09.24.07 How 'bout them Indians!

For those of you who don't know, Cricket is this really dull and deadly boring game that allows spectators hours of G&T sipping lethargy.

It is also an incredible passion for most men in India. I have snaps of kids playing cricket in the fields, on sidewalks, in the street.

Not only does it make American Baseball look frenetic, the sports talk here on radio, TV and the Web makes American Sports talk sound like NPR.

So this year in order to make the sport even MORE popular, the invented a type of Cricket called Twenty 20 or T20.

Suffice it to say that it does not take 5 days to play a game, and most who don't think that they've given up the sanctity of the game (much like the Designated hitter Rule), think that they've improved the game immensely.


So tonight was the final match of T20, and it had come down to arch rivals India and Pakistan. Needless to say, when the game started at 5:30 there was no one, aside from a few nerds and foreigners left in the office.

I went to join the boys in the bar and have someone explain the game to me, but found that there was a line to get in. I called the guys who told me that at a cover of R500, no happy hour, and that crowd they decided to go over to someone's apartment to watch.

So I grabbed a couple of Kingfishers and joined them.

The game was actually fun. The strategy is not immediately evident, and the pitcher does this hysterical little bicycle hop when he throws, but the game has subtlety and skill.

The pitch is this tiny thing in the middle of a huge field, so I'm not sure that sitting on a bleacher seat or patch of grass for 5 days would be that much fun, but the fans who were there had a great time, as did we.

The team is young, they got rid of all the old guys and they've got a bunch of rookies who never expected to make the finals. Pretty fitting considering that something like 50% of the Indian population is under 30. The guys are fit and good looking, from all the different religions and backgrounds in the country.

Real hero material.

It was a terrific game, and it came down to the very end. It's not difficult to make the analogy that in the final game of the World Series, in a match between the Yankees and the Red Sox, the Indians were ahead by three points, pitching (-er bowling) the bottom of the 9th inning with 3 men on base and David Ortiz, premier slugger, who has just hit 4 home runs at his last 5 at bats in this game, comes up to the plate.

Then he pops out!

The whole town is going crazy. There are fireworks going off and people dancing in the street.

And tomorrow is the last day of the Ganesh festival! It's gonna be a hell of a week!

So maybe I'm going a little native...

09.22.07 Pictures are Worth...

I've been doing a lot of talking, especially in that last post. So I figured today I'd catch up on my picture sharing.

I found the lost file with the Proper Monkey in his regal pose, so lets start with that one.

For you who are just joining us, this monkey was sitting by the side of the road, and as i went to take his picture, he started walking away from me. He walked to the entrance of the building and seated himself on the low plinth that was there, preened a little and then looked at me as if to say 'Get on with it'

Here's a shot of some of the rest of his clan. The little ones are not so sure about my attentions and run off to cling to Mom.
When Mom's not so sure she goes and sits by Dad

I was glad to find this guy in the office. I'm presuming that it means our auto insurance is all up to date. I offered him a cup of tea but I think he had anofer appointment, and he skittered off. Ta.

The birds move WAY too fast and don't usually let me get close enough for good identification. But there are loads of them.

They've got the full fantail on the right (must be a sailor) and the swallow tail on the left (obviously a gentleman).

And then there's the sky! I don't know if it has to do with the lattitude, but the damn thing just goes on and on and on.

I don't remember the skies about the Wisconsin corn fields being this big, and they sure aren't this big in New England or Manhattan.

The clouds roll in from the Arabian Sea and sweep over the continent. The rains are back and the excess rain in Mumbai this year is more than the total annual rainfall in London.

It's raining now, but I had a swim and a sunbath this morning, and I'll be going out to find Ganesh as soon as I'm done with this. I expect the sun will be bright and warm in about 15 minutes.

It's a big Ganesh festival this week. Believe me I'll tell you all about it. Lots and lots of pictures! Here's a couple. This Ganesh are sitting under a little roof on the jobsite.

