this one is for the linguists

Long Distance Scrambling and the Typology of WTF-questions: A Minimalist Approach to Life in India

Tonight Gina and I were discussing the Chomskyan grammar of life at the Asia Pacific office and at points I was laughing so hard I almost thought I would die. Think "SPEC of AP" and "Long Distance Passive" and "Blocking Effects" and "The Last Resort Principle" and "Dependent on the Syntax of Local Processes" and "Local Binding" and "Long Distance Head Movement" and so on.

OK, you probably (1) had to be there and (b) had to have spent at least four years of your life immersed in X-bar theory and (iii) have I mentioned the copious amounts of alcohol? Gina just dragged her jet-lagged ass to bed, but seriously, I am still laughing.

india: entertainment capital of the world

Gina and I just polished off a bottle of wine and now we're flipping through the available TV offerings. This guy has been talking for the last 15 minutes:




Updated to add: OMG we just cruised by that channel again and now he's SINGING!!

Jesus tapdancing christ! It only gets better (different channel)!:



Do we think YOG SCIENCE CAMP is anything like band camp?

bendy

Gina arrived this afternoon, which means my remaining two days will be a lot more fun, in addition to a lot more likely to involve alcohol consumption.

She was just looking through the kitchen cabinets and found a package of straws that she purchased almost a year ago back in the old neighborhood of the original corporate apartment. I had noticed the package before but never looked at it, since I don't use straws. Gina just pointed out to me why she bought them:



BENDY STRAWS PVT. LTD.!!!! NEW WAY TO ENJOY DRINKS!!!

Pvt. Ltd. (Private Limited) is the Indian equivalent of "inc." in the U.S., by the way.

Now I am instructing her on the Mysterious Ways of The Corporate Apartment, including what to do when the lights go out, how to get filtered water, how to use a pen to wiggle the washing machine latch, what that crazy chirping sound is (doorbell), what to do if you hear running water (INVESTIGATE IMMEDIATELY), etc. It's a lot to learn, but Gina is a smart cookie and I'm sure she will survive the 5 or 6 days here without me starting Saturday.

more from the x-treme knitting files

As I have discussed in approximately 9,007 previous posts, I am so over India, which means I tend to leave the air-conditioned, relatively comfortable apartment here only to (a) go to work, (b) procure nourishment, or (c) finally, finally, finally go back to the airport in order to return to California. This means that on weekends I have a lot of alone time on my hands, which means a lot of knitting and/or crocheting. Possibly too much knitting and/or crocheting, in fact. Can you see the red, inflamed areas above both wrists?

This has happened before, and it goes away with a few days of rest. It's weird--it doesn't hurt really, even though the spots are noticeably warm and red and a bit swollen. X-treme knitting, my friends. What can I say?

Speaking of knitting, having too much time on one's hands, and getting inflamed, I recently joined a site called Ravelry, which is sort of like Facebook for knitters. There are well over 125,000 members, and naturally a lot of discussion groups exist there, including many that have nothing to do with knitting. One is called "Language Lovers." I'm sure this is already setting off alarm bells for the linguists in the audience, because y'all know what sorts of things get discussed on those boards:

"ZOMG yesterday I heard someone pronounce something wrong and it made me so crazy and Western civilization is crumbling because no one knows when to say it's and when to say its and OMG OMG OMG what is happening to young people don't they teach grammar in schools anymore and why don't people know the rules like I do??? AAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!"

You know, or something like that. Yeah, these people love language alright. And if you can't see me rolling my eyes from India, you're not looking very hard. I find it difficult not to comb through the posts and carefully point out each and every grammatical error they themselves perpetrate within their pedantic little screeds. But I don't, because, well, I have better things to do, such as post to the Bob Dylan fan forum. ("Visions of Johanna: best song in the history of the universe. Discuss.")

toilet training

It's my first day back at the office in Bombay and I just noticed a helpful new list of suggestions ("LOO MANNERS") in the women's bathroom. These include:

Please lift lid before sitting down.
Please use toilet paper as far as possible.
Please flush toilet before and after use.

There is also an admonition to keep the washbasins clear of hair and "bloggs of soap."

I swear I do not make this stuff up.

bada bing bada bombay

By the time the plane touched down in Bombay last night I'd already been called "sir" THREE TIMES. Once by the gate agent at JFK and twice by a flight attendant. Awesome.

Many things about India make me crazy, as you probably have gathered. One of those things is people's inability to behave like civilized human beings at the airport. At the baggage claim I actually had occasion to say to someone, out loud, "Are you fuckin' KIDDING me? Jesus Christ!" Which I guess doesn't speak much for my own ability to act civilized, but I'd just had an 80-pound suitcase heaved into my legs with no room to recapture my balance. Here's a tip for my fellow travelers: if y'all would leave your damned luggage carts off to the side instead of lining them up directly against the baggage conveyor belt, we'd all have room to actually pick up our bags and go the hell home without injury or use of the word 'fuck.'

Fernando is here, so that's nice, but he will be gone after tomorrow night. So we only get 48 hours of pretending to hate each other.

bombay bound

I'm off to Bombay again tomorrow, for just three weeks this time. That little jackass Fernando is still over there, and the lovely Cathy will be overlapping with my trip for the final few days, so the whole thing seems like it might in fact be bearable. And I hear there is a new fridge at the apartment that actually gets below 62 degrees Fahrenheit. And I am taking along my 12-year-old ironing board cover to donate to the apartment because it is in better shape than the twice-used one we bought at Hypercity.

