haircut, india style

I got my hair cut this weekend. Hadn't had it cut since June and between the not super clean water here and the pollution in the air my hair was definitely not doing well. I was super nervous about getting it cut which, in retrospect, was pretty silly since almost all Indian women have super long super thick hair. It was actually the first haircut I think I've ever had where the hairdresser didn't say "oh, your hair is really thick". (side note: I always tell them it is thick yet they still always seem surprised)
Anyway, it was for the most part completely normal, however there was one interesting difference. So, there was a guy who washed my hair then the hairdresser cut it - totally normal, I've been to some salons before where there are people that just wash hair. Anyway, after the cut it came time for the blow dry. At this point the guy that washed my hair came and held the blowdryer for the hairdresser. That is right - one person to comb my hair and one to hold the blowdryer. That is so India to me; there is such a bizarre hierarchy within people; clearly if you are good enough to be a hairdresser at this salon you are above holding a hairdryer.
It cracked me up. I'll definitely have to tell this to a hairdresser back home and see what they think.
At the end of the day my haircut turned out well and it only cost me $10 including tip - at a very nice salon.

Mumbai

I wasn't going to talk about what happened yesterday in Mumbai (and what is still happening for that matter), but I can't ignore it. I have been to Mumbai and I recognize almost all of the places where these attacks are taking place. I went into the train station (formerly called Victoria Terminus); it is a masterpiece of gothic architecture so a big sight to see. I saw the Taj Hotel and almost went into Leopold's restaurant (it is a big setting in a book I read that is set in Mumbai) but I was so hot that I decided not to.
Mumbai is an odd city, it is the financial capital of India; and the home of Bollywood; but apparently it is also the home of lots of organized crime. There are just too many people in the city and not enough resources. My sense is that the group that did this is probably trying to create more tensions in the city and it is very Mumbai-focused and not about all of India, I could be wrong though.
I'm reading a book about Mumbai right now (which is actually very badly written but it was recommended so I'm making an effort) and it talks about how in the city there is lots of strife and tension between religions and people of different backgrounds because there are such limited resources that people want someone to blame for not having enough to live on.
Anyway, with all this sadness I wanted to send what I think is a nice picture of the city. It taken from a boat - the Taj hotel is the building on the left with the red dome and the Gateway of India on the right both of which are very important historically in Mumbai.

quick note - am fine

Just a quick note if you are watching cnn. There have been terror attacks today in Mumbai; I'm in Delhi and am just fine.
However, I'm not an idiot and realize that this could make a few people in Delhi behave badly, so I will stay close to home this weekend. The elections here are on Saturday which might be why these attacks are happening, I don't think anyone has claimed responsibility yet.
Anyway, don't want to dampen anyone's Thanksgiving Day happiness but you can be thankful that I'm safe and well.

Happy day before Thanksgiving

My guess is that most people won't be checking my blog tomorrow because they will be too busy cooking a Turkey, or watching football or any other lovely Thanksgiving activity. I will be here working away in a land without Thanksgiving (sigh).
Actually I am going to a Thanksgiving dinner with some other Americans; it will be Indian style with Tandoori Chicken and some "normal" stuff. Apparently getting a turkey here costs about $100 so...chicken it is.
So now for the cheesy "what I'm thankful for" part of Thanksgiving...I'm thankful that my foot is finally (mostly) better, I'm thankful that I got this opportunity to come to India...who'd of thunk I'd live in India, but, cheesy though it may be, I'm really happy I grew up in a country where I can make my own decisions and live my life according to what I want and not some pre-destined route based on what my family has decided for me.
So, have some turkey and pumpkin pie for me and enjoy the football!
Happy Thanksgiving All :)
And safe travels.

