Delhi ... Delights?

Saturday, August 7^th

Today’s post will be short and sweet as it mainly centers around the transportation from Bangalore to Delhi.

Morning Nothings

As per evidenced by the title of this section, the morning was packed jammed full of the every exciting…nothing. Got to sleep in a little bit, had a delightful breakfast (again with the most exceptional service I have ever encountered), and even got to do a little reading of the newspaper. I tell you what, Indians LOVE their celebrities (both Indian ones and American ones). They have two sections in their newspaper: one solely for celebs, gossip and tabloids and the other for everything else.

Oh yeah, and also this morning, while I was typing on my computer, midword I must’ve hit something and it starting typing in Chinese! No joke, it was converting all the phrases I was typing into Chinese characters. Though Tiffany said it was only spelling out things phonetically and it was really gibberish. Deflated, it soon became a HUGE source of frustration, because I could NOT, for the life of me, figure out how to turn it off. All the usual tricks didn’t work and there was nothing online. Well, that’s what I get for being cheap and still using only the trial versions of Microsoft Office.

Mid afternoon, we all pack up and head out to the airport. Interestingly enough, we were stopped outside the airport by armed men carrying AK-47s inquiring as to who we were and where we were going. Apparently, they were stepping up security to prepare for their Independence Day on the 15^th. India has been really weird about where we can take pictures (not even in a McDonald’s!), so I’m assuming taking a picture of the armed forces was a no-no. So unfortunately, this was the best picture I got:

Hey, subtlety is difficult. Especially for us, Americans.

Bangalore’s Airport

So it takes us forever to get to our gate as we were required to show passports and tickets just to enter the domestic terminal. We then went through security where our bags were scanned and everyone was given a wipe down (behind curtains for women) with a metal detecting wand. Interestingly enough the men and women were separated into different lines. There were 8 or so men’s lines. There were 2 for women. C’mon guys, everyone knows that female lines move infinitely slower than male lines. Have you tried to go to the bathroom at halftime in the Dean Dome? If you’re female, most likely all you ever did was try as the lines are like a bajillion miles long.

Okay, tangents aside, it was a long time until I got through security. Scarfing down a quick lunch, we then all board our aircraft heading to Delhi.

Bangalore to Delhi

The flight was really fun as our entire group was sitting together. Needless to say, it was a very noisy flight. And of course, everyone else is pretty much dead silent, sooooo yeah. But I enjoyed the discussions, the story-telling, the food trading when we received our meals (Hey American Airlines! Take note. Our two hour domestic flight got meals. My 4.5 hour flight from LA to Chicago with you didn’t even give me peanuts.).

I also read the entire airplane magazine in which I learned strange and awesome things…that I have since forgotten. Curse you, you school cram-culture! You destroyed my long term memory….

Delhi

We arrive in Delhi early evening. After taxing for a good half hour (Seriously, it was like we were riding a bus with wings), riding another bus for ten minutes or so, and navigating the airport, we finally make it to our new bus for the Delhi portion. We are exhausted at this point and it is hot. Bangalore didn't even compare to the sweaty, fly-infested sauna we walked out into.

The bus ride to our new hotel also took forever. We thought Bangalore’s traffic was bad? Psh, it was nothing compared to Delhi. The flies outside our window were making more progress than we were. The epitome of the situation? The ambulance sitting right next to us in traffic, lights flashing, and moving slower than we were. Cross your fingers that I don’t get run over by a rickshaw here in Delhi, because it might be more efficient and cheaper to let me bleed to death on the road.

Along the way, we saw lots of people parading around, carrying decorated sticks horizontally, banging drums and having a good ole time as they trekked down the road late at night. Apparently there is this major event going on right now, as people are making a 200 mile trek (I thinkkk?) from the Ganges River carrying water on their backs. And the water can never hit the ground either. So it’s kinda like the Olympic Torch type thing. Pretty cool, pretty cool.

The Park Hotel

We arrive at our new hotel, and are immediately greeted with by the hotel staff dotting our foreheads with the red powder and drinks being given to everyone. Hey, I can get used to this kind of service. Explorations revealed another cool pool, some weird IV tube furniture, hanging bead curtains, a rooms with identical head statues. Weirdly enough, the whole hotel looked like a 4 star hotel straight out of the sixties.

The most interesting part about the hotel though, was the fact that there wasn’t a window restriction. I.e. the windows opened as far as you wanted, allowing you to perhaps exit through this window and stand on the ledge outside. Not that I would recommend that anyone do that, because it’s super dangerous and we were pretty high up. You’d have to be pretty stupid to try and do that.

But all in all, we did safely arrive in Delhi. (There was no Interent – hence the immense delay in the postings). Tomorrow, the Taj Mahal! Hooray!!!!

Blackouts and Bhangra

Friday, August 6^th

Gooooood morning sunshine! The morning started off quite lovely with a once again AMAZING breakfast at our hotel. Sighhh, I’m going to miss this service. These people are the nicest people I’ve ever met.

The Bank

The first stop for the day is the conference room at a local hotel, where a bank representative from the Indian Overseas Banking, a nationalized bank, is waiting to give us a presentation. Apparently, the bank didn’t have a space big enough to accommodate 20 students and 7 adults, so we were housed in a bare, empty room with plastic chairs and a projector.

