Whitefield Road, Bangalore, India

(written on Tuesday)...The flight arrived on time early Monday morning, around 1 AM. Mehnoush and Babu, her driver, were waiting there to pick me up. I wound up being the last one out through the baggage claim because someone had taken one of my suitcases off the line and stacked it with a bunch of others off to the side. I looked through that stack when I first disembarked, but missed it somehow, so I waited through everyone else’s’ bags until all were gone - then I saw my lonely old bag listing against the wall - it’s missing one foot, so it always seems bent over like it’s tired of travelling.

Slept quite well that night, and woke up around 9 or 10 on Monday. Breakfast was roti and peanut butter and coffee; I also managed to connect via Contivity and VNC in to work and to home very easily on the PC. Mehnoush has a DSL line in the apartment: top speed, 128kbps! Oh well, it’s better than nothing. Babu came to pick us up at 11 since Mehnoush had taken the day off to go exploring with me.

We first drove about 5 minutes to Mehnoush’s work site in International Technology Park (ITP) and drove around the building. It looked nice, but was just a quick tour. Three main high-rises make up this park. Next we set off to find my worksite at Infosys in Electronic City. This took some driving, about 40 minutes I would say.

For those of you not familiar with driving in India or other parts of the world, I’ll describe the journey - it seems that pandemonium is pervasive throughout both major cities I’ve visited, since not much had changed since my trip to Mumbai in 1997! We only hit one person, an middle-aged guy on a small motorcycle, and since he stood up immediately we gunned the car into a conveniently open lane and sped away. I think the only reason we hit him is because Babu was distracted by the other motorcycle which had been run over by a large Tata truck and this was now completely blocking the road. That bike also seemed to be okay - we arrived at the intersection as the irate biker pulled his machine out from under the trunk, wheeled it to the front and defiantly set it up on its kickstand blocking the truck’s path until the police could arrive. Lots of shouting and rude gestures were accompanying all this, so clearly nothing was broken! Anyway, it was while we were wheedling our way into the left lanes so we could pass the truck/motorcycle altercation when the other bike tried to cut in front of us from the left and bounced off the passenger quarter panel as Babu stopped quickly, but not quite soon enough. It really was the bikers fault I’m sure since he ran right into us, but still it was interesting how no one seemed interested in sticking around.

In general, traffic seems divided into 4 major categories: auto-rickshaws (the three-wheeled, 2-stroke or 4-stroke powered taxies), motorcycles and scooters, small cars, and huge trucks handpainted in garish cyan, green and orange colors (“Horn OK Please” painted brightly on their rear bumpers). The horn is ubiquitous and is mandatory equipment on all vehicles: brakes, mirrors, lights are all optional. I love the ones that emit a continuous wail - they sound like high-powered cell phones! Air pollution is not as bad as it was in Mumbai/Borivli, although if you get stuck behind a truck (pretty much guaranteed for much of any journey, actually) you will think that the air here is comprised primarily of diesel fumes and blue smoke. Autos are also really nasty polluters with their simple engines and no environmental restrictions. However, they are a must on these streets - busses are few and far between and quite crowded and I’m sure that autos can snake their way between other vehicles and are much more efficient travel for sure.

The concept of “lane” is very flexible here - fortunately, most of the main roads do have a small concrete divider separating the primary directions! Babu only ignored this once, when he was stuck trying to make a right turn (cross-traffic here, remember) and had to straddle the lane divider for a couple hundred yards in order to escape. Our car is quite small, so I was a bit concerned we would rip something important out of the transmission or exhaust system, but all seemed well and I heard no scraping. Anyway, once in your own tributary, there may be 2, 3, 4 or more lanes going mostly the same direction, depending on if you’re sharing the road with trucks, autos or motos. The most interesting is when two trucks are side-by-side, and all the motos try to make good time and squeeze between them! Anurag suggested that I get a motorcycle as a very efficient means of transport to the office, but I think I feel much safer while hang gliding (actually, I’m *sure* I’m much safer while hang gliding!).

Anyway, remember where this journey started? We were on our way to the Infosys campus and now we have arrived. There is a huge signboard listing all the companies in Electronics City, but I think that Infosys is the dominant presence here and it was quite easy to find. My colleague Vinya had sent her extension and cell phone numbers by e-mail so as we pulled up, we gave her a quick call. Soon, four folks that I had worked with and known in the past were down the security gate to welcome us to the campus: Vinya Shetty, Anurag Prakash, Senthil Kumar, and Ranjit Abraham. I was a bit dismayed to notice that *everyone* I saw was wearing dress clothes - shirt and tie with slacks and dress shoes! Uh oh... as it turns out, Monday and Tuesdays are formal days where a tie is required. Very different from the usual Nortel atmosphere in RTP!

