Kite Festival

I have been looking forward to Kite Festival for a whole year.  I missed it by only 3 days when I moved to India last year, and everyone has told me how great it is.  Kite Festival lived up to its reputation.

Those of you who have read "The Kite Runner" will understand.  Basically everyone buys a crap-load of inexpensive paper kites and sharp string.  Just like with all festivals here, make-shift shops popped up all over the city selling supplies.  The kite string is coated with egg (I heard) and ground glass.  This makes it strong and sharp.  it is fun to see them doing the coating process and winding of spools on the roadside.  Everyone goes to their rooftop and flies their kites.  It is fun just to fly, but the real fun is to cut other peoples kite string with your kite string.  If you cut their line, you hoot and holler and celebrate.  Of course, you only cut the lines of neighbors, you don't cut the lines of friends and family on your roof.

There is a technique to flying kites that I learned.  In US, you only fly kites if there is wind, and basically you let the wind do the work.  I learned how to fly kites even if the wind is wind is low.  I also learned how to tie the string to the paper kite in order to get the right flying angles.  Even with the language barrier, I figured it all out from my friend's kind family.

Other than the kite flying, there is dancing, fireworks, and lighting of floating paper lanterns (thank god that buildings in A-bad are made of concrete, as the whole city would have burned down).  We also went to old city for late night snacks (chocolate sandwich and salted lassi for me).

My friend's cousin was visiting for this festival.  He is studying in US and brought his American girlfriend.  I felt like a knowledgable ambassador for her, and even a translator.  I am a little proud about how much I have learned in the last year.

Rajastan

My ex (but still a good friend) came for a visit to India.  I think he had a good time, but unlike me he would not like to live here for any extended period.

I am sharing what he wrote to his family/friends about his trip here.  I enjoy hearing other people's impressions of India, both good and bad.  It is a very entertaining note.

As most of you know, I took a trip to visit Cathy and India from Thanksgiving Day until 04 Dec.  For those of you who don't want the details:  I had four days living as an Indian with Cathy in Ahmedabad followed by three days as a tourist in Jodhpur, Jaipur, and Agra.  It was a fantastic trip and experience; here is the link to pictures, which start in Jodhpur:  http://2011nickvisitsindia.shutterfly.com/.  

For those that want the details (sorry if some of this is redundant for some of you; much of what is conveyed below is learned from Cathy more than experience, so my thanks to her), here is a novel:
I arrived in Delhi very late the night of Friday, 25 Nov and quickly discovered the pervasive chaos of India, as it took my asking about six different airport employees before I found one that could get me to the right place to get to a shuttle bus that would take me to the domestic terminal, which is separated from the international terminal by a drive of a few miles.  I also noticed a haze in the Delhi airport; I was uncertain whether this was a permanent thing or attributable to the time of night.

Saturday, 26 Nov:
My flight from Delhi to Ahmedabad got me there early morning, and Cathy and I took an autorickshaw (Fig. 1; "auto" for short) to her place, which is a pretty decent place.  Some notable facts:  Despite the hot, dry climate (think Phoenix, with the exception of monsoon season, which Cathy compares to Miami summer), there is no central air conditioning.  There are also not screens on windows, although they do have bars, presumably to keep out the pigeons, which they do with a decent success rate, but the pigeons can and occasionally do still find their way in and need to be chased out.  Cathy's place--and most the hotels at which we stayed--do not have a ready supply of hot water.  They do have geysers (pronounced, by Indians, at least, "geezer") that you turn on for five or ten minutes to heat some quantity of water.  In Cathy's case, this is connected only to a spigot in the bathroom, and not the shower, so showers are with ambient-temperature water.  For a hot "shower," one must fill a bucket and dump it over oneself using essentially a large measuring cup.  Given the heat, the hot bucket shower is not needed most of the year; in fact, despite being there in November, the ambient water was tolerable enough that I used that for all my showers before capping it off with a hot-water rinse.  There are no dryers in India, so all clothes are hung out to dry after coming out of the washer, but the climate makes the hang-dry process almost as fast as a dryer anyway.  Monsoon season provides some logistical difficulties with the rain and clothes need to be hung inside or during the few hours of non-rain.  We took a walk through her neighborhood and hit up a bootleg-DVD store and the local grocery store, which has decent offerings, and even an "international" section that had a lot of Wheatabix and some Kraft macaroni & cheese.
Figure 1, Autorickshaw:


Sunday, 27 Nov:
On Sunday we checked out a few more sites near Cathy's place, beginning with Vastrapur Lake.  Apparently it is a nice place by A-bad standards, since the stone archway entrance it is clearly marked "No Romance."  Following the lake, we ventured to the brand new mall that opened right next to it.  Like just about any place with large gatherings of people, one has to get wanded and perhaps frisked to get into a mall in India.  Even by American standards, this mall was very nice.  In the evening, we took an autorickshaw to Iskcon temple and had the good planning/fortune to be visiting during a lively worship ceremony.  Afterward, we stopped at Croma, the Indian Best Buy.  We watched a bootleg Bollywood movie in the evening; despite apparently being good as far as Bollywood movies go, I thought it was awful.  It was a supposed to be a serious movie, but felt like a Mel Brooks film.  Dinner, as on the previous day, was saucy meat on rice.  I had a lot of rice on this trip.

Monday, 28 Nov:
I got a good taste of Indian beaurocrazy (initially a typo, but it seemed suitable, so I left it) on Monday, as I accompanied Cathy in her attempt to get her visa renewed.  This was her fourth or fifth trip to the Ahmedabad Foreign Resident Registration Office.  It started right at 11 am, when the office opened.  After sitting around for about three hours, she was one of a group of people ushered off to another room.  After a short while, she returned, sat around a little longer, adn was then given some paperwork and had to go make a payment.  After the payment, we were sent off to the neighboring city and capital of Gujarat, Gandhinagar.  Gandhinagar was, as it promoted on its signs, clean and green relative to the remainder of India that I saw and was in less a state of disrepair.  The process was no better than A-bad, though.  Upon arriving in the government offices in Gandhinagar, we sat around for another several hours before being given the new visa right at 6:00 pm, the office closing time, and being told to take it back to Ahmedabad.  That night we met up with other group leaders from Piramal, Cathy's place of employment, and their families for dinner at a pretty nice restaurant.  The food throughout the trip was very good, although for someone with Celiac disease the options in India can be pretty limited.

Tuesday, 29 Nov:
After returning to the A-bad FRRO to finish the visa extension process, we rode Cathy's motorcycle out to Piramal for me to see her work and meet her colleagues.  They have a very nice facility full of very nice people.  We stopped on the way back at one of the handful of egg restaurants, which incorporate eggs into all their dishes; this is where I had my favorite dish of the trip:  special anda (egg) bhurji rice.  That night we caught a midnight train from A-bad to Jodhpur.  The inter-city trains have, from what I can tell, three different classes:  air-conditioned (which is then broken down into additional "tiers"), sleeper, and second class.  We took the sleeper class.  In second class, there are no assigned seats, so it is an absolute melee when the train arrives to be the first on to try to get a seat.  In sleeper class, one has, in most cases, an assigned berth; however, they will still apparently sell you a ticket without an assigned seat, and it then becomes your job to figure out where to situate yourself.  The sleeper class has nine "sections,"  each of which has two berths--one upper & one lower--running parallel to the aisle on on one side of the aisle and six berths--two upper, two middle, and two lower--that run perpendicular to the aisle on the other side of the aisle (Fig. 2).  The middle berths fold down so that passengers can sit during non-sleeping hours.
Figure 2, Sleeper class car:


Wednesday, 30 Nov:
We arrived in Jodhpur in the late morning and checked into our hotel, which had a terrific view of Merangarh Fort and Gulab Sagar lake from its rooftop.  The city of Jodhpur itself was very cool in its old schoolness.  The streets were all very narrow and full of pedestrian and animal traffic.  It is less tourist-oriented than the other cities we visited and not as modern as Ahmedabad.  We hired an auto for the day, who began the day with a trip to Jaswant Thada, an ornate memorial.  Following that, we visited Merangarh Fort, which offered excellent views of Jodhpur, which means "blue city;" many of the old buildings--or their roofs, at least--were constructed of a blue material that functioned as an insect repellent.  The fort was pretty cool with some nice old architecture and fairly ornate rooms.  Following the fort visit, we ventured to Mandore Gardens, which, to my delight, had a large number of monkeys, which were being fed fruit by some locals.  It also contained a number of cenotaphs, which were very cool to check out.  We finished the early evening at the royal palace, which still houses the local royal family, which I am sure has little influence of any source.  In addition, it is now part museum and part luxury hotel as well; we walked through the museum portion; it was nice, but not too remarkable.  On the way back to the hotel, our auto driver dropped us at a shop that hawked its textiles to us.  We asked for a restaurant recommendation, and they said to check out On the Rocks.  I had noticed that place on the way to and from the palace and noted that it looked like a lame attempt at an American restaurant.  We decided to listen to the locals, though, so got an auto to drive us out there.  The driver to whom we spoke, though, decided to turn over operation to a kid of, by my estimation, about 14 years old and his slightly-younger buddy.  We soon discovered he did not really know the way to On the Rocks, but we eventually made it there after getting some directions at random restaurants that our kid-driver stopped at to see if they were OK for us.  When we got to On the Rocks, we discovered that we had been sent to the place they must send all tourists, since 75 % of the clientele was non-Indian; it was certainly not what we had in mind, but it worked out all right.