So, just to summarize:

1.       We listen to a long presentation that sounded like a brochure regurgitated. Oh yeah, and the guy thought the US had universal healthcare, because he saw it on John Q.

2.       We ask great, insightful questions to learn more about the business of banking.

3.       Just when we were patting ourselves on the back for our intelligent inquiries, a whirlwind blasts through the door, yabbering about traffic and meetings and being late.

4.       We proceed to have another presentation, followed by another Q and A. Except this time, we used up all our good questions already!

But that’s not all. The highlight of this business trip was the incessant blackouts that occurred during the meeting (or should I say the ‘no light’? hehe I crack myself up).

[Okay, some background. Every since we got here, there have been blackouts happening throughout the entire city. You would be in a store and then BAM the power would go out. Apparently, India has been growing much too quickly and has very poor infrastructure. Most of the time it would only before a few minutes, but sometimes it would be for an hour or more.]

But the funny thing? The man didn’t even blink an eye during the presentation. Like not even a slight falter in his sentence. And we were thrown into pitch blackness. So after several questions during the Q&A, I decided to finally mention the gigantic elephant in the room, and inquire as to how the blackouts affected business. I was a little worried that it might be considered poor taste to talk about it, since he didn’t mention it at ALL.

So I asked. And he didn’t understand. So I asked again. And he responded with an entire explanation of how money flow causes a growth in technology. And the whole time, the room is silently cracking up at this ABSURD answer that didn’t even address the issue. Even the other bank guy in the room was snickering behind his hand. I tell you what, it was the hardest thing ever trying to keep a straight face with everyone around me snickering. Eventually, Dr. Mur’ray tried to clarify the mistake, but we got the SAME ANSWER. We gave up after about 15 minutes. Ah well. They did give us tea, coffee and biscuits afterwards, so it wasn’t a completely useless visit.

Egon Zender International

The next stop, after lunch, was to the tenth floor of a very fancy building where Egon Zender International was housed. For those of you unfamiliar (as I was up until about 5 minutes into the presentation), Egon Zender is a headhunter. Not the bones-through-nose, skulls-on-spikes headhunter, but an executive search firm, designed to find your next company a CEO, or HR director, or CFO, or whatever.

We were put into a small room that had a conference call set up. So we were basically staring at ourselves on a giant flatscreen tv. We were all slightly confused. Was this presentation going to be virtual? Turns out it wasn’t. The head of the company came to talk to us, and he was actually a fantastic speaker. Used a lot of American slang and idiomatic expressions, very funny… And this guy could read people. An expert in body language.

However, the most impressive part (at least for poor, old sieve-for-a-memory Ellen) was the fact that he had us say all our names the first time we spoke, and he remembered them whenever we spoke again! That got him an approving nod plus golf clap combo in my book.

I still have no idea why that video camera was on the whole time, though. Super distracting.

All in all, a very interesting visit. The guy was super charismatic and made all of us want to go into that business after that presentation. However, the adults didn’t like him apparently, because he went to the University of Chicago business school? Any business people reading this that can provide more insights on that?

Dinner with the Fam

After a round of filmed interviews with David and Damon (that may or may not have ended with me being held at knife point), I left the hotel to grab dinner with Andrew, a friend of the family. [When I was at our family reunion earlier this summer, my cousin Steve  (who has been coming to India for years) offered to arrange contacts in several of the cities I was visiting. Andrew was one of such contacts.]

So all I know at this point is that Andrew is planning on picking me up from my hotel at 7:30 and is taking me back to his house for dinner. That is all the information that I know. After being slightly late (power went out and I had to sprint down ten floors of stairs in the dark), I am directed to a van where I see a man, his wife, and his daughter waiting for me. A brief introduction confirms that yes, this is Andrew and his family.

Ok which do you want first? The cultural revelations and discoveries? Or ‘de sh*t dat went doooown’? We’ll start with Cultural:

Andrew and his family live in a small, fairly nice apartment, with a kitchen, living room, and two small bedrooms. They were all Christian so on the walls were lots of pictures of Jesus and Mary and other religious paraphernalia. It was cute too how when I inquired about some of the framed pictures of people, he would pick it up and kiss the person in the picture.

However, Andrew and his family didn’t live alone. His brother and his family lived below him and his widowed sister and family lived above him. His two brothers also came over to visit so it was a huge get together with everyone super excited to see me. It was so incredibly welcoming! One of the small boys (about ten years old) made me a picture of a car and his name (Joshua) made from glitter. Awww! Still have it :).

It was great getting to tour the different apartments and to talk with everyone. Everyone was all about making me comfortable, bringing me drinks, food, showing me around, letting me pick out the music (which I actually hate doing. Ahh! So much pressure!).

I also learned the reason behind the blackouts (poor infrastructure, electricity trade agreements that weren’t holding up, an inefficient government, etc) and how they were getting worse (power used to be out about two hours a day. Now it’s up to four.).  Everyone also explained the reason behind the pubs closing at 11:30 in Bangalore (a woman got stabbed in a club in 2007 - ouchie).