After being photographed for badges by security (you thought that Nortel in RTP was tight now, here even the visitors had to have photo-ID badges!), we walked through the campus on a bit of a tour: there are 10,000 employees on this site (their corporate headquarters)! There are over 45 numbered buildings, some of them business offices and others labs; most are modern, but there is one section they call the “historical district” which has a few elderly looking office buildings - very quaint amidst all the ultramodern facades. One circular, domed building is the library, where employees have access to many technical journals and any reference materials needed by a project can be requested there. At the far end of the campus is the health club and recreation area: what looked like about 40 snooker and pool tables lined up in two rows, table-tennis, a basketball court, even a volleyball court (not sand, but outdoors all the same). They have a gym somewhere in there too, I guess, and a large swimming pool - all this opens to employees at 5:30 PM and I think Anurag said the monthly change was 400 or 500 rupees (about $10) - it’s also open all day Saturday and is a very good deal compared to outside health clubs in the city.

We walked through and around at least 4 different canteens (cafeterias) serving different kinds of food: north indian, south indian, chinese, western - and Mehnoush and I were treated to lunch by my colleagues at the last one, the non-Indian one. The consensus was that I should be careful of my stomach the first few days and not eat spicy food! Oh well... we had a veg curry - kind of a chinese-ish dish, over rice. I was careful not to have the raw salad that came with it; I guess it’s best not to take any chances just yet. A foreigner has to worry about strange bugs in uncooked raw food, so fresh veggies and salads are out of the question for awhile.
We stopped in the building where the team which works most closely on my product sits, met Rajesh the manager and saw Sujesh Nair on his way out (a person I’ve worked with on and off over the past few years but had never met). It was great to catch up with some folks there and get prepped for starting next week.

From Infosys, we headed to the fancy shopping district of town: the Van Heusen store and the Bangalore Center in an attempt to find me some dress shirts which fit. Not a chance. The only one with sleeves that were long enough was a size 47 and had a 19.5” neck! We are now on a quest for a tailor to sew me some shirts that fit by next week so that I can go to work without having to hide under my desk! We did buy a couple silk ties, about $18 each, that will hopefully go well with whatever shirts I find.

After shopping, it was now about 4 pm and Mehnoush has been waiting for me to arrive in India to go to the Leela Palace hotel for High Tea. How very British! Anyway, we arrived in this very lush and almost Persian-style architecture hotel and sit in a dark, leathery room where they brought us a nice assortment of tiny sandwiches and pastries - and good tea, of course. Darjeeling or Assam. I tried them both, remembering that I like Assam better the last time: it’s a bit darker and more flavorful than the Darjeeling was. Enjoyed that, and afterward we walked around the hotel and its adjoining shops - very touristy and upscale: cashmere, jewels, silks, silver, and the like. A beautiful grounds and landscaping done there.

Mehnoush has already taken some fabrics in to a “designer” recommended by some friends and we had to pick up several of the finished items Monday as well. KRSNA is her mark, Krishna is her name (I thought that was a guy’s name, but...). Anyway, Mehnoush has had to go back many times for the skirts and shirts to be adjusted - evidently the measuring didn’t take well - first too loose, then too tight. The fabrics are all silks she bought at various stores in the commercial district on an earlier expedition. Hopefully, the clothes will come out all right in the end, but yesterday she only accepted one more of the shirts and basically just gave up having her take it in any further. Unfortunately, the designer no longer does her own sewing, and I think her tailors just aren’t very good (what do I know, though!). Crooked seams and odd looking lines where things have been stitched aren’t her fault, but she does need to exercise some quality control I guess. The price is amazing though: enough pure silk for 2 skirts, 2 shirts, and a pair of pants cost about $70; and the total for the sewing and the design will be about the same! Krishna has the name of some men’s tailors so we’ll see if any of them can make me some shirts that fit later on this week. How exciting! Hand made shirts - I’ve never really had one that fit well before, so I hope I’m easier to get right than Mehnoush is.

After the tailor, we headed to dinner at Samarkand restaurant - an Afghani cuisine specialty place. We started with tomato soups, which were served in cups, and then ordered some chicken khoobideh kabab (minced chicken and chiles - very spicy!), a dal (lentil), and a nice paneer (homemade cheese) with tomatoes and chilies. They frown on bringing you a fork, but Mehnoush insisted. A couple of naans rounded out the meal, and we brought much of it home for lunch on Tuesday! The dal was some of the best I’ve ever had - described on the menu as loaded with cream and butter so no wonder! I felt the decor was pretty cheesy - imitation Afghani, the crepe paper torches on the walls and all the wait staff dressed up - but the food was great, and the menu unique in that it also gave many facts on the region and cuisine. After dinner we headed home and I crashed around midnight.