Film Shoot

So our Mumbai tour guide from San Francisco told me last Saturday there is a film shoot for some commercial at one of the better known film studios and they are looking for a bunch of white people to participate. A couple of weeks ago I had met a Scottish teacher-in-training here, who goes to these film shoots all the time, because she actually needs the money. I had also heard that the producers are actually loading those white tourists into a bus and drop them off at the studios.

So I thought, ok, what the hell, why not. Let's not mention how much I was supposed to get paid, because apparently there's a good amount of politics around that. Tourists get paid close to nothing, presumably because they do it for fun, or maybe they think they'll get famous, and I didn't care about the money either. But some people actually do need the money and rumor has it that there's a few westerners living in Mumbai who live just off those film shoots.

So I get there at 2:30pm on Saturday. Supposedly, this was to be done by 8pm or so. I didn't even know exactly what the commercial would be for, and I figured it can't possibly be for Viagra, so I should be safe. There was a whole bunch of westerners, maybe half of them tourists, the Scottish expat also showed up, and there were a few other regulars like her. So we started waiting. This is a film shoot, after all, and film shoots mean 95% sitting around doing nothing.

On the way to the studio, I had passed a couple of trucks fully loaded with human tower competitors - well, it was also Krishna's birthday, so from what I gathered, numerous communities sponsor their young strong men (and women, although I didn't see any) to drive around town, or maybe just in their community on these huge trucks. They are all dressed in uniform t-shirts, usually orange or yellow, and then they have a competition about which group can make the tallest human tower or pyramid. So there were a few 3-4 men tall human towers, of course in the middle of traffic, masses of spectators, drums and music everywhere.

But I passed those guys, after all, I had to do my film shoot, and I had not realized that this the big deal that it apparently was. So we were waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Usually, at some point at these shoots, there is food. But all we got was tea and Coca-Cola. So I was getting a little hungry. And we were waiting and waiting. Outside - it wasn't exactly hot, but it wasn't very pleasant either.

Now, apparently, the commercial was supposed to be for ready-made dosi. Ok, so this is going to be a fast-food commercial - now wonder they need a few white people! There's a whole lot more people in my office here who bring homemade food to work than in NYC (even though our cafeteria here is heavily subsidized), and there is a whole lot more people in my office in NYC who eat fast food on a regular basis - so, really, a fast-food commercial for Indian dosi would be pretty much unthinkable without some white people. In a crap fast-food commercial, white people are of course an absolute must-have and probably the only straw of hope for any credibility whatsoever.

Anyways, so at 6pm or so I head enough. I was done with getting famous in a fast-food commercial, so I left and had some real food. I really should have gone to check out those human pyramids, because I later heard that this was quite the spectacle indeed, and it sure looks like it...

On an entirely different note, if there could be a picture today, it would have to be one of that Muslim couple that I saw today, right next to the mall. She was fully dressed in a burkha, standing in front of this guy who was sitting very cool on his motorbike. And they were holding hands, very tenderly, totally in love and obviously sweet talking. I guess the fact that I even noticed it, and think it is worth mentioning, and that I found this scene just very remarkable, just shows how dumbed down and stupid daily western images of Muslims, let alone traditional women in burkhas, have made me already. Either that, or Ksenia has been out of town for too long already, or probably both.

Random Mumbai Facts

From the latest issue of TimeOut Mumbai:

• Mumbai's 7.2 million slumdwellers constitute 60% of the population


• In a four month period starting last November, government bulldozers demolished 90,000 dwellings, making 300,000 people homeless


• Only 40% of households are connected to sewers


• There are 800 functioning public toilet blocks; this is 20,000 less than needed; the public toilets are so deep in shit that city workers refuse to clean them, even for extra pay


• Suburban trains have a capacity of 1,750 passengers; at rush hour, 4,000 passengers are crammed into each train


• 110 new vehicles are added to Mumbai every day; average traffic speed: 6-8 km/h

Mumbai Mirror's Daily Sexpert Question earlier this week:

"I am a 25 year old married woman. I need some advice regarding our sex life. We got married in May this year. My husband faces the following problems during intercourse: 1) he breathes heavily and gets exhausted very soon, 2) he sweats a lot 3) our sex does not last for long and we don't enjoy the act. Kindly suggest a solution to these problems"