But it was really great getting the chance to meet and talk with real Indians. Businessmen don’t count because they are a bit secluded from the “real” India, and the people on the streets are generally trying to sell you something (“You like, madam? Special price, just for you”). The power did go out at one point for about an hour, but a battery powered light and candles, made it so it wasn’t much of an issue.

Now for the Evening Events:

Okay, the explanation I got was that they work hard Monday through Friday. So the weekend is the “party time”. Sounds like good logic to me! And let me just say, these men can throw down. It was a ton of fun actually. Andrew makes his own wine (which was delicious), but beer seemed to be the preferred drink.  One of Andrew’s brothers was a DJ and so he played some great music. Most of it was a combo of Bollywood and Western music.

What was the most fun about the evening was the dancing. Everyone was having a blast dancing every which way in the living room. I learned some bhangra too! Sahweeeeet. It was so cute how Andrew pulled his young teenage daughter out to the dance floor and she couldn’t stop giggling from embarrassment. Ohhh been there, done that. Totally can empathize with being embarrassed by the antics of one’s parents :P

The interesting thing was that apparently no one eats dinner until after everyone is done drinking and socializing and whatnot. I was a little iffy as to whether they were waiting for me to ask to eat (while as I would normally wait until someone else inquired about eating), so dinner didn’t really happen til 11:30 and it was just me and Andrew. The food was amazing! But I hope everyone else ate earlier and weren’t waiting until after I had eaten…

I got back to the hotel around 12:30. Everyone piled into the van to say goodbye and take me back. Awww! How touching. However, Indians don’t really have the concept of a D.D. (despite the overabundance of ‘don’t drink and drive’ signs everywhere), but I got back safely and intact :). All in all, a great eventful evening and I really enjoyed the chance to meet Andrew and his family. [Thanks, Steve!]

Well that’s it for today. Tonight was the last night in Bangalore, as tomorrow afternoon we head out to Delhi, the capital city of India. Ciao!

It Takes a Village

**Disclaimer: I have not had Internet access for the past three or four days. I will post all the other posts periodically until I am caught up. Plus I won’t be able to post pictures still for a few days. Sorry for the delay!**

Thursday, August 5^th

Why hello there. Yes, I know I am still very far behind in my posts, but I promise that I will catch up. Eventually. But long days and irregular access to the Internet can dissuade even the best of us.

The Village Meeting

This morning started all too early at the rather unfortunate time of 4:45 am. After stumbling down to breakfast, blindly putting on clothes in the dark, and feel our way to the bus, we all head on an hour and a half drive to a nearby village outside of Bangalore. All I know at this point is that the plan is to meet with SKS Microfinance.

 

Surprisingly, I was awake for most of the ride, and it was really interesting passing through other small villages on the way there. Everyone came out of their houses and gawked at the huge bus that was slowly weaving its way along the dirt roads.

Arriving at the village at around 7 am, we look out of the window and see a group of about 50 women, all dressed in brightly colored sarees and barefoot, sitting on the ground in a perfect semi-circle waiting for us. At the mouth of the circle was a row of mats, conveniently placed for our group.

We are ushered over, we take off our shoes, claim a place on the mat, and then we watch as a whole meeting takes place. It was really fascinating, partly because we have no idea what is going on. The meeting starts off with a group chant/prayer and then one by one several different women come up to one of the main men, give him money and then sit back down.

It turns out that all the 50 women belong to one group within the microfinance company. I’ll try and give you a summary of how the process works:

1.       A woman joins a group and then makes a pledge to always be on time to the weekly meetings, to make her payments on time, and to help others if they need it with their loan.

2.        She then applies for a loan and if it is granted, then the husband is also required to be there as insurance.

3.       She then makes her payments over the 50 week period – if she can’t make her full payment one week, the other 49 women will pull their money to help pay for it.

4.       If there is a death in the family, then the rest of the loan is written off.

It really is an interesting system for a number of reasons:

1.       The entire system is built on trust – a strange concept for us cynical, big business Americans.

2.       It’s all dealt with locally, within each individual village, and money transfers out of the village are handled by male staffers (for security reasons).

3.       Only married women are allowed to be a part of this microfinance organization.

a.       More patience

b.      Less irrelevant spending

c.       More focus on family

d.      Smarter (ok I reworded that. I believe her phrase was “less inclined to get involved in risky businesses)

e.      Single women might move villages when she marries which makes loan collection very difficult.

It was just a really cool experience getting to watch the village meeting take place.

Touring the Village

After the meeting concluded, the women started to disperse. However, the majority sort of milled around, clearly fascinated with our group. Looking up, we then noticed that it looked like the entire village had gathered around the outside of the compound, clearly very curious and awed by this large pack of students that just invaded, American-style.

After asking permission the first few times, we begin to take photos of everyone in the village – which they LOVED. They started crowding around, begging for their picture to be taken and then would swarm the camera afterwards to see. I don’t think they had ever seen someone take their picture before. It was quite amazing.

The kids were the cutest. Ever. Cuter than, dare I say it, Boo from Monsters, Inc. If one was having their picture taken, the rest then swarmed the camera. The funny thing is, this experience just reaffirmed my belief that kids are the exact same everywhere, regardless of the culture in which they were raised. It’s kinda cool :).

Look at the kid on the left!

