lunch, after that we split into three groups. one played cricket with children, one taught them English and my group did yard work. i painted, which was actually fun. Everyone there was really nice and i think i will love working there. they really have fun!
I start Monday!
Chennai: the city is chaos and nothing like i thought it would be. the tallest building is 5 floors but there are nice places and big named companies. everything is on a smaller scale. so everyone can fit!! The roads are crazy and i have already almost got hit with a car, good thing i can run backwards fast. the people are amazing. so kind and helpful, i have never felt so safe in a foreign city. ever! you can walk at night with friends. it can be dirty and dusty, but i guess you get used to it. everyone honks and beeps to indicate that they want to change lanes or turn, no bleankers are used and there are no lines for certain lanes. the majority of people are on two wheelers(motorcycles) and that cause chaos.
On V-day i went to dinner with there German girls i meet and we all noticed family eating together and figured out the v-day is more of a family thing!
what i have learned:
- no health care
- high literacy rate(even in rural areas)
- women can't wear tank tops and long skirt are the best thing to wear
- some words: sari-the dress for women but also means OK, viacom- hello and good bye, sugama?- how are you?, Im fine- suga, podu- enough (for food and such)
one interesting thing that i will write about more later was that one man i spoke to said India was better off when the Brits ruled "it was safer and you had freedom, Gandhi gave power over too quickly and to the wrong people now there is corruption"
I think that is it for now but I'm sure i will think of other things to add....love you all and look out for an email for pictures!-- Kelly McCabe
Where I am living: Up until now I am staying with a friend of the bosses grand dad. He is an 80n year old man who looks like Gandhi and has already show me how to meditate, giving me amazing food to eat, read my palm(i will have a long life and a good job, but sometimes job is more important than love, ha), had his Friends over for drinks (a doctor and his accountant), taken about 10 million picture of me and with us together to show his family, i even taught him some things of the computer. it actually really reminds me of living with my grandmother for that summer. He is gone now for the night to go fetch his wife up north and will return soon. However tomorrow i will be moving to my own flat, i get to see it tomorrow to make sure it is okay and then move in. it is five mins walk tot eh office and near where other people my age live.
Work: I went into the office on Thursday and meet some of the people and was only there for 20 mins, then i went to look at flats with one of the guys there that is my age. we went to his friends house to hang out and they invited me to a concert on the 22nd...really excited.
Then today the hole office(80 people) went on a training day outing. we travel 2 hours south and i took some good pictures. we took two huge buses and for the south Africa girls it was just like going on the Zululand trip again. We eat breakfast going there and finally arr rived at an orphanage for mentally disabled children. we spent 2 hours on work things and presentations and at one point each group had to act out a scenario and have a quote for the lesson of the story. my teams involved a bank robbery and i was the robber, with a bandanna around my face and sunglasses on. Then you had lunch, after that we split into three groups. one played cricket with children, one taught them English and my group did yard work. i painted, which was actually fun. Everyone there was really nice and i think i will love working there. they really have fun!
I start Monday!
Chennai: the city is chaos and nothing like i thought it would be. the tallest building is 5 floors but there are nice places and big named companies. everything is on a smaller scale. so everyone can fit!! The roads are crazy and i have already almost got hit with a car, good thing i can run backwards fast. the people are amazing. so kind and helpful, i have never felt so safe in a foreign city. ever! you can walk at night with friends. it can be dirty and dusty, but i guess you get used to it. everyone honks and beeps to indicate that they want to change lanes or turn, no bleankers are used and there are no lines for certain lanes. the majority of people are on two wheelers(motorcycles) and that cause chaos.
On V-day i went to dinner with there German girls i meet and we all noticed family eating together and figured out the v-day is more of a family thing!
what i have learned:
- no health care
- high literacy rate(even in rural areas)
- women can't wear tank tops and long skirt are the best thing to wear
- some words: sari-the dress for women but also means OK, viacom- hello and good bye, sugama?- how are you?, Im fine- suga, podu- enough (for food and such)
one interesting thing that i will write about more later was that one man i spoke to said India was better off when the Brits ruled "it was safer and you had freedom, Gandhi gave power over too quickly and to the wrong people now there is corruption"
I think that is it for now but I'm sure i will think of other things to add....love you all and look out for an email for pictures!-- Kelly McCabe
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
I'm Off to India
Well, this is the first posting of many. i hope you enjoy the pictures and idea i will share. i also hope this will be a great way to keep in touch with many of you!
Kel
Kel
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