head wagging

One interesting Indian trait is the "head wag". Basically when people agree with you instead of nodding their head they move it from side to side. At first it almost looks like they are shaking their head in disagreement and it is very confusing, but it is a different type of movement, almost like the way a bobblehead head moves.
Some people are big time head-waggers; they will have their head moving from side to side almost non-stop during a conversation; with others you get just a little head tilt in agreement.
What is interesting is that it is almost used in lieu of words some times, almost like an acknowledgement. Like if you see someone far away instead of waving you would give a little tilt to acknowledge them.
I haven't quite managed using head wag, it just isn't natural to me. The only time I make a concerted effort to use it is when I'm at the coffee shop with the boy that is deaf, it is my way of saying "thanks for my coffee", I like to think he understands, he smiles so that is a good sign. Otherwise I stick with words.
I am used to seeing it now though and don't think that the whole world is disagreeing with me although the people that are big time head waggers I do find a little bit distracting sometimes. I sit there wondering if it hurts their necks. Of course usually I'm thinking this in the middle of a meeting which is a whole other issue altogether. But that is for another day.
For now I must be off to lunch so I can do my homework for Hindi class. I'm such a bad student!

Noisy

I cannot help but wonder exactly how loud you would have to be in India to have someone actually complain about it.
I was wondering this last night at around 10:30 when someone somewhere in my neighborhood was having a party that was super loud, as in I couldn't see which house it was coming from but I could hear every word to every song; they had very eclectic music going; Indian music then Bryan Adams then Bruce Springsteen...Anyway, I was thinking that back home this would for sure result in a noise complaint and a visit from the police. Here super loud parties are normal. It isn't that the people are loud, it is the music. They seem to crank up the music at around 10 p.m. and go til midnight or 1 a.m. I don't really mind, I can sleep through pretty much anything, but I wonder about people with little kids. Maybe they are just used to it.
What a great country to be in college in...imagine those loud parties with no fear of the cops being called to quiet you down...and even if they were called you could pay them off (apparently the cops here are super corrupt, you can buy them off for most anything...at least that is what I'm told). Of course these aren't college students, these are "grown-up" parties, college kids here don't party like back home.
Generally this is just a loud country, loud music, loud talkers (often a discussion sounds like an argument because of how loudly people talk), loud horns, loud birds (seriously, there are some loud birdies) just loud. I don't think I will ever adjust to it. I don't mind noise much but sometimes quiet would be nice. However, it has its benefits, I used to always worry about playing my music too loud; now I play it however loud I would like with the windows open and it is fine...I'm sure that it is about 5 levels lower than my neighbors' music.
Moral if this story: if you are a light sleeper and are coming to India, bring some ear plugs.
Random comment du jour: there is a guy in our office who brings us water and tea and runs errands for us. He is out today sick today so I told someone "if you want water you'll just have to get it yourself". The look on his face was priceless, you would think he had never gotten a drink for himself his whole life; he looked so confused!

sickly...or not

Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a nation of hypochondriacs. Every time I so much as sniffle people ask me if I'm okay and suggest that I should see a doctor. It seems like when people get sick here they are much more likely to take extra time off to recover out of a fear of staying sick - I'm talking of the middle class and above here, the lower classes are actually more likely to come to work when they are sick out of fear of losing their job because they need the money. But I digress.
When I arrived pretty much no one in the office could believe that I was actually working with a broken foot. Now I will admit that I was a bit crazy, but I couldn't imagine sitting at home all day doing nothing just waiting for it to heal, I would have been bored out of my mind. If I had been back home I would have found a way to work; at least working from home.
Also, two people in the office have gone to the doctor because they weren't feeling well and were told to take a few days off because of their blood pressure. Concerns about blood pressure seem to be really big here. Could you imagine calling in sick because of high blood pressure?
I guess when you live in a country with lots of wacky diseases and stuff (one woman in the office had typhoid this September and spent 2 weeks in the hospital) that it kind of makes sense to be a bit paranoid.
I saw a mosquito in my apartment yesterday and completely freaked out; I have a fear of getting bitten and catching a disease; so I guess I'm paranoid but in a different way. It is the first one I've seen inside so far but I stocked up on mosquito stuff today - OFF has this thing you can plug into your wall, kind of like those candles that keep mosquitoes away, so I bought two and they are doing their thing right now killing the bugs.
So far I'm healthy (knock on wood) and my blood pressure seems to be just fine.
Final note: congrats to Nelly and Rob on the birth of their baby boy :)

brrrr?