Thursday, 01 Dec:
We caught the train from Jodhpur to Jaipur, the "pink city," in the morning.  We started our tour of Jaipur at Isar Lat, a tower in central Jaipur that afforded a wonderful, 360-degree view of the city.  The path to the top was a winding "staircase," only the stairs were something between stairs and a ramp.  After descending from Isar Lat, we got another taste of "real" India, as our auto driver was pulled over for not having a license to drive tourists (apparently that requires a special license and he was only supposed to be driving locals), so had to pay off the officer.  Once that was done, we were able to continue to "Monkey Temple," essentially a hill at the top of which there is a temple.  As one might suspect, this hill is heavily populated by monkeys, along with other animals.  We purchased a bag of peanuts and fed the monkeys (and a cow) by hand, which was obviously one of my favorite experiences.  We also witnessed a battle between two groups of monkeys that, sadly, looked to have left one monkey on his death bed.  I guess that is what happens in nature, though, so I had to accept it.  Our auto driver wanted to cap off our evening with a trip to some guru who was going to solve all our problems just by his presence or touch.  We convinced him we just wanted dinner instead, and gave him parameters for the kind of place we wanted.  His first attempt failed, as he took us to a place without alcohol, but it at least brought us into the center of the city, which was cool to see.  Attempt #2 was successful and we got to see a new part of Jaipur as we took the wrong outlet from a roundabout walking back to our hotel.

 

Friday, 02 Dec:

While waiting on our balcony, our auto driver called to me; he had apparently been waiting despite Cathy texting him the previous night to say we did not need a driver.  I later put together that, like 62 % of the state of Rajasthan, he was illiterate, so a text served no purpose.  We did a bit of negotiation and at least got a "free" ride to the train station in exchange for his services for the day.  He first took us to Jantar Mantar, a very old astronomical site measuring the sun, planets, etc. and using that to determine time, date, etc., kind of like what many suspect Stonehenge to have been.  Only it looks far less crude than Stonehenge, likely because it is not as old.  After that, we stopped at an out-of-the way place called Royal Gate Hall, which was beautiful and serene, set between a few hills.  It was easy to forget you were in the midst of a fair-sized city.  Following that, we returned to the hotel to check out and get to our train to Agra.  As I mentioned earlier, you can get tickets for a sleeper car without assigned seats.  We had assigned seats, but got squeezed by people with tickets but no seats.  One group in particular was unpleasant, so I did my best to make their ride uncomfortable.  My East Coast US habitat makes me far more resilient to cold than your standard Indian, so I left my window open the entire trip, which went well into the evening.  The 60-degree air blowing in meant the woman squeezing me was in her sari, a sweater, and about four wraps, two over her head, by the time we hit Agra.  Normally I would feel bad about doing something spiteful like that, but they had it coming.  Cathy would back me up on this one.  We did not really feel like heading out for dinner that night, so became the only patrons in the silent hotel restaurant.  For ambiance, Cathy busted out her phone for background music.

 

Saturday, 03 Dec:

We did not have much time in Agra before heading to the train station for our trip to Delhi to catch flights, so we spent all of it at Taj Mahal, which was the single most-impressive site visited on the trip, which I guess is not a surprise.  It's scale and grandeur is impressive, and the grounds were also very expansive, beautiful, and well-kept.  And, with the cost of Indian labor, the grass was being cut by someone with shears.  Cheaper than a mower, I guess.  We traveled to and from the Taj in a rickshaw (See Fig. 3).  On the way there, we negotiated beforehand to pay our driver 30 rupees to take us there.  On the way back, we did not negotiate beforehand.  Upon disembarking, we held out the 30 rupees for the driver, who refused to take it; he wanted 150.  He was still demanding 150 when he at least decided to grab the 30 so we just went back into the hotel.  One other Taj experience:  We did have a little extra time afterward, so, rather than heading out the same way as all the other tourists, we went through a less-traversed neighborhood next to the Taj.  We were like Pied Pipers.  We picked up a group of probably eight or so teenage boys along the way; it seemed to keep growing as we continued.  Uttar Pradesh (Agra's state) is known to be rough and unsafe, so I do not know if there intentions were nefarious, but by the time we emerged from that neighborhood (with an escort:  a middle-aged man who was very interested in talking to us about America), I felt like the leader of the Jets or the Sharks.