There are lots of idols and temple all over the place, including the jobsite.

If Ganesh isn't enough there are a number of idols lying around the site out in the open, or tucked under trees.
We've got Krishna on the left (he's blue) and I think Shiva on the right.

And then I've got these guys covering my back. They're about 20' tall and I understand they were put up by the locals to scare away robbers, brigands and demons!

OK. I'm off to take some more photos. Namaste!

09.20.07 These folk are SO polite.

I think I’m a little overwhelmed.

I mean, not overwhelmed like the Vicereine Montbatten who, upon reaching New Dehli, locked herself in the bathroom and consumed a whole roast chicken which was meant for the dog. (No one has explained why they were roasting an entire chicken for the dog)

But there’s so much coming in, and there’s so much I want to tell all you gentle readers ab out this place, but the impressions come so fast, and what I want to say keeps changing. So I’m always in edit mode.

I’m sure everyone will agree that my being in edit mode is a good thing. Don hasn't come to India, and with any luck he won't. The daily yoga is not stretching, but patience, breathing and restraint.

But it makes it hard to write my impressions. For example, I’ve been trying to write about the ‘Indian Head Weave’, but everytime I start out it comes out myopic, chauvinistic and ethnocentric.

I'm afraid though that I'm not going to get anywhere else if i don't get this out. So please forgive a Swamp Yankee or a NYC Concrete head who is fortunate enough to find himself in palatial paradise, and is trying hard not to get mustard on his bowtie (or egg on his face).


The Indian Head Weave:

When in conversation with people, especially someone treated with deference, an Indian will cock his/her head to the side and then switch to the other side, and then switch back and forth with increasing rapidity. Sometimes there’s a little dip to the weave, and sometimes there’s a little lift. It seems as if the amount of weave is relative to the individual and their relationship to the person speaking. While it's analogous to an American nodding in agreement, it's completely different.

The first time it happens the first tilt comes along and you think they’re pulling a Nipper on you. You may remember Nipper. He was the RCA dog looking down the gramophone in ‘His Master’s Voice”. The head tilts and you think that they’re thinking ‘you want me to do WHAT? You're crazy!’

…but then the weave comes, and the cultural reference becomes the tough urban African American gal saying ‘Oh honey, no you don’t!’

,,,and then they smile and say ‘OK’ and there’s that incredible vertigo of culture shock as you have to scramble to put 40 odd years of definitions of the world back together in a different order, all the while trying to appear as if reprogramming your circuitry was as easy as chewing gum.

Actually they don’t say ‘OK’. They say ‘tikka’ and ‘Haji’ or just ‘haj’ (Jane Fisch Rufe is probably going to send a vicious note about my spelling). Anyway all three of those mean OK. Though ‘Haji’ is more like ‘yes sir’.

That’s something else they say here. ‘Sir’. Good morning sir, would you like coffee sir, I have a question sir. So I’ve started doing it back. The young Turner pups tell me that I get it because I’m an old man. The young Turner pups are going to get it if they keep up that nonsense. Yessir!

The pups, who are returning natives, are just jealous because people fall all over themselves to be nice to me. I don’t know if it’s just the white skin, I think the bowties help.

But it’s been pointed out to me that doors get held for me, I get salutes, the deferential bows are lower for me than for them, and my presence makes it really easy to get a table at lunch.

It’s more than a little embarrassing. Leaving the hotel every morning is like running a gauntlet of smiles - such a trial my life is.

Sharmeen was right! But best of all, absolutely, without question, are the Tea Boys.

Arthur would have loved them. He said: “Waiters are wonderful. You ask them for things and they bring them” . You know Arthur: Dudley Moore: “When you get caught between the Moon and New York City…”. Oh never mind.

But the Tea Boys are great. I call the pantry extension and ask them to bring something: coffee, tea, water, to my cabin (er-office) and they do! Not only that, they knock and they say thank you. THEY say thank you. And then they do the head weave. We even have them at the job site!