I wore a jacket yesterday for the first time since I've gotten here.
A light spring jacket and I only wore it at night as it is still in the 80s during the day.
In the mornings when I take my pre-work walks all the other women (it is only women that walk in my little park, I don't know why) wear sweaters while I wear a t-shirt. Some days if I'm really early I'll wear a long sleeved T but I think they think I'm crazy for not wearing a sweater.
One of the guys in my office now wears a sweater every day, one day he wore a sweater and a vest! And almost every morning at work people ask me if I'm cold since I'm wearing short sleeves. To which I always reply, no I'm coming from 2 winters in Canada and Boston before that...I'm just fine. It does get chilly at night but nothing I can't handle; a jacket outside, slippers and a blanket inside; definitely no need for a heater. But I wonder...how do the Indians that move to the US or Canada handle the cold?
I've always found that I would rather be really hot than really cold because I have an easier time cooling down than warming up. And yes, I would take July in Delhi over February in Toronto. So how do people who are "cold" when it is 70 handle 30s, 20s, or worse (i.e. February). I imagine that first winter abroad must be just absolutely brutal; not to mention the snow. Imagine you have never seen snow before, suddenly it snows and not only do you have to deal with it but you have to get to work because that is how things are done.
I might have mentioned this before but I think that it would be much more difficult for an Indian to move to the west than for a westerner to move to India (i.e. me moving here). Looking at they way they react to the "cold" I just can't even imagine how difficult it must be.
Anyway, I'm still warm, kind of feels like September weather.

an interesting drive

Driving in India is quite an adventure and I'm happy that I don't have to do it. It isn't that people speed, that definitely isn't the case at all...there is too much traffic to be able to speed; it is that there are so many things to keep your eye on; cars, busses, bicycles, cows, camels etc. (and no, I'm not exaggerating, on the "highway" between Delhi and Jaipur I saw probably 100 cows and 50 camels, the cows were just hanging out, the camels were pulling carts)

I must say that I have rather quickly adjusted to the Indian way of driving and only rarely do I get freaked out any more.

This weekend however I had a totally new and interesting driving experience which was a classic Indian driving moment. So, we are happily cruising back to Delhi when we got to a little traffic jam. At first I didn't think much about it, traffic would periodically slow down on the road; but after a minute or so it became clear that there was some sort of accident up ahead. So, what did we do?

Well, slowly but surely the cars started backing up to a break in the median about 200 metres back and crossing to the other side of the highway to drive past the accident; no waiting around for police to fix things; that is just what they do here. It was actually amazingly orderly...until that is there was an accident on the other side of the highway - shockingly not because they were driving into oncoming traffic, but one person just rear ended another.

So back we moseyed to our side of the highway and soon enough things cleared up.

I've been here long enough now that when I get stuck in traffic I'm happy when my driver sneaks into a tight spot and goes around things or crosses the highway to get past an accident. Completely outside of the way things should work, but somehow it all kind of works...kind of.

The worst driver I've ever seen here actually was a student driver...they were following all the rules, driving in the lanes, and it was completely screwing things up.

And...for your viewing pleasure, traffic on the main street in Jaipur, bicycles, rickshaws (auto and not), about a million parked motorbikes. Amazingly, no cars, I guess they knew better then to try and squeeze onto that road.

Jaipur

Well, Jaipur was lots of fun. I like going places where I have no expectations because it is nearly impossible to be disappointed.
The best way I would describe Jaipur is that it is exactly the way I imagined India to be; kind of like all the scenes in the movies; that is Jaipur. Delhi is pretty metropolitan in many ways so it isn't quite as intense, which is good since I live here; Jaipur is fun to visit but would be tiring to live in.
Jaipur was teeming with people, and cows, and camels; the roads were packed. And all the people dressed very traditionally; lots of really really colorful saris.
The market and the people are actually one of the sights to see in Jaipur, we spent almost 2 hours walking up and down checking out everything you could buy. Spices galore, jewelry - lots of bangle bracelets which are very common in India; one type of bangle is worn only by new brides; and, my favorite, a group of guys sitting on the ground making keys...and about a block away a guy selling locks. Seems an odd disconnect having keys and locks made by different people, but I've found it is best not to question these things and just go along with them.
The actual sights were cool too; one of them is a park with giant astronomical instruments, like a HUGE sundial and a HUGE model of a solar system. It is almost 400 years old but looks modern, it actually reminded me of a set from an old James Bond film; imagining James hiding behind one of the sundials and the bad guy behind another...trust me, if you could see it that would make sense...but it was so old! Crazy that something so old can look so new.
Anyway. If you are coming to India I would recommend Jaipur, it is fun and crazy and colorful. And the air is so much cleaner than Delhi (Delhi is seriously polluted, it was nice to breath really fresh air).
And I promise I'll upload more picture soon, I'm waaay behind, sorry!