Anyway, it was a really cool experience getting to tour this village. Dirt roads, animals running around…but everyone was super welcoming and excited to show us around. The wealth distribution was also very interesting: there would be a moderately nice house sitting right next to thatched hut. Though I did see one thatched hut that had a Masterlock on it, which made me chuckle.

But definitely, without a doubt, this has been my favorite experience so far. How often do you get to wander around a rural village in India?! Ahhh, amazing.

SKS Microfinance

After we said goodbye to our entourage at the village, we went to one of the local offices of SKS Microfinance, the company that arranged this village meeting. We were put in a small room, covered with mats and were given this strange tea made from milk, which was….interesting? I did have some slight problems during the act of sitting down, as the Indian pants that I was wearing did not stretch. At all. But fortunately, many tries later, I successfully managed sit with the appearance at least of being comfortable.

It was really quite interesting learned about SKS Microfinance, which surprisingly is quite a large company, much bigger and more widespread than I expected. They had over 2,600 branches in India and 7.2 million members who have outstanding loans. Initially a NGO, they just recently became a Non-Banking Financing Group (NBFG), and in fact just went public about three days ago. Don’t know what that means? That’s ok, I won’t judge you. Basically, it means that as a company, they no longer have to rely on grants but instead can now receive funding from large investors (and in fact received quite an amazing response).

Here are some cool facts I learned:

·         28% of the population is below the poverty line

·         The poverty line is 300 rupees a month or about $7 (the price of a moderate meal at a moderate restaurant)

·         The majority of the loans granted go to the purchase of a cow ($1,100) since it’s the best investment

·         Most women stick with the company for about 3 years (at a 50 week loan period) in order to break even

·         The repayment rate for the loans granted is 99.2%, which is amazing.

We also got the chance to go visit some of the stores that were financed through a loan from SKS Microfinance. All in all, a very cool experience.

Saatchi and Saatchi Advertising

Surprisingly enough, after all that happened this morning, it was only 11 am. It felt like an entire day had gone by. After lunch, we then go and visit Saatchi and Saatchi Advertising, which is (yepp, you guessed it) an advertising company. What gave it away?

This was a very cool meeting as well, as the lady who gave us the presentation was very entertaining and knew how to work with young people. She filled the presentation with lots of visual examples of how advertising in India worked and it was very cool getting to watch different ads.

The most interesting thing to me that I learned from this visit was that Indians really prefer direct, bright, in-the-face advertising.  With famous endorsers, of course. If a famous cricketer says that Appy apple juice is his drink of choice, then clearly it’s the best product available. Though, when you think about it, this type of advertising does make a lot of sense with regards to their culture. Indians love bright colors and loud music. And why glance discretely out of the corner of your eye when outright staring would suffice? It’s not a culture based around the concept of subtley.

After the presentation, we had the opportunity to tour the office with one of the young employees or interns as our guide. Honestly, it was one of the coolest offices I’ve seen. All the walls were covered with bright movie posters, color coded by section. Loud upbeat music was playing. And my personal favorite? The dartboard and punching bag for when they have to deal with a really difficult client. (Hear that Mom? Might be the perfect idea for your classroom).

Also of note, today was also the first day that I noticed the infamous Indian head bob. You know, the bobbing of the head from side to side? Our guide kept doing it the entire time we were talking and while she didn’t notice, my neck muscles ached in sympathy. I feel like doing that constantly would rattle my brain completely, and lord knows we don’t need any more of that.

Big Bazaar

The final visit of the day was to Big Bazaar, the discount department store that was located right next to our hotel. I tell you what, the security that is so pervasive around India is rather off-putting. Any major electronics that you were carrying had to be recorded before entering Big Bazaar, bags had to be searched, and we had to go through a metal detector. After checking out, all bags were sealed with plastic bag ties, the receipt was marked with the number of bags you had, and the security guard punched holes in your receipt as you left. Kinda intense, no? (Still doesn’t quite compare to the hotels using mirrors to check under every car for bombs)

But anyway, tangent aside, the presentation was about how this Indian equivalent of Super Target did business in India. It was moderately interesting. OK not really. But here are the highlights:

·         All the girls were wearing their ethnic wear…which they purchased from Big Bazaar the day before.

·         Big Bazaar said they weren’t too worried about the possibility that Walmart might open up in India and compete with them. Ohhh poor Big Bazaar. You have no idea, do you?

I’m sure there was more but I was too distracted by the super cheap haircuts they were offering at their salon. Only $4?! Sooo tempted…

I also happened to catch a glimpse of one of the employee requirements list. On it, it stated that men needed to wax their hands and women couldn’t wear bindis. Interesting.

Out and About

That night, taking the advice of Jay, the hotel’s bartender, we decided to hit up Club Hint. It was actually pretty fun, despite the fact that it was a little expensive. The music was a mix of American hits from a couple years ago and Bollywood music, but the most interesting (I’ve gotta stop using this word) part was the fact that everyone was dressed pretty modern and dancing but no one actually touched one another. Kinda cool.