I do tip them every now and then. I tip the drivers and I tip the waiters.
No wonder they like me.

Today at lunch I was astounded at what we left for a tip. The check for a 3 course meal was 400+ rupees (about $10) for 5 of us. We each threw in $100 and I figured that was that, but the guys waited for change and tried to distribute it.

I think we ended up leaving him like R15, around 30 cents.
As we walked back to the office I was remembering my waitering days and how cheap I thought the South Asians were. Now I know why. It's just what they do.

Something like 50% of the population make $400/R15,000 a year. I'm probably upsetting the social order and fomenting revolution.

I left R100 ($2.50) for the housekeeper this morning. I usually do. It was still there this evening. I hadn’t written Housekeeping on it, and they were probably to polite to presume it was for them!

09.18.07 A day in the Country

BEWARE - SNAKES MENTIONED AND SHOWN BELOW - WARNING

While the client office is in Mumbai (Bombay), a fishing village founded on 7 islands like a Roman Stonington, the job site is on the other coast, South of Chennai (Madras). I mean WAY south. Like an hour and a half by car. Talk about the boondocks! It is nice to get out of the city, and there's lots of colorful flora, fauna and other things.

The trucks down in Chennai are great. They are big massive things with screaming yellow cabs and yellow or green hoppers. Then someone goes mad with the paint and covers them with birds and flowers and letters and flags, and best of all are the devil faces painted on the rear axle gear box! I’m looking for a truck stop so I can get some really good shots for my gallery show in Chelsea.

So there’s lots and lots and lots of wildlife in India and even more at the job site. There are incredible birds who have wonderful songs, but I don’t know what they are. Some have to be some of the biggest swallows I’ve ever seen, because they have these incredibly elegant swallow tails (but no bowties) there are some other black ones with iridescent blue tails. (Wanda, help!!)

There are flowers in the trees and in the grass and all over. Things like watrlillies, milkweed, orchids and strange and wonderful things.

For fauna there're goats and chickens and dogs and cats and of course, buffalo and cows. Cows in the field and cows in the street, and cows pulling wagons and cows just sitting.

AND there's a family of monkeys living on the site, near the worker's dorms. The site is so far from everything that there's a whole project building housing for the workers. Anyway, the monkeys were supposedly caught and taken far away, but this family either found their way back, or moved into the vacum.

So there's one older monkey, who was sitting on the little curb walls along the road. I stopped to get his picture, but he stretched and started to walk away down the wall. When he got to the end where there was a small pedestal, he stopped, sat down and posed. I guess he figured that if i was going to take a picture it ought to be a portrait. But do you think I can find the damn picture?

The only snake I’ve seen was dead. I'm grateful. He had come up on one of the surveyors and started making noise. So they not only caught him and killed him, but burned him as well.

Turns out that they had to burn the snake because of the eyes. The snake's eyes retain its memory, and if it’s mate or children come along they can discover who killed their kin and will go after the killer’s family.

I think I remember something about this in Rikki Tikki Tavi.

So the other day I was walking the site and a herd of cattle came up and were grazing on my path back to the office. Of course cows don’t scare me, I’m a Wisconsin boy after all. But apparently I don’t smell right, because they all moved away from me as I approached. So I didn’t walk too fast since I didn't want a stampede, but I sauntered and took some pictures as I went.

As I reached my turn there was a bull watching me warily from 20’ away. I snapped his picture (right), and I guess he doesn’t like the paparazzi annoying his girl friends. He snorted and pawed and started lunging toward me.

So if you’ve ever been in one of these situations, it’s incredible how many thoughts can go through your mind. Things along the lines of: another fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into! and: can I out run him in my flip flops? and: where DID I leave my red cape? Plus a couple dozen others.