Downtown Mumbai

Friday night, my boss took out a few expats for a bit of bar hopping downtown. Our first stop was the Dome, a nice lounge bar on the roof of the Intercontinental Hotel right on Marine Drive, a.k.a. Queens Necklace. Nice view, a pool, and expensive cocktails. After that we went to the Gymkhana. I had been told that this is probably the most exclusive private club in Mumbai, so I was quite afraid that this will be some sort of Connecticut Country Club place, with men in white shoes and white hats or something like that. It turned out to be a very laid back and relaxed place where everybody seemed to know everybody. Some people looked like a bit of show-offs, but generally it was pretty apparent that money alone doesn't get one into this club, what matters most are relationships, so presumably a lot of the members have been downtown Mumbaikars for generations.

I thought the atmosphere was quite different from a few places that I had been to in Bandra. I guess like many big European cities, there is always an invisible divide between the newly rich and the old money spots. Where the nightlife of the Mumbai suburbs of Bandra and Juhu seems to be dominated by Bollywood people (or those wanting to become Bollywood people) and the growing call center brigade (a term I saw the TimeOut Mumbai use twice), this place seemed quite different.

Afterwards, we went to Indigo, a very happening bar and Italian restaurant, which the wife of a British diplomat whom I had met on the way from St. Petersburg to Delhi was raving about. I remember thinking then that I don't really want to go to some posh downtown exile for Western diplomats, but the place was actually quite nice and laid back as well - and now that I live here, I realize that this town would be simply unlivable for me without these sorts of places. Sadly but true enough, now that I have a car, I don't even take the riksha anywhere - it is just too exhausting to be sitting in these things right next to the big stinking busses and passing by open sewage systems and mountains of garbage. So I drive in my air conditioned car with the windows rolled up and Madonna or Eminem in the CD player - kind of like a submarine floating in stop-and-go speed through a zoo approaching hell.

British DJ

So for a week now I was looking forward to this British DJ coming to Mocha in Juhu. Mocha is of course the hipper version of the Barista coffee shops, and there's one in Juhu. Actually, some people refer to Juhu as Juhu Beach, because, well, it does have a beach. Anyone going swimming there, and there are a few crazy ones, must be seriously suicidal, because the water is a dark brown soup of sewage and plastic bags, and the beach itself, although fairly large, is pretty firmly in the hand of hawkers, drug addicts, and a wild assortment of food stands. Nevertheless, the beach is crowded with people going for a leisurely stroll.

Across from the beach is Mocha. They usually have apple pie shakes and tiramisu and things like that, so I was curious to see how they turn this into a dance club for the occasion. Well, they didn't really. The DJ wasn't bad, and they even had beer (well, Foster's), but apparently the crowd wasn't very interested. Still, for some reason there was a waiting list for the airconditioned room, and even though there didn't seem to be anybody in there, it took half an hour to get from the boiling hot outside space inside.

Apart from our Mumbai tour guide from San Francisco, there was another expat from work, plus a Canadian and a French/Austrian couple, so the expats were well represented and at times made up the majority of the dancing population. The decidedly best part, however, was the Indian lady, around 50, who sat down by herself at our table, pulled a little bottle of Jack Daniel's out of her bag and proceeded to pour herself some into a plastic cup under the table. She very proudly announced that she was invited by the British Council to come to this event. And indeed, apparently the British Council thinks that India might need some development aid in the form of a DJ, because they were noted as the main sponsors of the event. Certainly, Mocha didn't pay the DJ's bills.

So it was all pretty relaxed and somewhat sad. But at least, there was no Bryan Adams or Led Zeppelin being played, so it was great. On the way home, I almost ran into a car with a mobile phone equipped driver who very lazily crossed the street without looking left or right, and I missed a riksha or two by a few inches, so all things considered, the evening included a bit of excitement as well.