But the club did close at 11:30 (Lame) and so we all had to pile into rickshaws on our way back to the hotel. Lindsey, on the way back, asked the rickshaw driver if she could drive, and without the slightest hesitation, the driver handed over the rickshaw to her. Didn’t even blink an eye. Meanwhile, I am fervently try to signal that no, maybe we shouldn’t trust a young, slightly intoxicated American girl with a strange vehicle in a foreign country that drives on the wrong side of the road and no one follows the traffic laws. Just a thought.

Luckily, we make it back alive and in one piece, more or less, and the rest of the evening was spent debating hash browns and providing the hotel staff with dinner and a show.

That concludes our day’s many adventures. The adventures only continue tomorrow, so stay tuned!

No Internet...

Hey everyone!

I'm so sorry that I've been off the charts for the last three or so days. Unfortunately, once getting to Delhi, I haven't had any access to Internet. I'm currently stealing it from someone else right now, so I can't post all the posts that I've written.

Good news is that I am alive and I have all my kidneys (Thanks Martha!). Bad news is that I can't actually post the recent updates until tomorrow or so. Please bear with me. I understand that you all must be completely traumatized without your daily dose of Ellen.

As an incentive to keep you guys still with me, let me just give a quick summary of what I've done:

• Played with village children
• Got stuck in an elevator
• Had dinner with a local family
• Been chased by beggars
• Wandered around the Taj Mahal
• Was flocked by men trying to take pictures of me... (strange)
• Purchased not one, but TWO pairs of Poofy Pants :D

I'm really sorry to cause some of you worry, though the messages I received inquiring as to whether I was still alive were very touching :)

Hopefully I'll be able to actually post my posts soon! 

--Ellen

The Rickshaw Redemption

**Sorry for the delay in this post. Microsoft is now translating everything I type into Chinese and I CAN'T TURN IT OFF. But here is the post :)**

Wednesday, August 4^th

Ugh, I tell you what. I hate being a day behind in my postings. Not only do I feel like I constantly need to catch up, but I can’t even remember the best parts of the day, and my posts are more boring. Sorry guys. 

The City Tour

We started off the morning by going on a tour of Bangalore, so that we might have a better sense of the region. After boarding the bus at the leisurely time of 10:30 am, we drove off to the first destination for the day: Lalbagh, or “Red Park”: The Botanical Gardens. Along the way we learned many interesting facts about Bangalore:

1.       The name of the city initially meant “boiled beans” after the meal that a very poor woman once fed the king when he was travelling through the region. Yes, it’s a great honor, but personally I think the woman would’ve preferred to be honored with something a little more substantial, like I don’t know, a giant ass bag of gold?

2.       Sandhya also claimed that the area was only 4-5% Christian, which surprised me considering the proliference of the churches and “Bible Worlds” we’ve seen populating every street corner.

Yeah, those are the only cool facts I learned. Bangalore isn’t super important on the awesome historical scale (that I have found, that is).

 

Lalbagh, the Red Park

We arrived at Lalbagh more or less in shape and ready to explore this beautiful park. Along the way, Sandhya gave us a brief history of the park…that I couldn’t really understand, so you guys are going to have it presented like I saw it…just as a beautiful collection of flowers, grass, walkways, and statues of people I don’t know.

Highlights:

·         The Watchtower: there was this really cool old watchtower built by some famous guy in Bangalore history. Apparently there were four, I guessss at the four corners of the city.

·         Old Rocks: the watchtower was sitting on this large rock that was, as Sandhya put it, “three thousand million years old”. So slightly longer lived than Betty White.

·         The Flower Festival: every year, for the week preceeding Independence Day on August 15^th, Lalbagh holds a huge flower festival, and they were in the process of setting it up.

·         Matt, Leigh Babaian’s husband, kept being approached by the locals who were in awe and kept rubbing his shiny bald head.

·         There was this one couple who kept being followed around by a photographer, taking pictures of them. I then proceeded to stalk them too, because they were so cute, walking along holding hands. They must’ve been creeped out of their minds.

·         I got approached by a group of men, who first spoke Hindi to me!!! Or maybe Kannada, I don’t know. But this is significant, because they didn’t automatically assume I was American! :D. They then all wanted to take pictures with me, hahaha.

While walking around the park, we spied a local news crew doing a story on the upcoming flower festival. They then spotted us, made a beeline, grabbed a few of us to do an interview. Because, you know, clearly we are probably the most knowledgeable about local festivals and customs. They then filmed our entire group shouting “Namascara, Bengaluru!” and cheering. We’re gunna be on TV! :D

The highlight of this park, though, was by far the gaggle of women. Sitting on the “three thousand million” year old rock was this group of women just chillin’ like a G, as old women are wont to do. I approached them to see if I may take their picture, which they loved, excited passing around my camera so everyone could see. The rest of our group soon caught up, and we started sitting with them and taking their pictures. And then, as anyone would do when sitting on rocks with strangers, they all started singing and performing for us! It was so much fun! I think I got some (not such great) video which I’ll see if I can put up here. Oh got it! It's bad quality (I opted to save upload time), but you can check it out here.

But I also got my most favorite picture of all time here. Just look at those faces and what fun they are having!

Bull Temple

The next stop: Bull Temple. I can’t remember which god this is a temple to (I’ll look it up in a bit…once I have internet again), but this was really cool. We departed the bus and stood then at the gateway for a good ten minutes taking a picture of the archway and the temple behind it. That is, until we discovered that that was not actually Bull Temple and that the actual one was a little bit further up the road. Awkward.