So giving up on the flight option as impractical I threw up my hands and yelled ‘HEY!’. Now maybe he thought I was talking about dinner, but I really think that I scared him. Without breaking stride he bunny hopped a 180 degree turn and went trotting off in the other direction. I just stood there like a doofus with my hands in the air not believing that there weren’t hoofprints up my chest.

I guess you just can’t take the country out of the kid. Don’t worry, you can bet that I’m putting on my boots next time I go for a walk at the site.

09.04.07 Hare Krishna

Yesterday was Krishna’s birthday, so we had the day off! Work one, one day off. Not so bad. Hare Hare!

It rained in the morning, but it’s been doing that here. Look out the window and there’s sun. Look again and it’s a downpour. I managed to enjoy my morning, making sketches for the BlueHill Troupe’s production of Mame.
Thank Krishna for the internet! (it’s his birthday so he’s the god of choice today) Thanks to him even community theatre can outsource to India!

The sun came out in the afternoon and I decided to go for a walk. Google Maps gave me a couple of options and figured I wouldn’t get lost. I did have a moment of trepidation, so I took some of the money out of my wallet and braced myselkf to start wandering around. Heck, I'm not going to see much from my hotel room.

The air outside is warm and moist and wonderful. My toes in my flipflops were overjoyed to be off the cold wood and stone floors of my hotel and into the warm air. Out the door and past all the hotel porters lined up to the curb, returning each smile and good morning. Jeez what a gauntlet! I walked past the bomb-searching gaurds at the gate and out into India.

Turning right at the corner, the street curved through a collection of hotels: the Marriot, a Meridian, something called Blue. There were lots of people out, dodging puddles, autorickshaws motorcycles, taxis, and the like. Around the curve the road crumbled out, never finished. Damn Google.

There was a crowd of people at the end of the road, looking past a fence at something. So I figured I’d go see what it was.

The land slipped away quickly where the road petered out and on the side side. A drop of about 2 meters (look who’s talking in metric!) Below was a level field with a billboard stating something about a community athletic association. About 10m above the field was a wire strung between to poles. The wire had a clay pot with some flowers strung around it. There were some mud drenched boys gathered underneath the gourd.

I’d found one!

At breakfast that morning I’d read about this contest held in observance of the Krishna’s birthday. The paper complained that politicians were polluting the religious nature of it. That's familiar.

I had asked the desk man about where I could find a contest. He gave me a funny look and told me that they happen all over. Here it was not 200m from the hotel.

It’s possible this is just a Mumbai thing, but the pot, a “dahi handis”, is filled with curd (yogurt) and gee (clarified butter) and maybe money and candy, sort of like an Indian piñata. The boys (and sometimes girls) make a human pyramid in order to reach the pot. Their rivals, or their friends, or their bratty brothers throw buckets of water at them, making them slippery.

The field I was wathching was an expanse of mud from the rains. The 10 boys were covered with it. It made their hand and footholds precarious.

Now, these aren’t cheerleader pyramids (hands and knees). These are circular towers. The lower ring stands arms around each other grasping lats. The next ring squats on their shoulders and the next stands on the shoulders of the squatters. That’s about as far as these guys made it before someone got nervous or shifted, and the whole thing tumbled down.

The picture came from the internet, sorry. I haven't got a camera yet. I waited to get a cheap price in India!!

Next to the field, about another 6’ down began one of the shanty towns that stretch over acres of Mumbai. If you look on Google Earth or some satellite shot you’ll see these seemingly endless corrugated metal roofs. These are shanty towns that run right up to the neighboring property edges. Who owns them, what rent is paid, who lives there, I still don’t know.

From my vantage point I could see a little way into the shanty town. Not all the buildings were made from corrugated metal or plywood. Many were masonry buildings, one story and small but some had doors and windows. Right in front of me was a tiny general store. Pavers were spread in front of it (I wouldn’t say laid) probably due to the heavy traffic. There was an older woman in her clean sari walking down the path, and the men coming out were reasonably dressed.