Lonavala

Originally, I had wanted to drive out of town yesterday, but then it was raining cats and dogs, so I just ended up going for a coffee at the Juhu Mocha with a Scottish expat whom I had met a week ago at the other Mocha in Bandra. I find myself going to Mocha quite a bit. Anyways, this Scottish expat is a teacher in training at the Mumbai Rudolf Steiner School, which is kind of interesting. On Wednesday she, her friends and I went to a club called Seven, which happens to be located in the sixth floor of a shopping mall. This club actually would have a nice view, except it was of course dark. The music was as usual total crap - why on earth people love Bryan Adams so much that they have to play three songs of it, is beyond me. But the crowd was ecstatic and sang along with full gusto.

Then yesterday I went to Club IX with our American Mumbai tour guide, her boyfriend and another expat from work. Club IX has equally atrocious music, but at least no-one is singing along and the place feels a bit like a Jugendzentrum - i.e. one of those youth clubs they have in Germany, Russia, and elsewhere, where 15 year olds (like me) grew up on beer, ping-pong and foosball (which we called kicker). It had plush brown couches and incredibly tacky paintings, but the Kingfisher was cold, and so what else can one ask for. And despite being called Club IX, there was no dancing.

So this morning I set out to drive out of town. It takes a good hour to actually get out of town, but then heaven starts. Well, at least there's a real highway with three lanes in each direction, actual lane markings, and a surprising lack of potholes. This is the Mumbai-Pune express highway, and my little silver machine did a solid 120km per hour, no problem. I was tempted to go a little faster, but who knows what happens if you push your luck with a new Ambassador. I wanted to go to the first destination listed in the 52 Mumbai Weekend Getaways book, but of course the important directions are in Hindi, or maybe I am blind, but in any event I missed the exit to the road towards Goa.

So I drove to Lonavala instead. Lonavala is pretty high up in the mountains, and as I drove up, the rain and the fog thickened with every kilometer. When I was still in the plains, the views and the green were really quite fantastic, but here I was, crawling up the mountains to Lonavala. I guess if it weren't for the fog and rain, the views from up there must be quite spectacular, but as it was, the view was gray. Nevertheless, the place was packed with weekenders. There's lots of waterfalls there, and everybody just goes take a shower in full clothes. Truckloads of young men (hardly any women), singing and dancing next to their parked cars, drenched from the rain and from their adventures in the waterfalls and rivers.

The air was very nice and fresh, but the weather was too crap for any pictures. I had some chicken masala, which I think ended up being mutton, but what the hell. I was hoping to be able to sit down and continue reading Maximum City, but unfortunately it was a bit too wet and crowded. Maximum City currently is quite the bestseller - it's written by a guy who left Bombay when he was 14, lived in London, Paris, and New York, and then returned 21 years later. So far, it's great, because it really helps me be able to actually read the newspaper, as it gives a lot of context to the daily reports on the incredible extent of corruption, the Shiv Sena party (which is basically made up of thugs and religious extremists, and which rules parts of Mumbai), the slum lords (which apparently control the majority of the Mumbai population). Not to mention the currently almost daily riots by commuters who are fed up with the non-functioning railway service, so they frequently start attacking railway workers, block trains for hours and wreck all kinds of additional havoc on a weekly basis.

The Insanity Called Commute

So now I have a lovely car, and I am driving it. Myself, to work every day. What kind of looked crazy from the backseat of my former driver's car, can now indeed be diagnosed as exactly that: insanity. The morning is not so bad, and today was actually pretty quiet. I take the Western Express Highway and after about 30mins and a few potholes here and there, I am at work. The way back, however, is absolutely mind-boggling. At around 7pm, it's usually already dark, and today it was raining a bit as well. Not that the roads would be slippery or anything - the fact is, The Western Express Highway on Friday evenings is never quite express enough to anywhere near any speeds where one could slip.

The best part, however, is getting onto the highway to begin with. It's about 3km or so through residential areas (well, in Mumbai, everything, literally, is a residential area), on pretty narrow lanes, each occupied by two or three cars each direction. There's thousands of pedestrians fighting for space with the traffic. The road has fantastic potholes that make the cars look like little cogs in a whirlpool, or maybe toilet bowl.

I knew I was in a bit of trouble when a riksha coming the opposite direction got close enough to fold in my side mirror. Matters got a little more exciting when another riksha cut me off and scratched the left front corner of my car. It was my turn next when a truck to my right started swinging so heavily from the potholes that I saw it coming within fractions of an inch of my sidemirror, so I took a little swing to the left to evade him and immediately made contact with a riksha. So I heard a nice scratching sound and felt very sorry for my left door.