Entering the real temple a little bit later, we had to first take off our shoes. We then walked around down a hallway that ended with a small room filled with a monolithic bull. Like Big Blue (of Paul Bunyan fame) sized. Two acolytes were there as well doing prayers, maintaining the flames and providing the red powder for the dot on the forehead.

Now, as I often do when faced with unfamiliar situations (Hindu temples, foreign cities, strange buffets, and church), I basically put my head down and followed closely on the heels of the person in front of me. They make the motion, I make the motion. They say a prayer, I mumble something unintelligible. They touch the bull’s ass, I touch the bull’s ass. Now, I’m not entirely sure what all the motions meant nor am I Hindu, but I figure it is best not to take any chances with these kind of things. Wouldn’t wanna be disrespectful and then find myself at the receiving end of Thor’s hammer or Zeus’s lightning bolt. Ya feel me, dawg?

The orange saffron wrapped priest gave me a red dot (tilaka) on my forehead at the end. It was very cool. I really like the idea of that sixth chakra and the inner eye. However, after I already left, the cameramen caught up. They wanted to film the whole thing, so they sent me back through. Unfortunately, this time there wasn’t anyone for me to follow so I’m pretty sure I unintentionally insulted the god and botched the procedure. [Sorry Nandi!]

Tipu Sultan’s Palace

The last stop on our city tour was at the Palace of Tipu Sultan (also spelled Tippu Sultan on another sign). While it’s not as big as one would expect a palace to be, it is very cool. Both in the temperature and the appreciation sense. It had lots and lots of pillars and only one enclosed room. The rest was open air, in a typical Indo-Islamic style. Also, scattered throughout the palace were the scalloped arches whose name I unfortunately only know in Spanish: arcos lobulados (Yay Spanish IV! I credit that knowledge to Sra. Hill). I think that it’s perhaps called a cusped arch in English? Either way, pretty cool.

The neatest part was in the small museum in the enclosed room. Inside was a replica of one of Tipu’s most prized possession: a life size effigy of a Tiger mauling a British soldier. If that weren’t enough, the giant toy doubled as an organ. Tipu, you are awesome. I hope to one day be as cool as you.

The Great Rickshaw Adventure

Rickshaws!

Afterwards, we all head to one of the many malls of Bangalore. Apparently, malls are huge here in India, so Sandhya sent us to one of the good ones. It had ten floors I think? Yeah, huge. I was overwhelmed and I don’t think I even went past the 4^th floor.

I actually didn’t stay there long as I was expecting a phone call at four. Figuring I should just head back to the hotel early, I exit the mall and begin the trek back. I have a vague sense of where the hotel is (Sandhya isn’t the best at giving directions), so I decide to just take a rickshaw, just to make sure I didn’t get lost. Mistake número uno.

Well, you know what they say about assuming things. Things that I should not have assumed:

1.       The rickshaw would be quicker

2.       The rickshaw will be cheap

3.       The rickshaw driver will know where the hotel is

4.       The rickshaw driver saying he knows where the hotel is actually MEANS he knows where the hotel is

5.       The rickshaw driver will take me to the hotel

Hmm, seemingly innocent enough assumptions, no?

We started off driving in the direction that I vaguely thought was correct. And then all of a sudden, we took a few turns and we started heading in the opposite direction. Hmmm, who should I trust? My instincts or the native? Well,let’s just say that I should’ve gone with my instincts. Mistake numero dos.

We end up driving to the complete opposite end of the city. He stops and points straight ahead and says something about walking up there. Now, I have NO idea where the hell I am at this point. Inwardly I am cursing my decision to sleep on the bus because I don’t know if any of this should look familiar. Mistake numero tres. Well, since he thought this was the way, it must be. I pay him and exit the rickshaw.

Cue half an hour of mindless wandering. Somehow I found myself in residential areas, wandering past army bases, walking through parks, you name it. Now, I do realize that I am totally lost at this point. I’m not too concerned though, because being lost has never bothered me. That’s when all the adventures happen! I was just concerned that I would miss the phone call I was expecting.

Finally I find another rickshaw. He has no idea where Ista hotel is, even though I give a few landmarks nearby. He drives off. I find another rickshaw. He has no idea either. Clearly, I am in a completely different part of town (btw, apparent size of Bangalore: 85 km by 105 km). I finally find a rickshaw driver that knows where the hotel is, and he takes off. I breathe a sigh of relief.

We drive for about twenty minutes. I am so completely turned around that I don’t even know which direction is which anymore. Suddenly, the rickshaw driver pulls over at this very busy shopping street. He points down the street and says that I need to walk down it and take a right. I have never been here before in my life. I tell him no, this is NOT it. He says it is. I say it isn’t. Finally, I just pay him and leave, because he is obviously not going to take me anywhere else.

I start wandering around this street, just hoping that I am just very oblivious and the hotel actually is around here. It’s not. I turn down the small side street and wander a bit. The good news is, I for the first time see other tourists, which I had yet to see in Bangalore. Finally, I decide that mindless wandering isn’t the best solution, and begin to search for a phone. Spying a Ruby Tuesday’s (yes, a Ruby Tuesday’s) I stop and ask to borrow their phone, I don’t know, figuring since it’s an American chain, I’d have more luck?