Last night a few jerks people came over and we drank beer and insanely high-alcohol zinfandel and ordered in pizza from Little Star around the corner. If you have never had Little Star pizza, please drop whatever you are doing and go get some. Really, it's OK--I'll wait.

I spent last weekend with my friend (and fellow MEOW member) Claudia. Claudia's dog Reilly is hilarious and also very cute. To wit, the Stuffed Monkey Massacre series:





Claudia collects whisks and she'd recently decided they needed cleaning, so her kitchen resembled...um, I guess it resembled a place where there are a whole lot of clean whisks:



Claudia is evil and she forced me to buy out some beautiful clearance yarn (merino and cashmere) at Stonemountain & Daughter, which is primarily a fabric store but which also carries a small selection of some damn fine yarn. I also got more Noro Silk Garden to make another one of those stripes-within-stripes scarves. We spent a lot of the weekend either at knitters' gatherings or planted in front of the TV watching the final season of The Wire from start to finish, so I finished the scarf by Sunday evening.



Speaking of knitting, if you are in the market for an ass-kicking knitting guide, order yourself a copy of my friend (and yet another MEOW member) Vickie's new book, Knit Aid. And by the way, Vickie is 800,000 times hotter even than she looks in the drawing on the book cover, as evidenced by this (or any other) photo of her:



Hot, smart, and crafty...just the way I like 'em.

salad days

I arrived safely and on time in San Francisco. At the baggage claim I saw my red suitcase coming at me, followed two bags later by my green/gray Ricardo rolling duffel. I grabbed the red bag, quickly checking to make sure the identifying Chococat sticker was on the handle, then grabbed the duffel and headed outside, calling James to tell him I was ready. As I waited at the sidewalk I noticed that they had utterly and completely trashed my duffel bag, like to the point where this was clearly its last trip, ever. There were oil stains, ripped seams, and it looked curiously deflated, like maybe some of the contents had fallen out. So I unzipped the top to discover...a man's suit. A quick check of the tags revealed that this was in fact an impostor duffel.

I did not panic, knowing that somewhere out there someone named Chris was unzipping "his" bag to discover a bunch of salwar kameez he hadn't bought. (Luckily Indian Barbie was safely in my red bag, or else I might have panicked.) And indeed, the good folks at Delta baggage services had the whole thing sorted out and my bag delivered to me at home within three hours.

Remember how I had five days to spend in my new apartment before I had to go back to India in early January? Well, oddly enough, the boxes I left piled everywhere did not unpack themselves while I was gone. The place is kind of reminding me of India right now. I see a pile of crap and think, OK, I need to unpack that and put it where it belongs. And then I think, wait, it belongs on that bookshelf that's in the wrong room and doesn't have the shelves installed. OK, I will just move the bookshelf to where it belongs. But wait, it belongs in a room I plan to paint. So I don't want to set it all up and then have to move it in order to paint. OK, I will paint the room first. But wait, I don't have any painting supplies yet, and plus that room is full of crap that needs to get out of the way before I can paint anyway. OK, I'll put that stuff in the storage room by the back stairs. But wait, I need to get shelves installed in that room, which I can't do while it's full of crap. And so on. Basically, my infrastructure is so screwed up in so many intertwined ways that I can't imagine being able to get it sorted out and functioning within the next, oh, twenty-five years or so. And meanwhile I'll just live amidst the chaos and probably get used to it and forget that there even is such a thing as living somewhere other than in a big pile of unorganized, barely functional crap. India has done nothing if not dramatically lower my standards for what I consider a functional living space. Not to mention dramatically alter my opinion as to what counts as a "large" bug.

When Casey heard I was back, he asked whether I was drunk yet. Um, duh dude, I can get drunk in India--I mean, that's what Kingfisher Strong is for. What I can't do in India is eat a fresh salad or go for a walk without sustaining lung damage and passing out from heat exhaustion. So of course the first thing I did was go to Herbivore (which is right! around! the corner! from my new place) and get a major salad, and then I walked for about six miles, wearing a fleece jacket and long pants. God it felt good. And then I stopped by my corner organic market and bought a bunch of delicious, edible food. It's like being in heaven, only without Jesus loitering around and getting all up in my grille with his holier than thou attitude.

without a net

There's an article about malaria in the NY Times today and I just thought I'd post this helpful graphic. I don't take any anti-malarial pills anymore, so if you San Francisco colleagues see me exhibiting any subtle warning signs over the next few weeks, such as vomiting all over my desk or lapsing into a coma, you know the deal.

Ganesh willing, in less than 36 hours I will be on a plane headed to California. Which means I'll arrive there in, oh, 66 to 70 hours. At least my gold-plated-titanium medallion status with Delta means I'm likely to get a cabin upgrade from JFK to SFO. Five hours of business class is better than none, that's what I always say, especially when they give you Godiva chocolates and free booze. Sure, the flight leaves at 8:00 a.m. New York time, but my internal clock will say it's cocktail hour. OK, my internal clock always says that, but this time it will actually be vaguely legit.

UPDATED TO ADD: Well, the business class section of the NY-SF flight is already full, so no upgrade for me unless someone cancels. And also, the India-to-New York flight has approximately 4 seats empty (of 268), none of which is next to mine. It's going to be a miserable, miserable 30+ hours. Bleh.

putting the FINE! in solitary confinement

This is my last weekend in country (that's a little shout-out to JFH), it's currently Saturday afternoon, and for the last couple of hours I have been howyousay slowly losing it, and here's why:

a. The internet went out around 3:00, and typically when it goes out it does not spontaneously come back, and did I mention it is Saturday which means there is no way this would be dealt with before Monday?