Drivers around here are incredibly impatient. The traffic is not moving one bit, there is absolutely no movement in sight in front of me, and the guy behind me keeps honking his horn like his life depends on it. There's pretty much zero courtesy - instead it's an all out war for every single inch of space. The Western Express Highway has a couple of stretches that could be considered fast road, but there's other stretches where one has no choice but go down into first gear to make it over the potholes relatively safely.

Of course, the highway is filled with rikshas as well, and just like on the NJ Turnpike, the very slowest cars are happily crawling along on the center lane. Except they are passing two wheelers (helmet optional, flip-flops mandatory) and sometimes the odd pedestrian. Still, some folks in their Hondas and Hyundais will use every split second opportunity to zig zag their way around the mess, always with the hand firmly attached to the horn, never too shy to come within inches of anything the pass.

I don't think accidents happen all that much - traffic is generally too slow for anything serious to happen, and the bumps and scratches are just part of the deal. Of course the absolutely last thing I'd like to happen would be to hit a pedestrian. As it is, no matter what, it would be my fault - if the guy walks onto the street without looking, as seems to be the custom, it doesn't matter. Interestingly, however, if the driver is a woman, at least that's what I was told, it is never her fault.

Anyways, so my commute back home usually takes an hour or more, for a distance of about 20km. And at the rate of three little bumps per day, my car will very quickly develop some lovely patina. I guess that's the way it should be, although the amount of cars with dents and scratches is actually pretty low, so maybe this just means that I've got to learn how to drive. I thought Italy was pretty good practice, but really, it's just elementary school compared to the masters of the Mumbai roads.

Family Electrician

Well, against all odds, I actually got my car. The dealer called me Friday to tell me that I can pick it up at 5:30pm on Saturday. And, surprisingly enough, it actually was there, in all its beauty, ready to get picked up, and so I did. Of course, it quickly turned out that I had bought a piece of crap junk car, just like many Indians had told me. The door handles are pretty flimsy, the doors are close to impossible to lock from the inside, and the gear box is one clunky piece of mechanical engineering gone pretty wrong. And the engine sounds a bit like some badly underpowered 70s Oldsmobile, but I love this car with all its faults.

Sadly, I had to say Good Bye to my wonderful driver. We had developed a very nice relationship, and he turned out to be fantastic. He was pretty sad, but I told him that we will call him, when Ksenia comes back from NYC, because then we'll need him again. The last couple of weeks, he had sometimes tried to teach me a bit of Hindi, so now I know that sticking your pinky finger into the air means going for a pee. And the main phrase he had learned from us was "a little bit", because up until recently, he would always say "something something" instead. Whenever I thanked him at the end of the day, he would say "It is my duty, Sir" and laugh - at one point, when he had found me a place to buy TimeOut Mumbai, he actually said "It is my duty, Sir" and laughed like Ernie from Sesame Street, as if he was laughing about that phrase himself, which he probably didn't. Or maybe he was, I don't know.

Our maid also seems to be doing ok. Well, she came pretty late twice, and she left some laundry in the dryer instead of taking it out, but I don't really care. She's not bad, and I quite like her. Of course, the other day I made a bit of blunder when my landlord came over with his family electrician yet again, and I actually tried to introduce him to my maid. So when I asked him, have you met my maid, he looked at me as if I was out of my mind, and just said "I don't know, if I did, I don't remember her face." Ooops. I guess I had forgotten that in some Indian households the maid never leaves the kitchen and actually sleeps on the kitchen floor.

The landlord by the way is a bit of a character himself. He had lived for a while in NYC, so he's quite understanding about a number of things. But since our phoneline is still not working, he keeps bringing his electrician in, always repeating the same old and apparently cricially important story that this electrician works exclusively for his family, because it is very hard to find one in India, so he works exclusively for his family. Why the electrician keeps coming back for "full investigation of the problem" (quote my landlord), and nothing actually gets fixed, I don't know, but that's a different story. Bottom line is that the walls must be soaked with dampness and mold (the mold is actually showing everywhere on the walls), so the main fuse keeps blowing then and again, and one of the many switch panels is unusable, because turning any of its switches will make the lights go out in the whole apartment. The funny part is always that clearly the landlord is telling the electrician what he needs to do, because apparently the family electrician is not really an electrician. But the two of them keep showing up in my apartment unannounced, seemingly discussing the progress of their full investigation.

