Bridging to India
By Wolfgang Maehr. Wednesday, 3. December 2008, 09:26:15
After the first 10 days I think I owe everybody a short recap of how things go and what's happening here in Chandigarh, India. I shall start with pointing out that the views in my postings are my own and private ones and may or may not be shared by any of my affiliations (i.e. Opera). So, complaints to me please.
It's always difficult to put down impressions when moving to a new place as there are many of them and many are small things such as traffic, the personal hygiene, the interaction with people or resourcefulness. Then there are the underlying differences in society, history and background that create these different symptoms. I hope to dig deeper into the latter issues over time, so please excuse me if I initially state a lot of "obvious" things.
Landing in Delhi at 5 o'clock in the morning (23:30 GMT) after a six hours flight, Vivek, a friend from the India office, who was in Oslo for 3 months who arrived an hour earlier, was already waiting in the arrivals to get to the taxi that was kindly organised by Sagar, the country manager. Prior to that, spending some time at Heathrow, trying to sleep but instead watching movies on the plane, getting the luggage, running through immigration and customs was no problem. Stepping out of the airport provided the typical image that probably everybody expects when landing in India: many, many, many, many people waiting for others, getting taxis and moving to busses and so on. Most striking, the air that was a mixture of fog and smog. Visibility was still decent - I'd estimate like 2km - but I could smell the typical smell of dust, pollution and warm weather, while Vivek seemed to be used to it claiming not to notice anything.
So, all luggage into the car, and we were on our 4-6 hours way to Chandigarh. Traffic was still low and the air was supposed to be clean as people were jogging, only one child asking for sweets. First he asked for sweets, then, seeing a white guy, he changed into brr-it's-really-cold-please-please-please-give-me-money-for-food-and-clothes mode. Some time then I fell asleep only to wake up, when Vivek asked wether we should have breakfast at McDonald's. True to my principle that a day started with breakfast at McD is a bad day, we went to the other side of the street, what our drivers preferred: food for locals. The drivers sitting at their own table I slowly started to realise the distance of people. They would look but, for some reason, be shy to speak with me. Vivek said something about self-confidence, but I guess it is also often a matter of social norms as I could observe similar patterns more often since then. Time to learn some more Hindi and Punjabi if that might help bridging the gap.
The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful for me as I slept again, seemingly missing all the Indian-road-action. Arrived at the office to meet some of the known faces again and getting introduced to the new people. The first days, staying at Sagar's place (where I hope to move from soon - negotiations are on) I was tagging along with him the first days. Looked at some appartements, got introduced to Opera's friends at Cue Blocks and Navjot's family. The weekend was pretty un-happening ("My longest weekend ever") as I was home by 01:00 every evening. I hope to change this over time, but night-life here seems rather limited.
Spent the week working with a movie (Dostana) and dinner as a project celebration and then traditional Thursday movie night at the office.
Further, Sagar was kind enough to lend me his motorbike, so I had been touring around on my own since the last weekend. The bigger change was to ride a motorbike again - the first time since 7 years. The traffic was far less of a problem, using the right (left) side of the road is fine and at least here in CDH the traffic is decent. Yes, sometimes more chaotic but as speeds are rather low (max 60 kph) it is manageable. Same organic pattern as moving in a group of people.
Yesterday then, with the help of Anil, I managed to buy my own bike, a Royal Enfield Bullet 350 from 1996. A nice and heavy bike that should be exactly right for young wannabe-heavyweights like me.
A popular bike as it is durable and has more of a cruising feeling. I guess it's the two-wheeled pendant of the Ambassador car. A few things need to be fixed, but the first ride was promising and had a good feeling to it. Next up is to get an apartment of my own.
Ok, enough trivialities, a few observations for the end - thanks to the generous donors of "Culture Shock, India" that helps understanding some things:
Ok, that's all so far. More impressions on the next post. Pictures have been uploaded a few on Flickr.
For more tidbits, look at my Jaiku stream. This post also appeared on my private blog.
It's always difficult to put down impressions when moving to a new place as there are many of them and many are small things such as traffic, the personal hygiene, the interaction with people or resourcefulness. Then there are the underlying differences in society, history and background that create these different symptoms. I hope to dig deeper into the latter issues over time, so please excuse me if I initially state a lot of "obvious" things.