2. When I sighed and thought to myself, well, at least I can watch the Discovery channel or something, I discovered that the TV ALSO IS NOT WORKING. It is giving me the television equivalent of the blue screen of death.

iii. It is 90+ degrees outside, and the air quality is "smoke" (see helpful graphic below), so it's not like I am going to go for a refreshing walk to clear my head.



But in some sort of belated (or perhaps very early) Christmas miracle, the internet has shown up again, at least for the moment. Which, thank god, because otherwise I'd have had about 36 hours staring me in the face where my biggest hope for entertainment would have been knitting and listening to tinny music emanating from my iBook. Who says the life of a globe-trotting linguist manager lady isn't glamorous?

And to prove my point, now I will go have toast for dinner.

meet 'n' eat

We have our weekly Linguistic Technology Group all-hands meetings here on Thursdays at 1:00, just as we do in the San Francisco office--because if you expect me to give up any of the thirty or forty functioning brain cells I have left just to remember two different meeting times depending on what country I'm in, you are going to have to pry them out of my cold, dead hands. Today in a shameless bid for the hearts and minds of my employees, I ordered fancy cake to be brought in for the meeting, since this is the last Thursday I will be here for a while. When I say this was a bid for the hearts and minds of my employees, I am of course joking ha ha. In truth, given the smallish nature of our group at the moment (13 people plus me plus Big Anil minus Ksheeroda who is out on leave and minus Kulajit who is out with chicken pox), it was an excellent way for me to present myself as a thoughtful and generous manager while simultaneously near-guaranteeing that I would have leftover cake to take home. And so has it come to pass that my dinner tonight was coated with chocolate ganache, and now I have a headache and am in a sugar coma, possibly exacerbated by the fact that my lunch also consisted entirely of pastry (see above reference to 1:00 meeting time).

All this is just further proof that it was wise of me to join the gym near my apartment today. Near my apartment in San Francisco, I mean. Now, I am as technologically savvy as the next girl (provided that the next girl regularly discovers that the "problem" with her computer is that it is not plugged in), but still it delights me to no end that thanks to the Magic of the Internet, I am able to sit 10,000 miles away from the Club One at Fillmore Center and yet still take advantage of their current "Join in February and Get March Free!" offer without so much as lifting a phone or faxing a document. Now I am eagerly awaiting the day when the Internet can also do my workout for me, because it is on that day that I will know we have truly achieved utopia, and presumably by then I will also be able to get my cake via a personal Star Trek-style replicator while simultaneously enjoying a bergamot oil scented foot rub from Patrick Stewart.

Speaking of Star Trek, earlier this week I was cc'd on an email of which one of the only four other recipients was Adam Nimoy, son of Leonard, and that made me feel either extremely cool or extremely dorky, I'm not sure which. The reason for my tangential brush with Hollywood royalty involves my providing "notes" on a friend's screenplay-in-progress that shall remain nameless for now, but which involves the use of paintball as a metaphor for...well, I don't want to ruin the surprise.

Alert readers may have noticed that it is Thursday, and may recall that the latest promise extracted from the charlatan gypsy flimflam artist person from whom I recently ordered multiple salwar kameez sets was that they would be couriered to me on Wednesday. Guess what remains uncouriered? I finally managed to get her on the phone today after an embarrassing scene involving our office manager reminding me about that time a few weeks ago when he asked whether I needed the local line on my desk phone and I said no, just the VOIP line was fine, and also the throwing of my hands skyward while exclaiming "Punit, your country's technology baffles me!" and also a short tutorial on How To Use Your Indian Cellphone (You Moron). So after all that, I learned that it is allegedly a single custom dyed dupatta (shawl-y thing) that is holding up the order, and swear-to-ganesh it will be ready by Monday. To which I replied "Sujata, beeyotch, do not go playin' me like that." Actually no I didn't.

Meanwhile, today I wore yet another new ethnic outfit and it was the source of many delighted comments. Anuja, our lead HR admin person, stopped in her tracks and exclaimed, "You look *totally* Indian!" "It's the blond hair, isn't it?" I said, delicately primping my locks. I am seriously considering wearing only salwar kameez here from now on, because Casual Friday is nothing, my friends, compared to Wear Your Elaborately Embroidered Pajamas To Work Day.

barbie in a saree

I was killing time earlier waiting for some minor adjustments to be done to my new kameez tops (more on this below) when I discovered the perfect mascot for my desk at the San Francisco office.


Allow me to quote from the back of the box. All spellings are [sic]:

Barbie is breathtakingly beautiful in her Indian avtaar. Dressed in colourful sarees, complete with bindi and ethnic jewellery, she's out to steal your heart. She symbolises the values that are so intrinsic to any Indian. Truly, a picture of traditional Indian beauty.

Waitasec, she symbolises the values that are so intrinsic to any Indian? Because she's wearing some lame bangles and has a completely unrealistic body under that saree? She comes with her own little hand mirror, by the way. Whatever, people.

The guy was trying to push the deluxe Rajasthani Barbie on me, but I demurred. Then just now when I was looking for a photo of that one to show you, the first hit was a site selling one for $149.00. I don't know what the one I saw today cost, but the one I bought was something like $12.50 so I'd be surprised if the fancy one was more than twice or thrice that. Maybe I need to get my ass back down to the mall and then hit eBay.