I was a little fascinated and wanted to go explore, but much like in Boston, when my engineering school was on the other side of the housing projects from where I lived, I didn’t feel altogether comfortable walking through a neighborhood where I might not be welcome.

The boys going after the dahi were regrouping again after a third failed attempt, and I decide to continue my walk. There was a fetid smell coming from somewhere in the tangle at the end of the road and I needed some better air.

I went back to the main road and ended up skirting the shanty town. About then I realized I'd seen only one other 'european' since I left the hotel. Lesson 14: Folk who can afford not to walk, don't. No wonder I was attracting notice - here I thought it was my good looks.

I came across another open area where two more dahi were strung. There was a great crowd watching on the field, including a dozen girls in beautifully appointed saris standing on a little stone retaining wall under a tree, while the muddy boys below showed off for them.

I watched from across the street on a little rise with some other pedestrians. The little auto-rickshaws (photo right) pulled up and passengers craned their heads out to watch the sport.
A young guy pulled up on his motorcycle and watched for a while. He looked over at me and beeped his horn. When I realized he was signaling to me, he motioned. He was either asking if I wanted to move closer, or if I wanted to join in! I smiled and declined. My anthro professors at Macalester would have loved the invitation to participant observation.

Back at to the hotel and found that my keycard wasn’t working (another story). My pants and sandals were a little muddy, my shirt was soaked with sweat and I was anxious to clean up. The same clerk from this morning reprogrammed my key. He asked me if I had been out and found the celebration. I told him that I found a couple in the neighborhood, at which he smiled and shook his head.

I recognized the reaction from my own in NYC. Everytime a tourists would stand on Broadway and 43 and ask the way to Times Square.

Apologies, there's a problem at Blogger. More soon!

09.01.07 Mom is gonna Be SO mad.

Mom is going to be SO mad.
When I spoke to her on Friday I said I'd call her before I left.
Little did I know I was doing just that.

Having three weeks with only a couple hours a day for each of three jobs (Triton, Turner & The Blue Hill Troupe) was kind of fun. It's the closest I've come to a vacation in a while. I even got into that wonderful state of not being completely sure what day it was.

Carol, who booked my tickets before she went to Scotland, had spoken to me about flying on Sunday and we spoke about my landing on the 1st. She wasn't around when I picked up the tickets, so we didn't finish the conversation. No one who looked at the tickets compared them to the calendar to realize that the first was Saturday.

Meanwhile i was emailing Chandi, my boss, trying to get information about my sleeping accomodations and how to find them when I landed. Typical of the company, it's sink or swim and ou have to carry out each detail yourself. I told him I was coming Sunday and then wrote him back to give him the flight #, date and time.

Friday somewhere after 6, Jo and I were having cocktails, waiting for the Chinese food to be delivered when I thought I'd look at my email. We were planning on spending the weekend together, I still needed to sort clothes, buy some grooming aids (who needs them more), etc.

There was the email I was looking for telling me that I was booked at the Hyatt Regency (no address or phone) and tersely pointing out that September First was Saturday, not Monday.
I checked the tickets and the calendar as Jodi paid for the Chinese food and then broke the news that the car was coming to drive me to the airport in 30 minutes.
It made the goodbye a little like ripping off a band-aid.

It also made packing a little frantic.
Now that I'm in India we're making a list of all the stupid things I neglected to bring. Of course there I've discovered a couple of stupid things I didn't intend to bring. Fortunately there's a weekly packet from Turner.

So I'm sitting at the desk of my 6th floor room at the Hyatt looking out the huge window at more sky than I've seen in 20 years. It just goes on forever!
Huge clouds. Rained last night and rained this morning, but the sun was shining brightly a few minutes ago. The hotel turned out to be across the street from the airport. Except for the luggage, I could have walked.