Figure 3, Rickshaw:

 

Then our auto fun began.  On the way to the train station in Agra, we blew out a tire.  Our driver was able to track down another auto, and we smoothly transferred.  Our new driver gave us a simple lesson in geopolitics:  "India has no problem with America.  India likes America.  India does not like Pakistan.  I am a Muslim, but I am an Indian Muslim, which means I am a good businessman, like all Indian Muslims.  All Pakistani Muslims, though, are terrorists."  From what I understand, this is not a minority viewpoint in India.  After an uneventful train ride to Delhi, we caught another auto directly to the airport, which went well most of the way.  Until the part when he missed the exit for the airport, which was resolved in typical Indian fashion:  we all got out and the driver and I pushed the auto backward about 30 yards against about seven "lanes" of traffic so that he could then swing off on the right exit.  Upon arriving at the Delhi airport, I discovered that the haze I saw upon my arrival in India is in fact a permanent smog shroud that lingers right outside the Delhi airport (which is otherwise extremely nice).  Thus concludes my Indian adventure...but not my novel:

 

A few general notes:

-Indians are very overboard in their obsession with film.  There are countless theaters, all of which do great business, 90 % of new music is from Hindi films, and 90 % of their "news" is about actors.

-India has an immense trash problem.  It is piled everywhere.  I guess the good thing is that it feeds the many animals that are integrated into their urban environments:  cows, buffalo, dogs, goats, and pigs.

-Traffic:  It seems like organized chaos, but you discover it is pretty simple when you are in it.  Just drive, preferably on the left side of the road, until you almost hit someone.  At that point, the two of you carefully try to get in front of each other.  Eventually one of you will win, and you can both continue on your way.  In Ahmedabad, a city of about 4 million, I recall seeing maybe a half-dozen stoplights.  There are posted speed limits, but they are pointless, since you can never get up to those speeds anyway.  Some streets are also marked with lanes, which might serve even less a purpose.  Also, horns are constant, but, unlike in the US, they are not used to say, "Hey, jerk, that was a bad move on your part."  While they can say that, they are more typically used to alert other traffic to one's presence, like, "hey, don't swerve to the right, because I am right beside you" or "hey, I am about to venture into your oncoming lane of traffic."  Also, if you have only a short distance to go, it is perfectly acceptable to drive the wrong way on the street rather than trying to swing a u-turn or some other maneuver; just stay off to the side as far as possible.

 

airports

I travelled to see some friends on NYE.  I have flown many times around India now (at least 12 round trips to Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore).

In the US, I also flew all the time, and it was a very efficient process.  TSA has some stupid rules after Sept 11, but everyone knows the rules and abides.  Take off your shoes and belt at security, only small amounts of liquids on carry-on, etc.

In the US, every once in a while, I would get behind that small-town family that seemed to flying for the first time.  They didn't have their ID's ready, forgot to print their eTicket, have 25 bags, didn't remove the metal from their pockets, kids are running around like devils...

In India, it seems like 60% of the people are similar to the families above.  I really don't think it is because these people have never travelled in planes before, it is just because they are a little careless and selfish.  It is not in people's nature here to care about the needs of a stranger.  No one will hesitate to cut in line, make someone else wait in a retail store while they ask 100 questions to a salesperson, etc.  That being said, I do admit that when a person is lost or hurt, an Indian is more helpful than an American.

OK, happy new year!  I am looking forward to 2012 in India.  A new bike will be in future, along with many other good things, Inshallah...

Please please extend my visa...

I originally got a 1 year work visa in India.  I got the visa from the Indian embassy in NYC.  It was a very straightforward process.  I sent ~8 documents to the embassy along with my passport, and they immediately sent my passport back with the visa.