This round of salwar kameez purchasing has not been entirely without incident. The ones from the first shop were supposed to be couriered (that is the fancy way they say "delivered" here) to my office on Friday, but they did not show up. So I tried calling the number on the receipt and it said it wasn't available. So I went down to the shop where I bought the fabric (the sewing is done elsewhere, hence the couriering), and the SHOP HAD CHANGED NAMES AND OWNERS SINCE LAST SATURDAY. I walked in and walked out again first, thinking "Oh wait, this isn't the shop, it must be down the block a bit." Except no, it was the shop. And yet also not the shop. But they got the woman from last week on the phone for me and she assured me that the clothes were almost done, it would just take till Wednesday. Hey, it's India. They claim things will take "six minutes" even when they will take three hours. So when they say it will take a whole week, well, I'll let you do the math (since, as Barbie in India might say, "Math is hard!").

Anyway, so then I went to the other shop to pick up my other order, and it was indeed ready. The fanciest shirt, though, had a dark spot near the hem. The owner assured me it would come out at the dry cleaners (at which point I thought to myself, "The whosit now? They have dry cleaners here?"). I went home and I could not get the spot out with regular soap, so I laundered the top with detergent and that didn't help either. In the meantime I had tried on the other tops and discovered that they needed to be let out across the chest (you know, because of my bodacious B-cup rack), so then I figured I'd go back to the shop for that and also pick up some real live stain remover while I was out.

(Y'all are probably wondering why I didn't return the stained shirt and demand they fix it. I know, I know, that's what I should have done. But I am so confrontation-averse that I find it preferable to either get the stain out myself somehow or just live with it--it's not all that noticeable.)

Here's a photo of the stained kameez dripping dry in my shower. The stain remover worked somewhat but not completely, so for now I have given up on further improvement. Maybe I will take it to a cleaner in the U.S., where it is less likely to end up being beaten against a rock in some putrid alley.



And here is one of the new whole outfits. It's not as shiny in real life--that's an effect from the flash. I might wear this one on Monday.


Barbie in a saree, yes siree.

things that well and truly suck: part 2

Our office is on the 5th (or 6th, or 7th, depending on how you count) floor overlooking a heavily-traveled, 12-lane road with a crude divider made of concrete and, in some spots, rough boulders. Many, many people have to cross this street throughout the day, and their only option is to wander through moving traffic. It's something that shocks you when you first get here (seriously, we spent a LOT of time staring out the window, mouths agape, when we first got here last summer), but you get used to it. You even do it yourself--maybe not on the road by the office, but on the smaller roads on the way to the market near your house, or when you're walking around downtown, or whatever. Once in a while you see a pedestrian crossing light, but like all traffic signals in Bombay, it is ignored. If you want to cross a street, you have to step into traffic.

People on the road by the office typically have to pause and stand on the divider before they can progress across the second half of the street. Today we suddenly heard lots of shouting, enough that people jumped up from their desks and ran to look out the window. There was a huge crowd of people in the middle of the street, literally rocking a bus back and forth in an apparent attempt to tip it over. Our first thought was that it had to do with the political strife that's been troubling the city lately, because buses have been frequent targets (Anil says something like 150 buses in Bombay have been damaged this past week--by thrown rocks, by being set on fire, that kind of thing).

But that wasn't it. I think the rocking of the bus was in hopes of dislodging it from the boulders underneath it that were preventing its being moved. What had happened, we found out later, was that the bus had swerved out of control, and had torn through/over the rocky center divider and taken four pedestrians with it, killing three of them.

The traffic jam that ensued for the next couple of hours was remarkable even for this street.


Honestly I am surprised we don't see accidents like that more often. Part of it may be that the street is so crowded that the vehicles can't usually attain deadly speeds.

It wasn't a great day to be near buses. This is what we got stuck behind on the drive home:


Updated 2/16 to add: According to this article in the Times of India, two of the pedestrians were killed, not three.

just like old times

Now that I am all alone in Bombay (well, except for those 19 million other people), I've reverted to the habits I cultivated when we used to live at the hotel--knitting, eating cereal for dinner, and watching a lot of National Geographic Channel. Next up, Megastructures: Garbage Mountain. (Apparently NatGeo has been filming down the street from here.) To add to the nostalgia, I am still seeing all the same commercials they were running last summer: Hrithik Roshan is still selling chocolate chip cookies, bizarre space aliens are still selling car batteries, and everyone and his mother are still selling skin lightening cream. Alex and Casey know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I am still working through the Yarn Mountain sent to me here last year by my ass kicking MEOW kitties, and I decided it was time to make something other than socks. So, I present to you the April May Wristwarmers. Or at least they'll be wristwarmers when I finish the second one.

It just occurred to me that it would be difficult to knit wristwarmers for Hrithik Roshan. I won't actually post a photo of his extra thumb, but you can click on that if you want to. You sicko.

pretty in pink

Today I wore my pink and beige custom-made salwar kameez to work, and, I won't lie to you, the office basically went berzerk. The outfit apparently screams "pretty." People all day were telling me how pretty I was. (And not a single person called me sir, come to think of it!) One of my linguists mentioned it in her daily email update. The office manager lady who is waiting for the rapture (that should probably be its own post someday) made a special trip over to my desk to inform me how pretty I was. ENGINEERS were noticing my clothes. Engineers. 'Nuff said. It was all very funny and kind of sweet. But my favorite comment came from our adorable adorable adorable security guard (I think his name is Jayir--he's the guy who loves to make Alex speak Hindi). His English is not that fluent, and when I was waiting for the elevator at the end of the day he exclaimed, "You are looking better in that dress, ma'am!"

just your normal commute

On the drive home Tuesday I looked up at one point, saw something large in the street with a guy sitting on it, and thought, "Hmm. Elephant." Then I went back to reading my novel (Sons and Lovers, if you must know; my literary tastes are nothing if not hifalutin, as Dan likes to tease me about).