Happy Friday, etc.

I am sooo happy it is Friday. It has been one of those really long weeks, but I'm heading to Jaipur tomorrow for some fun sightseeing. Hooray! I have no clue what is in Jaipur, but everyone seems to want to go there so it is time for me to find out what the fuss is all about.
Anyway, here is today's random cultural differences deep thought...
Through a series of circumstances that I would rather not get into, one of my responsibilities in the office now includes keeping track of our groups' payments and reminding the sales staff to get payments in on time. I don’t like doing it and have tried about 20 different ways to get out of it but alas, no luck. Anyway, one of the main reasons I don’t like dealing with it is because it has been really really tough to get people to pay on time. I commented to someone that I felt like Ebenezer Scrooge talking about money all the time...they had no clue who I was talking about.
I don’t think of myself as a super literary person (although I did once famously think that a dog named Marley was named after Marley from A Christmas Carol rather than Bob Marley so maybe it is just A Christmas Carol thing with me) but it is odd to live in a culture where I pretty much cannot make any literary references. Like, when the lights kept going out at night in the summer I kind of felt like a character from a Jane Austen novel walking around with my candles; again, no clue.
Pop culture is also very different. Only a few American TV shows are shown here, and they are shown a year late, and almost no Indians watch them; and only the BIG movies are released here. Sports stars; forget about it. It is all Bollywood and Cricket stars here (aside: I’m getting to know some of the biggest Bollywood stars from all the commercials they do, there are 2 actors and 1 actress that seem to be in every other commercial).
Anyway. This doesn’t have much to do with anything, it is just one of those things that you don’t think about when moving somewhere so different. You think about the big things that will be different, but not the little things.

lightbulb follow-up

So, I'm happy to say that as it turns out the wire attached to the lightbulb had melted which is why I couldn't get it out of the socket which means that I'm not a complete idiot. I watched as our office handy-man guy completely re-wired this light socket, it was fascinating. If you have seen the movie Outsourced it kind of reminded me of the scene with the "consultant" re-wiring the office, only on a much smaller scale. So many people here have so little that they learn many of these small skills, like how to re-wire a socket, so that they don't have to pay others to do the work; besides from what I've heard actual electricians here are terrible.

Speaking of wires...I find it really funny that so much of our (US's) IT support comes from India but most of the people I work with are really bad on computers, like really really bad. Gross generalization time: people in India seem to be split in two groups; those that know computers inside out and backwards and work in IT and those that are completely computer un-savvy; in general computers just aren't a part of daily life here like they are back home. The younger generation, around college age, are for sure more tech savvy, but I would say that the level of computers in life here is at about the level it was in the US 15 or 20 years ago. Really the biggest deficiency from my perspective it the inability to figure out how to work around things; people learn exactly what they know on the computer and can't take it to the next level. I wonder at what stage of computer use get to know how to make the computer work for you?

Anyway, I feel like i'm kind of droning on today....but, a while back someone sent me an email forward with a photo of wires in India saying "this is where we get our IT support" and I saw a group of wires just like that so had to send along this photo today.

How many Alison's does it take to change a lightbulb?