The landlord also told me that I can park the car on the little parking lot that's part of the apartment building. There's really not enough space for the six or seven cars standing around, so I asked him, how does it work, and whether it's on a first come first serve basis, or what? He assured me, no problem, I can park, there are no designated parking spots. So when I tried, the watchman makes a few wild gestures, so I understand I should park on the other side of the building. Now, there is a very small elderly's home in the ground floor of the building, so as soon as I park there, some young modern chap comes up to me telling me in a very important sounding tone that that parking space is reserved for the doctor. Of course, the doctor doesn't live there, he just works there, if that. He probably just shows up then and again, because the home is pretty small, the size of my apartment. Anyways, but the parking space is for the doctor, very important. I am not in the mood to get into an argument with either the landlord or the neighbors, so I guess I will be parking on the street, which should be fine.

In other news, I finally found a very cool little club that's the way little clubs should be like. It's in a stinky little hotel that looks like it had seen better times. The club was nice and very laid back, people obviously just wanted to dance, so there were no posers, macho guys, or bimbos, like there are in so many clubs in any city you go. The music was pretty good as well, so I guess I will be going back there some time.

Oh, and very funny, I find, is this...

Indian Dance

Last Saturday, just before Ksenia took off back to NYC (and actually was lucky enough to get out of the floods on time), we went to her Indian Classical Dance teacher's performance. Ksenia had taken up classes a while ago with that teacher and is trying to get her foot and finger movements straight, which is quite a challenge. Of course, I know nothing about Indian Classical Dance, but basically, a lot of them, if not all, have religious roots, there is not just music, but also vocals, and it seems like the vocals tell a religios story, which is then acted out by dancing and by the all-important hand movements, where every single hand gesture has a very particular meaning. So if the hands and arms are one way, it means "Lion", and held a slightly or not so slightly different way, it means "House". Or something like that.

So the art is then in the execution of these movements, there really is not all that much space for interpretation - and improvisation or any other Western concept of dance is entirely foreign. Of course, in the West, art is most of the time all about me, myself, and I, so this is a whole different world. Apparently, if not for the Love Of God, then why bother dancing or being an artist? Unfortunately, if one has no clue what the story is, or what the hand gestures mean, or how they should look like, if executed correctly, then watching a performance like this, is a bit of a challenge. I can't say I hated it, but I was definitely looking for the subtitles somewhere.

The teacher's husband very helpfully spoke some introductory words at the beginning of each segment, but of course it was in Hindi, and I could only make out a Shiva here and a Vishnu there. My seat neighbor tried to translate a little bit, but it was pretty hopeless. The fact that these introductory words tended to drag into rather longish 15 minute monologues didn't exactly help. But certainly the costumes were very colorful, and her student dancers very very cute and dedicated, and the whole thing had a nice family affair touch to it, even though it was performed in a real auditorium, with a light manager, a sound manager, etc. I didn't quite get the light effects, becuse they were a bit like Disco, and it was too dark to take any good pictures during the performance, but maybe it was meant less for entertainment as for reflection and devotion, so I should shut up.

Surprisingly, maybe, my seat neighbor knew all the tunes and all the lyrics, and he was happily humming along. The teacher's husband's words also seemed to make an impression on the audience, and he spoke with a lot of pathos. In between, there were flowers and ovations, I suspect for the benefactors and supporters of the dance company, who were called on stage as well, gave a longish nice speech, and then went back to their seats. The auditorium was sadly empty, and a lot of people left early. The whole thing was over two hours long, and they started maybe one hour later than what the invitations had indicated. The Temptation hipsters would happily refer to that as Indian Stretching Time (IST), and I can't argue with that.

Pvt. Ltd.