Then today on the drive home I looked up and I knew something was weird, because a bunch of guys were walking across the street amid heavy traffic (that part is not the weird part) and they held their hands up to indicate that cars should slow down for them and the cars did slow down. This is unheard of. And then I looked a little behind them, saw that some other guys were pulling a rickety hand cart with a corpse and some flowers on it, and I thought, "Hmm. Dead guy."

As long as we're discussing my reading habits, I should confess that in two of the hifalutin novels I've read in the last week or so, people have used the expression "do the needful" (or at least said something similar involving the word 'needful'). Now, I had in the meantime figured out that this was not just something that the crazy Indian people had made up to make me laugh, and that in fact it was a somewhat archaic British-ism, of which one encounters many on this here subcontinent. But it still made me light up with glee to see it being used by Somerset Maugham and Jane Austen (in Of Human Bondage and Northanger Abbey). Come to think of it, I believe it made an appearance in Howard's End as well. (You can tell the internet has been out a lot this trip, can't you? I have been reduced to reading actual books.)

Another recent literature/India light bulb moment came while I was reading Upton Sinclair's The Jungle--a graphic indictment of, among other things, the scandalous living and working conditions in early 20th century Chicago. There were a startling number of passages that made me think, "Hmm. That sounds like India now." Oh what the hell, here's some of what I am talking about:

[T]here were no pavements--there were mountains and valleys and rivers, gullies and ditches, and great hollows full of stinking green water. In these pools the children played, and rolled about in the mud of the streets; here and there one noticed them digging in it, after trophies which they had stumbled on. One wondered about this, as also about the swarms of flies which hung about the scene, literally blackening the air, and the strange, fetid odor which assailed one's nostrils, a ghastly odor, of all the dead things in the universe.

You know...that sort of thing.

The best things are the things I find on the ground

Do you remember Diwali? The fireworks, the fun, the dancing, the ear-splitting explosions from 6 am to 1 am for a week straight, the super-sized helping of smoke/smell/"it tastes like...burning..." But my favorite thing was the morning after the very last night, when entire blocks were lined with three-feet high mounds of fireworks boxes and other trash. But, now, this:

Has become this:

And is hanging in my kitchen. Now I can ask myself every day, "Hmm, what will I blow up today?" as I drink my orange juice. I also got this picture framed, which I bought at the Prince Albert museum downtown for approximately cents 75. So it wasn't totally free, but it was pretty close.

Lastly, I've been reading the blog lately and Karen's been talking about her big and tall issues. I don't know about that, but if you want to talk about Chubs, have you seen Alex lately? Look at that belly!! Guess he's been at the burritos again.

cum laude, redux

Today Dan, Misti, and I went downtown again and went to the gardens in Malabar Hill. Once again we got our Beavis & Butthead-style jollies from an unintentionally funny sign:



There were cool butterflies in the garden:





This is the same garden place where Robin and Alex took photos of the penguin trash cans and the giant shoe, and as much as I would love to make use of the "very large shoe" tag again, it's not really worth the redundant photo here. Oh wait, but I just talked about it, so I can still use the tag! Awesome.

What was not so awesome was the ride home. Which took almost two hours. In the dark. In a rickety, stall-prone, seatbelt-less, 40-year-old taxi (the same as all the other taxis). In bumper-to-bumper traffic, without air conditioning, and with exhaust fumes and ambient smoke you could cut with a knife. Seriously, I feel like my life expectancy went down by at least two years on this ride. I am not even going to try to describe it. Once in a while I would turn around to Dan and Misti in the back seat and just widen my eyes and silently plead, "What in the name of sweet holy jesus in motherf@cking hell?"

But back to our day. Here's a guy taking a nap in his taxi; the drivers do this a lot. This one was in a line of at least five taxis parked along the road with feet sticking out of the back seats.



We had yummy food again at the same place we went to dinner last time we were downtown, and we did some serious shopping. Misti got a rug and some jewelry and a wall hanging, Dan got some gifts, and I got jewelry for myself, including, but not limited to, the following:


(That's coral.)


(Those are freshwater pearls and...um...some pale blue-green stones.)

OK, it's really hard to think about being frugal and saving up for a nice dishwasher when you are stuck 10,000 miles away from your apartment.

Anyhooooo, the rest of the photos I took today are here.

hell's bells

So, for a couple few weeks now we've been dealing with someone's very obnoxious alarm going off at 1:30 a.m. every night, just loud and long enough (i.e., very loud, 30 seconds) to wake us all up. And then recently it started also going off at 3:30 a.m. Awesome good times!

Except then the other night I finally realized it was our own land line phone out in the living room, i.e., we are in fact the incredibly obnoxious neighbors whose alarm goes off twice every night. And, OK, it might seem incredible that we could go for so long without realizing there was a phone making ungodly noises in our very apartment every night literally like clockwork, but work with me here, people. The alarm sounds are not very similar to normal phone ringing sounds. Not to mention WHY WOULD IT EVEN OCCUR TO ME THAT OUR PHONE HAD AN ALARM?!? What kind of phone (that isn't a cell phone) has an alarm?? So anyway, I have noooooo idea how it got programmed to go off at those times, and, unable to find an owner's manual in the house or online, I could not figure out how to unset it. So I took out its batteries, assuming that would take care of it. Except it did not. It went off again at 1:30, as per usual like the scream of Satan himself. Seriously, this sucker is LOUD. And SHRILL. Like so many things in India, come to think of it. So I removed the phone connection line, even though I thought to myself "Why the hell would the phone line being plugged in make any difference?", but I was getting desperate, and finally the display went blank and now it no longer makes any noises.