The host had no idea what I was asking. It took two waiters and their manager to finally figure it out. But it was successful and I manage to safely call the hotel. I can barely hear the woman on the other line, but I manage to make out that I should tell the rickshaw drivers Middle Mall, no Little Mall, ohhh you mean L-I-D-O Mall. Gotcha.

I exit the Ruby Tuesday’s and inquire as to which I should head. This results in two people pointing literally in two opposite directions. Yay. An argument breaks out. I am now being pulled in two different directions. The girl wins. We start walking and then all of a sudden I hear my name. I glance up and there, walking down this random side alley in this random section of the city is Harris, Lee and Bethany, three of my classmates. I'm saved! But how random is that?! They point me to the best place to catch a rickshaw and I safely arrive back at the hotel...an hour and a half later.

The End of the Night As We Know It

The rest of the night is spent just hanging out, sleeping, chilling, the like. The funny thing was, our news clip from the park earlier was supposed to come on at ten o'clock. All twenty seven people who knew about this...forgot. Well, aren't we on the ball? 

We also, I am shamed to admit, went to McDonald's for dinner where I had a Veggie Pizza McPuff. They wouldn't let us take pictures (what is with this?), so this is the only (admittedly illegal) photo that I could muster:

More posts will be coming shortly, when I next figure out where Internet is. Later, gator.

Rickshaw Races

Tuesday, August 3^rd

Namaste! Today started off early at the ripe old time of 7 am. Though to be honest, it wasn’t too bad, because my body was programmed to survive on about 4 hours of sleep so I kept waking back up every few hours or so. Some might find this annoying, but I tell you that nothing is better than the feeling of waking up and realizing that you can go back to sleep. Ahh heavenly.

Today also marked the start of our business visits and we were starting off with two big ones: IBM and GE. We might’ve started out first with them because they were busy and this was the only time available or maybe because they wanted us to start off with a bang, but personally I think Dr. Mur’ray arranged the order of the company visits by increasing length of their name. Can’t get much shorter than GE!

IBM

Well we are starting off first with IBM, so that just completely shot my theory out of the roof. Damn. Today was one of the few days that required us to dress up in business professional (like full out pant suit). I actually enjoy dressing up, so it wasn’t too bad, but it definitely wasn’t the coolest of attire. Luckily, the weather here has been very pleasant.

Upon arriving at IBM, we are immediately given super cool ID badges. See? Hell yeah, I feel like part of the ‘in’ crowd with my new fancy shmancy red leash around my neck. (They didn’t let me keep it, damn it).

We are told that in certain areas we weren’t allowed to take pictures, like outside the building or in the main entrance. Hmm I found this very interesting and upon returning, I immediate checked Google Earth to see if you could see the outside of the building or if they blurred it out in order to remain as top secret as they seem. Alas, no street view but you can see the IBM buildings from the sky. Just FYI.

So I just wrote out a huge long post going into all the cool things about this visit. And then promptly deleted it. No one cares about this stuff, so I decided just to give you guys the bullet points:

·         Welcome Ceremony: We were formally greeted and asked to light the welcome lamp. Five people got to light one candle that symbolized the five different elements, and the light symbolized….something…. I do remember that by lighting the candles we symbolically banish ignorance (represented by darkness)

Lighting the welcome lamp

·         Security Restrictions: No filming of the presentations, nor pictures of the powerpoints. Also, people who worked for IBM could only get into the specific areas that they worked in and badges must be worn at all times. Made me feel a bit like we were in a bank vault, except more spacious and less giant wads of cash laying around.

·         Seclusion: Several major businesses (i.e IBM, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc) would group together over a couple blocks, would rope themselves off behind high security and create a mini-city, complete with everything you could ever want, and you would never even know the rest of India existed.

·         News Monitoring: BBC and CNN are constantly playing and monitored so that they can help deduce reasons for servers crashing (i.e. they are all underwater because of Hurricane Katrina)

·         Shifts: The IT people worked in shifts depending on the time zone they were monitoring. So the Australia shift worked from 3 am to noon to be on the correct time.

We were also led to a room to view the people monitoring all the servers that IBM is in charge of (which are a lot) after a presentation. We were all standing there in a separate room, pressing our grubby noses against the glass and gawking. That is until we discovered that the glass was two-way. Awkward turtle.

We were running a bit late (I like to think it was because our awesome and insightful questions that we asked), so we ended up having to push our G.E. visit back an hour so that we could still get lunch. Well that’s it for the IBM visit. I have about 5 pages of notes, if you are actually interested about the business aspect of it, but to be honest, I doubt you are.

Lunch

Lunch was at this very fancy Indo-Chinese buffet, and once again, we were the only people there. Hmm mildly disconcerting. Despite it being Chinese-ish food, it was still devilishly hot. But I believe my mouth is beginning to cope better! Or maybe I am just killing the majority of my tastebuds.

General Electric (GE)

Upon arriving at GE, we are immediately told that we would not be able to take any pictures.

At all. Anywhere. Even of the sign out front. (And I checked Google Earth later, too. Nothing but vague outlines. What sort of things are they doing?)

