Casing The Joint

Sat night we went to Q Mart, which is a larger grocery store with lots of international products. I took a lot of photos. I went to India expecting to find the exotic, and instead I found Harris Teeter.

(The security guard thought my photography session odd, so he followed me around the entire store. He really needs to watch some American movies, to brush up on his surveillance skills.)

When was the last time I saw Tang??!! ("It's what the astronauts drink")

Here are just a few, but there were many, many more.



 

Bloody Saturday

Saturday morning again. The sounds of cricket being played in the dirt field outside the dining room balcony.

The sky in the distance holds dark clouds, but the rain never comes. I can see them piling on one another, but they stay away. Supposedly rain serves to 'break the heat'. Yet, the temps this morning were very nice – low humidity and nice breeze. We actually left the doors open for thirty minutes.  

It was a weird day, there was something ominous in the air. In the morning the cricketers left almost immediately after they arrived. And the shepherd brought over the water buffalo but they wouldn’t go into the pond -- they just kept trying to leave, with the shepherd running and shooing all around. Finally he took them back to wherever they live.

He tried to bring them again a few hours later, but again the buffalo wouldn’t go to the water and he gave up.  

I have been trying to help out around the house -- to earn my keep. Today Lekha was showing me the water softener machine, which is on the balcony off the kitchen… and my eyes were looking in a different direction than my feet….. and I hit my head on a corner of cabinet. It bled immediately, and bad, pouring down onto my forehead… we iced it and stopped the bleeding… (Lek as a mother -- imagine it guys!)

I’m fine…. I never got a headache, and the ice apparently kept it from swelling.

I stood on the balcony and watched the goings on around us.

Counterfeit Cash!

On the way back from the deflation of shopping-but-not-buying, we stopped in to a new restaurant that NB had tried just that day for lunch -- F Café - where we had a very nice non-Indian dinner: Pizza, veggie burger-Mexicali thing, nachos, cold beer, nice wine. We sat outside on a covered porch, away from the volume of the music, protected from the sprinkling rain.

As we were leaving, walking through the still spitting rain toward the car, the waiter ran after us. One of the bills I'd given in payment was 'counterfeit'.

WTF?

We went back inside and the waiter explained the cashier has a machine that can tell if the bills are real. Lek and I were sure all the bills I gave him we had retrieved from the ATM. Until we examined the bill and saw that it was old and crumply.

Seems in the eight years since Atit has visited India the currency has changed somewhat, and the bill that raised the alarm was from Atit's stash. In looking at it we could tell that the foil strip was a different color.

Certainly an 8-year-old bill is still valid -- but no need fighting the point here, we can take it up at a bank.

We exchanged the bill -- though I sensed the waiter wanted a little more retribution than this -- and we were on our way.

Thanks again, Atit!     :-)

A Bad Shopping Experience

The next afternoon the sky grew heavy and in Charlotte it would have been sure to rain. The threatening horizon lasted for hours and I was holding my breath waiting.

It had not cleared by dark when we were leaving the office, and as we drove away it was spitting raindrops. But only just.

We drove quite a ways through rush hour traffic to a nice store where we were sure to find something cool for me to wear to Lax's party on Sunday evening, driving into a very nice area where the houses were large, the walls were tall, and the roads were almost non-existent. Where they was paved road, piles of dirt and debris had been dumped, and we were reduced to one lane most of the way, threading in and out with the oncoming traffic who had also braved the route. We joked the poor road construction was to keep the great unwashed out -- As NB said, "if you don't build it, maybe they won't come. "

While ours was a very nice store, unfortunately everything in Giant Gori Size was colored and shaped as if made for old ladies -- none of the hip looks I'd spotted on the girls at the mall earlier. And while I may be a Giant Gori, and old(-ish) at that, I'm not gonna dress like it! Dammit!! We left without buying, and again braved the gauntlet of the non-road.

(And since when did I become a Giant??! By American current standards I'm almost emaciated!!)

Eating at the Mall

On Friday I shifted to a window office next to Lek, and I learned that the phones only make calls to the US. So I checked in with a couple of folks to let them know I'm ok.

Then my US friend Raj P took me to lunch at the mall.

The InOrbit mall in Hyderabad looks like almost any mall anywhere. We entered through the Hyderabadi version of Walmart and walked through to the interior -- falling prices listed in rupees.

The mall is huge! Four stories of retail heaven, with food courts and bars and restaurants.

We went to Fusion 9 and sat at the expansive windows with a view across a busy thoroughfare of a lake. There were grasses around the lake and water buffalo grazing.

The restaurant was beautiful and the food excellent. Instead of having a buffet line, they offer an option where you order the special -- appetizer, main course, dessert, coffee/tea -- by Veg or Non-Veg -- and it is basically all you care to eat. Raj ordered the Non, I had the Veg.

I had:

• Fried spinach balls
• Water chestnuts in sauce
• Paneer in pepper sauce (Delish!)
• Spinach, carrot, peas curry (Delish!)
• Rice
• Tiramisu (not really, but it was very good!)

We did not shop!

Second Day

TH morning is wonderful, we step outside at 11am and it feels like 75 degrees with low humidity. Almost perfect.

NB called to the caf and had some water bottles sent to my temp office. The guy delivering them called me "madam", and asked if I wanted coffee or tea brought to me -- at no charge. Took my order and was back in a snap. Bytes and Starbucks really need to take a lesson.

I got caught up on emails and learned that my US team had tied up the issue from yesterday while I had been sleeping last night. Thanks Shelia, Prakash, Johnson, Craig, et al. This is how global teamwork is supposed to work!

I was able to complete 80% of a deliverable that was coming due, and we headed home at 8-ish.

There was an 'Audio Release' party happening by the pool this evening. Lek's building is owned by a movie star turned politician, and oftentimes local / regional TV, music and movie industries hold functions in the lawn and banquet areas. The singing and dancing was first rate, but by the time I grabbed by camera and hopped the elevator the performers were done. Temps and humidity were terrific again tonight so I stood around enjoying the air for a while.

And then headed to bed.

(Today on the way to the office was the first time I saw Wet Butt Syndrome -- as referenced by the links in this earlier post on toilets.)

First Day in Office (Con't)

Within minutes I have a visitor -- a longtime friend. We started working together in 1997 with the same consulting firm at a corporate site beginning just weeks after he arrived in the US from India. Srini and I worked together off and on for 5+ years, and have stayed in touch. It's really great connecting with an old friend -- and this time in his ballpark!

His group was having a team-building ping pong tourney, which Srini was playing in. There were also Carrom games going on.

I had an Indian donut and a Coke (my first American treat in five days).

Afterwards I have planned to work on a deliverable and catch up on some required training, but as the US wakes up a problem comes to light and I spend time chasing down the issue. It feels good to be contributing from so far away from my office.

By the end of the day my US badge has been activated.

We go home, and have our tea ritual.