Seriously, we thought maybe it was possessed. Like the rest of the apartment.

new kidz on the block

I present to you the new DAs:



Richa, Deepa, Shyamesh, Ksheeroda, Hidam, and Devahoti.

yes, we have no teh internets

We have not had internet service at our apartment since Saturday afternoon, except for a few blissful hours when we were able to steal our neighbor's unprotected wireless on Sunday. Punit, our office manager, was very apologetic yesterday, explaining that "with these internet guys, you have to call every hour and follow up, and they'll say it will be fixed in 6 hours, but then it isn't," and I was like, "Dude, you know I've been in India most of the time since June, right? You think you need to 'splain that to me? I knows me some Indian repair protocols."

So yeah. I am posting from work. The internet at work only goes out once every couple of months, so that is nice.

Dan and Misti recently discovered a veritable paradise just a couple of blocks past our usual shopping area near the apartment. It is a street with trash cans that people apparently actually use; no car horns blaring; and several nice, clean shops, including a small produce/grocery store and A REAL LIVE BAKERY that makes ZOMG!!1!!1!!! whole grain breads. Which you can buy. And then eat. Mmmmm. Nom nom nom. (The "whole wheat" bread at the regular supermarket is basically overprocessed white bread that has been colored brown.)

We are closing in on the end of the training cycle for our six new hires, and then Dan will be flying back to the US. I have half a mind to either stow away in his luggage or tie him to something heavy at the office so HE CAN'T LEAVE PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME DAN NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

a grand day out

My two favorite Mumbai neighborhood names are Cuffe Parade and Breach Candy. Breach Candy? Excuse me to please?

Anyway, we spent some time today downtown, in Cuffe Parade and Churchgate and Fort. We walked around and ate some good food (paneer tikka, I wish I could quit you) and had posh drinks at the posh Taj Mahal Palace hotel and enjoyed the luxury of having a hotel room (at the Gordon House) where we could stop in periodically and even take showers and partake of the mini bar.

Here's my favorite new photo:



And here is a very cute photo of Misti:

true concessions

You might not know it from some of my posts, but there are some things about this country that I really like. My Indian colleagues are great, for starters. When people ask me what I like best about India, that is always what comes to mind.

But I also like how so many of the trucks and buses are painted with colorful designs, and lovingly kept clean--in Bombay, a Sisyphean challenge if ever there was one. Here's a good example:



I also love people's names. Here is a sampling of the first names (in India this is called your "good name") of people in our office: Devahoti, Manasi, Kulajit, Anuradha, Siddhant, Neeraj, Sumit, Vinay, Anuja, Anilkumar, Shyamesh, Punit, Sneha, Ksheeroda, Pinkey, Sudarshan, Deepa, Jasbinder, Chandni, Puja, Chhaya, Shikha, Vishal, Irfan, and Sushmita. And that's just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

freak show

I got to the Bombay apartment around 11:00 p.m. local time last night, then hung out with Casey and Misti for a while (Dan was already asleep). Fell asleep sometime after 3:00 a.m., so needless to say I was not up and ready to go to work at 7:30. So, my first day back at the office will be Monday. Luckily our next batch of hires won't be there till Tuesday.

I walked down to the supermarket just now and was reminded that in India, more so than usual, I am a giant freak. Especially now with my super short hair I am getting even more stares than before.

In keeping with tradition, the portly little Indian Delta gate agent at JFK called me "sir." They like to start reminding me early that I am super feminine and pretty. Thanks, India.

The weather is probably the best it's been since I started spending time here last June. It's not even sweltering, and in the mornings and evenings it is almost cool and pleasant. However, the entire city, including my bedroom, smells like a campfire. This may have something to do with the fact that the entire city is, in fact, a campfire. At least the smoke helps to mask some of the other smells. I'm talking about poop here, people.

foodie happiness

I know I keep talking about this and it is of interest to no one but me, but I set up this damn blog, so suck it up. It is SO much easier to stay vegan in San Francisco than in Bombay. There are lots of vegan restaurants. I can buy things like nutritional yeast and cashew butter and vegan margarine and cheese and fresh leafy greens that won't kill me with E. Coli (usually) and tempeh and gluten flour and seitan and soyrizo and soy yogurt etc. etc. I have a blender and a food processor. I have heavy pans that have real non-stick surfaces that don't scrape off in shreds into your food when you have the sheer audacity to use a plastic spatula on them. You get the idea.

James is visiting, so this morning I made us vegan omelettes (recipe at Fat Free Vegan Kitchen) and tempeh bacon:



Quoth James, "That was fancy!"

And also we got to drink coffee that was neither instant nor disgusting nor carried by hand from 10,000 miles away just so you can get a cup of decent coffee in the morning for god's sake is that too much to ask.