I am absolutely mortified to tell this story but...
Last night the light went out in my bathroom. I tried to change the lightbulb for about 20 minutes and was completely unsuccessful; I couldn't even get the bad one out of the socket. I was cracking up to myself the whole time thinking how silly it was that I can't even change a lightbulb.
So I got to the office today and told our office manager guy and he will go to my house and change it for me. Previously he has also gone and fixed my gas stove, screwed in a shelf that was falling down (I have no clue where to buy tools) and helped me with an ant problem. I feel so helpless and silly sometimes; but the really funny part it that it is completely logical to him that I would ask him to do these things; its like how everyone thinks it is kind of odd that I don't have a cook. I would except that the cooks here will cook enough for a family of 5 for just one person so the food would go to waste...plus I don't have a microwave to warm things up.
Oh well.
We just ran out of water in the office again. Always an adventure. Still haven't run out at home (knock on wood).

Bond, James Bond

I saw the new James Bond this weekend. Someone told me that they were releasing it here a week before it was released in the US. Is that true? Has it come out there yet?

It is okay, not as good as the previous one, mostly because of the director, I feel like a film critic, but seriously, everything was too close up. Oh well, I don't go to Bond movies for an intellectual experience, and there was lots of M so that was good.

Anyway, even though that is the subject of this blog I actually wanted to write about something different. I saw the movie at the mall (yes, a mall here, it is pretty new, they are still building half of it) and did some shopping before the movie. First I got a new pair of Reeboks, yes they have Reeboks here, and Nike too, but I'm a Reebok girl. Same shoes, but they all have colors on them, I like super plain shoes but super plain just doesn't happen in India, so I got a pair with some color, kind of a magenta. So, after buying a pair of sneaks I went to Clinque to buy makeup. Yes, there is a Clinque store here. Strange, but true. I'm not totally out of foundation yet but went early based on a hunch of mine...a hunch which turned out to be true. I am so pale that they have to special order the base for me because they don't carry that shade in stock. They tried to get me to do a darker shade but agreed when I tried it on that it looked really fake, I just don't think they believed that I really am that pale, they even had me take off the foundation I had on to see my real skin color to make sure I wasn't using something paler than my skin; they were very surprised to see that it is an exact match.

Too funny, and completely logical. When 99% of the population is darker skinned why would they carry something that pale. So in a week or so I will get my special ordered super pale foundation, and because this is India they will deliver it to me at home. Gotta love that!

money

I've noticed that I have a completely warped sense of money after living here. So many things are so inexpensive that I find myself thinking things are expensive when they aren't really at all. Like for me to take a taxi from my apartment to the airport, about a 30 minute ride, I pay $10, which is crazy cheap (the gov't subsides gas here and lots of things run on natural gas...but that is still cheap); so when I was in Mumbai, through a very bizarre series of events, I had to use the hotel car for 4 hours and it was 3000 Rs, which is about $60. I was appalled at how expensive it was but then it occurred to me that a taxi from the airport to my apartment in Toronto was $50. And when I go out to lunch the "expensive" place is about $8; that is a full sit down meal not some food court type place. When I "splurge" it is on something like a block of cheese which costs $5...but is totally worth it.
I wonder how long after I return to the western world it will take me to get used to paying Western prices...will I ever? Or will I always think "in India this only costs x amount". I wonder. I bet it won't be as long as I would think, I have transitioned fairly quickly into the Indian way of doing things so I bet I'll transition back faster than I expect.
Random comment: last night I finally slept without a fan on. It is cooling down quite nicely - its almost chilly at night. Not sure the exact temp but I like it.
Happy Friday and have a good weekend everyone.

me talk funny

Happy Day after election day. Still election day in the US though. The good thing about being so far ahead time-zone wise is that I woke up just as the results were coming in. One quick mini-tirade: I thought that the news stations weren't supposed to call a state before the polls had closed in that state because it can affect the late voters? I know that they want to have the election called but have they learned nothing from 2000? Oh well...I digress.
I have come to the realization that I talk kind of funny now. I have always picked up accents fairly easily, I think that is due to the fact that I spent a year as a kid in England and got the English accent that year and then went back to the American accent when we moved back. So now I have realized that even though I fought against talking like a Canadian while I was there that I have picked up some of their pronunciations; most specifically with the word sorry, I totally say it the Canadian way. It is weird. And since most of the people I hang out with here are not American, mostly Indians (obviously), Aussies, Brits and Swedes, I pick up on all their different accents. As a result no one can tell where I'm from, mostly they think I'm Canadian. I'm also in some sort of grammatical vortex since Indian English and grammar are not friends and the Swedes I talk with sometimes make errors (my company is Swedish owned which is why I talk with so many Swedes) so I find myself questioning when I write things. Does something sound wrong because it is wrong? Or does it sound wrong because I'm used to hearing the wrong thing and it actually is right?
So, this is my very long-winded way of saying that is I write something that sounds funny just bear with me.