Now I need to extend the visa, as I plan to stay here longer into 2012.  However, once in India, the process needs to happen at the local offices here, and the process is not so simple.  Everyone has heard of the horrible bureaucracy in India, and of the corruption as well.  I did my homework and went to the immigration office with all my documents in order.  They still sent me away saying that my documents were insufficient.  They don't believe that I am a permanent employee here, they require my contract dates.  They also require proof of address, so I brought my lease agreement, which is good until Feb2012.  They told me I need a lease renewal agreement.  How stupid, to require proof of where I will be living 3 months from now???  This should not be required, and my landlord has moved to New Jersey, so I can't get these notarized docs so quickly.  I think they purposefully ask for unreasonable things so that they can take bribes.  I will be very upset if I can't continue my work here.  I am learning so much and enjoying this time in India immensely.

Its a small (pharma) world, and Goa

My company is a CRO/CMO (contract research/manufacturing org), so we get a lot of client visits (current and prospective clients).  It amazes me how many visitors work with people that I have also worked with.  It is a much smaller world, in this industry, than I would have figured.

I just met a Genentech guy who works with my ex-Pfizer friend Jack.  I have met Pfizer Animal Health guys who worked with me and Dennis/Sunil from PAH Kalamazoo.  My former Merck colleague Pete joined a company in NJ, and his new boss came to my company.  Also one of my current colleagues previously worked at my old Merck site.

I have surprised myself recently with my schmoozing ability.  At first I hated the client visits, I just wanted to get back to the "science", project work.  But lately, it has become more fun to do the business activities.  Chatting it up about industry trends, "oh I also know so-and-so person", considering project costs and profits, all have gone from dull to interesting for me.  Who would have thought?

On a separate note, now that SNOW has come to Philly, I am not feeling homesick at all.  Weather is beautiful here.  My hindi is improving.  All in all, I am pretty happy here these days.

Went to Goa for Diwali.  What a lovely place.  Heavily influenced by Portugal, which is still apparent in the arcitechture and prevalence of christianity (including lovely old churches).  It is so christian that you can actually eat beef here!!  But I did not.  I ate some great fish curry though, a nice alternative to my usual diet, as quality fish is hard to come by in Ahmedabad.  The beaches are great, but not as good as Carribean.  I also helped teach my friend Vipin how to swim.  Can you believe only a small portion of the Indian population knows how to swim?  It was funny for me to teach a grown man to tread water.

Our beach hut, right on the water

Virus!

I still have not gotten sick here in India (except when I drank old milk), which defies all logic.  One would have thought that the kind of "bugs" here would be new to my immune system, and I would spend my first year getting sick all the time.  However, not even one cold or flu.  Even in the US I got sick at least twice per year, so it is a big surprise.

Before coming to India I got all sorts of vaccines and warnings (don't eat street food, don't eat cut vegetables, only drink bottled water, use insect repellent).  I have not followed any of these warnings.  This is my home now, I can't live in a bubble.  I was beginning to think that all the warnings were due to paranoia and hype.

As it turns out there were thousands of malaria cases in Ahmedabad during Aug/Sep.  My coworker's grandfather got malaria (mosquito borne).  My friend here got Chikungunya (insect borne) this week.  A coworker in Indore got typhoid (water borne) in August, and is still suffering with fever and joint/organ pain.  An expat from Denmark in my area got Dengue fever (insect borne) this month.  These are all well-off people, who live in similar neighborhoods/flats as me with similar lifestyles/eating habits.  In fact my eating habits are probably worse as I eat street food with abandon.

I am not sure if I am willing to change my lifestyle, but I may opt to at least get my immunizations up to date next time I visit US.

Not kidding, I just not now got bitten by a mosquito...

Udaipur, Navratri, and other...

ANOTHER festival, Navratri, where I celebrated at coworkers home.  Basically 9 days of dancing with very gaudy traditional costume required.  It was fun to shop for the dress at the outdoor markets, with my indian girl friends driving a hard bargain for me (2500 rupees down to 700).  My coworker's wife and sister-in-law helped me dress and let me borrow jewelry.

Also travelled to Udaipur, Rajastan by bus for a weekend adventure.  Pics of both below.  I do love India, but I can understand from a blog reader's point of view that all these trips and festivals must look the same...

As I was coming home from Navratri celebration last night, my bike stopped working.  It was 3 am, but there were lots of people on the road due to the festivities.  As always, people immediately stopped to help.  I thought I was out of petrol, but my spark plug was malfunctioning.  People here are good at knowing how to fix things with the most basic tools, and I was on my way in no time.  However, even with a bike tuneup being done recently, I have constant trouble with my bike.  It is fun to have such an old bike.  I kind of like taking it to the shop all the time, as it gives me a way to be involved with the real people of india.  However, I am worried for my safely on the road.  I really need a more reliable bike.  But what if I leave this place in 6 months?  Should I really buy a new bike now?