Landing in Delhi at 5 o'clock in the morning (23:30 GMT) after a six hours flight, Vivek, a friend from the India office, who was in Oslo for 3 months who arrived an hour earlier, was already waiting in the arrivals to get to the taxi that was kindly organised by Sagar, the country manager. Prior to that, spending some time at Heathrow, trying to sleep but instead watching movies on the plane, getting the luggage, running through immigration and customs was no problem. Stepping out of the airport provided the typical image that probably everybody expects when landing in India: many, many, many, many people waiting for others, getting taxis and moving to busses and so on. Most striking, the air that was a mixture of fog and smog. Visibility was still decent - I'd estimate like 2km - but I could smell the typical smell of dust, pollution and warm weather, while Vivek seemed to be used to it claiming not to notice anything.
So, all luggage into the car, and we were on our 4-6 hours way to Chandigarh. Traffic was still low and the air was supposed to be clean as people were jogging, only one child asking for sweets. First he asked for sweets, then, seeing a white guy, he changed into brr-it's-really-cold-please-please-please-give-me-money-for-food-and-clothes mode. Some time then I fell asleep only to wake up, when Vivek asked wether we should have breakfast at McDonald's. True to my principle that a day started with breakfast at McD is a bad day, we went to the other side of the street, what our drivers preferred: food for locals. The drivers sitting at their own table I slowly started to realise the distance of people. They would look but, for some reason, be shy to speak with me. Vivek said something about self-confidence, but I guess it is also often a matter of social norms as I could observe similar patterns more often since then. Time to learn some more Hindi and Punjabi if that might help bridging the gap.
The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful for me as I slept again, seemingly missing all the Indian-road-action. Arrived at the office to meet some of the known faces again and getting introduced to the new people. The first days, staying at Sagar's place (where I hope to move from soon - negotiations are on) I was tagging along with him the first days. Looked at some appartements, got introduced to Opera's friends at Cue Blocks and Navjot's family. The weekend was pretty un-happening ("My longest weekend ever") as I was home by 01:00 every evening. I hope to change this over time, but night-life here seems rather limited.
Spent the week working with a movie (Dostana) and dinner as a project celebration and then traditional Thursday movie night at the office.
Further, Sagar was kind enough to lend me his motorbike, so I had been touring around on my own since the last weekend. The bigger change was to ride a motorbike again - the first time since 7 years. The traffic was far less of a problem, using the right (left) side of the road is fine and at least here in CDH the traffic is decent. Yes, sometimes more chaotic but as speeds are rather low (max 60 kph) it is manageable. Same organic pattern as moving in a group of people.
Yesterday then, with the help of Anil, I managed to buy my own bike, a Royal Enfield Bullet 350 from 1996. A nice and heavy bike that should be exactly right for young wannabe-heavyweights like me.
A popular bike as it is durable and has more of a cruising feeling. I guess it's the two-wheeled pendant of the Ambassador car. A few things need to be fixed, but the first ride was promising and had a good feeling to it. Next up is to get an apartment of my own.Ok, enough trivialities, a few observations for the end - thanks to the generous donors of "Culture Shock, India" that helps understanding some things:
- Office peons: So there is somebody to take care of food and other practicalities at work. Until now, I never knew that one can be over-hydrated.
- Food: Spice levels were fine so far, but I think I overdid it a little yesterday. Either all the spicy food or the sugar cane juice from the motorbike market did upset my stomach for a bit. So far it's manageable, however.
- Money: So the biggest common piece of money is 500 INR (around 8 EUR), which makes paying big amounts (like 20 000 INR for a bike) an interesting experience as one runs around with a stash of money. Otherwise these 500 INR enable a very very good living on daily basis.
- Language: I admit that I am not used to not being able to understand a thing of people talk to each other. Here this is the case and that often makes me feel like a sitting duck. Especially if others are negotiating for me. It's not that they interpret for me, they take care of all my business. Thanks there to all the office (and the others) here, who all were very very very helpful. Just not used to it yet.
- Security: Without wanting to dive too much into the political minefield I should say that it is a shame that terrorism seems to become a pretty normal phenomenon for people here in India. Somebody told me it is ranking at number four in the world in terms of terrorist attacks. And while many many people messaged me and asked if I was fine, I did hardly notice any differences here in Chandigarh. Yes, some TV stations were broadcasting live 24/7 (whether that is a smart thing to do is discussable...) and talking to people showed that some were deeply affected. Otherwise, this is still a very safe place, I have not once felt unsafe so far - people are warm and care for each other.
Ok, that's all so far. More impressions on the next post. Pictures have been uploaded a few on Flickr.
For more tidbits, look at my Jaiku stream. This post also appeared on my private blog.
WIDGETIZE