And also? I get to take showers that are warm and involve more than a trickle. And I don't have to watch for roaches when I walk around my apartment.

baumer's index*

Number of round trips to India since late June: 3
Total number of miles flown: 61,316
Number of those miles seated in coach: 59,730
Frequent flier miles earned: 119,735
Approximate number of hours spent traveling: 180
Number of those hours in business class: 6
Number of standard work days represented by 180 hours of travel: 22.5
Total number of days spent in India: 110
Number of those days sick with traveler's illness: 0
Number of Indian linguists hired for last month's start date at the Mumbai office: 7
Number of linguist job offers accepted so far for January 2008 start date: 6
Target of new hires for January : 8-10
Percentage of DA Team expats who kick ass and without whom I'd have been lost: 100

*pace Harper's Index

what's been stolen from *your* wallet?

About a month ago, Alex noticed a bunch of unfamiliar charges showing up on his online Visa statement, and when he Googled the name of the business he discovered it was a place that specialized in selling calling cards that could be used by inmates in the United States. Needless to say, Alex had not actually been investing hundreds of dollars in order to chat more freely with his incarcerated friends, but rather these were fraudulent charges and indicated that his credit card number had been hijacked. He had to call the US and cancel the card and arrange for a new one to be sent to India--no small feat considering that Visa's system only allows mailing addresses about half as long as the typical Indian address (which always involves a nearby landmark, the name of the closest intersection, the nickname of the building, a description of the dog that hangs out on the front steps, and so on--anything but a street number, because those do not exist, seeing as they would actually be useful and efficient, and that shit don't fly in India).

Anyway, Alex had to live without a credit card until his new one showed up in the mail the other day (miraculously enough--the "address" was so condensed as to be nearly unintelligible).

Today I happened to be checking my online Visa statement and noticed...can you guess where this is going? A ton of fraudulent charges for calling card purchases from a couple of different companies. So then I also had to call and cancel my card and tell them which charges to dispute and so on. Luckily I am going home tomorrow, so I can just have them send the card to my house in San Francisco. Also, I have an Amex card I can use in the meantime if I need to. Still, it's a huge pain in the ass, and I'll have to make sure to change the number on any accounts where I have recurring automatic charges (which is a lot these days, because I live in India for chrissake and can't be sending a $14 check to PG&E every month, for example).

I have noticed that receipts here typically list credit card numbers in their entirety, which...hello? Who does that anymore?

This place makes me crazy.

does not register

We have this recurring problem where Indian web sites will not accept US credit cards. This has caused irritation on a grand scale every time anyone wants to book non-business travel, reserve a hotel, whatever.

So today I noticed that the registration is finally open for the Mumbai marathon. The web site makes it very clear that if you live outside India, you must register online (as opposed to in person or by mail). Except, guess what? The only way to pay online is via credit card, and the site won't accept non-Indian credit cards. I.e., they require you to do something and then make it impossible to do it. I LOVE THIS COUNTRY.

EDITED TO ADD:
As usual I had to solve this problem by imposing on our incredibly sweet office manager, Punit, to use his personal card and pay him in cash. But I am now officially registered! Well, supposedly. (For a second I forgot what country I was in. We'll see what goes awry from here.)

things to do in bombay when you're dead inside

Question: what is black and white (and green) and cute all over?

Is it this puppy that hangs out near our office? Yes, if you don't look too closely at his mangy fur.



Is it this baby sweater set I made out of sock yarn? I hope so.



And here's a lace baby hat being blocked on a cereal bowl:



That's all I gots. What can I say--I have been here enough that on weekends I prefer to just hang out at home and avoid the noise and crowds and smells and sights and general bombardment of the senses that comes with Bombay. Today Casey and I spent the afternoon watching DVDs and, um, drinking hard liquor.

Alex and Robin went to a museum today, so maybe they will have more interesting things to post.

fond memories of good times

I am cleaning out my work email inbox today and I came across a message I sent to Casey in mid-August after my first trip back to the US since getting to India. Feel the love:

Ok, so the airport...first of all, can someone explain to me how it is that I have YET to be dropped off at the right place at the airport ONCE in this country so far? For reals, not once, and these are professional drivers who surely are picking up and dropping off people with some regularity. Am I wrong?? (Did I tell you that the SAME driver from the Hans Hotel in Delhi took me and Alex to the SAME wrong terminal? Even though I told him twice we were on Kingfisher and then even asked when we got there if it was the Kingfisher place, because I didn't see any signs? And he insisted yes and then took off. So we once again got to walk that long weird walk through back alleys to the other terminal.) Anyhooooo, so Ahmed ended up taking me to the arrivals level and getting stuck going in to the parking lot (which cost me 60 Rs to add insult to injury), then eventually we figure out that I need to go upstairs to DEPARTURES (helllloooo? you don't say! departures?), and we find an elevator, and it was one of those typical Indian experiences where people were totally unhelpful and barging past me even though I had a suitcase and was right near the door and shit like that. So I finally figure out which door to go in to the terminal and there is a THRONG of people outside. You know how they'll have a guy (in a brown uniform, of course) standing at the door making sure you have a printout or a boarding pass + passport? So that is what was going on, except for once in this country it would have been helpful to have 2 or 3 people doing the exact same job in the exact same place, so unlike usual naturally there was only *one* guy. And then I realize that part of the effing problem is that people are showing up with their entire extended families to say goodbye to ONE person, and they all crowd along with her or him till the very last second and get in the way of the people who have ACTUAL FUCKING FLIGHTS TO CATCH and keep coming up with one last thing they have to say and one last hug they have to give and ARRRGGGGHHHHHHHH!! And also, what is UP with everyone here traveling with 18 pieces of giant luggage? So I'm in this throng and just trying to move up closer to the door and have about negative 2 inches of space to move into and people are pushing their luggage carts into the backs of my legs and shouting "Excuse me! EXCUSE ME!" and/or making that "sssh! sssh! sssh!" sound like Ahmed does when he is trying to get the attention of the 19th rickshaw driver in a row to get directions to somewhere. I actually was THISCLOSE to turning around and shouting in the face of one woman. It also occurred to me how it was possible for people to get killed in soccer mobs or whatever--there was constant physical pressure from behind me and nowhere to move to.