hotels

Happy Election Day. I miss going to the polls to vote, absentee voting is boring, especially since they don't count them unless the vote is close (no matter what they say)
Anyway...I must talk about the hotel I stayed at in Mumbai because it was quite the experience. I’m not a swanky girl, I pretty much only require a bed and that the room be clean. The issue with India is that sometimes hotels that are mid-range can be rather unclean so it is always best to err on the side of swank just to be safe. That, coupled with the fact that I decided on Wednesday to spend the weekend away and booked my hotel on Thursday without putting much effort into it, put me at the Hyatt. Depending on which website you look at it is either 4 or 5 stars…and before you get all “hey, we are going through a recession and Alison is staying at 5 star hotels, what is up with that?”, just know that I got a crazy good deal on it through my travel agent discount (note: I’m not a travel agent, but I get the discount, it is all very complicated). Anyway, the hotel was really really nice, but it was the “only in India” things that I really noticed. Admittedly I’ve never stayed at hotel that nice anywhere else but:
When I checked in they walked me to my room to make sure it was to my liking (it was).
Every single person that walked by me in the hotel said “good afternoon maam, good morning maam, have a good day maam”, etc. I kind of got sick of it after a while actually. I get called maam about 20 times a day normally here, while there it was at about 100.
There was a bible in the hotel room (generously placed by the Gideons…I wonder if some Gideon somewhere has the job of tracking every new hotel that opens…and I wonder if there are bibles in hotels in communist countries…but I digress), there was also a copy of the Bhagavad Gita (if you don’t know what that is it is one of the holy documents in Hinduism…I actually read a part of it once). So you could choose your path to salvation.
Restaurants: the swanky hotels here are generally populated by foreigners and lots of business travelers. They usually each have several restaurants in them which is where you can go if you just want to be western for a bit. Confession: I had Italian twice. I had Indian for lunch but I really really miss good cheeses and felt like splurging on some good Italian food. I also had chicken cordon bleu for dinner one night. Not as good as my dad makes it, but very good nonetheless.
All in all, a very nice experience, and a fantastic hotel pool; seriously, best hotel pool I’ve seen yet. I don’t think I’m really a swank hotel kind of girl, but it is nice to indulge every once in a while and pretend like I am.

Cricket!

Last Friday we had an office off-site that included going to a Bollywood movie and playing cricket. The Bollywood movie was everything I thought it would be...and less. A very very silly movie with almost no plot (it was in Hindi and I could follow it fairly easily and my Hindi is still pretty basic) and a musical number in the middle that definitely had nothing to do with anything. But the audience gets really into it which made if fun.

But enough about Bollywood - on to cricket! Before playing I looked the game up on-line to try and figure it out. It is actually not that complicated to get the basics, it just that there are lots of exceptions and random rules which make it seem a lot more complicated. We set up the game near India gate which I would compare ambiance wise to paying a game on the National Mall in DC; a huge grassy area (I believe 5 km long) with people hanging out enjoying the sun, it is still in the 90s during the day here, but the humidity is gone so it is nice. We all had to bat and we all had to pitch - apparently in real cricket matches everyone pitches and if you throw a pitch wide (read - foul ball) the other team gets a point. I wasn't a good pitcher, for lack of a better expression I throw like a girl, but I was on okay bats-woman and I am very proud to say that I got a run, hooray! The score was something like 90 to 86 or something so getting a run isn't actually that difficult, but there were some people that didn't get one and it was my first time playing so...yeah! And I was actually able to run; which 4 months after breaking my foot was the really big hooray.

And since I'm now addicted to adding photos to my blog, here is a picture of me getting ready to bat (it is kind of small but if you click on the photo it opens up in to a new screen and you can see it better). I feel so very Indian :)