Today I got a call from my car dealer at work saying that my Demand Draft (i.e. certified check) has been rejected. Why? Because it's been made payable to "FortPoint Automotive, Mahim, Mumbai" instead of "FortPoint Automotive Pvt. Ltd., Mahim, Mumbai". Well, I don't use checks all that often, but this was a new one to me - I mean, what were they thinking, really? That the car dealer faked the check? That they found the check on the street and it was really meant to go to Mr. FortPoint Automotive, who happens to live in Mahim, Mumbai as well?

Maybe this is better than Chase Bank in NYC, which once cleared a check that I had forgotten to sign, but please! Of course, everybody I talked to seemed to think that surely, there must be a good reason that such a check would be rejected - no, there isn't, it's pretty unambiguously clear whom this check was intended for, so any reason there may be is just legalistic nonsense, by definition not a good reason. Well, the upshot was that I had to go to the dealer yet again, pick up the check and have it changed at the bank - except that, of course, banks around here close at 2:30pm. I am pretty sure they are need to close that early, so they can manually spell check every single Demand Draft. Or maybe they just look at all the passport pictures they've collected that day.

In other news, I found a college bar. On Saturday, I had gone to Mocha, the better one of the two Indian Starbucks, and started talking to some hipsters, who told me where to get a beer on a Saturday afternoon. The place was packed. It's right accross from a mall (that's bad) and is called Temptations (that's really bad). But it's just your regular drinking hall, a dark but large space where they spill their beers, watch Cricket and sing along some rock tunes. At first, I actually thought I had hit the Jackpot, because when I walked in they were playing Eminem. This was followed by some cheesy rock ballade, but at least that one was somewhat more recent than the usual pre-1987 stuff, so I can't complain too much.

Since I no longer have any inhibitions in terms of acting inappropriately (well, not too many anyways), I quizzed the hipsters about a bunch of things, like who is hanging out here, what do they do, etc. Turns out that this Mocha cafe and this Temptations bar are both heavily frequented by students of St. Andrew's College, which is right next to these places. Now, St. Andrew's College is a catholic school, there's also St. Andrew's Church right there, so most of these students are catholic. As it turns out, around here, the catholics are the progressive/modern types, if those labels mean anything, which I found a bit surprising.

So these kids have no inclination of having arranged marriages (which, by the way, don't strike me as all that preposterous as they might seem at first glance), and apparently being catholic means three D's - drinking, drugs, and dancing. Well, I didn't see too much dancing, but there certainly were drugs - albeit only in the form of waterpipes, and at Temptations there was a good amount of drinking, too. I guess now the name Temptations also makes a whole lot more sense. Hm, I should tell the Pope or maybe Mel Gibson about that!

An Even Better Day

Incredible India! So I was able to get my router play nicely with my cable internet access and I just dialed my NYC number - and guess what? My phone in India is ringing!! Gotta love voice over ip!

Even better than that: this morning, I got a call from my car dealer, and my lovely HM Ambassador Avigo has arrived from the factory. It still needs to get registered though. Unfortunately, that requires the original of my lease plus some official letter from my company, both of which I had left in the office. So I had to go pick them up, but that was no problem. Of course, the car dealer also wanted the full amount of money, but I insisted that they only get another installment and then the full payment once they have registered the car and hand me the keys. Apparently, that's not how things are done here, but eventually they agreed.

So I went to the bank, then to the office, then back to the car dealer. I was thinking the car has arrived means I can actually see it at the dealership, but no such luck. Apparently, it's on some lot somewhere outside of Mumbai. Ah well. But the registration should only take a few days, so the sales woman promised everything will be done and ready next Saturday. Life is Good.

A Better Day

Alright! Things are happening. In the morning on my way to work I get an SMS from Karilyn, our personal Mumbai expat guide, who tells me that all I need to do to get gas in my apartment is have the building's doorman flag one of those gas delivery guys on the bicycle down. (Thanks!)

Of course, this was after I had already gone, for a third time, to the gas distribution office, where they promised gas is on the way. My driver even insisted to have a word with them himself. So when I got that SMS, I tried to get his confirmation - it took a little while, but eventually he enthusiastically exclaimed: "Yes Yes, Sir, bicycle much cheaper, watchman smart man, 10 rupees tip! Bicycle no salary, 2 rupees commission!"