We were stopped at the gate at the security desk where they made us show a form of picture ID. Business cards, library cards, passport numbers, none of that would suffice. It had to be a valid picture  ID. Dayummm. They then took our mug shots at the unflattering upward angle and made us temporary badges with our name and pictures. Somehow, I was less thrilled about these badges than the IBM ones.

An hour later (this is an extremely long and hot ordeal), we finally manage to get ourselves situated in a small conference room with the general manager of GM, who is giving the presentation. I give the opening introduction of group (he just stares at me and goes ‘okay’, making me feel like an idiot), and then he presents. There is just him (as opposed to the five at IBM) and he is dressed pretty casually, as is everyone else. This was interesting, as the majority of the people at IBM were wearing suits.

Now he is actually a pretty funny guy, with a pretty dry sense of humor, but his presentation didn’t go that  much further than what the GE site covers. Everyone really liked the guy, but to be honest, something about him just didn’t click with me. And this was mainly due to the fact that he was the most evasive person I have ever talked to. IT WAS SO ANNOYING. (Though I’m not sure if anyone else noticed, so maybe I’m being unreasonable).  He kicked out our camera crew for the Q&A session, because he said it would limit what he was able to say, but then he didn’t really say anything at all, unless a very specific question was asked. At first I thought it was because he either didn’t really understand the spirit of the question, or just forgot, but after more and more questions were asked, I began to recognize the signs of a Sly Evader (being somewhat one of one myself, I could pick up on the clues).

Now don’t get me wrong. The guy could do his job. And very well. He was just starting to piss me off.

However, the really cool part of this trip was getting to don our sexy safety goggles and hit up the GE labs in the research center.  Lots of million dollar machines doing things like shooting electrons through materials, adjusting the top ten nanometers of a sample, creating super strong metal and the like. The funny thing for me was the fact that these million dollar machines were incredibly ugly…and several were held together with tin foil and green duct tape. No joke. It made me laugh.

Alas, on our way out, we were not allowed to keep our photo ID badges, which taught me a very valuable lesson. While sometimes “all you have to do is ask”, there are other times where it is best not to ask, subtly pocket the badge, hand back the lanyard quickly and briskly walk away with the crowd. Damn. Next time.

A Comparison

All in all, I think I enjoyed the IBM visit more than the GE visit (as you might’ve been able to tell), which did surprise me. I was really looking forward to the GE visit. I’ve always been a huge fan, but I now wonder how much of that is the result of a very effective and influential ad campaign. Though major props on that, btw. To give GE some credit, everyone there seemed to really working there so that’s a major plus.

Overall, IBM was much more welcoming, honoring us with a lamp lighting ceremony, having waiters at our meeting, have five different people present on different parts of the business and what not. They also gave us a lot more information on what it actually means to do business in India and how to incorporate it within the larger, multinational organization. So sorry, GE. Despite the fact that I was rooting for you, IBM knocked you out of the ring on this one.

Dinner/Supper/the Final Meal of the Day

Dinner tonight was at a North Indian restaurant that was once again very fancy. Gold plates and goblets? When do we get to do the whole ‘eat with your fingers at a street restaurant’ thing? Alas, probably never, cuz I doubt they wanna be held liable for our adverse bowel movements that would probably result.

I realized that I like North Indian food a lot better (more meat, slightly less spicy ) but God knows they served us wayyy too much food. I don’t know how many times I have to say this, but I am totally happy with just nan. Though, even bread here has spices! Cue major groan. Everyone also ordered drinks here, which were not cheap, so we all got beers  and martinis, which were moderately more so. Lee got his very manly mangotini. I’m proud of you, Lee.

Bar and Rickshaw Races

After dinner, we are left to fend for ourselves, meaning that they cut our chains and set us loose on the city. Watch out Bangalore, here we come! Bear in mind that we are a rather large group of obvious Americans wandering the streets in an unfamiliar area. The Cultural Assimilator inside of me is so uncontrollably cringing that I am fearing a minor seizure, but eventually we find a cool place to plop down for the night.

It’s a lot of fun and there are enough people there that we don’t stand out as a large group, which is always a plus. Though, once again, this place is not cheap, so I highly doubt I’ll be doing this every night. But it was nice getting to talk and meet other people – it’s my favorite part about the bar culture.

                                                                                                                                           

Bars in India close really early (this one stopped serving at about 11:15 pm), but the funniest part about it was that as we were leaving, the manager gave us all to-go cups for our drinks. This is AWESOME. No wonder they have ‘Don’t Drink and Drive’ signs up everywhere.

Choosing the illustrious rickshaw as our transportation home, we hail down several to take our group back. Naturally, being a large group of competitive business people, the ride home turned into a race home. We were flying down the streets, four to a rickshaw (they only hold three, so I, in an oh so ladylike manner, sprawled across the laps of three others). We lost unfortunately, mainly due to the fact that our driver got lost (I was asleep at this point so I missed this), but personally I think we won because we paid half the price that the other guys had to. Suckers.

Well, that’s about it for this day. Most people stayed up later, and as it often does, drama ensued. But I was happily asleep in my comfy bed, so I was blissfully unaware and thus content :).

Over and out.