So I finally wrestle my way into the airport (where it is quite non-crowded...that's when I realized just how many of those people outside were simply relatives of the legitimate travelers), and then things are marked with the same kind of clarity and accuracy as, you know, like roads and stuff are. As in, not so much. Finally I find the Delta line. It involves standing in line and eventually some guy with a clipboard coming to ask you questions about whether your bag is yours and what is in it and do you have any gels or liquids and did you buy anything at the duty free shop and so on. Then he puts stickers on the bags and one on your passport. But then you stay in line and eventually put everything (regular and carry on bags) through one of those big Xrays. THEN you stand in a normal line to get your boarding pass. One of the things they give you is a slip of paper called a "departure card" or something, which you then have to fill out before going through immigration. It asks about your name/passport info, your address in India, etc. I am mainly telling you this because no one points out that this is on the back of the paper, so I had just slipped mine into my passport and then when I finally found the place that looked like the way to my departure gate, there were all these people all scribbling on these forms and I had NO IDEA where they'd gotten the forms or what it was about, and it's not like the long counters where they were filling them out had blank copies or even provided pens...OK, so I finally ask someone (one of those classic "sitting in a chair with a badge with no apparent purpose" jobs) and figure it out and go through the immigration line. That was one of those deals where they look into your passport and maybe stamp something. You know how they loves them some stamps here. THEN comes the regular security line, where they scan your carry on bag AGAIN in the usual manner and put another fantastic, magical, terror-fighting ink stamp on your luggage tag, and then finally you can maybe find your departure gate. I'm just sayin', people--they are not kidding about getting there 2 hours early.

doing the needful

So, in emails our office manager often uses the expression "do the needful" when he means "do what is required." As in, "I will do the needful and arrange to have someone come fix your air conditioner (again)/arrange for an electrician to (possibly) fix your exploded outlet (but probably not)/get new keys made (because yours don't actually fit the lock)/etc."

I thought this was just a quirk of his idiolect, as he is not a native English speaker. We have a running joke about how "doing the needful" sounds vaguely pornographic.

But just now in Dhoom II, Hrithik Roshan, he of the auspicious and SEXY extra thumb, tells (the correctly thumbed) Aishwarya Rai to...



DO THE NEED FULL!!!

My life is now complete.

smokin' 2

Not quite sure what to say about this. Here in Mumbai we somehow manage to have daily conditions be "Smoke" even without rampant wildfires. I think it has to do with the number of people (millions) who use open fires to cook throughout the day. Still, this week I'm glad I'm in Mumbai and not in my home town San Diego. Now that is smoke. My house down there isn't threatened, nor is my parents' house--if a fire got to that part of town it would kind of mean the whole city was in flames, and I have to doubt it will go that far. I have friends in Escondido who have had to evacuate, though, and friends with little kids who have to stay indoors because of the thick ash, and the whole situation just totally sucks. Send cool, wet vibes to Southern California, please.

driven

Some people might hear that we have drivers to take us to and from work here in India and imagine that we cruise along gently in our plush BMW, sipping champagne out of delicate crystal flutes as we relax and enjoy the scenery while saying things like "Home, Ahmed!" and giggling hysterically.

Yeah, right. OK, see those tall skinny beige buildings with the little blue-green pointy tops? That's our apartment complex as seen from my office window. It's about 3 miles away.



Last night it took us an hour and ten minutes to get home. Our route involved dirt road "shortcuts" through slums, massive potholes, teeming pedestrians, wandering dogs and cattle and goats and chickens and small children, piles of rubble to be maneuvered around or over, a complete absence of road rules, approximately 185,000 swarming auto-rickshaws, a huge rickety bus that took about 8 minutes of maneuvering to get around the corner from one narrow alley to another (while we were trapped, gridlocked among about 50 other vehicles), open cooking fires inches from the car, daredevil motorcyclists, vehicles and people passing within millimeters of the moving car, and non-stop honking. Oh, the honking. I am not exaggerating for comic effect. IT IS LITERALLY NON-STOP.

And last night was only a little worse than usual. Seriously.

P.S. And it's also definitely not a BMW we're driven in. And usually at least one of us has to sit sideways on a fold-down seat in the cargo area.

linguists on the loose

Today we took the new linguists out to lunch at a place called Kobe Sizzlers. Sizzlers are an odd Indian food phenomenon--they are like those sizzling dishes you get sometimes at Thai or Chinese restaurants, but with way more weird crap. Like, there will be the main protein, such as lamb or chicken or fish or paneer, and then a boatload of rice underneath and a ton of vegetables all around (cabbage, spinach, carrots, beans, tomato, peas, baby corn, onions, and cauliflower), and then some french fries for good measure, all with some kind of gravy and served on a sizzling platter.



Here's Lon enjoying the sizzling smoky goodness:



And here are our new (and a couple of old) colleagues:



Kneeling, left to right: Alex, Robin, Abdul
Standing, left to right: Lon, Anil S., Anil K., Sneha, Anuradha, Manasi, Kulajit, Pinkey