Ok, so that makes a lot of sense. Screw that office and their customer number!

Then, at work, I get a call from the long lost furniture guy. The furniture is ready for delivery in the evening. As it happens, when I got home, not only did I have new big shiny (ok, I exaggerate) gas cylinders, but I also had some yummy food in the fridge. So I thought, I should go with the swing of things and call the TV guy, who had never showed up to install digital cable. Amazingly enough, he said, his guys will be over in ten minutes.

Alright, so it wasn't 10 minutes but more like an hour and a half, but they showed up - incidentally pretty much as the same time as the furniture guy. So the house was full and the confusion complete, when the TV guys asked where's the computer? I didn't quite get what they needed a computer for, but it turns out that the cable guys were under the impression I want internet cable access. Well, apparently some sort of typical misunderstanding, but I couldn't argue with that and just said: "Sure, who cares about digital TV, just give me your broadband cable internet access - how fast is it?" - "64 kilobytes, Sir" - "You have something a little faster?" - "Yes, 128 kilobytes, Sir" - "How about 256?" - "Yes, we have, too, Sir" - "Alright, if that's the fastest, I want that."

So while the two cable guys started playing around with my router settings, etc., the furniture guy, his sister, and their cab driver were spreading out the furniture on the terrace, four chairs and two little tables, with gorgeous wood carvings and golden inlays. At least I think it's gorgeous, because our terrace was a bit dark already. But then I noticed that one table was smaller with the other table, so I asked what happened here, how come this is smaller? I couldn't really get a straight answer or explanation, aside from an unsuccessful attempt at convincing me that that was what we had wanted, so I said, ok, you can either come back with a table a bigger size, or you'll have to give me a discount.

In reality, I found this more amusing than anything else, but I am kind of starting to like this whole bargaining business. Anyways, so the response was that they can make another table with the same size, but it would be a different design. Smart move on their part, because even though there was zero logic to that, I didn't really want to risk getting a plywood table top in exchange, so I said, ok, I'll keep it, but I am not paying 10,500 rupees (which was the originally agreed on total). Ok, so the game begins, but these guys are pretty good and I knew I'd lose, especially after I then started with a half arsed counter offer of 10,000 rupees.

Of course, they looked very shocked, and just said: "500 rupees less? No, Sir, impossible!" - "Ok, how much?" - "200" - "300" - "No, Sir, impossible, 200" - "250", at which point everybody was pretty much laughing. "No, Sir, impossible, 200." Alright, so I give them 10,500, because I didn't have exact change and I ask, so do you have 200 rupees change? Well, of course they didn't, so the whole bargaining procedure was completely useless, and that really made me laugh. Alright then, what the hell! So they took the money, everybody is smiling and then, as they are walking out, he asks, "Oh, and taxi money!" Well, that was a nice try, because I know we had argued about free delivery weeks ago, and they had eventually agreed, and so I just said, no way, that was included, and so they didn't argue with that and off they went.

Meanwhile, the cable guys had real problems with my router, so eventually they gave up and connected my computer directly. Fine, I'll figure it out myself. So we started a little test drive - and it turns out that 256 kilobytes broadband connection actually manages a blazing fast speed of 90 kilobytes per second. Well, that's pretty shitty, but for now it's better than nothing. Plus, they are coming back for the digital TV setup tomorrow afternoon.

Daily Life

I am afraid this will be another whiny blog entry, but such is life. So on Monday it was raining some more. Well, a lot more, and the office was closed. Our maid still made it on time, which was great. Unfortunately, she ran out of gas while boiling some rice - literally, and not because of the rain. Our apartment has a gas cylinder beneath the kitchen stove, and if it's empty, then you call for a new one, and it gets delivered.

So far so good, except today is Thursday, and there's still no gas. Calling the number for the gas man didn't work - first, because I didn't have the number, then because the number didn't work. I guess I am not the only one whose phone isn't working because of the rains, so I had to go there myself.