I'm watching the traffic go by, and it's easily as bad as they say. While they offical drive on the wrong side of the road by American standards, they also drive on the wrong side of the road occassionally by their own standards! There are tons of motor bikes of every size, funny little three wheeled taxis with what look like stretched vinyl roofs, mostly 'little' cars, but a few midsize sedans, and then the buses and trucks. And do they love their horns!

The trip was bizarre in it's uneventfulness.
The driver showed up on schedule. Tito, the doorman at 40 Park, entertained him while I finished packing. Traffic to the airport had no issues and we made record time.
There was some confusion with the Delta folks about which terminal was being used, but no biggie. Two Delta gents helped me at curbside and I was a little concerned when one of them disappeared with my passport, but he used it to get me to a ticket agent and jumped me past the ENORMOUS line of people waiting.
(I wonder who he thought I was?)

The ticket agent was extremely grateful when I gave her one of my pens to keep and flattered that I said it was the least I could do for all her help and kindness. She had just come over from the other terminal and was a little edgy, end of the day blues or something.

The TA security guys were as surly as ever and tsked at me that i didn't think to remove my sandals. Where am I going to hide a shiz in a pair of flip flops? On the other side of the scanner was one of my buddies from the curb. We shared a chuckle about the grumpiness of the TA guys and he wished me well.

I had so much time when I got to the gate, and being Ted Burkhardt's son, I went to the duty free shop and stocked up the bar.

The flight was as dull as flights can be.
I fell asleep during Spiderman 3 and had to watch it over again. The Last Mimsy was a fun story, but some of the acting was unforgivable.
Joan Didon kept me company with Slouching Toward Bethlehem. I bought it for the essay Farewell to All That. It did not disappoint. I can't put my finger on when I was done with New York either, but the city and I haven't had the fallout she did. She came back. So will I.

I didn't have a window and they asked that all the shades be kept down for the duration so people could sleep. So all I saw of Africa or the Arabian pennisula was on the tracking screen. At 30,000 ft I wasn't going to see much anyway, but you never know. Basically all I saw of Saturday was the light sneaking in around the window shade. 8500 miles takes a while. If I had gone much further I'd be coming back.

The Mumbaii airport at midnight is chaotic.
Somehow I got waived through customs, found a currency exchange and a driver from the hotel right outside the door. There were about 2 thousand other people outside the door, but he was right there with a sign.
An extra helper joined us on the walk to the car My driver loaded the car and the helper who then asked me for a tip, which I gave him, though I didn't see the point much.
The driver explained after we got in the car that the extra helper wasn't affiliated with the hotel. What did I know? They were both wearing pressed black shirts. I felt like a rube who lets someone find them a taxci at Penn Station.

The longest part of the ride was the traffic out of the airport.

They stopped the car at the entrance to the hotel to inspect the trunk for bombs.

I've been waited on hand and foot since.

I cracked one of the bottles and drank my whiskey neat and skyped (internet phone call) to Joe. Slept in a kingsize bed, had a big breakfast, sat by the pool reading the paper (got to get the names of the cricket players memorized!), and had a workout in the fitness center. I could get used to this lifestyle!

This afternoon I'm finishing the floorplans for Mame, so I can scan tham at the business center and send them off for tomorrow's meeting.

I caught a cold either on the aircraft or in the air conditioning in the room. There's a moldy smell in the airport and the hotel that may take some time for my sinuses to accept.

Still haven't heard from my boss. I tried to call him several times, and either I can't work the phones here (dial 0 instead of 1 before the area code) or the phone system is as bad as they say.

The drowning of Ganesh (Ganesh Charturthi) at Chowpatty Beach starts Tuesday, so I didn't miss it! Unfortunately my Ganesh was one of the things left sitting on the bed at Park Avenue.
The paper says that there is a lack of Brahmin to perform the ceremonies and they're importing them from a neighboring district. Do you suppose I can advertise my Boston roots and make a little money on the side?

Hope the incredible length of this email makes up for not calling today before I leave (left?)

Miss you all and love you all lots.