I realized that because of the restricted access to Blogger while I was in India, I never had a post on my time there. So, in order to avoid seeming like 3 months of my life was spent in some vacuum, I decided to put up random stuff which I dug out from the folder labeled "Tata":

India, by all accounts, is a bemusing mixed bag of contradictions. I see it in the streets, where the white haired swamis perched on bullcarts, with not parrots but cellphones perched on their ears. I see it in the high rise software complexes, standing in front of a vast shantytown, where the bosses are obsessed about leveraging efficiency but still love their pani puris during long chaat breaks. I see it on the roads, where the autos squeeze along side the latest Nano cars, but everyone stops to let the buffalo in front pause to take a dump mid-traffic. I see it in the newspapers, affixed with the latest horror incident of honour killing in the villages, yet awashed with airbrushed celebrities on Page 3. (This, I have unsurprisingly, been very fond of.)

All these, are what I see from foreign eyes, but I am getting accustomed to the chaos, and even appreciating the liveliness it brings.

At the market:

Buying tomatoes from the market is somewhat therapeutic for me. The hybrid versions, which are only available from the posh supermarkets are uncommonly huge and plump with juice. But equally, I enjoy the more humble tomatoes from the street stalls, although they are small and some are quite a discomforting hue. But the old women who sell them to me are very honest and charge me according to the rates that apply to everyone. Under the dim lights of their stalls (or most of the time, light from the unreliable streets), their craigy faces look up at me in a moment’s curiosity, but their expressions return to the same stoic one that has to face a hard life, the moment I hand them my coins and walk away.

In the auto:

It was my first weekend in Hyderabad, and we were in an auto on our way home. The auto driver took us through one of his untested shortcuts, which wound through the alley streets in Koti. I clearly remember a young girl, no older than 14, whose expression captured the wonder at having seen such strange, yellow-skinned people, packed into and auto. Oh yes, I remember her very clearly. She was pretty in the way adolescents are, innocent, yet forced to be mature by life. She was bathing a toddler in a metal basin outside her house. (I suppose that must have been her brother.) She was dressed in a mustard yellow sari, and she looked up as our auto drove past her home. Her eyes widened and she gaped at us for a nanosecond before breaking into a wide smile as we zoomed past.

Squeezing in the ladies compartment in the public bus:

I remember the bus was chugging along, and I was trying to hold on to something for balance, but of course, the bodies were too tightly packed for any space to move about. I was in a highly awkward position, with my full weight pressed upon this fleshy auntie. I could feel the softness of her body beneath the starchy sari.

I was expecting her to holler at me for being pushed up against her in that manner, but I guess in a country of more than a billion bodies, people get that it’s crowded at times.

In the bazaar:

I pleaded as sweetly as I could without being nauseating, for the shopkeeper to let me have the scarf for Rs100. He flat out refused me and said “Rs 150. No bargain!”. Of course, ever the pugnacious shopper, I tried again, but just I was prepared to give up because there were other customers around, the white haired shop keeper hitched his sarong, got up and whispered to my ear, “ok, best price just for you, Rs 120.”

Then, there was no more to be said.

Having said that, the green pashmina scarf is really pretty. :D

Reading the newspapers:

India has an obsession with information, much like all great democracies. The society might be conservative on the whole, but its newspapers are relatively liberal, publishing snippets on all and sundry. The pictures are filled with gory detail, of accidents, hangings, executions and murders.

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India is like a wonderful love affair, and it seems there must be a private narrative scraped out for preservation of whatever smoky memories I will come to have of this place. Chalo.

Working at a start up has been a sobering experience. VS at the adolescent stage of a great company, not quite a start up in its infancy, but not a well-oiled machine either. There are lots of menial things to be done, which of course fall onto the laps of those lowest in the food chain. Thankfully, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and I hold on to the hope that after all the photocopying, faxing, data-entry, there will be more exciting stuff to come. (Which is why I'm anxious to finish up the current work properly, because if I can't even handle simple data entry work, who's gonna trust me with more complicated things eh.)

Otherwise I'm just gonna bug people till I get to do more interesting stuff. :)

The culture in the office has two main modes: relaxed and ultra-relaxed, the latter kicks in on Friday afternoons after the main bosses take off for the weekend. Initially, (ok, even now), I was unsure of how to communicate with my colleagues. I guess there is really no other way to describe them other than sweet angmoh bengs. Amid all the bodily noises they emit during office hours, everyone busts their butts for the company, and they reward themselves with a pint or two after the week's targets have been fulfilled and Bootcakes scrawls a big red tick on the whiteboard beside the wii machine. P and I discussed baking cookies for the office people to celebrate Labour Day, and we're even thinking of caving in and use red, white and blue icing. -.-''

One of our bosses, let's call him M - he resembles a character straight out of the Sopranos. "I don't ever have a filter over my mouth," he tells me on our first meeting, and in that sense, he reminds me a bit of my own Dad. Fast-talking, educated inthe school of hard knocks, intensely loyal and extremely dismissive of crap. (I overheard him say in an even tone to someone over the phone "I only listen to the facts, so call me back when you get them straight.")

On my first day at work, my supervisor (let's call him "B") had some instructions for me, and I grabbed the first notepad lying on the desk. Turns out that the entire notepad had headers that were lovingly printed in elegant, cursive pennmanship, the words "Dear ****face". Truamatised. B didn't seem to notice, or at least he pretended not to, I'm not entirely sure what that says about VS culture.

In any case, to a great year ahead, farts, warts and all. :)

Work doesn't officially start till next Monday, so I've been pottering about the house being all housewifey and heading out to wander, somewhat aimlessly, but very enjoyably so.

Headed to school for a behavioral experiment, then went off to the bookstore to worm myself in a corner. I guess passing the hours like this can seem extremely agreeable, but I can sense restlessness creeping up on me. Obviously there are tons of stuff I could occupy myself with, but I suppose I should really use this week as a recharger before all the hectic-ness starts.

Waiting for the housemates to come home so we can set off to the frat house for the party preparations later. In all seriousness, I think that particular frat house is pretty gross, just cos there's so much random trash lying around. Thought about clearing away all the empty cans from the common room, but then I saw a roach scurrying past the kitchen door and freaked out a bit. (yeah, I know it's senseless, but I hate cockroaches. HATE. Ok, more like fear.)

So I got J to shoo the offending creature away before we all continued to marinate the meat. Seriously, I think my house in India was cleaner. :p

Random sightings:

On my way home from the bookstore, I walked past the cathedral next to our house and saw this homeless man in a tuxedo suit, sitting crossed legged on the steps and facing the large wooden doors of the church hall, snorting a cig furiously. His head was bobbing up and down and he seemed pretty out of it. So that's a whole new spin on taking it higher for the Lord.