The gas man is basically a tiny office behind a screen, so nobody can hear a thing being said. After I practically forced my way behind the screen so I can at least try to communicate with the guy, above the street noise and beyond the usual language problems, the conversation went pretty much like this: "I would like to have a new gas cylinder, mine is empty." - "Eight days, Sir." - "what do you mean, eight days, I don't have any gas to cook." - "Ok, Sir, today or tomorrow." - "Well, can you be a little more specific?" - "Ok, Sir, tomorrow before 10 will do?" - "Ok, tomorrow before 10 is good, but it has to be before noon, before 12, oherwise there will be noone at home, ok?" - "No probs, Sir, tomorrow before 10 will do?"

So, apart from people really saying 'no probs' a lot, it wasn't really a surprise that of course nobody showed up the next day. In fact, I expected as much, so I made a point of stopping by the place at around 9, asking them whether they will deliver the gas today, before 10, and of course the answer was yes. Well, that was this morning, I know the maid was here untill 12:30 at least, but there is still no gas. And the probably very yummy chicken dish she had made on Monday, before the gas ran out, is gone as well - but that's because I told her that if there's no gas today to have the chicken with, then I don't want the chicken anymore (it's a bit too hot here to have chicken that was cooked four days ago, and the chicken is a bit too spicy to be had without any rice).

Anyways, so what better to do in such a situation than go out for food, besides, after all, a lot of neighborhoods don't have any gas at all, but instead stand in long lines to purchase kerosine, which comes in a wild assortment of plastic containers, which are sold to them basically in the middle of huge mountains of garbage on the street.

So on my way to a new eatery that I tried to discover in my neighborhood tonight, I walk by a real modern Reliance WebWorld shop, i.e. an internet cafe, which I had discovered last night. I regret very quickly not having hired a rikshah for the short distance of maybe 200 meters, because by the time I get there, I am already pretty exhausted from the heat and humidity, not to mention my unsuccessful attempts at trying to avoid getting splashed by cars and rikshas that are passing me at very close distance while running over another pothole puddle.

In any event, I get to WebWorld at 9:30 tonight, hoping to check some gmail (which is blocked both at work and on my BlackBerry), before they close at 10 - except tonight they were in the mood to close right in front of my nose, so I am writing this from my BlackBerry. I guess I mentioned that my landline phone is still not working?

Alright then, so let's find a place to eat. A few near death experiences as a pedestrian later I walk into a place called D'Nosh, which greets me with an American Diner style interior with a black and white checkered bar counter, a large flat screen TV showing some Rap for the pretty pictures of some rapper ladies doing their thing (I am guessing, because there was no sound and the picture was quite distorted due to bad reception), plus, most importantly, The Scorpions followed by Led Zeppelin followed by other crimes to humanity commited at least 20 years ago - of course played by a real DJ at the CD deck, and played at full earsplitting volume with a number of air conditioners and fans adding to the general feeling that I might have walked into the wrong place.

Not surprisingly, the food was equally bad, but I didn't really care anymore and marked it down as yet another day that I have been unable to find a place that doesn't try so damn hard to look American. It would be nice to find some place that has music that's maybe post-1985 and not Bollywood pop, but untill then I should probably stick to the regular dark holes in the wall that just have great food designed to strengthen my immune system. Or maybe I should just stay at home on my terrace, having nice home made food. Oh, wait, there's still no gas in the kitchen, and I have never heard back from the furniture store that was supposed to deliver some terrace chairs last Tuesday. Hm, I guess I should call them, except their phone is not working either. Oh, and even if it does, no doubt they also expect that somehow someone is always at home to greet their delivery.

I must be doing something wrong, because the TV cable guy certainly seemed quite surprised not to find anybody, not even my wife, at home this afternoon at 4pm when he tried to install a digital cable box for the TV. That conversation went pretty much like this: "Sir, there is noone at home." - "No, I know there is noone at home, because I am at work." - "I am trying to get into the flat, but noone opens the door." - "No, there's noone at home, that's why I said twice, you need to come before 12, when my maid is at home." - "Ok, Sir, tomorrow will do?" - "Yes, tomorrow will do."

On the plus side, when I got home after that bizarre Rapper/Scorpions experience, I made a very quick kill. Maybe that cockroach had just had dinner as well, but it was too fat and too slow to survive for more than two seconds under my "NEW! HIT! Cockroches - Rs.33 off!" spraying onslaught.